Tonight’s #PortraitNight subject is The Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson. This is the second–and only slightly less terrible–of two finished sketches I did of him. I could probably get a decent likeness with another iteration or two, but there’s a point at which I’ve got to just draw the line time-wise for these sketchbook exercises. My apologies, folks!
Anyway… Dennis didn’t write or sing many Beach Boys songs and none of his songs were big hits for the group. Two of my absolute favorite Beach Boys songs, though, were sung and co-written by Dennis: “Little Bird” from the 1968 album Friends, and “Forever” from the 1970 LP Sunflower. Dennis doesn’t have a “good” voice in the classical sense, but his vocals have an amazing emotional frailty that reminds me a little bit of Chet Baker’s voice.
Dennis is also clearly the coolest Beach Boy: (1) He’s the only one that actually surfed, (2) He’s the only one that’s not kinda goofy-looking, and (3) He was in one of the greatest road movies of all time, Two-Lane Blacktop (along with James Taylor and Harry Dean Stanton!).
If you’d like to suggest a #PortraitNight subject, you can do so either via the comments section here, or via my Twitter.
2 comments
You forgot Pacific Ocean Blue – the best solo album by a Beach Boy! He does amazing things with the limited vocal range that he had.
Author
@Mark – Yeah, absolutely. I love Pacific Ocean Blue. Even Bambu, despite being a bit of a mess, has some solid moments on it.