Brian Wilson discusses his latest effort, “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin,” in an hourlong segment for Boston University NPR affiliate WBUR-FM that’s now accessible via podcast at the station’s website.

Wilson was the guest for “On Point with Tom Ashbrook” in a segment that WBUR officials invited me to join in on to offer a little historical and musical perspective. I interviewed Wilson recently about the ambitious project that brings together two composer-performers from drastically different times and places.

Ashbrook samples several songs from the CD that was released Tuesday during the course of the conversation; he also fielded several calls from station listeners during the live broadcast Friday morning.

The album also will be highlighted with another Wilson interview slated to air Sunday morning on NPR’s "Weekend Edition," which is carried in the Los Angeles area on KCRW-FM (89.9) in Santa Monica and KPCC-FM (89.3) in Pasadena.

--Randy Lewis

Photo: Brian Wilson at his Beverly Hills home. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

On “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin,” the summer mash-up between the surf-sound maestro and the Jazz Age composer, the most obvious retooling is on “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” Far from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s wistful yet playful version, or any other classic take, Brian Wilson casts the song as a sock-hop shimmy with bouncy piano rhythms.

This album finds Wilson clearly invigorated by material he feels an affinity with; thankfully, he’s not so precious that he can’t flood it with sea salt, sunshine and all the qualities that make his music individual. At 68, his voice sounds roughened but expressive, an aged root growing through all the squeaky clean orchestration made for starry drives with the convertible top down.

Wilson listened to more than 100 Gershwin compositions before narrowing it down to these songs, which run the gamut from the traditionally covered to rarities. He also was given permission from the Gershwin estate to finish two songs, “The Like in I Love You” and “Nothing But Love.” “The Like in I Love You” is one of the best for showing Wilson’s deft hand at taking a scrap of melody and blowing it out so that it hits on many different emotional levels. A smile that maybe came after a few tears, the melody refracts but never leaves its sentimental but complex center.

— Margaret Wappler

Brian Wilson
“Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin”
(Walt Disney Records)
Three stars (Out of four)

The publishing company that control the rights to the Beach Boys’ 1966 hit “California Girls” isn’t suing Katy Perry and rapper Snoop Dogg over her recent, similarly minded chart-topper “California Gurls,” as has been reported in stories circulating on the Internet.

But Rondor Music International has sent a warning to Perry, Snoop — a.k.a. Calvin Broadus — and their co-writers and publishers arguing that Beach Boys founding members Brian Wilson and Mike Love should receive co-writing credits because Perry’s record lifts the phrase “I wish they all could be California girls” from the original record.

“Using the words or melody in a new song taken from an original work is not appropriate under any circumstances, particularly from one as well known and iconic as 'California Girls',” Rondor said in a statement issued Wednesday. “Rondor Music, who publishes the works of Brian Wilson and Mike Love, is committed to protecting the rights of its artists and songwriters, and with the support of the writers, that is exactly what we are doing.”

Wilson and Love each told The Times recently that they are fans of Perry’s song, which spent six weeks in the No. 1 slot on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart. In the version that includes a rap from Snoop Dogg, the Long Beach rapper speaks the line near the end of the record, the first single from her new album, "Teenage Dream," set for Aug. 24 release.

"The melody is infectious, and I'm flattered that Snoop Dogg used our lyric on the tag," Wilson said. In a separate interview, Love asked, “What’s not to like?”

Publishers, however, have different agendas than musicians, hence Rondor’s letter of notice to Perry’s camp. “We have established diminutive claim,” Rondor’s statement said. “It is up to the six writers and various publishers of ‘California Gurls’ to decide whether they honor the claim or not.”

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Perry and Snoop Dogg at the MTV Movie Awards in June in Los Angeles. Credit: Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

  
The announcement last fall that Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson would pay tribute to the music of George and Ira Gershwin, including completing songs left unfinished at George’s untimely death in 1937 at age 38, gave reason for both anticipation and consternation.

Anticipation at the prospect for a meeting of kindred but disparate spirits across time: one the quintessential musical voice of the Jazz Age in New York, the other the prime architect of the rock era’s California myth of hot rods, bikini-clad girls and fun in the sun.

Consternation because much of the beauty of Wilson’s once-wondrous voice had been ravaged for nearly 30 years by personal and professional traumas, from which he’s been charting a steady recovery in the last decade. But the question looms of what the creator of “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls” could bring to the revered canon of one of America’s cornerstone teams from the Great American Songbook.

At a listening session Wednesday night in West Hollywood, an audience of about 100 invited guests, including record company executives, journalists and others, got a listen to the result, “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin,” the album scheduled for release Aug. 17.