He was dosed up big time with prescription drugs also, by unethical doctors. They had him perpetually zombied in the 80’s, while taking advantage of him.
Yeah, he was really messed up. BUT, the catalog, the branding, the band, they were still worth a lot of money. So they weren’t going to let him go anywhere. Just transparent as hell. The music biz can be pretty dirty, sometimes.
At one point he was a virtual recluse, he would be wearing a bathrobe if he was sighted in public. His daughter said he believed that Phil Spector produced “Be My Baby” was the best tune in history, containing the secrets to the universe.
He had it dubbed onto a continuous tape loop and would play it over and over till he went into a trance. Every day, over and over. (I bet his daughter just changes the station if it comes on the radio).
Yeah by the 80s he was being cutoff from everyone, and drugs. Sometimes he would sneak out and try and get drugs while hitchhiking and things like that. One time he ended up in a …. Questionable bar playing piano for drinks, things like that. Very sad what happened to him.
Looked at objectively, in the 1960s a type of chemical warfare was being waged on America. They all thought back then they were the vanguards of a new way of thinking, and knew better on how to run the world. Listen to the interviews from back then, the way the “young people” were framed in the press, it was the “Age of Aquarius” brought to you by Time-Life and Sandoz laboratories.
Well they dosed him up with prescription meds to try and make him halfway coherent after taking all those unprescription drugs. Peter Green, of early Fleetwood Mac fame, attended a party with the rest of the band at some castle or something over in some You’re a Peein’ country and got dosed, and never really came down, if his band mates can be believed. It was all sort of sketchy, with rumors of this and that. There’s a couple of YT videos that delve into it.
Brian was a musical genius, no doubt. And I’d even concede that a little something now and then - whether alcohol, or weed or whatever, might help a player loosen up or get the creative juices flowing.
But like the commercial says “For A Limited Time Only”. These guys were very young and never had any money. All of a sudden they are getting $100,000 advance record contracts, a lot of money in those days, and now every day is a vacation. Permanent Vacation. They got so wacked out in the head, they just blew it, or very very erratic at best. I always laugh when a band or performer goes to re-hab and gets cleaned up. “We’re working on a new album. We think it’s some of our best stuff ever”.
You know it won’t be any good. I can only think of one exception off the top of my head - Aerosmith disintegrated at one point, and at the time I didn’t understand. While their new and improved comeback stuff in the 1990s wasn’t really my style it wasn’t too bad and I was really really happy to see them back in the limelight and making some money.