Here's what Jack Rieley had to say in October 1996 about some of the things you're talking about...
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...The Beach Boys has been a bitter power
struggle since shortly after the beginning. Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson
and Carl Wilson represented the creative side: the appeal to musical
beauty and romance and funk and get-down and freakz/fanz; Love, Jardine
and Johnston represented unbridled commercialism and power. Before I
got there, Love, Jardine and Johnston had control. Because Brian or
Dennis often didn't bother to show up for meetings, the vote was general
2-3 against them.
When I arrived and changed the group's direction, it signalled a change
in the power-center as well. With the backing of Brian, Dennis and
Carl, I fired Johnston, who had stymied the group's creative
cohesiveness. At the same time I encouraged the Wilsons to act as a
unit. Votes shifted to 3-2.
Interestingly, Beach Boys record and live revenues soared in that
period, having suffered heavily in the period that ended with the sales
debacles 20/20 and Sunflower.
Upon my depature, the Wilsons went back to disarray. Carl was going
through terrible domestic problems. Dennis was having a divorce. Brian
adjusted poorly to life back in Belair after his highly creative,
physically positive (he rode a bicycle daily and lost weight) stay in
The Netherlands.
Love and Jardine saw the hole in their armour and rammed through to
renewed supremacy. Their musical/ideological vision of the Beach Boys
was totally different from that represented during my period there.
Love's bitter resentment of Brian's musical genius and his newly re-won
power meant it was back to shuck and jive. Within a year the Beach Boys
had returned to the state they were in before I came along, but with
revenues built upon those generated during the Surfs Up, So Tough,
Holland, Live In Concert period.
Could this have been prevented? The Wilsons should have determined my
successor. They did not.
- Jack
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