Solo Career
Mike Love has released a number of recordings independent of the Beach Boys. In the mid 1970s, he fronted the band Celebration, which achieved the top 30 hit single Almost Summer (co-written with Brian Wilson and Jardine). In the late 1970s, while almost all of the band were recording abandoned solo projects, he also recorded two unreleased solo albums, First Love and Country Love.
In 1981, Love's first and only official-release solo album, Looking Back With Love included versions of pop standards like Neil Sedaka's "Calendar Girl" as well as self-penned numbers like the moody idyll, "Paradise Found".
Love featured as a vocalist on works by Dean Torrence of Jan And Dean and The Association, and contributed to the albums Rock'n'Roll City, Rock 'n Roll Again, Winter Party On The Beach (aka Scrooge's Rock'n'Roll Christmas) and New Memories. He also re-recorded a number of classic Beach Boys' hits, released on packages like "Catch a Wave" and "Salute Nascar" with Adrian Baker. In 1998, Love and his closest ally in the Beach Boys, Bruce Johnston, recorded the album Symphonic Sounds: Music of the Beach Boys, with London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, London. Featured on the disc were newly arranged versions of songs like Johnston's "Disney Girls (1957)" and "Darlin'" (featuring Matt Jardine). More recently Love contributed one track to the 2003 Bruce Springsteen tribute CD (singing "Hungry Heart"), and also lent his voice to a Bruce Johnston–produced album for the Kings Singers.
In 2003, Love announced plans for a new solo album, variously reported as Unleash The Love and Mike Love, Not War (not to be confused with the Beach Boys bootleg of the same name). Two conspicuous tracks off the work-in-progress are "Cool Head, Warm Heart", which appeared on an official Beach Boys–related collection, and "Pisces Brothers", a reminiscence of his time in India with George Harrison.
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