As Father and Manager of The Beach Boys
Wilson later founded a machining business, but maintained an active interest in music, which he passed along to his sons, encouraging them to learn to sing and play instruments, and becoming their business manager, co-producer, and publisher in the early part of their career as the Beach Boys. On the heels of the band's early success, Wilson devoted himself to music full-time, producing and managing groups, including The Sunrays in addition to the Beach Boys. Wilson also released one album of his own, The Many Moods of Murry Wilson, in 1967.
The Wilson brothers had a legendarily complicated relationship with their father. Many stories of abuse have surfaced, including a supposed incident where the elder Wilson hit Brian Wilson in the head with a 2x4, resulting in the permanent loss of hearing in his right ear. Known as a domineering and manipulative man, Wilson was a tough negotiator on behalf of the boys, earning them a contract with Capitol Records.
In 1964, his wife Audree left him and they separated. The marriage ended in divorce in 1966.
Read more about this topic: Murry Wilson
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“I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house, but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained.”
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“The seashore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-traveled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.”
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—Administration in the State of Neva, U.S. public relief program. Nevada: A Guide to the Silver State (The WPA Guide to Nevada)