There's no surf, no sand, no little deuce coupes and only a couple of California girls in sight of the North Hollywood recording studio. Inside, the 61-year-old architect of "Good Vibrations," "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Fun, Fun, Fun" sits stoically at his keyboard, surrounded by a small army of musicians, and stares into one of two video monitors.
Song lyrics crawl across the screens as the other performers, most of whom weren't born when Brian Wilson's songs topped the charts four decades ago, serve up the densely layered vocal harmonies and rainbow of instrumental colors that his compositions require.
Wilson frequently looks away from the monitors and occasionally switches them off, but likes them nearby as a safety net.
Who can blame him? The songs he's working on aren't the familiar rock hits he created with the Beach Boys, those relentlessly sunny tunes that painted a fantasy of Southern California life as an endless summer of perfect waves, hot rods and blond beauties.
Instead, he's putting the finishing touches on a work he dreamed up 38 years ago, at the height of his creative rivalry with the Beatles.
After years of wrestling with depression and drug and alcohol abuse, after half a lifetime of trying to forget his fabled lost masterwork, Wilson can smile again.
"This feels so good," he says to a reporter when the session is over. "So good I can't believe it."
Tonight, he'll unveil "Smile" at a concert in England, where fans have long accorded him the heroic status that Americans reserved for the Beatles. Paul McCartney is expected to join him on stage during at least one of six sold-out shows at London's Royal Festival Hall.
Over the next three weeks, Wilson will give 16 "Smile" concerts in Britain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. He plans a U.S. tour in the fall to coincide with the CD release of the newly recorded work.
To tens of thousands of pop fans, Wilson's completion of "Smile" is no less exhilarating than the discovery of a completed manuscript for Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony would be to classical music scholars.
"I can hardly wait," says Rick Rubin, a producer who has worked with acts ranging from Johnny Cash and Tom Petty to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys.
Wilson, his hair now streaked with gray but still thick and full, has been touring regularly since 1998, something many pop fans never thought they'd see, given his history of emotional instability.
