Tommy John
Pitcher
Born: (1943-05-22) May 22, 1943 (age 69) Terre Haute, Indiana
Batted: Right	Threw: Left
MLB debut
September 6, 1963 for the Cleveland Indians
Last MLB appearance
May 25, 1989 for the New York Yankees
Career statistics
Win–Loss record	288–231
Earned run average	3.34
Strikeouts	2,245
Teams
Cleveland Indians (1963–1964) Chicago White Sox (1965–1971) Los Angeles Dodgers (1972–1974, 1976–1978) New York Yankees (1979–1982) California Angels (1982–1985) Oakland Athletics (1985) New York Yankees (1986–1989)
Career highlights and awards
4× All-Star (1968, 1978, 1979, 1980) 1976 Hutch Award 1976 NL Comeback Player of the Year 1981 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award

Thomas Edward John Jr. (born May 22, 1943) is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball whose 288 career victories rank as the seventh highest total among left-handers in major league history. He is also known for the revolutionary surgery, now named after him, which was performed on a damaged ligament in his pitching arm.^[1]

Playing career[link]

John was an outstanding basketball player at Gerstmeyer High School in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he held the city single game scoring record. Choosing baseball when he realized he would not go on to play professional basketball, John signed with the Cleveland Indians and made his major league debut at twenty years-old in 1963. Following two partial seasons with the Indians, John showed occasional excellence during seven respectable years as a starting pitcher with the Chicago White Sox. However, it was a trade before the 1972 season to the Los Angeles Dodgers for mercurial slugger Dick Allen that began a skein of John's most famous years, first with the Dodgers and subsequently with the New York Yankees, where he posted a pair of 20-win seasons and was twice an All-Star. John was also named an All-Star in 1968 with the White Sox and 1978 with LA. He played in all three Yankees vs. Dodgers World Series of his era (1977, 1978 and 1981), having switched over to the Yankees by the time the Dodgers won the Series in 1981.

John was a soft throwing sinkerball pitcher whose technique resulted in batters hitting numerous ground balls and induced double plays. In the middle of an excellent 1974 season, John had a 13-3 record as the Dodgers were en route to their first National League pennant in eight years, before he permanently damaged the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm, leading to a revolutionary surgical operation. This operation, now known as Tommy John surgery, replaced the ligament in the elbow of his pitching arm with a tendon from his right forearm. The surgery was performed by Dr. Frank Jobe on September 25, 1974, and although it seemed unlikely he would ever be able to pitch again, he spent the entire 1975 season in recovery. John would work with teammate and major league pitcher Mike Marshall who was said to know how to help pitchers recover from injuries and taught John a completely different way to pitch where he would not turn his leg and go straight to the plate which eliminated the chance of him hurting his knee and arm, and he returned to the Dodgers in 1976. His 10-10 record that year was considered "miraculous" but John went on to pitch until 1989, winning 164 games after his surgery—forty more than before and one fewer than all-time great Sandy Koufax won in his entire career. After Phil Niekro's retirement, John spent 1988 and 1989 as the oldest player in the major leagues. In 1989, John matched Deacon McGuire’s record for most seasons played in a Major League Baseball career with 26 seasons played, later broken by Nolan Ryan.^[2] Today, many pitchers have Tommy John surgery during their careers.

John decided it was time to retire in 1989, when Mark McGwire got two hits off him. McGwire's father was John's dentist. John said of his decision, "When your dentist's kid starts hitting you, it's time to retire!"^[3]

In 2009, John failed to get enough votes to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his last year of eligibility with only 31.7% of the vote.^[4]

Career statistics[link]

Post-retirement[link]

John did commentary on select games during WPIX's final year of broadcasting Yankee baseball in 1998. He also guest-hosted the Mike and Mike ESPN Radio program on June 26, 2008. It is unknown whether he will do any further work for the network. On December 17, 2006, John was named manager of the Bridgeport Bluefish in the Atlantic League, an independent minor league in the Northeast. He is currently the spokesman for Tommy John's Go-Flex, a joint cream for older athletes. He is also currently doing a national radio tour to promote this product as well as talk about life as a minor league coach, his years in the Major Leagues and to educate younger pitchers on taking care of their arms.^[5]

Tommy John resigned as manager of the Bridgeport Bluefish on July 8, 2009, to pursue a "non-baseball position" with Sportable Scoreboards.^[6] In two-and-a-half years of managing, he compiled a 159-176 won-lost record with Bridgeport.

