ANY list of the great innovators of American music has to include – along with Foster, Gershwin, Copland and Ellington – Brian Wilson, who was honored with an all-star concert at Radio City Music Hall Thursday night.
In its own way, each artist’s tribute to the Beach Boys’ music reiterated the ideal of devotion that Wilson elegantly stated in his song “God Only Knows What I’d Be Without You.”
Among those present to acknowledge Wilson were piano men Billy Joel and Elton John, Paul Simon, David Crosby, Carly Simon, Vince Gill, Sir George Martin, Aimee Mann and Ricky Martin.
Also paying tribute was an adoring audience that stayed attentive, despite the rigors of sitting through a four-hour event peppered with stops for set changes, redos and the usual assortment of technical difficulties associated with a production that is being taped for TV.
(The show will be edited and broadcast this summer on cable’s TNT network as part of a series that has already honored Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, Burt Bacharach and Joni Mitchell.)
The magic the show eventually conjured wasn’t apparent in the early evening, when Ricky Martin reduced “California Girls” and “Help Me, Rhonda” to embarrassing lounge-act fodder. His vocal accents were part Sammy Davis Jr., part Bill Murray.
Directly following Martin, Paul Simon reinterpreted “Surfer Girl” with an acoustic arrangement so twisted from the original that it was difficult to extract the melody. And then creaky-voiced Belinda Carlisle, backed by her Go-Go’s bandmates, murdered “Surf City” and “Little Honda.”
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the tide changed. Carly Simon, Crosby and songwriter Jimmy Webb offered a three- part harmony on Wilson’s classic confessional, “In My Room,” that was moving. Vince Gill’s upper-register workout astounded on “The Warmth of the Sun,” Wilson’s homage to President Kennedy, and again later on “Surf’s Up.”
The most technically difficult composition in the Wilson songbook to perform live is “Good Vibrations.” It took the 35 voices of the Harlem Boy’s Choir, Ann and Nancy Wilson of the rock group Heart, Wilson’s own 10-piece band and vocalist Jubilant Sykes, but they accomplished the daunting task with sonic perfection. Those good vibrations were spine chilling, and easily the concert’s centerpiece.
Much simpler and almost as affecting was Billy Joel’s cover of “Don’t Worry Baby” that was brightened by Joel’s terrific knack at inserting elements of doo-wop into pop.
To ensure against slip-ups, all the lyrics to all the songs were projected on a giant screen TelePrompTer at the rear of the Music Hall. Everything was going swimmingly until Crosby fell into the drink, messing up the words to “Sloop John B.”
Crosby, with a conspiratorial smile, stopped the show and said, “I really was in the ’60s; I only have 18 brain cells left.” On the second go ’round, Crosby was perfect – especially when he whined the song’s sly, wry line, “This is the worst trip/I’ve ever been on.”
Between the musical segments, the night’s host, actor Chazz Palminteri, introduced songs and filled fans in on nicely researched Wilson details and factoids. How about: The original title of “Pet Sounds” was “Run, James, Run” because Wilson envisioned it as James Bond theme music.
Even Wilson’s darker side was sifted through in a segment narrated by his pal Dennis Hopper.
In that oral essay, accompanied by still photographs, Hopper spoke of how Wilson was deaf in one ear since childhood, abused by his overbearing father and was eventually so freaked out by his own success that for nearly a decade he almost never left his bed.
Photographs chronicled the musician’s decline from respected musical Wunderkind to a man Hopper described as “overweight, overwrought and totally out of touch.”
With the help of his family and a daily 6-mile run, Wilson kicked the drugs and alcohol, and reclaimed his life.
Still, some of those bad days seem to bear on the man and were noticeable when he took the stage for a midconcert set and again for the whiz-bang finale.
To see Wilson under the light is to see a shy man who desperately wants the relief of darkness.
During this high-voltage evening, Wilson ran on a single D battery. His discomfort at being the center of attention made one uneasy just watching.
Still, he was touching when he dedicated the night to his late brothers, Carl and Dennis. He offered his only smile of the evening when he noticed that Billy Joel, Elton John and Paul Simon were singing into a single mike during the ensemble jam for “Barbara Ann.”
And he made you believe, rightly, that he is enlightened when he offered his simple, beautiful plea, “Love and Mercy,” the evening’s final piece.