Pacific Ocean Blue (1977)

Per the stalwart Wikipedia, Dennis Wilson’s brother Brian Wilson said in a 1976 radio interview that he jeered at early mixes he heard of Dennis’s solo album. "Dennis, that's funky! That's funky!" he said. He wasn’t talking about Sly Stone. Mostly I take it as further adventures of the toxic Wilson family, but I have to admit I might have a kind of similar problem with Dennis’s only album. It’s got the mellow vibe of one lane of the ‘70s singer/songwriter style, hewing close to, say, Jackson Browne or the more depressed versions of the Eagles (say, “Desperado”). Where the Beach Boys were sparkling bright at their best, this strain of ‘70s folk-rock (they called it) tends more toward the resolutely dour. My problem, which I invite you not to have, is that I can’t get the idea of Dennis’s association with Charles Manson out of my head. For all the session pros lending a (hired) hand to support him here—and in fairness Pacific Ocean Blue is convincing enough as ‘70s rock tinged with weary experience—Dennis sounds eerily absent to me, removed, apart, disconnected. It’s an unnerving and out-of-step note at the center of this album. Is it really just a case of drug casualty? Or is it my imagination? Taking up the few songs that actually reached me, “What’s Wrong” stands out as a certain epitome of ‘70s rock, grinding in slow motion and exalting “rock ‘n’ roll.” “You and I” (which Brian later claimed to love) and “Moonshine” could well be the best songs here, but that could well be because they sound the most like the Beach Boys. It’s not really surprising, given everything we know, that Dennis is the “darker” Wilson (setting aside Murry for the moment). He’s not sweet like Brian and Carl, and he’s credited as having a hand in writing all of these songs. Carl, by the way, ever the loyalist, is on hand here playing lead and rhythm guitars. He also cowrote a couple songs (“River Song,” “Rainbows”). Mike Love cowrote “Pacific Ocean Blues.” On a certain level you have to wonder what Dennis might have done if he hadn’t died in 1983 at the age of 39. Then you might remember that, though he continued to work on material, he never released anything more in the six years after this album. Probably a drug casualty, all things considered. File under sad stories of rock ‘n’ roll.