Personal life[link]

Tommy married the former Sally Simmons on July 13, 1970. They are parents of four children—Tamara, Tommy III, Travis, and Taylor. In 1981, when Travis was two years old, he fell 37 feet from a third-floor window in his family's New Jersey vacation house, bounced off the fender of a car, swallowed his tongue, and then lay in a coma for 17 days. He later made a full recovery.^[7] On March 9, 2010, Taylor John, age 28, died as the result of a seizure and heart failure because of an overdose of prescription drugs.^[8] As a 10-year-old in 1992, Taylor’s singing and acting talents landed him a role in Les Misérables on Broadway. He made news by taking time off from the stage, however, to play baseball at Federal Little League in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.^[9] In 1998, Tamara John married Chicago Bears long snapper Patrick Mannelly.^[10]

External links[link]

[1] Tommy John at baseball-reference.com

See also[link]

• Tommy John surgery
• List of Major League Baseball leaders in career wins
• List of most hit batsman by MLB pitcher
• Top 100 Major League Baseball strikeout pitchers

Bibliography[link]

• The Tommy John Story, F.H. Revell Company, 1978. ISBN 0-8007-0923-3. (With Sally John and Joe Musser, foreword by Tommy Lasorda.)
• The Sally and Tommy John Story: Our Life in Baseball, Macmillan, 1983. ISBN 0-02-559260-2. (With Sally John.)
• TJ: My Twenty-Six Years in Baseball, Bantam, 1991. ISBN 0-553-07184-X. (With Dan Valenti.)

References[link]

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• The Baseball Page

Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson performing in January 2007
Background information
Birth name	Brian Douglas Wilson
Born	(1942-06-20) June 20, 1942 (age 70) Inglewood, California, U.S.
Genres	Rock, pop, psychedelic rock, surf rock, experimental rock, baroque pop, art rock
Occupations	Songwriter, bassist, pianist, vocalist, producer, composer, organist, arranger
Instruments	Vocals, bass, piano, organ, synthesizers, mellotron, clavinet, violin, saxophone, percussions, guitar, electric piano, moog synthesizers
Years active	1961–present
Labels	Capitol/EMI Sire/Reprise/Warner Bros. Brother/Reprise/Warner Bros. Giant/Warner Bros. Caribou/CBS Nonesuch/Elektra Walt Disney
Associated acts	The Beach Boys, The Four Freshmen, Jan and Dean, Van Dyke Parks, The Wondermints
Website	www.brianwilson.com
Notable instruments
Fender Precision Bass Baldwin HT2R Theater Organ[1] Moog synthesizer

Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. On stage, Wilson provided many of the lead vocals, and often harmonized with the group in falsetto. Early during his on-stage career, Wilson primarily played bass on stage, but gradually transitioned to primarily playing piano/keyboards. Besides being the primary composer in The Beach Boys, he also functioned as the band's main producer and arranger. After signing with Capitol Records in mid-1962, Wilson wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen Top 40 hits including "Surfin' Safari", "Surfin' USA", "Shut Down", "Little Deuce Coupe", "Be True to Your School", "In My Room", "Fun, Fun, Fun", "I Get Around", "Dance Dance Dance", "Help Me Rhonda", "California Girls" and "Good Vibrations". These songs and their accompanying albums were internationally popular, making The Beach Boys one of the biggest acts of their time.^[2]

In the mid-60s Wilson used his increasingly creative ambitions to compose and produce Pet Sounds, considered one of the greatest albums of all time. At this point his music was considered to rival that of Lennon–McCartney. The intended follow up to Pet Sounds, Smile, was cancelled for various reasons, including Wilson's deteriorating mental health. Wilson's contributions to The Beach Boys diminished as the years went by, and his erratic behavior led to tensions with the band. After years of treatment and recuperation, he began a solo career in 1988 with Brian Wilson, the same year that he and The Beach Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Since then he has toured for the first time in decades with a new band and released acclaimed albums such as a reworked version of Smile in 2004, for which Wilson won a Grammy Award for "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (Fire)" as Best Rock Instrumental, That Lucky Old Sun, and Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin.

