…a lot of the california acid-drenched hippie scene of the late 60’s were into and was buddies with charles manson – a budding hustling musician. even neil young described him as one of the best guitar players he’d met. he hung at at topanga canyon elite parties with mama cass and john phillips. famous movie stars regularly hung out with the family at the spahn movie ranch for the free sex and drugs. his involvement with dennis wilson of the beach boys is the stuff of legend and even made it into the horror story true crime books. but, most of this part of the story is hushed up. bad for business, ya know…
but, did you know that dennis wilson actually got the Beach Boys to record a charles manson song as a b-side to one of the capitol records singles? this is it. the band did some tweaking. but this is charlie’s tune, no doubt. and the Beach Boys took all the credit and basically stole it outright. it was one of the reasons that manson was so pissed at so many celebrities in LA.
in fact, he went looking for surfer record producer (and doris day’s son) terry melcher when his ‘family’ went to the tate/polanski house. terry melcher used to live there.
eventually the legendary and eccentric ESP Records label released some tapes of the whole family singing charlie’s tunes in the studio. but by this time, it was pure exploitation. chuckles and the gang were famous for other reasons by then.