Beach Boy, Man’s Moxie

“Let’s do it! Let’s make some more music, OK?” a vigorous Brian Wilson tells his band on his new album--the first solo concert recording in the pop music titan’s 40-year career.

Given the legendary ups and downs of the 58-year-old Beach Boy emeritus, including decades of career-paralyzing mental illness, addictions, obesity, litigation and family deaths, it seems wise to steer clear of that ill-fated rallying cry, “Brian’s back.”

Still, it suddenly appears Brian might be as back as he is ever likely to get, surfing a new wave of interest in the Beach Boys and a slew of solo projects.

“Surf music is gone,” he said, quickly adding he is not sad about this “because we have new songs to do.”

Wilson, whose catchy yet musically complex meditations on California teenage culture created one of the enduring myths of postwar America, will perform his celebrated 1966 “Pet Sounds” album, backed by a symphony orchestra, in cities across the United States and Canada on a tour that began last Friday and runs through Sept. 24.

He’ll appear Sept. 22 at the Santa Barbara Bowl and Sept. 24 at the Hollywood Bowl.

It is only the second extensive solo tour in the long career of the oldest of the musical Wilson brothers. Dennis, the only Beach Boy who could surf, drowned in 1983, while singer and guitarist Carl died of cancer in 1998.

The first extended solo tour by Wilson--who famously suffered from stage fright for many years--came after the release of his 1998 album, “Imagination.”

“It’s a big challenge for me because I know I have to do a good job,” he said, referring to the “Pet Sounds” tour. Indeed, the ambitious album has never been performed in its entirety by the Beach Boys or Wilson.

Though the multilayered “Pet Sounds” was immediately hailed by critics and some fans as a masterpiece, it did not sell very well initially and took many years to achieve gold record status (500,000 unit sales).

The influential “Pet Sounds” often appears at or near the top of critics’ polls of best rock albums. It was Wilson’s answer to the Beatles’ 1965 “Rubber Soul” and also served as an inspiration for the Fab Four’s 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Wilson, who first retired from public performing in 1964 after suffering a nervous breakdown, said he was eager to hit the road.

“There’s more spotlight on me, which I like, and I just like this band I have,” he said. “My band’s really a great band, and I’m looking forward to playing with that 55-piece orchestra. I think it should sound really good.”

Wilson, whose main instrument is piano, plans to pick up the bass guitar again--an instrument he has not played much since the earliest days of Beach Boys concerts--for a couple of songs on the tour.

“Carl [Wilson] taught me how to play bass and I learned very quickly,” Wilson said, adding that he always admired Paul McCartney’s bass style.

In revisiting “Pet Sounds,” whose best-known songs include “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Sloop John B,” “God Only Knows” and “Caroline, No,” Wilson said, he was not tempted to tinker with the original arrangements.

“Why?” he asked.

“No, no rearranging. . . . We’re trying to make them perfect, like the album.”

The author of “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls” last month released “Live at the Roxy Theater,” a 26-song double CD recorded at the famed West Hollywood club April 7 and 8.

An aural feast for old fans and a solid introduction for new ones, the album is available only on his new Web site, https://www.brianwilson.com.

He is lovingly backed by a stellar band including part-time Beach Boy Jeffrey Foskett on high vocal harmonies. They perform heartfelt versions of lesser-heard Beach Boys gems such as “Please Let Me Wonder” and “Add Some Music to Your Day.”

The album also includes two new Wilson compositions, “The First Time” and “This Isn’t Love.”

Asked about his motivation to write songs these days, he said: “My wife and my little babies are very much an inspiration. And my own self--I’m an inspiration unto myself. I think it’s just a good feeling.”

He is happily remarried to former model Melinda Ledbetter Wilson and they have two adopted daughters, Daria and Delanie.

Does the pop author listen to much radio music? “I did for a while, but then I got tired of it so I turned it off,” he said. “Now I’m just listening to oldies but goodies stations.”

Wilson did some fine work in the 1980s and 1990s that has yet to be released. Some “bootleg” albums, unofficial recordings that circulate among fans, feature great tunes such as “This Song Wants to Sleep With You.”

But he chose not to release such material. “It depends on if it feels good to me,” he said. “If I feel it’s commercial, I’ll release it, but if I don’t feel those feelings, I won’t.”

His high-profile summer of 2000 also included a June 15 induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York. “I think, personally, he’s one of your great American geniuses,” McCartney, a longtime Wilson fan, said in his induction speech, adding that he was often moved to tears by Wilson’s songs.

Interest in the Beach Boys, who started as a family garage band in Hawthorne in 1961, is unusually high this year. A highly rated ABC-TV miniseries aired in February, “The Beach Boys: An American Family.” The film captured Brian’s tortured relationship with his overbearing, frustrated-musician father, the late Murry Wilson.

Starting Tuesday, Capitol Records will give fans another chance to rediscover the relatively neglected, 1970-86 albums in the Beach Boys’ catalog, in digitally remastered editions.