(NEXSTAR) – Brian Wilson, the musician who co-founded the Beach Boys, has died, his family announced Wednesday.
“We are devastated to share that our cherished father, Brian Wilson, has passed away,” the family announced on Instagram and Wilson’s official website. “We are struggling to find the right words at this moment. We understand that we are sharing our sorrow with everyone.”
Wilson’s passing comes after he received a dementia diagnosis, which became public last year following the death of his wife, leading his children to initiate a conservatorship.
No further details were released on his death. He was 82 years old.
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Brian Wilson participates in SiriusXM’s Town Hall with the Beach Boys at Capitol Studios on Monday, July 30, 2018, in Los Angeles, California. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP) -
The Beach Boys are pictured in London, in November 1966. (AP Photo/Frank Tewksbury) -
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. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Wilson was celebrated as the Beach Boys’ imaginative and sensitive frontman, whose talent for crafting melodies, arrangements, and heartfelt expressions gave rise to hits like “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls,” and other iconic summer tunes.
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.
