Brian Wilson's 'Smile'
 http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1748328.html

Nearly four decades after beginning Smile -- a vast musical work
 he expected to become his magnus opus -- Beach Boys composer 
Brian Wilson is finally playing it for the world.

'Smile': Greatest Record Never Heard
Brian Wilson Takes Celebrated, Unreleased Album on Tour

April 13, 2004 -- In late 1966, Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson 
created what some consider his most glorious single ever, "Good 
Vibrations." For a long time thereafter, all was silence and rumors. 
In fact, Wilson was working quietly with lyricist Van Dyke Parks
on what he hoped would be his magnus opus, a vast, abstracted 
suite called Smile.

But some of his fellow Beach Boys were vehemently opposed to 
any deviation from what had become their lucrative signature sound. 
Wilson -- depressed, drugged out and increasingly out of touch 
with reality -- scrapped the project and became a recluse.

Still, fragments from Smile sessions surfaced on Beach Boys albums 
and a raft of bootlegs. Over the years, those in the know have hailed
the work as an imaginative breakthrough. Now, nearly four decades
later, the public is finally getting a chance to hear the most celebrated 
album never released. Wilson is taking a 45-minute concert version 
of Smile on a European tour. Reviewing the London premiere, a 
critic for The Guardian called it "the grandest of American symphonies."
Tim Page reports on the history of Smile.




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