Review: 'I Am Brian Wilson'
Posted by Mike Segretto (Psychobabble):
- A few songwriters have been versatile enough to produce really well written autobiographies (Ray Davies, Pete Townshend, Kristin Hersh, Stuart David, etc.), but most should probably stick with the “oooh babies.”
Brian Wilson is an interesting exception. His persona is one of charming, and rather inarticulate, sincerity. He is a pop star with a true “voice” beyond his singing one, and though I do not expect or even want compelling prose from Brian Wilson, I still want to read his story as told by him because it is such a fascinating and intensely personal one.
I Am Brian Wilson fits the bill perfectly. Wilson wrote his book with the assistance of the versatile Ben Greenman, and its too-articulate and linear prologue chapter had me worrying that I’d be reading Greenman’s voice instead of that of the show’s star. With the first proper chapter, that articulateness evaporates and the linearity splits like an egg to allow Brian’s ping pong-ball mind to bounce out. One moment he is waxing nostalgic about the old children’s show Beany and Cecil, the next he is remembering the 1973 Holland sessions, the next he is leaping ahead 25 years to discuss his solo album Imagination. Greenman seems to play the role of stenographer rather than co-writer as Brian unleashes his flood of memories, opinions (favorite albums: Rubber Soul, A Christmas Gift for Your from Philles Records, and Tommy—great choices, Brian!), and creation stories. Serious fans will swoon when he discusses marvelous oddities such as “Busy Doin’ Nothin’”, “A Day in the Life of a Tree”, “Girl Don’t Tell Me”, and “In the Back of My Mind” with the same attention he affords “California Girls” and “God Only Knows”. The utter lack of pretense in the prose captures that familiar slightly flat, slightly sad, often rhapsodic voice with true authenticity. A definitive passage has Brian describing how he once dressed up as a mummy to amuse a cousin in the hospital and clarifying that “I wasn’t really a mummy.” That absence of guile, that innocence, that subtle and perhaps unself-aware humor is what makes Brian Wilson’s complex music so uncomplicatedly beautiful and him so lovable.
Wolfgang Zechner: Haare wie Ronald Reagan
Brian Wilson, der Kopf der Beach Boys, erinnert bei seinem Konzert in Basel an einen traurigen Alleinunterhalter
Eine liebe- und repektvolle Kritik des Auftritts bei der Baloise Session (im FREITAG 4416).
2. Nachtrag:
"I Am Brian Wilson" - The National CBC Television
Die Biografie I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir ist auch für Menschen mit nicht überwältigenden (american-)English-Kenntnissen gut zu lesen.
Die GBlogSuche nach »Brian Wilson« hat 25 Resultate geliefert.
gebattmer - 2016/10/24 19:19
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