“The Legend: Brian Wilson” Opens At Annenberg Theater

The annual event is presented by the Performing Arts Council of the Palm Springs Art Museum and presenting sponsor Wells Fargo. The Palm Springs Pavilion Theatre, which comfortably seats one-thousand guests, will once again host this year’s event. Tickets will go on sale July 11th with prices at $350 for VIP tickets, including an exclusive after-party at the Palm Springs Art Museum; and $95 for mezzanine seats in the intimate theater. Money raised directly benefits the Annenberg Theater’s special stage presentations.

Brian Wilson is one of popular music's truly revered figures. He is the creative force behind some of the most cherished recordings in rock history. It is no exaggeration to call Brian Wilson one of “the” influential composers of the last fifty years.

Currently, Wilson is on a three and a half month European concert tour appearing in major cities and venues. One of his major tour dates is six nights in September at the famous Royal Festival Hall in London, where, in 2000, he performed his acclaimed Pet Sounds symphonic masterpiece. His stop in Palm Springs, on behalf of the Performing Arts Council of the Annenberg Theater, will mark this legendary music icon’s first appearance in the Coachella Valley following this tour.

As a teen in the 1950s, Brian Wilson became obsessed with the harmonic blend of groups like the Four Freshmen and then, in the early 1960s, inspired to combine multi-part vocal harmony with the rock rhythms of Chuck Berry, Brian found his place in the musical sun. He was barely out of his teens when he began to create some of the most beloved records ever—nine consecutive “gold” albums that featured such classics as Surfer Girl, I Get Around, Fun, Fun, Fun, Help Me Rhonda and California Girls...just to name a handful of the more than two dozen Top 40 hits Brian co-wrote (many with his cousin and lead singer Mike Love), arranged, produced and performed on with his family band, the Beach Boys.

By 1966 as Wilson’s artistic horizons expanded dramatically, he produced three records in that landmark year that forever changed the course of popular music. The first was Pet Sounds; the emotional autobiography of its 23-year old “auteur,” it is considered by many to be one of the greatest albums ever made.

Brian’s second studio masterpiece in 1966 was the Beach Boys first million-selling, worldwide #1 but an absolute milestone in recording history. Good Vibrations was a record that the legendary publicist Derek Taylor called a “pocket symphony”; given its kaleidoscopic movements, it was an apt description, as Wilson demonstrated the breadth of his musical vision as well as how the recording studio could be both an artist’s garret and a key instrument in creating his art.

As Good Vibrations headed from final mix to master to pressing plant, Brian and Van Dyke began work on his third major production of ‘66, an album Brian believed would be “a teenage symphony to God.” called SMiLE. The album was put on the shelf as Wilson began a personal journey that took him away from music for many years.

In 1990, reissues of Wilson’s glorious 1960s Beach Boys productions was highlighted by the debut of Pet Sounds on CD, earning that album the recognition that had often eluded it, bringing a new generation to the music and pushing it to gold and then platinum status. 1993’s Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations box set (which included the first official release of outtakes from the SMiLE sessions) was a stunning career overview and 1997’s The Pet Sounds Sessions box set earned Wilson a Grammy nomination, his first since Good Vibrations.Those retrospectives fueled a major reassessment of Wilson’s artistic contribution.

In the summer of 2000, Wilson began a series of “dreams come true” events when he kicked off his acclaimed Pet Sounds symphonic tour, taking that studio creation to concert halls around the world (from the Hollywood Bowl to London’s Royal Festival Hall to the Sidney Opera House), giving audiences the opportunity to experience Wilson’s production masterpiece as a living, breathing work of art. Those shows received more than a few reviews calling it the best concert ever.

Yet, throughout all of this, Brian never lost sight of the music that had become “the holy grail” of pop---SMiLE. Inspired by the Radio City tribute, where he performed Heroes & Villains for the first time in decades, Wilson began to add SMiLE songs to his live sets. Then, in 2003, the day after receiving the UK’s prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement, Wilson announced the impossible. Against all odds and in the face of enormous expectation, Wilson and Van Dyke Parks re-united and with the able assistance of key band member Darian Sahanaja, set out to complete SMiLE. BRIAN WILSON presents SMiLE was released in September, 2004.

Like the SMiLE concerts, the album exceeded expectations and was received with unbridled joy and thrilling reviews. It topped many “Album of The Year” lists, went “gold” in the UK and earned Wilson his first Grammy Award. A two-disc SMiLE DVD set, released in 2005, garnered Wilson yet another Grammy nomination. -- www.psmuseum.org