Brian Wilson’s songs – Surfin’ USA, California Girls, I Get Around, Good Vibrations and God Only Knows – have become classics with music reviewers describing him as ‘one of pop music’s true geniuses.’ ‘His 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds remains a benchmark in pop culture, blending classical harmonic theory with melodious songcraft, baroque orchestrations and an audacious sound palette.’
He has died at 82 after a life of professional highs and precarious mental health exacerbated by drugs and the after effects of a childhood blighted by a violent father. His clinical diagnosis was schizoaffective disorder (hearing voices) and manic depression.
In later years he re-emerged in the new millennium to delight his old fans and capture a new generation of music lovers.
He was born 20 June 1942 3.45 am Inglewood, California, with a birth chart split between Neptunian creative talents and anguished fears. His Gemini Sun (a favourite pop singer/songwriter sign) was conjunct Jupiter and square a 5th house Neptune which in turn was trine a 12th house Venus in Taurus (rules the throat). He was custom-built for lyrical happiness. But underlying that was the darker, desperately afraid and trapped Mars Pluto in Leo sextile Saturn Uranus in Gemini. His highly-strung Virgo Moon conjunct North Node was square Saturn. Algol was conjunct his Ascendant. Gemini’s lightness and darkness magnified.
Hia father Murry Wilson, a would-be songwriter who worked on the production line at the nearby Goodyear tyre factory, subjected all three sons to physical and mental abuse who lived out his thwarted ambitions through his sons while constantly belittling their achievements.
Born 2 July 1917 3pm Hutchinson, Kansas, Murry Wilson had a controlling Sun Pluto in Cancer and deeply buried, volcanic Mars in the 8th with a neurotic Neptune, Saturn, Venus conjunction sextile Jupiter. His relationship chart with Brian was extremely fraught with a ‘cruel’ composite Sun, Saturn Mars conjunction and a bullying, dominating composite Mars Pluto conjunction square Uranus.
Sly Stone, March 15, 1943, frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, has also died. He is credited as the founder of the “progressive soul” movement, playing a critical role in the development of psychedelic funk which fused soul, rock, psychedelia, and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s.
His chart bears similarities to Brian Wilson though their style was different. Stone had a musical Pisces Sun opposition Neptune; with his Neptune in an Air Grand Trine to Saturn Uranus in Gemini trine Mars in Aquarius, formed into a Kite by Mars opposition Pluto. He also ended up with heavy drug problems and at one point in his later life ended up homeless.
The post Brian Wilson – Gemini light and dark ++ Sly Stone first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
