A legendary British rocker is going viral with his new, stripped down recording of God Only Knows as a tribute to the late, great Brian Wilson.

I'll never forget the first time Brian Wilson made me see God. It was 1973, and I was sitting in the mostly empty balcony of a second-run movie theater finally watching “American Graffiti,” the movie everyone in my high school was talking about.

Singer Elton John posted a photo of him and Wilson, writing, “Brian Wilson was always so kind to me from the day I met him. He sang ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ at a tribute concert in 2003, and it was an extraordinary moment for me.”

Sting paid tribute to Brian Wilson during his concert in Rostock, Germany, on Wednesday, June 12. "Today, one of my heroes died, Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, so I want to sing a song that I love,

Paul McCartney paid tribute to the Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson on Instagram, who died on June 11 at 82 years old. "Brian had that mysterious sense of musical genius that made his songs so achingly special,

"Sometimes you just wing it," Dave Matthews said after performing about one minute of the song. "Sad to see Brian go. … May he rest in peace."

When inducting Brian Wilson into the songwriters Hall of Fame, Paul McCartney recalled how Wilson's 'God Only Knows" brought him to tears. The passing of Wilson at 82, brought many to tears remembering how he had brought joy to them as the founder,

Brian Wilson's death on Wednesday at the age of 82 heralds an end to one idea of Southern California — as the temperate paradise of ascendant Americana. Exuberance and dreaminess, writerly sophistication and technical ambition,