In 2008, Rolling Stone magazine published a list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time", and ranked Wilson number 52.^[3] He is an occasional actor and voice actor, having appeared in television shows, films, and other artists' music videos. On December 16, 2011, a 50th Anniversary Reunion was announced and Brian returned to The Beach Boys. Brian Wilson remains a member of the Beach Boys corporation, Brother Records Incorporated.

Life and career[link]

Early years[link]

Wilson was born on June 20, 1942 at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, California, the son of Audree Neva (née Korthof) and Murry Gage Wilson.^[4] He was the eldest of three boys; his younger brothers were Dennis and Carl. When Brian was two,^[5] the Wilson family moved from Inglewood to 3701 West 119th Street in nearby Hawthorne, California, a town in the greater Los Angeles urban area about five miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. He spent his entire subsequent childhood years in this middle-class family home.^[6]

Brian Wilson's father told of Brian's unusual musical abilities prior to his first birthday, observing that the baby could repeat the melody from "When the Caissons Go Rolling Along" after only a few verses had been sung by the father. Murry stated, "He was very clever and quick. I just fell in love with him."^[7]

At about age two, Brian heard George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", which had an enormous emotional impact on him.^[8] A few years later Brian was discovered to have extremely diminished hearing in his right ear. The exact cause of this hearing loss is unclear, though theories range from Brian's simply being born partially deaf, to a blow to the head from Brian's father, or a neighborhood bully, being to blame.^[9]

While father Murry was ostensibly a reasonable provider, he was often abusive. But Murry, a minor musician and songwriter, also encouraged his children in this field in numerous ways. At an early age, Brian was given six weeks of lessons on a "toy accordion", and at seven and eight sang solos in church with a choir behind him.^[10] By most accounts a natural leader by the time he began attending Hawthorne High School, Brian was on the football team as a quarterback, played baseball and was a cross-country runner in his senior year.^[11] However, most of his energy was directed toward music. He sang with various students at school functions and with his family and friends at home. Brian taught his two brothers harmony parts that all three would then practice when they were supposed to be asleep. He also played piano obsessively after school, deconstructing the harmonies of The Four Freshmen by listening to short segments of their songs on a phonograph, then working to recreate the blended sounds note by note on the keyboard.^[12] Brian received a Wollensak tape recorder on his 16th birthday, allowing him to experiment with recording songs and early group vocals.^[13]

First steps: Carl and the Passions[link]

Wilson's surviving home tapes document his initial efforts singing with various buddies and family, including a song that would later be recorded in the studio by The Beach Boys, "Sloop John B", as well as "Bermuda Shorts" and a hymn titled "Good News". In his senior year at Hawthorne High, in addition to his classroom music studies, he would gather at lunchtime to sing with friends like Keith Lent and Bruce Griffin. Brian and Lent worked on a revised version of the tune "Hully Gully" to support the campaign of a classmate named Carol Hess who was running for senior class president. When performed for a full high school gathering, Brian's revised arrangement received a warm round of applause from the student audience.^[14]

Enlisting his cousin and often-time singing partner Mike Love, and Wilson's reluctant youngest brother Carl Wilson, Brian's next public performance featured more ambitious arrangements at a fall arts program at his high school. To entice Carl into the group, Wilson named the newly-formed membership "Carl and the Passions". The performance featured tunes by Dion and the Belmonts and The Four Freshmen ("It's a Blue World"), the latter of which proved difficult for the ensemble to carry off. However, the event was notable for the impression it made on another musician and classmate of Brian's who was in the audience that night, Al Jardine, later to join the three Wilson brothers and Mike Love in The Beach Boys.^[15]

Initial compositions and the Pendletones[link]

Brian enrolled at El Camino College in Los Angeles, majoring in psychology, in September 1960. However, he continued his music studies at the college as well.^[16] At some point in the year 1961 Brian wrote his first all-original melody, loosely based on a Dion and the Belmonts version of "When You Wish Upon a Star". Brian's tune would eventually be known as "Surfer Girl". Brian has commented that he wrote the melody in his car, then later at home finished the bridge and harmonies. Although an early demo of the song was recorded in February 1962 at World-Pacific Studios, it was not re-recorded and released until 1963, when it became a top ten hit.^[17]

