Beach Boy Sinks Feet Into Palm Desert Sand

Brian Wilson created his masterpiece album "Pet Sounds" with the Beach Boys 45 years ago and the music still sounds as fresh and vibrant as when it was first released in 1966.

This was a different type of Beach Boys album, as Brian traded the fun in the sun in image of "California Girls" having "Fun, Fun, Fun 'til Daddy took the T-Bird away" for a much more introspective, romantic and sophisticated take on young love, heartbreak and redemption. 

Paul McCartney has cited "Pet Sounds" – which had the hit singles "God Only Knows," "Sloop John B.," "Caroline No" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" -- as his favorite album. He has said the album inspired great Beatles albums like "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" with idiosyncratic time signatures, bass harmonica, bassoon, strings, and poetic incisive lyrics that really touched the heart.

These days, Brian Wilson and his wife Melinda, along with their five children spend a lot of their time in the lovely Palm Desert estate.

"I love the view of the mountains and the sky. It is just like being at the beach to me. It is so peaceful that I hear the harmonies in my head forming whenever I look at our living room window and am sitting at the piano," Wilson said. 

Brian Wilson has been called "The Mozart of Pop Music" and a musical genius so many times it's impossible to cite all the sources of those appellations.

To inspire his "girls on the beach" muse, Brian Wilson would have actual Malibu sand brought into his living room in Bel Air home in the 1960s so he could he sink his feet into it while composing. Nowadays, Brian and his wife have the desert sand for inspiration.

"Brian is continually creating music, whether it's just whistling while he's on a walk in the desert, or playing piano with one of the kids, or even just singing to himself in the car. He's just so filled with song and harmony singing. It's a joy to be around him," said his loving and devoted wife Melinda, who has been a partner to Brian in life and in the music business.

Brian often credits Melinda as "the woman who has made it all possible for me to do this."

Brian made a significant comeback in 1999 when he overcame his decades-long stage fright, along with Melinda's encouragement and began to perform again and went back into the studio.

In recent years, Brian has released a finished version of the famed "Smile" album that was begun (and never completed) in 1967, a collection of his take on the music of George Gershwin (a composer Brian is often compared to) and that album even includes two "unfinished Gershwin compositions, that Brian was given permission by the Gershwin estate to complete.

"I will always make music. It's what I enjoy most and it's what I was born to do," he said.

Songs like "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" and "Caroline No" (from the "Pet Sounds" album) show how wistful and melancholy Brian can be as a composer and yet, how tender and fragile.

"Those songs show Brian Wilson's strength as an interpreter of deep emotions through music better than any songs I've ever heard," producer Don Was said of Brian's talents.

On "Caroline No," Brian sings "Where did your long hair go? Where is the girl I used to know? How could you lose that happy glow, Oh Caroline No. Who took that look away? I remember how you used to say, you'd never change, but that's not true."

The single was released as a Brian Wilson solo song in 1966 and to this day is one of his most revered, heartfelt songs. (Note the sound of the plastic orange juice bottle that drummer Hal Blaine plays with the end of his drumstick giving this song a haunting signature.)

These days, Brian and Melinda try to escape the hectic lifestyle in Los Angeles and travel to Palm Desert to have "down time" and eat outside on the patio at Las Casuelas Nuevas.

"Brian loves that place. It reminds him of El Cholo (Mexican restaurant) back in Los Angeles, a place he went to all the time in the '60s," said Melinda Wilson. 

"Palm Desert and the beach have a lot in common for Brian. They both offer solitude and inspiration," she said. "But the best thing is, when I'm here (in Palm Desert) with Brian I really get to see him relax. That's what's best about being here."