The last laugh
An exhaustive oral history graced by a friend’s loving touch.
By Grayson Haver Currin.
Vibrate on: (clockwise from left) The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson recording
SMiLE
, Western Studios 3, Los Angeles, November 1966; performing the LP at London’s Royal Festival Hall, 2004; Brian with lyricist Van Dyke Parks, January 6, 1966.
Tim Whitby, Jasper Dailey
SMiLE: The Rise, Fall, And Resurrection Of Brian Wilson
★★★★
David Leaf
OMNIBUS PRESS. £25
“SEE, DEBBIE,” Eva Easton-Leaf tells a friend at the start of an essay in her husband’s oral history of Brian Wilson’s reconstruction of and through SMiLE, “you can love someone enough.” Easton-Leaf and her longtime friend and former roommate, Debbie Keil-Leavitt, are sharing a bottle of champagne, soon after the world premiere of Wilson’s 37-year-old “teenage symphony to god” in 2004. Keil-Leavitt was a steadfast confidant to Wilson during the ’70s, after he’d dropped SMiLE to save his family band from the alleged terror of his artistic ambition and vision. David Leaf was a Wilson devotee who married Keil-Leavitt’s roommate and spent decades wondering to Wilson, insistently if carefully, “What happened to SMiLE?” That little scene, then, is the culmination of a few dozen people’s love for Wilson, who stared down the most troubling period of his career to finally perform his masterpiece – with a lot of help from a lot of friends.