On Wednesday, when he got the news that Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson had died, Scott Totten, the Lakeland musician, was in the car on the way to perform in Sarasota.
Twenty-five years before, Totten left a message with Capitol Records inquiring about a rumor that The Beach Boys needed a guitarist.
He wasn’t sure anyone would return his call.
Twelve years after that, in 2012, Totten looked across a stage where he was performing with the Beach Boys and saw none other than Brian Wilson, following his lead.
From late 2000 until 2023, Totten was a guitarist for The Beach Boys, alongside Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, who joined the band in 1965. Totten added musical director to his responsibilities in 2007.
He first worked with Wilson when the band reunited in 2011 to record “Why God Made the Radio.” The album was a hit, and he performed with the band at The Grammys in 2012.
That was followed by the Beach Boys 50th Anniversary Tour, which brought all the surviving members together and led to that unforgettable moment between Totten and Wilson.
“To find myself one day on stage with Brian Wilson, as his musical director, and I’m conducting an a capella section for the song “Heroes and Villains“.. and I look over and Brian’s watching me like a hawk, he’s following me. And I’m like, ‘Somebody pinch me!’”
Totten said that Wilson kept to himself on tour. He was always eager to perform, sometimes waiting in the wings long before it was time to go on.
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“When it came time to work on music,” he recalled, “you could see Brian come alive, and he would take charge, and he would know exactly what he wanted everybody to do.”
When he wasn’t performing with Wilson, Totten still felt an obligation to respect his vision. And he knew fans wanted to hear songs as they knew them from the records, with Wilson’s arrangements.
“I was playing Brian’s music, and I was the music director,” he said. “I considered it to be a great responsibility — and I’m also very proud of the work that we did for all of those years.”
Wilson is rightly considered a musical genius, Totten says. His similarly groundbreaking contemporaries and friendly rivals, The Beatles, consisted of a songwriting trio: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and their producer, George Martin. Wilson worked alone.
“Brian was the producer and the arranger, and the only music writer,” Totten points out. While others may have written the lyrics, “the music part was all Brian.”
Totten grew up in Southern California, listening to The Beach Boys. He remembers when the “The Pet Sounds Sessions” box set came out, in 1997. Listening to the isolated vocals from “Here Today,” he had to stop what he was doing.
“The vocals were just phenomenal,” he said. “It’s almost like he’s writing for the (background) vocals as if they’re trombones.”
On the way home after his performance Wednesday, Totten wanted to hear Brian’s voice.
He listened to “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Surfer Girl.” And he got choked up.
“I have spent basically a lifetime studying and executing his music, so it was a heavy blow,” he said. “One of my musical heroes is gone.”
Anna Toms is a reporter for LkldNow, a nonprofit newsroom providing independent local news for Lakeland. Read at LkldNow.com.
