The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was thinking about this the other day. What if Dennis had gotten sober, and stayed sober? I know that with his personality, he and Landy would probably have to worked out. But what if Dennis had met somebody that COULD have helped him? Would he have been allowed back into the group? Do you think that by 1983, it was to late for him to "make amends" with the group? The thing I'm most curios about is the problem with Dennis's voice. If he had gotten sober, and gotten back in to shape physically, would his voice have been salvageable? If he had quit the booze and drugs, would his voice have returned? Would there have been some kind of operation to help fix it? What if his voice had been permenantly ruined? How would that have affected his position in the group? Would he have been "banned" from singing on stage, and in the studio?

To my ears Brian's voice and range have improved since he first toured the UK; maybe Dennis's would have too. If he'd got clean there's no way he wouldn't have been part of the band, even if his voice stayed shot and he just sat at the back of the stage, bashed the skins and made erotic suggestions to the girls in the audience. That's what he was, no matter how much solo stuff he worked on: a Beach Boy.
That said, it's a long time since he died -  whether he'd otherwise still be working on stage or in the studio today is hard to guess, and another topic for debate.

I remember reading that his voice would have healed to a much greater extent in 74 and 81 if he had followed doctors orders to keep quiet for a while. I cannot remember too clear but I think Ed Roach and/or Stephen Desper mentioned that. Jan Michael Vincent is an actor who kind of looked like Dennis through both good and bad periods and likewise  lost his voice. Drug drinking problems on his part too. I have seen him look ok in recent years but his voice never came back.

I agree.  His voice may have improved much as Brian's has.

On a tangent here, but talking about Dennis or Jan Michael Vincent, I am left wondering once again, why in the hell people destroy themselves with chemicals.      Remember the movie True Grit?   The girl told John Wayne that she would not allow a theif to enter her mouth to steal away her brains.   How true that is.

".....searching for the lost elation..."  Isn't that what he said in "It's About Time"?

I think a lot of his vocal decline was due to getting beat up. Sure the drugs didn't help, but I think that was the last straw.

What people are forgetting though is just how *bad* Dennis was at the end. Even if he cleaned up, who's to say that he wouldn't have died due to liver disease? The point is we really don't know. He was basically a ticking time bomb at the end.

I dont know, I read about the punch the throat being the main reason for his voice to decline (I think it was here) but is that really plausible? I think he'd be able to recuperate from that much more than the constant smoking and drugs. I mean, Brian was never punched in the throat and he sounded worse than Dennis at times...

(well...maybe not)

History of IV drug use and heavy drinking.    He died before Hep. C was widely recognized.  He might have wound up like Phil Lesh or Crosby.  Had he lived.  I heard him live a couple of times within a couple of years of his death, and I was appalled at his voice.  He had become a caricature of himself, standing on a piano or PA box, croaking out You Are So Beautiful.   It was so apparent that he was not well.

Considering how bad the inury's were, and that tapes show the changes to happen directly afterwards, I am convinced that Dennis' vocal problems were 80 percent due to the fights. His lifestyle didn't help, but cocaine alone doesn't do the kind of damage Dennis had the last 34 months of his life.

I read in a website once that Dennis had "several" operations to remove polyps and scar tissue from his throat. According to the website, Dennis always started drinking again against doctors orders.

I don't know if it was the drinking Jay. Like I said above Dennis started speaking and trying to sing too quickly afterwards thus not letting his voice heal. I am sure any doctor that saw Dennis from 1978 on would have told him to stop drinking, but that's a different issue.

Plus, he was smoking alot too. That definitely didn't help the matter in the whole scheme of it.

I think Barbara Wilson's comment in Endless Harmony nailed it...when she said she felt Dennis actually died a couple of years before his body did. His life force seemed to be fading and the voice was another symptom of that. And Dennis knew he was done, he told a number of people he'd be gone in a year, and he was. You can see it in his eyes in photos, you can see it in Carl's eyes when he looked at DW. A dozen trips or attempts to detox and rehab and he never lasted more than two days in any of them. I think the premise of this thread is flawed. I just don't think it was an option, he'd already lived much longer than he should have. He beat the odds in a big way just to get to 39.

I need to learn more about Dennis. What happened? Was it just the drugs that did this or was there an event that started a downward spiral? It really is sad that we lost such a good guy in such a  bad way.

From most accounts, both he and Brian really started to decline after Murry died.

Back to the 'Had he lived'...

On tour with Ringo's All Stars, along with Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin IMO.

