‘Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road’ Shows New Side of Beach Boys Legend

Brian Wilson, legendary cofounder of the Beach Boys, was driving through Malibu with a good friend, Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine, when they spotted a classic Cadillac—but from when? The man who cowrote “Little Deuce Coupe” and other hot rod hits of the ’60s wanted to know, so he shouted out the window, “Hey, buddy! What year is that car?!” (It was a ’41.)

This moment of pure lightness is unexpected in the documentary Long Promised Road. The American Masters installment lets the at-times tentative and vulnerable Wilson—who turns 80 on June 20—look back at a life of remarkable ebbs and flows.

“The Brian you see goofing around? That’s Brian to me. He’s engaged and curious and funny in ways people don’t really know,” says Fine, who acts as tour guide and iPod-spinning DJ, chauffeuring Wilson to meaningful spots from his past. Five cameras recorded the pair’s easy remembrances during about 70 hours together over several weekends.

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But as Long Promised Road expertly points out, there are many sides to the man Bruce Springsteen says has a “level of musicianship I don’t think anybody’s touched yet.” Wilson (above, in the ’60s) is the godfather of vocal surf music, a producer so attuned to sound that “he had an orchestra in his head,” says Elton John. He’s also a man so mentally troubled that he continues to hear voices telling him cruel, degrading things.

He led the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Beach Boys and wrote unparalleled music with pristine harmonies (“Good Vibrations,” “God Only Knows”). He was also the victim of beatings from an overbearing father and a virtual nine-year imprisonment by psychologist Eugene Landy, ostensibly to treat his drug and alcohol addiction, from 1982 to 1991. And he endured the deaths of bandmate brothers Dennis (who drowned in 1983) and Carl (in 1998 from cancer). Now happily married since 1995, still writing songs and touring, Wilson has finally “come to more peace with his legacy,” Fine says.

“From a young age, music was his solace and salvation,” the journalist adds. “It gave him joy. And the recognition that his music did that for others—I think it took him till now for that to register.”

Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, Documentary Premiere, Tuesday, June 14, 9/8c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)