Mike Love
Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941) is an American singer and lyricist who co-founded the Beach Boys alongside his cousins Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson and their friend Al Jardine. Characterized by his nasally baritone singing voice, he consistently sang on their recordings and usually served as their frontman on stage. Drawing inspiration from doo wop, Chuck Berry and Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, Love's lyrics primarily reflected the youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance, which helped fashion pop culture's perception of the "California Dream". He is credited with co-writing 15 songs with Brian that reached the U.S. Top 40, including "Fun, Fun, Fun", "I Get Around", "Help Me, Rhonda", "California Girls", "Good Vibrations", and "Do It Again".
Starting in 1968, Love was a student of Transcendental Meditation (TM) under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and he became a TM teacher in 1971. The experience influenced his lyrics to take on themes of astrology, meditation, politics and ecology. In the late 1970s, he fronted Celebration, a short-lived band that consisted of Beach Boys touring musicians, and began working on solo albums, releasing his first, Looking Back with Love, in 1981. His U.S. top 40 hits co-authored without Brian were the Beach Boys' "Getcha Back" and "Kokomo". Often vilified by fans and critics for conflicts with his bandmates, many of his lyrical contributions to the group's hits were not officially recognized until the 1990s, when he sued Brian for writing credits on 35 songs. Love remains uncredited for another 44 Beach Boys songs he claimed to have co-written.
Following Carl's death in 1998, the band members and their corporation, Brother Records, Inc., granted Love an exclusive license to tour under the Beach Boys' name. Since then, Love has maintained a near-constant touring regimen with his edition of the group and has released three more solo albums. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Beach Boys in 1988. Beyond music, he has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to such subjects as environmentalism, juvenile diabetes, and music education.
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