Brian and his brothers Carl and Dennis Wilson along with Mike Love and Al Jardine first gelled as a music group in the summer of 1961, initially named the Pendletones. After being prodded by Dennis to write a song about the local water sports craze, Brian and Mike Love together created what would become the first single for the band, "Surfin'". Over Labor Day weekend 1961, Brian took advantage of the fact that his parents were in Mexico City for a couple of days and intended to use the emergency money they had left for the boys to rent an amp, a microphone, and a stand-up bass. As it turned out, the money they had left was not enough to cover musical expenses, so Al Jardine appealed to his mother, Virginia for assistance. When she heard the group perform, she was suitably impressed and handed over $300 to help out. Al promptly took Brian to the music store where he was able to rent a stand-up bass. After two days of rehearsing in the Wilsons' music room, Brian's parents returned home from their trip. Murry was irate, until Brian convinced him to listen to what they'd been up to. His father was convinced that the boys did indeed have something worth pursuing. He quickly proclaimed himself the group's manager and the band embarked on serious rehearsals for a proper studio session.^[18] Recorded by Hite and Dorinda Morgan and released on the small Candix Records label, "Surfin'" became a top local hit in Los Angeles and reached number seventy-five on the national Billboard sales charts.^[19]

Dennis later described the first time Brian heard their song on the radio as the three Wilson brothers (and soon-to-be-band member David Marks) drove in Brian's 1957 Ford in the rain: "Nothing will ever top the expression on Brian's face, ever ... THAT was the all-time moment."

However, the Pendletones were no more. Without the band's knowledge or permission, Candix Records had changed their name to The Beach Boys.^[20]

First performances and the quest for a major label[link]

Brian Wilson and his bandmates, following a set by Ike and Tina Turner, performed their first major live show at The Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance on New Year's Eve, 1961. Three days previously, Brian's father had bought him an electric bass and amplifier; Brian had learned to play the instrument in that short period of time, with Al Jardine moving to rhythm guitar.

Looking for a followup single for their radio hit, Brian and Mike Love wrote "Surfin' Safari", and attempts were made to record a usable take at World Pacific, including overdubs, on February 8, 1962, along with several other tunes including an early version of "Surfer Girl". Only a few days later, discouraged about the band's financial prospects, and objecting to adding some Chubby Checker songs to The Beach Boys live setlist, Al Jardine abruptly left the group.^[21]

When Candix Records ran into money problems and sold the group's master recordings to another label, Murry Wilson terminated the contract. Brian, worried about The Beach Boys' future, asked his father to help his group make more recordings. But Murry and Hite Morgan (who at this point was their music publisher) were turned down by a number of Los Angeles record companies.

As "Surfin'" faded from the charts, Brian, who had forged a songwriting partnership with Gary Usher, created several new tunes, including a car song, "409", that Usher helped them write. Recruiting Carl and Dennis' friend, thirteen-year-old neighbor David Marks, who had been playing electric guitar (and practicing with Carl) for years, Brian and the revamped Beach Boys cut new tracks on April 19 at Western Recorders including an updated "Surfin' Safari" and "409". These tunes convinced Capitol Records to release the demos as a single; they became a double-sided national hit.^[22]

The Beach Boys and first success with Capitol Records[link]

Brian Wilson performing the song "I Get Around" with The Beach Boys on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

Recording sessions for the band's first album took place in Capitol's basement studios (in the famous tower building) in August 1962, but early on Brian lobbied for a different place to cut Beach Boy tracks. The large rooms were built to record the big orchestras and ensembles of the 1950s, not small rock groups. At Brian's insistence, Capitol agreed to let The Beach Boys pay for their own outside recording sessions, which Capitol would own all the rights to, and in return the band would receive a higher royalty rate on their record sales. Additionally, although it was very rare at the time for rock and roll band members to have a say in the process of making their records, during the taping of their first LP Brian fought for, and won, the right to be totally in charge of the production- though his first acknowledged liner notes production credit did not come until the band's third album Surfer Girl, in 1963.^[23]

In January 1963 The Beach Boys recorded their first top-ten (cresting at #3 in the United States) single, "Surfin' USA", which began their long run of highly successful recording efforts at Hollywood's Western Recorders on Sunset Boulevard. It was during the sessions for this single that Brian made the production decision from that point on to use doubletracking on the group's vocals, resulting in a deeper and more resonant sound.^[24]

Brian Wilson with The Beach Boys in 1966.

