The staggering tale of the freewheeling brother who fired Brian Wilson’s imagination and influenced the Beach Boys’ sound, style, and attitude. He was the embodiment of the sun-drenched California dream, a sandy-haired sex symbol that sparked a cultural tidal wave. Surfer, lover, drummer, Beach Boy. His life was a short, brilliant, intoxicating ride that inevitably curled into a torturous spiral of addiction and despair. Profoundly gifted but destructively wild, Dennis Wilson was dead at age 39, drowning quietly while his influence made millions for others. Volumes have been written about the troubled past of Dennis’s older brother Brian Wilson and his amazing impact on the history of popular music. But Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy tells for the first time the staggering tale of the freewheeling brother who fired Brian’s imagination and permanently influenced the Beach Boys’ sound, style, and attitude. While Brian stayed in his room, brother Dennis hurled himself at life with an unquenchable lust for action. From surfing teenager to drag-racing daredevil, from his legendary sexual appetite to his chilling friendship with mass murderer Charles Manson, this biography follows the hair-raising trail blazed by the real Beach Boy.
Author Jon Stebbins candidly and passionately offers the first in-depth look at one of rock and roll’s most compelling figures in a book packed with rare, never-before-published photos and previously unknown facts.