Charles L. Granata

Charles L. Granata approaches popular music as a record producer, radio producer, historian, and archivist, which gives his writing an ear for both studio craft and cultural context. Wouldn’t it Be Nice examines Brian Wilson’s creation of the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds, moving from composition and arrangement to production and performance. Chicago Review Press uses the complete title Wouldn’t It Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Lyricist Tony Asher contributes the foreword. Granata treats the album as Wilson’s sustained artistic project while also attending to the musicians and collaborators who helped realize its intricate sound. His wider work includes Sessions with Sinatra, and his broadcasting career has kept recorded music at the center of his research. The result is a music biography shaped less by celebrity chronology than by close attention to how an ambitious album was imagined, assembled, and heard.