Any Beach Boys fan paying attention to the group's song credits (on e.g. Friends and Sunflower) would not have been surprised by the quality of Dennis Wilson's sublime 1977 solo album Pacific Ocean Blue. This unsung masterpiece by the troubled alcoholic drummer finally gets a full CD reissue next month, with bonus tracks and the first official release of the unreleased follow-up Bambu on a second disc. Principal sleevenotes are by Ben Edmonds, from whose epic 2002 profile of Wilson this excerpt is taken. -- Barney Hoskyns, RBP Editorial Director

A GAME OF PINBALL WOULD TELL YOU all you needed to know about Dennis Wilson. The guy attacked the machine, alternately caressing and banging it, all exaggerated body English as if his physical exhortations could will the direction of the ball, convince the machine to do his bidding. He was also the sort who changed the rules as the game went along, but it was so much fun that you didn't really mind.

I had the pleasure of losing a few such pinball matches to Dennis on the machine at Brother Studio, and being made to pay up with a couple of late-afternoon breakfasts. In the mid-'70s I was working for the Beach Boys' former label, Capitol Records, in Los Angeles, and with a group called Crane, who happened to be recording at the band's Santa Monica studio. Though my contact with Dennis was fleeting, it was enough to understand his profound gift for making each person he encountered feel they were the centre of his universe.

On one of our meal breaks, he stopped to talk with a homeless man and gave him everything that was in his pocket. "I like to spread the wealth around," he said. As we ate he rhapsodized. He was thrilled to be making a record at the behest of James Guercio's Caribou Records, obviously proud that--of all the Beach Boys--it was the f**ked-up drummer who was cutting the first solo album. He was over the moon about a boat called Harmony he was restoring, expressing a desire to permanently live on the water. He was also one of those who could check out the female action in the room without diverting any attention from his conversation, chortling about the c*m stains he made a point of depositing regularly in the studio's "meditation room"--a gift for the group's TM contingent. When we passed another homeless person on our way back to the studio, he made me empty my pockets of cash. "Cough it up!" he barked. "You work for Capitol, don't you? Well, I helped build your f**king office."

The time he spent recording Pacific Ocean Blue was perhaps the most satisfying of his life as a musician. "This was when he fully accepted himself as an artist," reckons Gregg Jakobson, whom Dennis drafted as co-producer. "Brian had shown him chords on the piano, but as he'd become more proficient the music that came forth was not derivative of that. Having his own studio helped tremendously. With a little encouragement, and the right tools, Dennis took off."

"He didn't talk much about what he wanted to do, he just did it," says John Hanlon, a studio technician who made the leap to engineer--and a career that would include work with Neil Young and R.E.M.--on these sessions. "He needed an engineer, pointed at me and said, 'You're it.' When he wanted to record, it was right that very second. Spontaneous. You had one chance, and you better get it. He was very much like Neil Young in that way."

The album was considered complete and its running order set when Otto Hinsche died suddenly. The father of extended Beach Boy family member Billy Hinsche, he had provided Dennis with lifesaving emotional support following Murry's death. "Dennis came in and announced that the album might not be finished," Hanlon remembers. "He began fooling around on the piano until this wonderful melody emerged. I've never seen Dennis so focused. We recorded it right then. 'Farewell, My Friend' is his send-off for Billy's dad.

"There's some sadness, but what you feel more is how much Dennis loved this man, celebrated his life. Dennis had the ability to go right to the heart of the matter and then put that feeling on tape."

Not only does Dennis Wilson's album sound almost nothing like the Beach Boys--though the rock gospel of "River Song" is what the band could have sounded like had it not been so concerned with chasing its historic tail--Pacific Ocean Blue seems to have very few overt musical influences of any sort. This is music that flows from its own source. Unlike Brian, who usually had things pretty well plotted in his head, Denny's recordings almost sound unfinished, music captured in the act of exploring itself. The instrumentation changes from track to track, but you always come away with the seductive effect of the artist's weatherbeaten, lived-in voice--the aural equivalent of the bearded, shaggy-haired visage that gazed out from the cover--as close as pillow talk.

Upon its release in 1977, Pacific Ocean Blue surprised everyone by selling a quarter-of-a-million copies in America, better than most Beach Boys albums of the period, reportedly causing as much irritation as pride within the band. It had been bad enough when f**k-up Dennis landed a starring role in the 1971 movie Two-Lane Blacktop. Now the f**k-up had a solo album success. "The Beach Boys were scared, intimidated by it," Mike Love's brother Stan told Steven Gaines. Though it contained no hits, POB demonstrated the affection with which a sizeable audience still regarded their fair-haired boy, a strong foundation upon which to build a solo career. Dennis kept right on recording, like he intended his life to be one long album, the next instalment of which he was already calling Bambu.

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