I like the Beach Boys too, Lew. I haven’t seen them, but I’ve seen the Four Freshman jazz group of singers and instrumentalists way back when. And guess what?

“Brian [Wilson] taught his two brothers harmony parts that all three would then practice when they were supposed to be asleep. He also played piano obsessively after school, deconstructing the harmonies of The Four Freshmen by listening to short segments of their songs on a phonograph, then working to recreate the blended sounds note by note on the keyboard.”

Also note that “At about age two, Brian heard George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, which had an enormous emotional impact on him.”

The Best of Michael S. Rozeff