Brother Records

Brother Records, Inc. (BRI) is a holding company established in 1967 that owns the intellectual property rights of the Beach Boys, including "The Beach Boys" trademark. Brother Records was also a record label founded by the Beach Boys' manager Nick Grillo in October 1966. For only a few months in 1967, it functioned as a vanity label with its output distributed by Capitol Records. From 1970 to 1978, the label was active again, this time with its distribution handled by Reprise Records.

History
In mid-1966, Beach Boys business manager Nick Grillo formed the Brother Records corporation, bringing in Van Dyke Parks's manager and Brian Wilson's friend David Anderle to run the organization from an office on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Motivated in no small part by the negative reaction of Capitol Records to some of Brian's ideas for Smile, the company gave the band more control over recordings.

The shareholders were the 1966 members of the Beach Boys: Wilson brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis, their first cousin Mike Love, and their friends Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston, who traded his share in 1971. In 1983, shortly after the death of Dennis Wilson, his estate sold his share back to the corporation to repay loans. In 1998, following Carl Wilson's death, his share of the corporation passed to and is still controlled by his estate.

The label's first releases were the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains" single and Smiley Smile album in 1967. The label was almost immediately rendered dormant, only releasing the Brian Wilson/Mike Love single "Gettin' Hungry" before the band's albums and singles reverted to appearing on the Capitol label alone. In 1969 concurrent with their signing to Reprise Records, the Brother label was reactivated, beginning with the single "Add Some Music to Your Day" and the Sunflower album.

Other Beach Boys albums followed on the joint Brother/Reprise label during the 1970s, including Holland and 15 Big Ones. An album by The Flame, produced by Carl Wilson, was released in 1970 on the Brother label and distributed by Star-day King Records. By the late 1970s, Beach Boys records were issued on Brother and distributed by Caribou Records through CBS. As of 2007, the most recent CD re-release series of the Beach Boys' 1970s albums is on the joint Brother/Capitol Records label.

Since the 1980s, Brother Records' business manager is Elliott Lott, a former chauffeur for The Beach Boys.

Logo
The logo for Brother Records is a rendition of Cyrus E. Dallin's life size bronze statue Appeal to the Great Spirit in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. When Carl Wilson was asked in 1975 why the group used this as their logo, he said the Indian was chosen because the Wilson brothers' grandfather believed that there was a spiritual Indian guide who watched over them from the "other side". The choice of the logo was Brian Wilson's.