Editorials & Other Articles

mahatmakanejeeves

(57,559 posts) Mon Nov 20, 2017, 01:09 PM Nov 2017

Charles Manson's surreal summer with the Beach Boys: Group sex, dumpster diving and rock 'n roll

Retweeted by Dave Weigel: https://twitter.com/daveweigel

Charles Manson was one of the absolute worst people involved with the Beach Boys.

Link to tweet

Retropolis

Charles Manson’s surreal summer with the Beach Boys: Group sex, dumpster diving and rock ‘n roll

By Michael S. Rosenwald November 20 at 11:45 AM

In the summer of 1968, at the height of the sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll era, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson welcomed into his orbit an unknown and peculiar long-haired rocker who sang wildly and talked mystically. ... “This is Charlie,” Wilson told friends. “He is the wizard, man. He is a gas.” ... Charlie was Charles Manson, who would orchestrate seven murders the next year and who died in prison Sunday night at 83.

{Charles Manson, cult leader and murder-rampage mastermind who terrified nation, dies at 83}

Wilson went the rest of his life not speaking of the months he spent with that guy Charlie and his followers dropping acid, enjoying group sex, and jamming late into the night. “As long as I live,” Wilson told Rolling Stone, “I’ll never talk about that.”

But among the many surreal episodes of Manson’s life, that summer marked a key moment in cementing his persuasive powers over his so-called Family, who he would direct the following summer to brutally and ritualistically kill actress Sharon Tate and six others — murders that shocked the country and made Manson infamous.
....

The Family wound up moving out. Though Manson and Wilson would occasionally still see each other, their relationship all but ended by summer’s end, Lake wrote, over music. ... In September 1968, the Beach Boys recorded a version of Manson’s “Cease to Exist,” changing some of the lyrics and renaming it “Never Learn Not to Love.” The song, credited to Dennis Wilson as the only writer, later found its way onto a Beach Boys album. ... Not long after, Wilson found a bullet on his bed. ... “I gave him a bullet,” Manson later said, “because he changed the words to my song.”
....

Michael Rosenwald is a reporter on the Post's local enterprise team. He writes about the intersection of technology, business and culture. Follow @mikerosenwald

3 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Charles Manson's surreal summer with the Beach Boys: Group sex, dumpster diving and rock 'n roll (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Nov 2017 OP

Well, they did steal this song from him JenniferJuniper Nov 2017 #1

The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part XVIII mahatmakanejeeves Nov 2017 #2

Involvement with Wilson, Melcher, et al. mahatmakanejeeves Nov 2017 #3

JenniferJuniper

(4,512 posts)

1. Well, they did steal this song from him

Reply to mahatmakanejeeves (Original post)

Mon Nov 20, 2017, 01:13 PM

Nov 2017

and gave him no credit.

This was added to his list of real and imagined grievances.

mahatmakanejeeves

(57,559 posts)

2. The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part XVIII

Reply to mahatmakanejeeves (Original post)

Mon Nov 20, 2017, 01:24 PM

Nov 2017

Scott McKenzie

That was not his real name, and is this ever a long story. There used to be someone at the local history room of the Alexandria Library who was well-versed in this subject.

"Scott McKenzie" spent his high school years in Alexandria, Virginia. I was on the street on which he lived on Saturday. He lived a few blocks from where Jim Morrison lived.

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part XVIII
....

10050 Cielo Drive is the street address of a former luxury home in Benedict Canyon, a part of Beverly Crest, north of Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, where the Charles Manson "family" committed the Tate murders in 1969.
....

History

Michèle Morgan, French actress for RKO Radio Pictures, had architect Robert Byrd design and J.F. Wadkins build the luxury home resembling an early 19th-century European style farmhouse. The house was completed in 1941, with an address of 10050 Cielo Drive. Beverly Hills, California. By the end of World War II, Morgan had returned to France and in 1946 Lillian Gish moved in with her mother while filming Duel in the Sun (1946).

Rudolph Altobelli, a music and film industry talent manager, bought the house for $86,000 in the early 1960s and often rented it out. Residents included Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon (it was their honeymoon nest in 1965), Henry Fonda, George Chakiris, Mark Lindsay, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Samantha Eggar, and Olivia Hussey. Charles Manson visited the house in late 1968, when it was occupied by couple Terry Melcher (the son of actress Doris Day) and Candice Bergen with roommate/talent-manager Roger Hart. The couple split in early 1969, with Melcher relocating to Malibu.

In February 1969, Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate began renting the home from Altobelli. On August 9, 1969, the home became the scene of the murders of Tate, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, and Steven Parent at the hands of the Manson "Family". William Garretson, Altobelli's caretaker and an acquaintance of Parent, lived in the guest house behind the main house and was unaware of the murders until the next morning, when he was taken into custody by police officers who had arrived at the scene. He was later cleared of all charges.

mahatmakanejeeves

(57,559 posts)

3. Involvement with Wilson, Melcher, et al.

Reply to mahatmakanejeeves (Original post)

Mon Nov 20, 2017, 01:46 PM

Nov 2017

Involvement with Wilson, Melcher, et al.

See also: The Beach Boys bootleg recordings § Manson sessions

The events that would culminate in the murders were set in motion in late spring 1968, when (by some accounts) Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys picked up two hitchhiking Manson women, Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey, and brought them to his Pacific Palisades house for a few hours. Returning home in the early hours of the following morning from a night recording session, Wilson was greeted in the driveway of his own residence by Manson, who emerged from the house. Uncomfortable, Wilson asked the stranger whether he intended to hurt him. Assuring him he had no such intent, Manson began kissing Wilson's feet.

Inside the house, Wilson discovered 12 strangers, mostly women. Over the next few months, as their number doubled, the Family members who made themselves part of Wilson's Sunset Boulevard household cost him approximately $100,000. This included a large medical bill for treatment of their gonorrhea and $21,000 for the accidental destruction of his uninsured car, which they borrowed. Wilson would sing and talk with Manson, while the women were treated as servants to them both.

Wilson paid for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson. Wilson introduced Manson to entertainment business acquaintances. These included Gregg Jakobson, Terry Melcher and Rudi Altobelli (the last of whom owned a house he would soon rent to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski).

The account given in Manson in His Own Words is that Manson first met Wilson at a friend's San Francisco house where Manson had gone to obtain cannabis. The drummer supposedly gave Manson his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he came to Los Angeles.

Reply to this discussion