After a health scare, this musical legend chose Miami to restart his all-hits tour

Brian Wilson has written some of the greatest pop songs in history.

Those songs — “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder),” “The Warmth of the Sun” and “In My Room” among them, have had legends like Elton John, Paul McCartney, Linda Ronstadt, Lindsey Buckingham, Barry Gibb and Art Garfunkel citing them as inspirations for their own meticulously crafted recordings.

The Miami audience will be the first to hear Wilson do Wilson on a greatest hits tour he’s starting at the Magic City Casino Amphitheater Jan. 17.

Fellow Beach Boys members Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin are in Wilson’s band. Surviving members of the 1960s family act The Cowsills — the inspiration for TV’s “The Partridge Family” — are the opening act.

Last summer, it didn’t look like the show would happen. Wilson had to postpone touring for health reasons.

Restarting a tour

He feels the choice to open the new tour at the 3,500-seat Magic City Casino is a win-win because he prefers the intimacy compared to arenas.

“I like smaller venue. It’s a little easier to sing to the audience,” Wilson said from rehearsals in a telephone interview with the Miami Herald. “I’m 77. I’m getting older.”

In June, Wilson announced on his website that he was postponing his tour. Wilson and his longtime manager/publicist Jean Sievers put together an explanation that alluded to his schizoaffective disorder.

“It is no secret that I have been living with mental illness for many decades,” they wrote for his site. “There were times when it was unbearable but with doctors and medications I have been able to live a wonderful, healthy and productive life with support from my family, friends and fans who have helped me through this journey.”

But after complications from a third back surgery everything fell apart during rehearsals.

Wilson and Sievers wrote that he “started feeling strange and it’s been pretty scary for awhile. I was not feeling like myself. Mentally insecure is how I’d describe it.”

After a bout with a cold around the holidays, Wilson says things are “going good” during this round of rehearsals in California.

Here, Wilson and his band are determining what songs will make the setlist. Wilson has been playing the entire “Pet Sounds” album live in sequence recently. This time, that’s not the plan.

Wilson won’t lack for material. Expect about 30 songs, all Beach Boys material, with “Love and Mercy” likely the only nod to his solo career.

These are the songs that the famous — and not so famous — have been celebrating for generations.

Wilson’s favorite songs

Wilson’s website gathers renowned musicians’ quotes on what Wilson has meant to them. Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Carole King— no slouches in the greatest pop songwriters of all time department — are rhapsodic.

“I don’t think there’s anyone his equal in popular music for this 50 years,” Ronstadt has said.

“He’s like Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven or something,” Neil Young said.

Elton John, who brings his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour back to Miami’s AmericanAirlines Arena on May 30, once said the arrangement of his 1975 classic, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” was an homage to Wilson. “I had never heard such magical sounds, so amazingly recorded. It undoubtedly changed the way that I, and countless others, approached recording,” John said of the “Pet Sounds” influence.

Wilson named “California Girls” and “Surfer Girl” — songs that predate “Pet Sounds” — as his greatest works.

His reasoning is simple: “I just like them,” he said.

But he’s enticing when asked whether he’s already written his greatest song.

“There should be two or three more,” Wilson said.

There’s always music in his head. But changes in the music industry mean there is no pressing need to make albums anymore. The market just isn’t there. So Wilson says he has no current plans to record but doesn’t rule out the possibility.

Touring is another thing altogether.

In Wilson’s sweet, almost boyish demeanor, he’s taking stock of what he has meant to the world of pop music. He’s well aware how he’s regarded by his peers.

Of that vast group of admirers, Wilson says “probably Elton” came closest to getting the essence of Brian Wilson down best. He sings a quick snippet of the “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” chorus down the telephone line that makes you wish he’d record his own version.

Right now, Wilson says he hopes for one thing for his Miami audience.

“I hope they like the harmonies and the vocals.”

If you go

What: Brian Wilson featuring Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin with The Cowsills opening

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 17

Where: Magic City Casino, 450 NW 37th Ave., Miami

Tickets: $25, VIP packages also available

Information: 844-234-7469 or www.magiccitycasino.com