He Gets Around

Another bucket of sand

Another wave at the pier

I miss the way that I used

To call the shots around here

*

So sings Brian Wilson on the lead track of his latest album, “Imagination,” a luminous set of songs that makes it clear that Wilson is, in fact, calling the shots again, three long decades after he abdicated his title as rock’s boy genius.

In the early 1960s, when Wilson took brothers Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and neighbor Al Jardine from a Hawthorne living room to international stardom as the Beach Boys, record companies typically dictated nearly every aspect of a rock artist’s career.

But years before the Beatles and others began flexing their artistic muscles, Wilson took charge of his art: writing, selecting, arranging, producing, conducting and performing his songs the way he wanted.

He gave his record company the hits they craved--ebullient, evocative pop masterpieces such as “I Get Around” and “Don’t Worry Baby”--and, in 1966, he gave the world “Pet Sounds,” an album still unparalleled in rock for its musical and emotional depth.

No one in popular music was more in control than Wilson, which made it all the more jarring when he became rock’s premier basket case. A host of reasons have been cited--his upbringing, his drug use, his conflicting roles as creative leader and breadwinner for the extended Beach Boys family--but, whatever the cause, Wilson checked out of our imperfect reality in the late ‘60s.

The man whose work had once challenged the Beatles to make “Sgt. Pepper” became the subject of “Caution--I brake for Brian Wilson” bumper stickers and was subjected to decades of controversial therapy. (For a full account, read Timothy White’s 1994 biography “The Nearest Faraway Place,” Henry Holt & Co.)

Every Song Sparkles

Virtually anyone with a financial stake in Wilson’s renascent genius has been routinely proclaiming “Brian’s back!” since the mid-’70s. But even his unevenly beautiful 1988 comeback solo album, “Brian Wilson,” was somewhat suspect, with so many cooks in the kitchen--including Wilson’s then full-time therapist, Dr. Eugene Landy--that it was often hard to tell whose souffle it was.

Plus, at least some of the acclaim that greeted the album came from critics and fans who were glad to see Wilson functioning on any level.

“Imagination” shows that no one needs to handicap Wilson’s game anymore. Every song sparkles with his classic pop craftsmanship, and some, notably “Cry,” “She Says That She Needs Me” and “Lay Down Burden,” are deep pools of emotion that can easily stand alongside his most soulful ‘60s songs.

“Isn’t that a good album?” Wilson asked, justly proud, when reached by phone Tuesday in Portland, Ore., on a tour that brings him to the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday and to the Sun Theatre in Anaheim on Sunday.

Notoriously stage-shy, Wilson is now into the second leg of a U.S. tour that has been earning standing ovations and moving audience members (including such luminaries as R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder at his recent Seattle show) to tears.

“It’s quite a thrill for me to experience that response, a big thrill,” Wilson said. “I still get nervous for at least a couple of hours before I go on stage. It’s a whole ordeal I go through every time.

“It’s getting a little better,” he said, “but it’s still rough for me because I’m really a sensitive person and I want to do the best job I can on stage. I worry about not wanting to let people down, and, like all human beings, I also worry about feeling rejection. So it’s great when people like it.”

Perfect Backing Band

The 57-year-old’s backing band includes far younger players from the Wondermints and Poi Dog Pondering.

“My wife and I saw them at a nightclub in Hollywood and they played some of our Beach Boys songs, and they were so close to the record, it was almost like hearing the early Beach Boys live in person,” Wilson said. “After the show we went backstage and talked them into giving a try to backing me up on a solo tour, and it turned out fantastic.”

He found recording “Imagination” last year to be far more fun and relaxed than the sessions for its predecessor had been. While his 1988 project had been aswirl in co-producers, co-writers, therapists and attorneys, most of “Imagination” was recorded in a home studio with a small crew of relatively unknown musicians, spearheaded by country player Joe Thomas.

“I met Joe at Willie Nelson’s ranch and studio. He had a good knack for melody, and a kind of country-pop musical thing that fit my style pretty good. We bought houses next door to each other on the outskirts of Chicago [Wilson has since moved to Beverly Hills], built a studio on the back of my house and did the album there.

“Joe’s a fast worker, so the pace was a little faster than I’m used to, but it was fun,” he said. “Working with someone else helps bring out some of my musical ability.”

In the ‘60s, Wilson had been sparked by Phil Spector’s anthem-like productions and engaged in a spirited musical leap frog with the Beatles, in which their “Rubber Soul” inspired the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds,” which, in turn, prompted the Brits to create “Sgt. Pepper.”

Wilson doesn’t find anything quite so challenging in contemporary music, so he spends most of his listening time with oldies.

“I like R.E.M. and the Beastie Boys. But for me, it’s mainly oldies, because they can call you back to times when you felt great in your life, bringing back the exact memories and feelings of when you first liked a song.”

On his album, Wilson is partial to “Happy Days” (“It depicts my life very well”) and “Lay Down Burden,” a healing song about distance and reconciliation.

“I dedicated the song to my brother Carl [who died of cancer in February of 1998], and I rededicate it to him on stage every night.

“Carl cut out on me and dropped out of my life for many years,” Wilson said. “He didn’t show any affection and love for me for 20 years, and it just broke my heart. I can imagine what it must have been like for him, always hearing ‘Brian this’ and ‘Brian that.’ All the interviews talked about Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian.

“A couple of months before he died, we got closer,” he said. “I knew he was going to die, and my psychiatrist said, ‘Look, just love him all you can so you won’t feel guilty after he dies that you didn’t love him.’ So I told him I loved him a little more than I usually did. That’s what people need to know when they go: that they’re loved.”

Wilson credits his reemergence to “love, and an extremely powerful will to succeed and live.” By most accounts, including Wilson’s 1991 autobiography (much of which he has since recanted), the long rift with Carl, and virtually the rest of his family--including his mother, his first wife and his daughters--resulted from their attempts to extricate him from the controversial and expensive 24-hour-a-day supervision of Landy.

They, and subsequently state authorities, questioned Landy’s ethics in forming lucrative creative and business relationships with a patient under his care. A court order ultimately severed those relationships.

Asked if today he thinks Landy was a help or impediment to his cure, Wilson simply stated, “He taught me more things than I can ever remember.”

Wilson hasn’t ruled out working with what remains of the Beach Boys again but reserves his enthusiasm for his projects, specifically another album he expects to be recording early next year. “I want to get into a little harder rock ‘n’ roll,” he said.

In the meantime, he’s focusing on his tour. “Those standing ovations,” he said, “make me feel pretty darn good.”

Beach Boy at the Sun

* Brian Wilson plays Sunday at the Sun Theatre, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. 8 p.m. $25-$85. (714) 712-2700.