Brian Wilson’s eponymous solo debut for Sire in 1988 launched an extended period of renewal for the iconic Beach Boys songwriter. Rhino revisits Wilson’s solo career with a new 18-song collection that mixes studio and live recordings with two previously unreleased tracks: “Run James Run,” a new song Wilson wrote and recorded for this collection, and “Some Sweet Day,” an unreleased gem he wrote with Andy Paley in the early 1990s for an unfinished recording project PLAYBACK: THE BRIAN WILSON ANTHOLOGY covers more than 30 years of music with selections from nine of Wilson’s solo albums and will be released September 22 on CD), double-LP, on digital download and streaming services. The collection opens with “Love and Mercy,” one of the four songs on ‘PLAYBACK’ taken from Wilson’s self-titled debut. The song has become one of Wilson’s most beloved classics, a regular closer to his live concerts, and was adopted as the title of the acclaimed 2015 biopic that saw the Beach Boy memorably played by both Paul Dano and John Cusack. Several tracks on PLAYBACK come from the two albums Wilson released in 2004: Gettin’ In Over My Head and the Grammy®-winning Brian Wilson Presents Smile. The most poignant of these is “Soul Searchin’,” a song Wilson built around a vocal track left behind by his brother Carl, who passed away in 1998. The celebrated orchestral masterpiece, Smile is represented by “Heroes and Villains”, and the timeless classic, “Surf’s Up.” Those back-to-back releases ushered in a sustained burst of creativity for Wilson that includes four acclaimed albums. They’re represented on the collection by “Midnight’s Another Day” (That Lucky Old Sun, 2008); “The Like In I Love You” (Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, 2010); “Colors Of The Wind” (In The Key Of Disney, 2011); and “One Kind Of Love” (No Pier Pressure, 2015.) Tucked in with these studio classics are two live performances from Wilson’s 2000 concert recording, Live At The Roxy Theatre. Included here are “The First Time” and “This Isn’t Love,” a charming collaboration with Wilson’s Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher.
