'His music documented an America that no longer exists': Brian Wilson's brilliance, by key collaborator Van Dyke Parks

Wilson bought Parks a Volvo when he'd barely met him - and together they brought sublime poetry to pop. He remembers the making of Smile, Surf's Up and more It was the Beatles' publicist Derek Taylor - who I met backstage at their first concert at the Hollywood Bowl - who first declared "Brian Wilson is a genius" as part of a [1966] publicity campaign. I knew that word would come back to haunt Brian and it did: from then on he was competing in a world of heightened expectations, but he did that ...