Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ visionary and fragile leader whose genius for melody, arrangements and wide-eyed self-expression inspired “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls” and other summertime anthems and made him one of the world’s most influential recording artists, has died at 82.

Wilson's family posted news of his death to his website and social media accounts Wednesday. Further details weren't immediately available.

The eldest and last surviving of three musical brothers — Brian played bass, Carl lead guitar and Dennis drums — he and his fellow Beach Boys rose in the 1960s from local California band to national hitmakers to international ambassadors of surf and sun. Wilson himself was celebrated for his gifts and pitied for his demons. He was one of rock’s great romantics, a tormented man who in his peak years embarked on an ever-steeper path to aural perfection, the one true sound.

One of rock's most enigmatic geniuses, Brian Wilson was the driving force behind The Beach Boys' magnum opus, "Pet Sounds," a masterpiece that was directly influential of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." A noted sonic perfectionist, Wilson is also responsible for the creation of one of the genre's most legendary albums, "Smile," which is notable for having driven the band apart, and taking years to complete, finally falling apart completely. "Smile" was finally finished in 2004 as a solo project, nearly 40 years after recording began. 

Wilson's life was troubled by abuse in his childhood by his father Murry, who was originally the Beach Boys' manager. In the early '70s, he went through a phase of notable depression, where he refused to leave his bed. Years of drug and alcohol abuse followed, until he made a comeback in the mid-70s, accompanied by Dr. Eugene Landy, who also co-wrote his first two solo projects.

Among the stranger episodes of Wilson’s life was his relationship with Landy, a psychotherapist accused of holding a Svengali-like power over him. A 1991 lawsuit from Wilson’s family blocked Landy from Wilson’s personal and business affairs.

Wilson won just two competitive Grammys, for the solo instrumental “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” and for “The Smile Sessions” box set. Otherwise, his honors ranged from a Grammy lifetime achievement prize to a tribute at the Kennedy Center to induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2018, he returned to his old high school in Hawthorne and witnessed the literal rewriting of his past: The principal erased an “F” he had been given in music and awarded him an “A.”

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, as a member of The Beach Boys.