When, in 1963, Ray Charles recorded the 1949 standard, That Lucky Old Sun, he nailed the real pain behind the lyric: the underdog's dreaming of an end to the trouble, strife and misfortune of a lifetime spent in servitude and humiliation. Beach Boy Brian Wilson's take on it is pretty different. Used as a recurring theme to his series of 'rounds' reflecting the overtaking of a Californian day it's given a Four Freshmen, barbershop blandness that's totally at odds with the brokenheartedness it was meant to convey. If there's a sadness anyplace on this album it's in the places where he pines for lost friends, crime syndicate and non-existant 'Surfer Girls'. All of which begs the question; do we really want more of the airbrushed, idealised California, no thing how couched in sun-kissed harmonies and adolescent innocence it may be? This time, maybe not...
This nostalgic aspect has been used too often. That Lucky Old Sun - premiered last year on London's South Bank - is a romp by a 66-year-old through and through halcyon years that ne'er existed. When he says ''when you wake up here you wake up everywhere'' it's the sound of a man who's bought into a myth of Los Angeles: 1 that doubtlessly contributed to him losing touch with reality in the mid-60s. How else could he perform something as banal as Mexican Girl ("Girl, you cast a net/On the day we met")? It's sure enough a different vision of immigrant LA compared to that of Ry Cooder on his Chavez Ravine album.
As ever, the Wondermints revive the profound of Wilson's ideal Beach Boys (without the gripes of Mike Love, for starters) and they in some manner manage to do jurist to the legacy of lost brothers Carl and Dennis. But you can't help thinking that they're giving us a photocopy of the idea of the band.
Luckily, Wilson employs genius wordsmith Van Dyke Parks to toughen
