“I said, ‘Mike, your cousin passed away,’ and his face went blank,” Stamos, an honorary Beach Boys member, recalled to the New York Post.

Both were musical geniuses who paid a high price for their gifts.

Attempting to distill Wilson's talent and influence in a few short songs is an impossibility; even just focusing on a few select cuts from The Beach Boys' 1966 album “Pet Sounds," routinely regarded ...