Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan are two musical pioneers of the 1960s. While Dylan had a solo musical path, Wilson was a founding member of The Beach Boys. Both revolutionized American rock n’ roll in various ways, including songwriting and sound. However, the two artists never met each other until a chance encounter at an emergency room.
Brian Wilson met Bob Dylan in the emergency room after Dylan broke his thumb
While The Beatles dominated the music world in the 1960s, The Beach Boys were close behind them. With hits like “I Get Around” and “Good Vibrations”, The Beach Boys became extremely popular and caught the attention of everyone, including Bob Dylan. Wilson admires Dylan, like most musicians do, and was surprised to meet him for the first time at the emergency room.
“Once I was in the Malibu emergency room getting a weigh-in and this guy walked up to me,” Wilson shared on Twitter. “He had curly hair and was on the short side. ‘Are you Brian Wilson?’ he asked. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Bob Dylan.’ He was there because he had broken his thumb. We talked a little bit about nothing. I was a big fan of his lyrics, of course. ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was one of the best songs, you know? And ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ and so many more. What a songwriter!”
Wilson had an extended conversation with Dylan at his house
After this miraculous encounter, Brian Wilson invited Bob Dylan back to his house. Wilson said he and the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer had a lengthier conversation where they discussed their past work and old songs. Wilson didn’t share specific details, so God only knows the stories the two singers shared.
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“I invited him over to my house for lunch the next day,” Wilson continued. That was a longer conversation. We just talked and talked about music. We talked about old songs we remembered, songs before rock and roll. We talked about ideas we had. Nice guy.”
Dylan once said The Beach Boys were doing things no one else had done before
Bob Dylan has long been a fan of Brian Wilson’s. In a statement shared on Wilson’s website, Dylan said: “Jesus, that ear. He should donate it to the Smithsonian. The records I used to listen to and still love, you can’t make a record that sounds that way. Brian Wilson, he made all his records with four tracks, but you couldn’t make his records if you had a hundred tracks today.”
That’s not the only time Dylan has praised Wilson’s work. In a 1987 conversation with Rolling Stone, Dylan said The Beach Boys were doing things that had never heard before, and that made them stand out against other artists, such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
“I knew what the Beatles were doin’, and that seemed to be real pop stuff,” Dylan said. “The Stones were doing Blues things — just hard city blues. The Beach Boys, of course, were doin’ stuff that I didn’t think had ever been done before, either. But I also knew that I was doing stuff that hadn’t ever been done before.”
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