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THE BEACH BOYS -- STARS AND STRIPES VOL. 1 (River North): In their continuing effort to recycle their past over and over again, the Beach Boys have persuaded a bunch of country artists to duet with them on 12 songs taken from their early albums up through "Pet Sounds." The result is absolutely pointless. Willie Nelson's cover of "The Warmth of the Sun" is the absolute bottom of a very deep barrel. Nelson gives his vocal all the enthusiasm of having done this type of thing a million times before. And Beach Boys purists will be horrified to find that Timothy B. Schmit's version of "Caroline, No" sacriligiously borrows the bongo from Brian Wilson's original on "Pet Sounds." Other artists mixed up in this disaster: Lorrie Morgan, Doug Supernaw, James House, Junior Brown, Toby Keith, T. Graham Brown, Collin Raye, Sawyer Brown, Ricky Van Shelton and Kathy Troccoli. Only the female vocalists are anything but awful. The CD booklet details the supposed love affair between the Beach Boys and country music, but this release has all the earmarks of a group very desperate for a commercial hit. They even managed to coax Brian Wilson, who wasn't even involved with their last single album, "Summer in Paradise," aboard. Maybe this would have worked (and would have had a more honest appearance) if they'd chosen to take a gamble and do new songs rather than the same old old stuff. But for Beach Boys fans, when the best group project in many years, "The Pet Sounds Sessions" boxed set, has been delayed indefinitely (latest guess: January '97) by internal conflicts, this is just another in a year of endless bummers. By the way, there's a second disc of this stuff (one track features Tammy Wynette) already in the can. Spare us, please. (Sept.'96)