In writing the article about the death of Brill Building songwriter Ellie Greenwich this week, I immediately flashed back to an interview I’d done last year with Brian Wilson.

The first thing he did after slipping behind the wheel of his Mercedes coupe was to punch up KRTH-FM (101.1) on the radio as we headed out for a cruise through the winding hills of Benedict Canyon.

“I always check to see if they might play ‘Be My Baby,’” he told me, “but they don’t play it very much.”

“Be My Baby” was one of the dozens of sterling songs Greenwich wrote in the early ‘60s, most of them with her husband Jeff Barry and many in collaboration with Wall of Sound producer Phil Spector, whose recordings were a powerful influence on what Wilson created in the studio with the Beach Boys.

Jeffrey Foskett, the leader of the band that has backed Wilson on tour and in the recording studio for the last decade, said that when they played a show in New York a few years ago, Greenwich was in the audience, so Wilson dedicated their version of “Be My Baby” to her. “She invited us back to her house for chicken soup,” Foskett said. “I’m sorry that we didn’t go.”

Wilson took another of Greenwich and Barry’s songs, “I Can Hear Music,” which had made it only as high as No. 100 when the Ronettes put it out in 1966 but became a Top 30 hit three years later with the Beach Boys.  He said he rarely puts on music in his house because there’s always music playing in his head, which made me realize, beyond just its melodic beauty, what appealed to him about “I Can Hear Music,” with its lyric in the bridge, “I hear the music all the time.”

Wilson made no bones about naming the Ronettes' hit version of “Be My Baby” as his favorite record of all time, and when I reached out to him this week for a comment about his thoughts on Greenwich’s contributions to music, he also confirmed a story that had assumed the level of urban myth.

Opinions may have run the gamut on Aretha Franklin's performance at President Obama's inauguration -- not to mention her ginormous bow hat -- but we can all agree that 35 years is too long to wait for her to return to the Hollywood Bowl.

The Queen of Soul will play the amphitheater on June 26, the first time since 1974. She will be backed by her own band, including a string ensemble, for an evening of salt-of-the-earth soul songs rendered in Franklin's heaven-gifted pipes.

Best of all, it'll surely be a warm night, all the better for lubricating Franklin's voice for sassy classics like "Think." In fact, Franklin was so bummed with her 19-degree performance of "America (My Country, Tis of Thee)" that she recorded another "preferred version," available on iTunes.

Tickets for the vocalist recently granted the top spot on Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Singers of All Time will go on sale Saturday at noon. Single tickets will go for $25 to $135. Call (323) 850-2050 for further details.

-- Margaret Wappler

Photo by Ron Edmonds / Associated Press