Brian Wilson Settles Suit With Former Partner

Almost a year after Brian Wilson filed suit against one-time collaborator Joe Thomas seeking damages and a break-up of their 1997 joint venture -- and Thomas' counter lawsuit, filed ten days later -- the two former partners have settled out of court. Neither side would disclose the particulars of the settlement.

Wilson and Thomas began working together in 1996, co-producing the Beach Boys tribute album Stars and Stripes, and Thomas helped produce and arrange Wilson's 1998 album, Imagination. The two men grew so close that they even purchased homes right next door to each other in a Chicago suburb.

Thomas accompanied Wilson on his U.S. tour last year, playing piano, but last August, Brian's wife Melinda Wilson sued Thomas, claiming that the producer used his association with her husband to raise his industry profile and wrongfully enrich himself through his association with the former Beach Boy. Thomas ripped a lawsuit back at Mrs. Wilson alleging that she had "schemed against and manipulated" both himself and Brian.

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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