Beach Boys: Band hope Brian Wilson can still make music with them

Beach Boys star Mike Love has said he hopes his cousin Brian Wilson will still be able to make music with the band after he was placed under a conservatorship.

A judge last week granted the conservatorship – to oversee Wilson’s personal and medical affairs – due to ill health.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Love said Wilson, 81, had good long-term memory and still had his “musical abilities” but needed help with “medical supervision and care”.

Love was speaking ahead of a new Disney documentary about the band which begins on 24 May.

'High school days'

Court documents obtained by several US media outlets earlier this year said Wilson was suffering from a "neurocognitive disorder" similar to dementia.

Love told Today's Nicola Stanbridge: “We got together at Paradise Cove (in Los Angeles) at the end of the documentary.

"He was remembering things I’d forgotten about our high school days. His long-term memory is right there.

"His musical abilities, as long as he’s alive he’ll have those, but he does need medical supervision and care. His wife did take care of that.”

The move to apply for a conservatorship came after Wilson's wife of 28 years, Melinda, died in January.

The family said their decision had been taken after "careful consideration and consultation" with Wilson, his doctors, his seven children and his housekeeper.

On Thursday, a judge appointed two long-time Wilson representatives, publicist Jean Sievers and manager LeeAnn Hard, as his conservators.

Love told Radio 4: “He (Wilson) knows that he needs the help but we’re still able to get together and we‘re going to see each other soon.

"It’s not so negative as it sounds. As long as he’s cared for properly. He’s seeing his children… he’s being well taken care of.”

Bruce Johnston, another Beach Boys member, said he felt the documentary was like "a new beginning".

He added: "I think once Brian and Mike sit round the piano and just the magic, you can’t stop it”.

Love said they hadn’t had a chance to collaborate yet but “it’s a brand new day now and I’m hoping we can do something together - all of us - and it’ll be great”.

Re-drafted will

Wilson is the co-founder and chief songwriter for the Beach Boys who emerged as part of the surf-rock boom in 1961 and built their reputation on sophisticated melodies and complex vocal harmonies.

After hits like Surfin' USA, I Get Around and California Girls, the emergence of The Beatles prompted Wilson to steer the band in a more experimental, psychedelic direction.

His magnum opus was 1966's Pet Sounds - widely considered one of the all-time greatest rock albums.

But his escalating drug use, combined with the pressure to keep creating ever more elaborate songs, led to a nervous breakdown and he began to withdraw from touring and public life.

Wilson was placed under a conservatorship once before, in the early 1990s, because his family fought to separate him from controversial psychologist Eugene Landy who they said exerted "undue influence" over his life, music and finances.

The case was triggered by the re-drafting of Wilson's will in 1989 in which Landy was named as chief beneficiary, standing to inherit up to 70% of his estate.

By 1992, the Superior Court of Santa Monica had ruled that Landy must remove himself from Wilson's life.

The court also appointed an independent conservator with "specific and limited powers over the artist's affairs".

Melinda was supposedly one of the chief instigators of that court case.

After her death last month Wilson said on his website: "We are lost. Melinda was more than my wife - she was my saviour."

The couple married in 1995 and adopted their children Dakota Rose, Daria Rose, Delanie Rose, Dylan and Dash together.

Wilson also has two daughters, Carnie and Wendy, from his first marriage.