Music: Who's `Smiling' Now? A Classic Lost Album Finds Its Rambling Way Back; Sweeping Out the Vaults

By Ethan Smith

FOR NEARLY 40 YEARS, devoted fans of the Beach Boys have waited to hear "Smile," an unreleased, incomplete album that has attained near-legendary status among followers of the '60s surf-rock group. This fall, in one of popular music's most ambitious new offerings, those fans will finally get their wish. Sort of. On Sept. 28, "Smile" will arrive in stores with 17 tracks that promise a window back to a watershed time in the evolution of rock and roll.

Backed by a publicity campaign that proclaims "Smile" a "lost masterpiece," Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson will go on a 20-city concert tour of the U.S. to promote the album. The Showtime cable channel, meanwhile, will air "Beautiful Dreamer," a documentary about the making of "Smile." But the "Smile" that will be released by Nonesuch Records to all this fanfare isn't truly the long-lost Beach Boys recording some fans have longed to hear. It's actually a new solo work by Mr. Wilson, who -- using the original "Smile" session tapes as a guide -- recorded this album from scratch. (Two of the other five original Beach Boys, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson -- both brothers of Brian Wilson -- are dead.) In a sense, this was always Mr. Wilson's work.

The original "Smile" sessions were seen primarily as the product of Mr. Wilson's vision -- an experimental approach that sought to advance beyond the Beach Boys' surf-music roots. Part of the reason the album never made it to record stores in the '60s is that fellow band members considered the material too far afield of their trademark sound.

Mr. Wilson, who has acknowledged struggling for years with psychological problems, describes that period with with a blanket disclaimer: "I was young and stupid, so I didn't know what I was doing." The release marks the music industry's most recent effort to see how far it can stretch old material to reach nostalgic boomers -- and their wallets. In 1995, EMI Group's Capitol Records released "Anthology 1" by the Beatles, a double CD built around alternate versions of the group's hit songs and including a so-called reunion song, "Free as a Bird," created by dubbing the remaining Beatles onto a tape of John Lennon singing and playing piano. "Anthology 1" sold 1.2 million copies in its first week.

Last year Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records released "How the West Was Won," a three-disc set of Led Zeppelin live recordings, including previously unreleased songs. Record-company executives say the success of such recordings has people throughout the industry sweeping out vaults and sifting old tapes in hopes of hitting similar gold.

With services like Apple's iTunes encouraging listeners to pick and choose single songs they want to buy at 99 cents each, repackaged material from classic acts can appeal to older, affluent shoppers who are more likely to spend $15 for a complete album. Mike Wheeler, a Web developer from Eugene, Ore., who has run a fan site devoted to "Smile" for the past eight years, is skeptical about the new release. "I don't think Brian Wilson today knows what it was supposed to sound like in 1967," says Mr. Wheeler, a 30-year-old who wasn't born until years after those sessions.

Other fans, though, are counting down the days until the release. Brandon Schott, a 28-year-old singer-songwriter, says he believes the new "Smile" will actually be better than the original Mr. Wilson abandoned. "There isn't as much pressure on him now to do something commercial," Mr. Schott says. When the Beach Boys were recording the original sessions in 1967, Mr. Wilson touted the work as a "teenage symphony to God."

The year before, with the quintet at the height of its fame, Mr. Wilson had begun steering them them away from the girls-cars-surfing hit formula, producing the musically adventurous "Pet Sounds." That album established the Beach Boys as the only serious American challenger to the Beatles' artistic dominance of rock music, but it was considered a commercial disappointment. For "Smile," Mr. Wilson envisioned an album that would unfold as a musical whole, built from recordings spliced together the way a movie is edited. It underwhelmed Mr. Wilson's bandmates, according to Melinda Wilson, Brian's wife of nine years. She says Mr. Wilson would explain the decades-long delay in releasing the album by saying "the `boys' didn't like it," or "it was inappropriate music." In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Wilson became increasingly reclusive while the rest of the Beach Boys settled into life as an oldies' revue.

Mr. Wilson rarely appeared in public, releasing new albums in 1988 and 1998 with little fanfare. Then, in the late '90s, he was emboldened to play live concerts, according to friends, thanks to a combination of renewed public interest in his innovative work on "Pet Sounds" and a new regimen of psychiatric care. In 2001, at a concert honoring Mr. Wilson at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, he caused a stir by performing "Heroes and Villains," the overture from "Smile." Says Ms. Wilson: "He was shocked at the response it got." Still, Mr. Wilson says when his managers broached the idea last year of developing "Smile" for live performances, the proposal made him "anxious." Why? "I can't explain it," he says.

Still, the songwriter pushed ahead, and a series of concerts in London was scheduled for early this year. Working with his touring musical director, Darian Sahanaja, and musician and lyricist Van Dyke Parks, Mr. Wilson managed to accomplish in a week and a half what he'd failed to do for more than three decades: finish writing the album's third movement. The London "Smile" concerts were ecstatically received. As the Wilsons walked back to their hotel room after the first show, Ms. Wilson recalls, her husband said, "Yeah, `Smile' was the best thing I ever did."

Encouraged by David Bither, senior vice president at Warner Music Group's Nonesuch Records and avid "Pet Sounds" fan, Mr. Wilson resolved to record the now complete "Smile" -- without employing the original recordings. The old tapes were deteriorating, their legal status was tricky, and, besides, he had come up with many new arrangements and lyrics.

Beach Boys fan Peter Beyer, a musician and graphic designer in Chicago, says he is looking forward to Mr. Wilson's "Smile" but still hopes for a release of the band's original recordings. "This is Library of Congress material," says Mr. Beyer, 32. "It should be archived for future generations to study."