Mike Love paid tribute to his cousin and Beach Boys co-founder, Brian Wilson, who died Wednesday, at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York on Thursday.
“I especially must thank my cousin Brian Wilson,” Love said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “My first cousin by blood but brother in music, together we set the stage for some of the most successful music collaborations of all time.”
When he accepted the award, he told the room, “I do feel his presence.”
Love’s friend and Beach Boys cheerleader, Full House actor John Stamos, presented Love with the award. He, too, acknowledged Wilson’s role in the band in his introduction. “I’d like to take a moment and acknowledge the heartbreaking loss of Brian Wilson,” he said, according to Billboard. “A genius whose melodies shaped millions of dreams, including those in this room.”
The recognition for Love, who cowrote many of the Beach Boys‘ greatest hits with Wilson, arrived 25 years after Wilson’s 2000 induction. “Gratitude is the main emotion I feel,” Love said, according to Billboard. After acknowledging Wilson’s role in the group, he added, “I pray that through music, art, and kindness, the world heals and love prevails.”
Love, who’d experienced a contentious relationship with Wilson over the years, also performed a few songs he co-wrote with Wilson, “I Get Around,” “California Girls,” and “Good Vibrations,” as well as one he didn’t, “Kokomo,” which he cowrote with John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, and Terry Melcher. Stamos backed him up on guitar, according to THR.
Other inductees at the event included funkmaster general George Clinton, Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers, Gracie Abrams, and Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, among others. “This one hits different, this comes from people who truly know what it means to be a songwriter,” Clinton told the attendees, according to THR.
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