Beach Boys’ Valley Girl Honored

Wilson Family Ties Bring Musical Joy
to At-Risk Valley Students

Thursday, April 2, 1998, North Hollywood, CA - The winter of 1998 brought chills to the otherwise eternally sunny Beach Boys clan when matriarch Audree Wilson passed in December, followed in February by her son and Beach Boy guitarist Carl Wilson.

Despite the fact that the band met in 1960 at Hawthorne High School, their roots reach as far north as the San Fernando Valley. This Friday, the Madison Middle School in North Hollywood, where former Beach Boy drummer Bobby Figueroa and long-time Beach Boy manger, Elliott Lott were schooled in the 50’s (along with the Mousekateers), will dedicate its’ band room to Mama Wilson. The 80-something year old woman so charmed and inspired the students of the gang-infested school by turning out for everything from parades to recitals, that the music program became one of the district’s most celebrated. She is noted for turning the attention of four young Armenian, ex-gang members from guns to song. And, they in return, played to her memorial at the private Wilson-family funeral. The school received over $2000 when the Wilson family requested that donations be made in lieu of flowers upon her passing.

Interestingly enough, Bobby Figueroa played in the Glendora High School band with Madison’s current music director Lonnie Bissell. The school’s principal, Joanna Kunes (who was a jazz musician with the USO during the Vietnam war) will make the presentation on behalf of the school to Annie Wilson (Carl’s first wife) and their sons Jonah and Justin. The boys will join former Beach Boys Bobby Figueroa and Billy Hinsche (brother of Annie Wilson) in an all-star jam in the auditorium. Current Beach Boys drummer Mike Kowalski and deceased drummer Dennis Wilson’s son, Carl, will also be in attendance.
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