The tune, adapted from (and eventually entirely credited to) Chuck Berry, is widely seen as emblematic of the early 1960s American rock cultural experience.^[25] The Surfin' USA album was also a big hit in the United States, reaching number two on the national sales charts by early July 1963. Brian and his group had become a top-rank recording and touring music band.^[4]

Early era as writer/producer[link]

Brian was first credited as The Beach Boys' producer on the Surfer Girl album, recorded in June and July 1963 and released in September 1963. This LP reached #7 on the national charts on the strength of songs like the ballad "In My Room", later released as a single; "Catch a Wave"; and "Little Deuce Coupe", which was released as a double-sided single with the album's title track, both top-15 hits.

He also began working with other artists in this period. On July 20, 1963, "Surf City", which he had co-written with Jan and Dean, was the first surfing song to reach the pinnacle of the sales charts. The development pleased Brian, but angered Murry and Capitol Records. Murry went so far as to order his oldest son to sever any further efforts with Jan and Dean.

Brian's other non-Beach Boy work in this period included tracks by The Honeys, Sharon Marie, The Timers, and The Survivors. Feeling that surfing songs had become limiting, Brian decided to produce a set of largely car-oriented tunes for The Beach Boys' fourth album Little Deuce Coupe, which was released in October 1963, only three weeks after the Surfer Girl LP. The departure of guitarist David Marks from the band that month meant that Brian was forced to resume touring with The Beach Boys, for a time reducing his availability in the recording studio.^[26]

Artistic growth[link]

Brian became known for his unique use of vocal harmonies and incessant studio perfectionism. Early influences on his music included not only the previously mentioned Four Freshmen and Chuck Berry, but also the work of record producer Phil Spector, the latter of whom obsessed Wilson for years.^[27] He later considered The Beatles to be his chief rivals, and they in turn would cite his work as a major influence. Wilson also produced records for other artists, but to much lesser success, with the exception of Jan and Dean, for whom Wilson co-wrote several hit songs. Following a nervous breakdown onboard a flight from L.A. to Houston in 1964,^[28] Wilson stopped performing live with the Beach Boys in an effort to concentrate solely on songwriting^[29] and studio production.^[28] Glen Campbell was called in as his temporary stand-in for live performances,^[27] before Wilson chose Bruce Johnston as a long-term replacement—a band member who remains with the Beach Boys today. In late 1965, Wilson began working on material for a new album after hearing the Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul.^[30]

As he began work on the new project, Pet Sounds, Wilson formed a temporary songwriting partnership with lyricist Tony Asher. Wilson, who had recorded the album's instrumentation with The Wrecking Crew, then gathered with The Beach Boys to record vocal overdubs, following their return from a tour of Japan. Upon hearing what Wilson had created for the first time in 1965,^[28] the group, particularly Mike Love, was somewhat critical of their leader's music,^[27] and expressed their dissatisfaction.^[28] At this time, Wilson still had considerable control within the group and, according to Wilson, they eventually overcame their initial negative reaction, as his newly created music began to near completion; "They thought it was too far-out to do, you know?... But then when it was all done, they liked it. They started liking it."^[28] The album was released May 16, 1966 and, despite modest sales figures at the time, has since become widely critically acclaimed, often being cited among the all-time greatest albums. Although the record was issued under the group's name, Pet Sounds is arguably seen as a Brian Wilson solo album—Wilson even toyed with the idea by releasing "Caroline, No" as a solo single in March 1966, reaching no. 32 on the Billboard charts.^[31]

During the Pet Sounds sessions, Wilson had been working on another song, which was held back from inclusion on the record as he felt that it was not sufficiently complete. The song "Good Vibrations" set a new standard for musicians and for what could be achieved in the recording studio. Recorded in multiple sessions and in numerous studios, the song eventually cost $50,000 to record within a six month period.^[30] In October 1966, the song was released as a single, giving The Beach Boys their third U.S. number-one hit—alongside "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda"—and it sold over a million copies.

