Legendary achievements last forever but legends do not.

Of course we know this.

But in the monotonous run of days when nothing of great consequence happens, which after all is most days, time’s terrible reality fades and feels more conceptual.

These tranquil interludes are inevitably interrupted.

Most often the loss is singular.

But occasionally the distressing news comes in a flurry, chilling the heart as a winter snow squall freezes exposed skin.

So it was the second week of June.

On the 9th day, Sly Stone, leader of Sly and the Family Stone, died at 82.

Two days later another musical genius, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, died at the same age.

Wilson was nine days short of his 83rd birthday.

I haven’t the inclination to look into the matter but I’m certain that music fans rarely have had so much to lament in so short a span.

Although the music they created could scarcely be more different, this pair of octogenarians deserved their many accolades.

Only an obsessive contrarian would dispute their status as true icons.

I am a second-generation fan of both Wilson and Stone. I was born in 1970, and both had by then produced the bulk of their finest music.

(Probably the most obvious exception is Sly and the Family Stone’s 1971 album, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On.”)

While growing up I was more aware of Wilson and the Beach Boys, and especially their early career, from 1962-65, when most of their songs were about girls, surfing and fast cars (and in some cases the lyrics mentioned all three).

My siblings and I had a 45 of “I Get Around” and we played it so often we must have softened the vinyl grooves.

And of course I was familiar with their most famous single, “Good Vibrations” from 1966.

But it wasn’t until I was in college that I discovered Wilson’s master work, the 1966 album “Pet Sounds.”

Although much of “Pet Sounds” has little in common with the likes of “Surfin USA” or “409,” save for the unmatched vocal harmonies that Wilson modeled after the 1950s group the Four Freshmen, the album’s sophistication, in melodies and instrumentation, remains a landmark almost 60 years later.

Sly Stone’s sonic creations are likewise unsurpassed.

Stone, who was born Sylvester Stewart, was a funk pioneer.

But when I listen to his music I think not of genres but of joy.

Stone’s later work, particularly “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” was darker, in sound and lyrics.

But the Family Stone’s series of singles from 1967 to 1970, such as “Dance to the Music,” “Everyday People,” “Higher” and, my favorite, “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” constitutes perhaps the happiest repertoire in pop history.

Stone orchestrated a melange of shimmering horns and scalpel-like slashes of electric guitar and slinking bass lines that is infectious. The rhythms are irresistible, the lyrics celebrations of freedom and inclusion and just plain fun.

Wilson and Stone shared the magical abilities to create melodies that please the ear.

But their gifts were so much greater.

Both had the immensely rare knack for combining the disparate sounds of an array of instruments, brass and woodwinds and strings and percussion, into coherent collages that sounded inevitable but which no one else had ever assembled.

As I ponder their music I think of their most illustrious contemporary, another genius who happens also to be 82 years old, though only for another day.

Paul McCartney will turn 83 on June 18.

During the peak of the Beatles’ popularity, McCartney and his bandmates, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, had a serious, but also friendly, rivalry with the Beach Boys.

The Beatles’ 1965 album, “Rubber Soul,” helped inspire Wilson to write “Pet Sounds.”

And that record begat the Beatles’ 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

But the Beatles’ real rival wasn’t another group but Wilson himself, who created the compositions based on the sounds that he alone heard.

McCartney, who continues to perform before tens of thousands of fans and seems as close to ageless as anyone can be, goes on.

But some day his name will join Wilson’s and Stone’s.

For now, I find it a soothing coincidence that those two legends, despite the dramatic differences in their music, both leave as their legacy a soundtrack that is as indispensable to summer as lemonade and hot dogs.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald. Contact him at 541-518-2088 or jayson.jacoby @bakercityherald.com.