For a brief moment in 1964, Glen Campbell almost joined the Beach Boys as a permanent member. Campbell already had a close connection with the California band, working with them as a session guitarist and as a stand-in for Brian Wilson during what would be the founding member’s first career-altering nervous breakdown. With his incredible dexterity and vocal ability, Campbell easily fell into the rhythm of the Beach Boys’ catalog.
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As incredible as a continued partnership between the Beach Boys and Campbell might have been, it never grew beyond a temporary arrangement. The future “Rhinestone Cowboy” singer was still forging his own path as a solo artist. But even if he hadn’t been, Campbell wasn’t particularly happy with the terms of the Beach Boys’ offer.
Brian Wilson’s First Nervous Breakdown Of Three
The old adage “the higher you climb, the harder you fall” proved especially true for the Beach Boys (and Brian Wilson, in particular) in the mid-1960s. The Beach Boys were enjoying the height of their fame, having just nabbed their first No. 1 single with “I Get Around” in May 1964. But with tidal waves of Beatlemania crashing all over the United States, the surf rock band couldn’t afford to rest on their haunches. They competed heavily with the Beatles, constantly touring, writing, and recording to keep up.
The stress of their precarious career proved to be too much for founding member Brian Wilson. As the band began a two-week tour from December 23, 1964, to January 7, 1965, Wilson suffered his first nervous breakdown. He was already having relationship issues with his wife, Marilyn, and the emotional burden became too much to bear. During a flight to Houston, Wilson began sobbing uncontrollably. “The plane had been in the air only five minutes when I told Al Jardine [Beach Boys co-founder and guitarist] I was going to crack up at any minute. He told me to cool it. Then, I started crying. I put a pillow over my face and began screaming and yelling,” Wilson said, per The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band.
Jardine later said of the incident, “We were really scared for him. We were concerned for him because he was so upset. He obviously had a breakdown. None of us had ever witnessed something like that.”
Why Glen Campbell Turned Down The Beach Boys
Brian Wilson managed to play in Houston the night of his first nervous breakdown, but that was all he could stand to do for the two-week tour. The next day, he boarded a flight back to Los Angeles, telling the band he needed a break from the road. This wasn’t the first time Wilson had taken a reprieve from touring. Still, this time felt like the start of something more serious following the previous day’s harrowing incident. After Wilson left, his bandmates began looking for a suitable replacement to continue their run.
The Beach Boys settled on session guitarist Glen Campbell. “I filled in for Brian for a few dates,” he explained in The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary. “Mike [Love] and Carl [Wilson] called me on a Wednesday and said, ‘Glen, can you be here tomorrow? You gotta play bass and do Brian’s part.’ I said, ‘Sure.’ I had been doing their sessions, so I could easily fill in. The only problem was I didn’t know all the words to the songs. They’d be singing “Pasadena,” and I would sing something else. I didn’t know what I was saying. But the screams were so loud from the girls, you’d walk on stage, and you couldn’t hear a thing anyway.”
After the two-week tour was over, the Beach Boys invited Campbell to join the band as a permanent member. Campbell requested that, if he joined the band, they cut him in on an equal share of the Beach Boys royalties. This arrangement didn’t work for the band, and it wasn’t a term Campbell was willing to compromise on. So, the permanent collaboration never came to be.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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