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Founding Beach Boys reunite
With 40th anniversary of landmark Pet Sounds album coming in August, Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine gather on the roof of the Capitol Records building.
Three of the original Beach Boys appeared together in public for the first time in a decade Tuesday to toast their musical legacy and hinted at the possibility of a reunion performance.
The Beach Boys on the roof of the Capitol Records building./Reuters photo
Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine, along with Bruce Johnston, who joined the touring lineup in 1965, gathered on top of the Capitol Records office tower for the presentation of double-platinum plaques marking US sales of more than 2 million copies of the band's 2003 collection, Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys.
Also on hand to uncork champagne with the band was David Marks, who briefly filled in for Jardine in the early 1960s.
The three original band members have not performed together in years. But, asked about the possibility of sharing the stage again, Wilson replied, "There's a chance of that."
Added his cousin, Love, with whom Wilson was often at odds in later years: "We've got tough management."
The focus of the event was to promote reissues of the band's catalog and celebrate the success of Sounds of Summer, a 30-track set featuring hits like "California Girls," "I Get Around," and "Surfin' U.S.A."
The album, released in 12 countries, spent its first two years on the Billboard Top 200 chart and has since ranked among the top 10 biggest-selling catalog albums of all time.
"I want to thank everybody involved that helped us get that album...going and going," Wilson said. "And I thank the Beach Boys themselves for being great, great artists to produce. I'd rather produce those guys over any other artists in the whole world."
Despite past tensions, he and Love seemed relaxed together, and Love, who once sued Wilson for songwriting royalties, saluted his cousin as the main creative force behind the band, thanking him "for his incredible abilities that gave us all an amazing life."
Johnston, who became part of the group when Wilson quit touring to focus on studio work, paid tribute to Wilson's brothers and fellow founding band members, Dennis, who drowned in 1983, and Carl, who died of cancer in 1998.
"I wish Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson could be here with us," Johnston said, to which Love added, pointing up at the sky: "They probably are, because this is pretty close."
Organizers said the last time the original Beach Boys appeared together in public was around the time that Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1, a collection of Beach Boy covers performed by various country music artists, was released in 1996.
Capitol Records, a unit of EMI Music Group, also announced plans for a 40th-anniversary release June 27 of a deluxe CD single of "Good Vibrations," featuring five versions of the band's seminal 1966 hit and its original US B-side.
In late August, Capitol also plans a 40-year commemorative reissue of the band's landmark Pet Sounds album in a CD/DVD package that includes mono, stereo, and digital Surround Sound mixes of the music, plus previously unreleased promotional and documentary footage.
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