Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys [Hardcover]

Steven Gaines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 1986

The Beach Boys have been rolling, like the tide their great songs evoke, for more than thirty years, reaching professional peaks and tragic personal depths. In this electrifying account Steven Gaines reveals the gothic tale of violence, addiction, greed, genius, madness, and rock 'n' roll behind the wholesome, surf-and-sun image. Through candid interviews with close friends, family, and the Beach Boys themselves, Heroes and Villains portrays and evaluates all those who propelled the California myth, and the group who sang about it, into worldwide prominence: Murry Wilson, the corrosive father who abused them as children and exploited them as adults; Dennis Wilson, who explored every avenue of excess (including welcoming the entire Manson family into his home) to his inevitable self-destruction; the Wilsons’ cousin, frontman Mike Love, whose devotion to eastern religion could not quell his violent temper; the wives (more than ten), mistresses, managers, and producers who consumed huge pieces of the ”musical pie”; and of course, the band’s artistic center, Brian Wilson, the mentally fragile musical genius who achieved so much and then so little. With dozens of photos, Heroes and Villains recounts the bitter saga of the American dream realized and distorted and the music that survived.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gaines's 1986 book follows the rise and tragic fall of a legendary American pop band whose excesses were camouflaged by their wholesome image.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

The 25-year history of the Beach Boys has been one of triumph and tragedy. Starting out in 1961 with music that rode the California surfing craze to national popularity, the band projected a cleancut, all-American image. Their sudden success and later fall from popularity resulted in personal and group problems. By the early 1980s the Boys were surviving on nostalgia concert tours. Author Gaines, relying mostly on primary sources, has anecdotally captured all the infighting while dealing deftly with complex business details and treating the songs to thoughtful analysis. Although much of his information is not new (see John Milward's The Beach Boys Silver Anniversary , LJ 8/85) this presentation is vivid and compelling. Photos not seen. Paul G. Feehan, Univ. of Miami Lib., Coral Cables, Fla.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: New American Library; 1st edition (October 30, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0453005195
• ISBN-13: 978-0453005197
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven Gaines is the best-selling author of twelve books, including Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons; The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan; The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles; and Marjoe, the biography of evangelist Marjoe Gortner.

The big screen version of his biography Simply Halston starring Brendan Fraser is in pre-production with Killer Films.

His weekly radio interview show, Sunday Brunch Live from the American Hotel in Sag Harbor airs during the summer and fall months on WLIU FM Southampton, New York, a National Public Radio affiliate.

His journalism has appeared in Vanity Fair, the New York Observer, the New York Times, Los Angeles, and Worth, and he is presently a contributing editor at New York magazine. His frequent television appearances include "60 Minutes"; "The Today Show"; "CBS Morning News"; and "Good Morning America."

Mr. Gaines is a co-founder and past vice-chairman of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

He lives in a small hamlet on the East End of Long Island.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars well done, November 15, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Heroes And Villains: The True Story Of The Beach Boys (Paperback)

After seeing all of the criticisms here, I was surprised to find that the Gaines book is very skillfully written. I don't think Gaines is a hack, and this is not merely a sloppy expose. In fact, I found it to be more readable than Tim White's bio ("The Nearest Faraway Place"), and not merely because it's more scandalous. By focusing more on the (often sordid) details of the Beach Boys' personal lives, Gaines gives us a much stronger feel for their actual personalities than White.

Nor do I think that Gaines is unsympathetic. For example, he details Dennis' problems, but he also reminds us repeatedly of Dennis' love for his children, and recounts details of Dennis' touching reconnection with his father before he died. He portrays Dennis as a charismatic individual who simply can't control his impulses. And by all accounts, that's what Dennis was. Gaines is sympathetic, but neither does he flinch from the truth.

I've been around musicians and I can tell you that Gaines' portrayals, sordid as they may seem, probably aren't far off the mark. If the book often seems sordid, it's largely because the subjects' lives were often sordid (Uh . . . how many times have they been married? How many times have they been in rehab? Did Dennis really marry Mike's illegitimate daughter? Afraid so).

I can't vouch for Gaines' accuracy, or the veracity of his sources, but it appears to me that Gaines tries to be even-handed. When an allegation is contested, he seems to take pains to point this out.

White's book is more of a broad social history (it's subtitled "The Beach Boys and the Southern California Experience"). He goes into great detail about the Wilson geneology (all the way back to Ohio and Kansas), about their migration to California, about the settlement and development of LA, and about the evolution of the surf and car subcultures that the Beach Boys so beautifully evoked. It's a well-written and worthwhile account. However, one gets the impression that White may be too loyal to his subjects (perhaps because he wants to maintain access - he has a longstanding relationship with the family). When he writes of their darker moments, he usually does so with a great sense of detachment, as though he would rather not have to mention them at all. For example, he glosses over Dennis' involvement with Charles Manson, not even mentioning that Manson and his crew had lived in Dennis' house not long before the murders. Now, it may seem kind of him to avoid the sordid details, but if you're going to write credibly about "The Southern California Experience", you can't very well avoid exploring darker subjects like Manson, especially when one of your subjects became intimately involved in that scene.

While I recommend the White book, it left me with the feeling that I hadn't really gotten to know the characters as flesh and blood individuals. Gaines may overdo it at times, but I like the more intimate feel of his book.

I would note that Gaines' book ends just after Landy has resumed his treatment of Brian, and Gaines suggests that this is a positive thing. It may have seemed so at the time, but I imagine that Gaines would like to revisit that topic.

Ideally, one would have time to read both books - Gaines for his details about the individuals, and White for his details about the milieu in which The Beach Boys first flowered.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Add some music to this book, October 27, 1999

By 

Jim LaRegina ([e-mail]) (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heroes And Villains: The True Story Of The Beach Boys (Paperback)

HEROES AND VILLAINS will tell casual Beach Boys fans things they didn't know about America's Band. Bigger fans who would like to read more about the making of the Beach Boys' music may wish to look elsewhere - but when you think about, even WOULDN'T IT BE NICE, the autobiography of Brian Wilson, was light in that department. HEROES AND VILLAINS tracks the personal tumult that followed the Beach Boys from inside the Wilson household throughout their career. One of many lowlights: a Beach Boys bodyguard punched out one group member and had an affair with another's wife - quite the opposite of the harmony the band created on record. I read HEROES AND VILLAINS in 1988 and don't know if it has been updated. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Brian Wilson's break with Dr. Landy, Al Jardine quitting the band, and Carl Wilson's death certainly merit a new chapter.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Villains, not many Heroes, August 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Heroes And Villains: The True Story Of The Beach Boys (Paperback)

I have always been a huge fan of the music of the Beach Boys and am listening to Disk 2 of the Good Vibrations boxed set as I type this. The problem with trying to learn about the lives of the Beach Boys is that a lot of sources simply gloss over the more distasteful and unsettling details of their lives. I think the DVD "Endless Harmony" is a good case in point. Steven Gaines' book fills in detail on the troubled members of the group. For this reason, I'm glad I read it. Now I'd like to find a more balanced biography of the boys. The book is very readable, although surprisingly disturbing at times. Also, Mr. Gaines seems to treat his informants (Marilyn Wilson, Karen Lamm) in a more favorable light than he does the Wilsons or Loves. He seems to have little interest in writing about Jardine or Johnston, though David Marks is a direct target, which indicates to me that Gaines intended to write only about the muck. Nevertheless, I found the book to be well worth reading, and have a lot more admiration for Brian Wilson now that I have.