[edit] Smile, group tension and Brother Records

With the surprising success of "Good Vibrations", Capitol Records had no choice but to back Wilson up for his next project, originally called Dumb Angel^[27] but soon re-titled Smile, which he described as a "teenage symphony to God".^[27] The album's approach was similar to "Good Vibrations" in the style of recording, which, at the time, was called modular music. This was vastly different compared to the standard live performances that were typically done in a studio at the time. After having been introduced to each other at a party, Wilson sought the lyrical assistance of L.A.-based musician Van Dyke Parks, who had made a profound impression on Wilson with the "visionary eloquence" of his lyrics.^[32] During the album's songwriting sessions, they collaborated on "Heroes and Villains", "Surf's Up", "Wonderful", "Vegetables" and "Mrs. O Leary's Cow". However, between December 1966 and May 1967, the Smile sessions fell apart due to conflict within the group and Wilson's own growing personal problems. As a result, Wilson was having problems completing the album towards the end of the recording sessions. Originally slated to be released in January 1967, the date was continually pushed back until its eventual cancellation — "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables" were planned as singles within that time, but nothing appeared.

Another source of problems came from The Beach Boys deciding to file a lawsuit against Capitol Records to start their own label, Brother Records. This transpired when Wilson was trying to finish the album and, right along the way, The Beatles were working on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In April 1967, Wilson — who was suffering from growing mental problems not limited to paracusia and paranoia, including the belief that journalist Jules Siegel's girlfriend was a witch with a penchant for extrasensory perception — was "deeply affected" by hearing a tape of the Sgt. Pepper song "A Day in the Life", which Paul McCartney played to him in Los Angeles.^[33] Soon after, Smile was abandoned, and Wilson would not return to complete it until 2004, when it was released as a Brian Wilson album of the same name. Van Dyke Parks later noted, "...Brian had a nervous collapse. What broke his heart was Sgt. Pepper."^[32] Writing for The Guardian in December 1999, Will Hodgkinson summarized the main reasons for the eventual demise of Wilson's ambitious project;^[32]

[A] combination of factors, including litigations against the record company and increasing animosity between Wilson and the rest of the band, meant that in May 1967 Wilson pulled the plug on the record... [Mike] Love had already dismissed "Good Vibrations" as "avant-garde shit" and objected to the way Wilson, Parks and a group of highly skilled session musicians were creating music way beyond his understanding... By March 1967, the bad feeling got too much for Parks and, having no desire to break up The Beach Boys, he walked out.

Following the cancellation of Smile, The Beach Boys relocated to a recording studio within the confines of Brian Wilson's mansion, where the hastily compiled Smiley Smile album was assembled, along with a number of future Beach Boys records. This marked the end of Wilson's leadership within the band, and has been seen to be "the moment when the Beach Boys first started slipping from the vanguard to nostalgia."^[28]

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Onset of mental illness and drug addiction[link]

Throughout mid-to-late 1967, Wilson concurrently oversaw the production of such heavily orchestrated songs as "Can't Wait Too Long" and "Time to Get Alone" (the latter intended for Redwood, an early iteration of Three Dog Night) alongside the albums Smiley Smile (composed mainly of reconstituted Smile material recorded in minimalist arrangements by the core Beach Boys) and the R&B-inflected Wild Honey, both of which performed only modestly on the charts. His interest in The Beach Boys began to wax and wane, and he was frequently seen partying with Tandyn Almer and singer Danny Hutton; it was during this period that he was introduced to cocaine. Still psychologically overwhelmed by the cancellation of Smile and the imminent birth of his first child Carnie Wilson in 1968 amid the looming financial insolvency of The Beach Boys (Friends, largely written & produced by Wilson and recorded once again with members of the Wrecking Crew, peaked at #126 on the American charts), Wilson's creative role with the band begin to diminish. Shortly after numerous attempts at recording of an intricate Pet Sounds-style cover of Kern and Hammerstein's "Ol' Man River" were finally thwarted by Love, Wilson entered a psychiatric hospital for an indefinite period of time of his own volition; it is believed that he was first administered Thorazine and electroconvulsive therapy during this stay. As a consequence of this, his contributions to 1969's 20/20 subsequently consisted of Smile outtakes and long-simmering works in progress. The Wilson/Love-authored "Do It Again", a reactionary throwback to the band's earlier surf hits, was a major hit in the summer of 1968, reaching #20 in America (though not offsetting the fallow, contemporaneous reception of "Friends" and "Bluebirds Over the Mountain") and topping the charts in the UK.