Word: wilson
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Brian's back," the publicists say every time the famously elusive Brian Wilson surfaces with a new project. Has the phrase become the pop-cultural version of an idle threat? Of course, it's hard for anyone to live up to his own legend, and Brian Wilson is in the unusual position of having to cope with two. As the composer and producer for the Beach Boys, he is responsible for some of the most ethereal and sophisticated pop of the classic-rock era, as well as some of its most purely joyful and (we must be honest) embarrassingly goofy...
Unfortunately, Wilson's parallel legacy is as one of the most troubled and eccentric rock stars of his era--which, given the profession and the era, is saying something. It was only a few years ago that he seemed to have finally emerged from nearly a quarter-century's worth of debilitating mental illness. (He refused to get out of bed for long stretches of the late '60s and '70s, and in the '80s and early '90s he put his emotional and professional life in the 24-hour-a-day care of a man who was not, perhaps, the most...
Live performance is another hurdle, a challenge broached by his first-ever solo-concert tour, now under way. Ever since 1965--when Wilson, then an exhausted 22-year-old, gave up touring with the Beach Boys to devote himself to writing and producing the group's albums--he has been known to suffer crippling bouts of stage fright. Just last summer, at a guest appearance with Jimmy Buffet, he had to be coaxed into not bolting from the stage. "When [the idea of a tour] was first suggested to me," says a member of his current backup band, "I wondered...
...Since I've been rehearsing, I've been getting pretty relaxed with the music," Wilson says during an interview, nervously optimistic himself just four days away from the first date of the tour (in Ann Arbor, Mich., last Tuesday). "I can probably sing pretty good. I think I'll do a good job." He is speaking in the living room of a house he owns in the Chicago exurb of St. Charles. Though he still spends most of his time in Southern California, he bought the St. Charles home so he could live and work next door to Joe Thomas...
...ambitious national tour planned for last fall was postponed--"I wasn't emotionally ready" is how Wilson explains the delay--and scaled back to a comparatively gentle schedule: four Midwestern dates this month, followed by five in the Northeast in June and, if all goes well, maybe a few more shows on the West Coast later this year. But why even subject himself to something that in the past has caused him so much discomfort? "Well, for one thing, there's money involved," he says. "And the other reason is, I feel obligated to take my music around...