Brian Wilson will perform in 50th anniversary ‘Pet Sounds’ world tour

Beach Boys founding member and creative leader Brian Wilson will undertake a 2016 world tour celebrating this year’s 50^th anniversary of the release of his group’s widely hailed 1966 masterpiece, “Pet Sounds,” during which the album will be performed in its entirety.

The tour is scheduled to open March 26 in Auckland, New Zealand, and visit a handful of cities in that country before moving to Japan, the United Kingdom and Spain before bringing his Brian Wilson Band back to the U.S. for an extensive summer tour.

See more of Entertainment’s top stories on Facebook >>

That part of the “Pet Sounds” tour will open June 14 in Burlington, Vt., and will canvas nearly two dozen states before returning to California for stops in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe in October.

No Southern California dates have been announced, but Wilson’s manager told The Times on Monday, “There will be a great one,” for which details are still being finalized.

Pre-sales for tickets to most of the shows begin on Wednesday, and general sales are set to start on Friday. Full ticket information is available at Wilson’s official website, www.BrianWilson.com.

Another founding member of the Beach Boys, guitarist-singer Al Jardine, will join Wilson and his band on this tour, as will latter-day group member, guitarist-singer-songwriter Blondie Chaplin, who joined the group for a few years in the 1970s.

Wilson previously performed “Pet Sounds” in its entirety in 2000, not long after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee returned to the concert stage following about two decades of largely avoiding public performances.

He has often cited the Beatles’ 1965 album “Rubber Soul” as a key inspiration for creating “Pet Sounds,” which was a dramatic departure from the hit single-minded Beach Boys albums that preceded it. “Pet Sounds” was his attempt to create a fully cohesive concept album at a time when that art form was a rarity in rock music.

The Beatles, in turn, hoped to up the ante on what Wilson and the Beach Boys delivered in “Pet Sounds” when they put together “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 1967.

“Pet Sounds” has consistently ranked at No. 1 or 2 on fans’ and critics’ polls of the greatest albums of the rock era. It opened new vistas, sonically and musically, that helped expand the boundaries of what was possible in the recording studio.

The creation of “Pet Sounds” provided one of the key focal points of last year’s lauded biopic “Love and Mercy” documenting Wilson’s musical innovations and his personal struggles with psychological issues and emotional and substance abuse in different periods of his life.

Follow @RandyLewis2 on Twitter. For more on Classic Rock, join us on Facebook.