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Wilson, Dennis. Strikingly handsome middle brother of the Beach Boy Wilsons. Long suspected of being a marginally talented surfer-stoner dude who was merely along for the ride with genius older brother BRIAN WILSON and golden-voiced kid brother Carl—though nominally the group’s drummer, he often ceded his sticks to WRECKING CREW stalwart Hal Blaine—Dennis surprised fans when, as a novice songwriter in the late 1960s, he ably crafted emotionally fraught ballads; his out-of-print 1977 solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, is a major cause célèbre among Snobs. An even more tragic figure than mentally ill sibling Brian, Dennis befriended Charles Manson and facilitated his entrée into the 1960s L.A.-rock artistocracy, and he died in 1983 in penurious, booze-addled circumstances, ironically by drowning in the Beach Boys’ beloved Pacific. The title of a 2001 Dennis biography, The Real Beach Boy, neatly encapsulates the fervent ethos of Dennis Snobs.