He's having fun, fun, fun again

By Tom Van Riper

Brian Wilson can smile now.

It took him 37 years, but the former Beach Boys leader has finally picked up the pieces of "Smile," the musical opus he abandoned in 1967. And after all those years of practice, he has brought his act to Carnegie Hall for the first time, a two-show run that started last night.

"I've never played Carnegie Hall before," Wilson told the Daily News. "But I've always liked New York audiences. They are hip and energetic."

Completing "Smile," released last month, is the biggest step yet in a career rebirth following two decades of battles with drugs and depression. Since 2000, Wilson has toured extensively while putting out four albums.

As the follow up to the Beach Boys' artistic gem "Pet Sounds," "Smile" was to be the next leap for the songwriter Leonard Bernstein once called "one of the greatest composers of the 20th century."

"'Pet Sounds' was an introspective album. With 'Smile,' I wanted something more up and happy," Wilson explains.

And he still rejects the suggestion that "Smile" reflected a rivalry with the Beatles - whose groundbreaking "Rubber Soul," "Revolver" and "Sgt.

Pepper" albums provided some inspiration.

"That's been way, way overdone," he says.

No Love Lost

But the album was held back both by Wilson's fragile mental state and by skepticism from band members, notably his cousin and Beach Boys front man Mike Love, who worried that the music departed from the traditional surf sound. A series of spats and a lawsuit with Love over songwriting credits eventually splintered the group.

"I will never work with Mike Love and [longtime Beach Boy] Bruce Johnston again," Wilson says emphatically. "I don't even like those guys."

But with "Smile" now complete, some wonder what might have been. "Brian never went all the way," says Carol Kaye, who played bass on "Pet Sounds" and "Smile." "With his talent, had he been willing to really study songwriting, he could have moved on to writing movie and television scores, much like Quincy Jones."

Over the years, "Smile" had grown into the most famous unreleased album in rock history. Wilson says he began to doubt whether audiences would find the music as dynamic as they would have in 1967. But, he says, "The reaction has been all I could have hoped for - nothing but standing ovations every night."