Claim: The Beach Boys leader was American musician Brian Wilson.

The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne , California , in 1961 . The group 's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian , Dennis , and Carl Wilson ; their cousin Mike Love ; and their friend Al Jardine . Distinguished by their vocal harmonies and early surf songs , they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era . The group , led by their principal songwriter and producer Brian , pioneered novel approaches to popular music form and production , combining their affinities for jazz-based vocal groups , 1950s rock and roll , and black R&B to create their unique sound . He later arranged his compositions for studio orchestras and explored a variety of other styles , often incorporating classical or jazz elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways .   The Beach Boys began as a garage band managed by the Wilsons ' father Murry , with Brian 's increasingly sophisticated songwriting and recording abilities dominating their creative direction . Emerging at the vanguard of the `` California Sound '' , they performed original material that reflected a southern California youth culture of surfing , cars , and romance . After 1964 , they abandoned the surfing aesthetic for more personal lyrics and multi-layered sounds . In 1966 , the Pet Sounds album and `` Good Vibrations '' single vaulted the group to the top level of rock innovators and established the band as symbols of the nascent counterculture era . Following the dissolution of the group 's Smile project in 1967 , Brian gradually ceded production and songwriting duties to the rest of the band , reducing his input because of mental health and substance abuse issues . The group 's public image subsequently faltered , and despite efforts to continue their psychedelic/avant-garde ventures and reclaim their hippie audiences , they were dismissed as an embodiment of the values and outlooks shared by early 1960s white , suburban teenagers .   The continued success of their greatest hits albums during the mid 1970s precipitated the band 's transition into an oldies act , a move that was denigrated by critics and many fans . Since the 1980s , much-publicized legal wrangling over royalties , songwriting credits and use of the band 's name transpired . Dennis drowned in 1983 and Carl died of lung cancer in 1998 . After Carl 's death , many live configurations of the band fronted by Mike Love and Bruce Johnston continued to tour into the 2000s while other members pursued solo projects . Even though Wilson and Jardine have not performed with Love and Johnston 's band since their one-off 2012 reunion tour , they remain a part of the Beach Boys ' corporation , Brother Records Inc. .   The Beach Boys are one of the most critically acclaimed , commercially successful , and widely influential bands of all time . The group had over eighty songs chart worldwide , thirty-six of them US Top 40 hits -LRB- the most by an American rock band -RRB- , four reaching number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart . The Beach Boys have sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide , making them one of the world 's best-selling bands of all time and are listed at No. 12 on Rolling Stone magazine 's 2004 list of the `` 100 Greatest Artists of All Time '' . The core quintet of the three Wilsons , Love and Jardine were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 .