Brett Owen Wilson, respected musician, devoted husband and father, died at his home in Fort Worth on Wednesday, January 26, 2005. He was 55 years old. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Brett was born on March 7, 1949 in Columbus, Ohio to Virginia and Leo Wilson. When Brett was six months old, the family moved to Fort Worth, where his father worked as an aerospace engineer with General Dynamics. They relocated to San Antonio, where Brett spent his early childhood years, and then back to Fort Worth. Brett attended Wedgewood Jr. High School, and was President of the student body. At Paschal High School he excelled in academics and was a cheerleader.

As a teenager, Brett combined his love of jazz with his talent for playing drums. He played in The Ridgeway Scott Orchestra and in The Richard Powell Trio, mastering several jazz idioms. After graduating from Paschal in 1967, Brett attended Oberlin College in Ohio and the University of Texas at Austin. In Austin he met his future wife, Claudia Wormley.

Also in Austin, in the Spring of 1969, a chance meeting with old high school acquaintances resulted in Brett’s co-founding of the rock band Space Opera. Originally based in Fort Worth, the band went on to play extensively in Texas, New York, and Canada, and recorded for Columbia Records.

Brett and Claudia married in Fort Worth in 1974, settling in Mistletoe Heights. While continuing to perform and record with Space Opera, Brett began a long professional association with restaurateur Michel Baudouin, proprietor of La Chardonnay and The Grape Escape. In 1982, Claudia gave birth to a son, Colin.

Brett was an avid reader and possessed an imposing intellect. His interests included things esthetic and technical. He loved riding motorcycles, collecting and playing musical instruments with his son, watching sports and taking afternoon naps. A lifelong animal fancier, Brett had innumerable pets: cats, dogs, tropical fish and exotic birds.

Brett will always be remembered for his selfless generosity, his devotion to family and friends, and a soft-spoken, congenial persona that complemented his formidable physical and moral strengths.

Brett is survived by his parents, Virginia and Leo Wilson, his wife, Claudia Wormley Wilson, all of Fort Worth, and son Colin Alexander Trout Wilson, of Norman, Oklahoma. Other family members include his sister, Lesley Wilson, M.D., of Saratoga, California, nephew Evan Rabinowitz of New York City, and niece Laura Rabinowitz, a student at Skidmore College.