(NEXSTAR) – Brian Wilson, the musician who co-founded the Beach Boys, has died, his family announced Wednesday.
“We are deeply saddened to share that our dear father Brian Wilson has passed away,” the family expressed on Instagram and Wilson’s official web page. “We find ourselves at a loss for words at this moment. We understand that we are sharing our sorrow with the world.”
Wilson’s passing comes after a dementia diagnosis that was disclosed last year, following the death of his wife and the subsequent decision by his children to establish a conservatorship for him.
No further details were released on his death. He was 82 years old.
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The Beach Boys pictured in London in November 1966. (AP Photo/Frank Tewksbury) -
FILE – Musician Brian Wilson, left, and his wife Melinda Ledbetter Wilson arrive at the 55th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, in Los Angeles. A judge found Thursday that Beach Boys founder and music luminary Brian Wilson should be in a court conservatorship to manage his personal and medical decisions because of what his doctor calls a “major neurocognitive disorder.” (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Wilson was celebrated as the Beach Boys’ imaginative and vulnerable leader, whose remarkable talent for crafting melodies, arranging music, and heartfelt self-expression brought us classics like “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls,” and other beloved summer hits.
The eldest and last surviving of three musical brothers — Brian played bass, Carl lead guitar and Dennis drums — he and his fellow Beach Boys rose in the 1960s from local California band to national hitmakers to international ambassadors of surf and sun. Wilson himself was celebrated for his gifts and pitied for his demons. He was one of rock’s great romantics, a tormented man who in his peak years embarked on an ever-steeper path to aural perfection, the one true sound.
The Beach Boys rank among the most popular groups of the rock era, with more than 30 singles in the Top 40 and worldwide sales of more than 100 million.
The 1966 album “Pet Sounds” was voted No. 2 in a 2003 Rolling Stone list of the best 500 albums, losing out, as Wilson had done before, to the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
The Beach Boys, who also featured Wilson’s cousin Mike Love and childhood friend Al Jardine, were voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
