BRIAN WILSON

BY Ed Bruce edbrucevegas@yahoo.com

OH BOY ! ! !

Brian Wilson is and remains one of the worlds greatest composers, in the Lennon-McCartney, Tiachkovsky, Berstein, Cohen, Sedaka, Vivaldi, Bach, Gershwin, Manilow category....no argument !

Obviously Wilson's great work is 40 years ago in the rear view mirror like his current contemporaries......HOWEVER....... there is still a glow with a new album which was highly creative if not inaudible because of a bad sound system and overpowering background noise. Wilson pretty much a lyricist and thats what I want.....its easy to sing along with California Girls, Good Vibrations and Barbara Ann becuase of the history....not so for the new stuff with unheard lyrics and I might add interesting background video.

Anyway, at 66 the real original Beach Boy gave me one last treat at the Star of the Desert Arena in Primm Nevada. This the opening weeks of a tour push for the new Sun album and it was refreshing to hear 33 minutes Beach Boys originals...40 minutes (the new album) and 19 minutes encore with Beach Boys signature stuff.....started right on time....Bless you Brian.

Wislon today is what he is after a stroke, a history of abuse, the death of his brothers Carl and Dennis (some great old pics in the middle set) and tangent off shoots of the theme group....none the less this is the real deal at 66, the whole thing was full of memories and good chords from one of the great songbooks and I loved it.

97 A+ with lost points for the overpowering background noise and poor sound system !