Sure wouldn't be with the Mike and Bruce show thats for sure!

I have a feeling that you're right. I've always said that Dennis would not have lived to see Live Aid. Even if he had gotten sober.

Well if he had gotten sober he could have lived, but I think he would to have had to clean up long before 1983 for it to have stuck.

Pixel, you have to get Jon Stebbins book "Dennis Wilson-The Real Beach Boy".  It will be hard to find now and if you do, it will be expensive. He is working on an updated version due out (I hope) later this year. He is THE man with the answers about Dennis. His book is a must read for anything Dennis Wilson.

Jon, do YOU think that if Dennis had successfully completed rehab at the time he would've made it? Or was the situation too far gone? Was his spirit just too defeated to come back even after a rehab? I guess that question is a moot point now. Rehab back then wasn't the same as it is now either, so I guess I'm just guessing out loud. Maybe if he had gotten straight, he just wouldn't want to come back. I think he was just defeated all around....unfortunately.

What went wrong with Dennis? I mean, from what I've read it seems like Dennis was fairly in control untill around 1977. Before that year, it seems like he could have either taken drugs or left them. Maybe it was that famous Beach Boys fight at the airplane terminal? Dennis was quoted as saying that he would always remember that day. He said "The Beach Boys broke up on...", whatever the specific date was.

Yeah during that footage in the American Band documentary Carl know's his brother is gone in my opinion. I haven't watched that footage for a while as it makes me too sad, but that's what I remember, just that look from Carl of "Dennis is gone".

I think 1977-78  is when he became an addict, and it happened slowly over the years until it took him over. Had Murry lived longer Dennis may have too, because I guess he was already doing a lot of cocaine soon after he died.  He cleaned up for a while in 1975 and didn't even drink. Over 1976 it started up again and you can see by the end of the year his apperence is already changing. I think the amount of drugs Dennis was begining to do in 1977 is what helped break up the group that fall. Steve's mismanagment played a bigger role but Dennis and Carl's condition didn't help. So what did it Jay is just a gradual addiction that started festering in 1973 and took him over by the end of the decade.

I am curious. In the period when Dennis cleaned up around 1975, was he still a wild party animal? Did he still drive Mike crazy? Or was he 'tamed' for a bit. Hard to imagine that he ever was.

Jon Stebbins told me it was in the wake of him first meeting Karen. I know little else, but a 1975 article mentions Dennis no longer drinking.

I've always thought it was no wonder Dennis never stuck with rehab after seeing how Landy was doing with his brother. That's enough to make anyone say no way. I also heard his then wife (Shawn) refused to let him see his son whenever he tried to commit to it.

Thanks. I found a copy at my local library and I am going to pick it up today.  :3d

Jon's book is, in my opinion, among the very best Beachboys related books ever published.  Dumb Angel by Adam Webb is another book about Dennis that, while not as well known, and , IMO, not as good as Jon's book, is a must read for the serious Dennis Wilson or Beach Boys fan.

I remember reading or hearing an interview with Dennis from the mid-60s where he mentions that he doesn't drink, which I thought was kind of odd, considering what ended up happening. I assume he was taking drugs that early (as Brian was), but I wonder when the drinking started. It occurred to me that he might be lying to the reporter with the fans in mind, but then, Dennis seemed to be incapable of BS, much like Brian.

What energy he had in the 60s.

In one of the bio films Dennis said something to the effect of "some people are addicted to alcohol, I'm addicted to performing and hearing the crowd"

I always thought that was a bit of projection or denial.......

Dennis started drinking in his early teens, but there were also periods where he was totally clean. It seems he drank a lot of alcohol starting in the early '60's and also dabbled with weed and pills back then, but by '65 he was a non-drinker and vocal anti-drug type. After that he'd be on and off...he started smoking weed regularly in late '66 or '67 and got into LSD briefly in '67 - '68. After the Manson thing he stayed pretty straight when he first found Barbara, didn't even smoke much weed...but then '73 found him drinking hard and constantly...and again in '74 - '75 he found some time to be relatively clean again, and also fell off the wagon really hard a few times during those years with Quaaludes and coke. But overall in 1975 Dennis was really healthy. Starting in '76 it was pretty much party full time, the list is too long, he tried everything. But up until then he would go six months or even a year at a time trying to be healthy. I think the cigarette habit followed him from high school and throughout his life, although there were even a couple of periods where he put those down.

Very good post Jon. He seemed pretty together when the It's Ok special was filmed, was that kind of the last hurrah as far as being sober was concerned.