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[CHARLES MANSON] Let me explain something to you.
I wrote about a couple of hundred songs.
I've got them all written down. I'll give you an example, man.
I'll try to stick to a song... that'll make you some money.
[LAUGHS]
Let's see.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[JEFF GUINN] The mythology of Charlie Manson has come to mean
above all else vicious murder,
but those terrible acts were never what he was aiming for.
The real story of Charlie Manson... is music.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] I don't think Charlie could have been Charlie
without the music.
He was a poet and he believed in his music.
[DIANNE LAKE] Music was the vehicle.
He really wanted to spread his philosophy.
To me that seemed to be the most important and overriding agenda.
[NARRATOR] In 1968, cult leader
and singer-songwriter Charles Manson
gained access to the top tier of the Los Angeles music world.
Only a year later he was accused of being
the most dangerous man alive.
[DOMENIC PRIORE] It might not be as obvious to some people
how involved and ingrained in the music business
Charles Manson seemed to be.
Terry Melcher is producing The Byrds,
The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson.
These are two huge selling record producers
and they're looking at you, Charles Manson.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] It could never have happened before or after.
It really was a perfect storm, that period of time.
When somebody like Charlie could walk into the scene.
There was no cap, no limit, there were no rules.
[NARRATOR] This film tells the story
of Manson's musical dream and how it all fell apart...
[SIMON WELLS] The story of Charles Manson
is the story of rejection and collapse.
It was a disintegration of Manson's dreams
and it allowed the madness to rise.
[QUIET DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[NARRATOR] Los Angeles. August 9th, 1969.
At the tail-end of one of the most tumultuous decades
in American history, the city's residents awaken
to the news of a brutal multiple homicide
in the very heart of Tinseltown.
[NEWS REPORTER] In a crime scene that police say
resembled a ritualistic mass murder,
five persons including the actress Sharon Tate
were found slain at the home of Ms. Tate and her husband,
screen director Roman Polanski.
Ms. Tate who was eight months pregnant
and the other victims were discovered dead this morning
at the Hilltop Estate in Benedict Canyon.
Most have suffered multiple stab wounds,
while one had been shot at close range.
[SIMON WELLS] Murders in Los Angeles are
a regrettable formality.
They happen - in California, in America,
especially where gun crime and knife crime is prevalent.
This was out of that league. This was premier league horror.
We are talking about the slaughter
of an 8 and a half month pregnant woman
and the murders of those present
with such violence inflicted on them
which appeared to have no bounds.
This was something else. It was absolutely shocking.
[NARRATOR] The fact that one of the victims
was a Hollywood star,
and the wife of a famous film director,
saw the story hit the headlines worldwide.
The following day, two more murders were discovered
less than 15 miles away,
again the targets of a savage home invasion,
and this second attack sent further shockwaves
through the local community.
[JEFF GUINN] From the beginning, stories would elude
to the savagery, the brutality of what was done
and some facts got in the newspaper.
Within a few days you could not buy a gun
in Los Angeles anymore.
The stores, the shelves were bare.
Guard dogs that sold for $100 before the murders
were going for as much as $2,000.
[NARRATOR] It would take months for the police
to apprehend the culprits.
And when the arrests were eventually reported,
the world was stunned.
Charles Manson, the head of a hippy commune,
and a number of his mostly female followers, were charged
with some of the most violent murders in American history.
Only two years beforehand,
California had been the epicenter
of the Summer of Love,
where the flourishing counterculture
celebrated peace and understanding.
But this younger generation had always been viewed
with skepticism by conservative Americans,
and over time as the movement became more radical
it also became more threatening.
Through Manson and his band of murderous flower-children,
that potential threat had now become a reality.
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] The average American
looking at the coverage of the Manson case,
didn't feel any identification with Sharon Tate
or these other families in Hollywood.
What they felt was these kids are out of control.
They experienced it as indistinguishable
from campus rebellions and the riots in Chicago
and protests.
From the standpoint of the so-called silent majority,
it was a sense of these spoilt kids.
All they want to do is this rabble rousing
and take drugs and have sex.
And then you bundle all that up
into the worst possible version of it
and there's the Manson murders.
[NARRATOR] But the case was also baffling
and the motives for the murders remained unclear.
Although the press were quick
to run stories of drug-fueled orgies and satanic rituals,
as the District Attorney and the police probed
deeper into the testimonies of those involved,
a complex story emerged.
Manson was not simply the isolated cult leader
nor the cold-blooded career criminal
that his profile suggested.
He was also a singer-songwriter
with connections at the very top
of the LA music scene.
[JEFF GUINN] About early December 1969,
the first stories started to appear
in the Los Angeles newspapers,
that Manson may have committed this crime
as trying to either kill or get even with Terry Melcher,
who's the son of actress Doris Day.
To young America, Terry Melcher
was a famous name because of his work
with The Byrds, with Paul Revere and the Raiders.
To middle America
he was the son of America's sweetheart.
But as the investigation would continue,
the story started appearing in the paper.
A name at a time.
Terry Melcher certainly,
Greg Jacobson who was part of the music scene,
but other names too.
Dennis Wilson, Neil Young,
John Phillips, Buffy Saint-Marie.
It became apparent early on
that music was a big part of whatever it was
that made up Charlie Manson.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
[NARRATOR] And Manson's musical journey began here.
San Francisco, 1967.
A city at the heart of a cultural revolution.
Since the end of the Second World War
it had emerged as a beacon
for those looking to escape the conservatism
of middle America
and explore alternative lifestyles and attitudes,
and it became the West Coast stomping ground
for the writers of the Beat Generation.
But it was in the mid-1960s
that the city fully blossomed
as a hub of creativity,
its youth fueled by new music, new drugs and new ideas.
And the nerve center
for this cultural and artistic activity
was the Haight-Ashbury district.
[PETER RICHARDSON] Haight-Ashbury in 1967.
In part it's a bit of an accident.
The Beat scene had been located in North Beach.
But there's a new availability of housing, and cheap housing.
San Francisco State University students
start moving in.
And then the artists come
and they create a very...
It's small but it's a vital,
collaborative cooperative do-it-yourself art scene.
The musicians are a big part of that.
The Grateful Dead are there at 710 Ashbury,
Janis Joplin lives there.
Jefferson Airplane is the first big band
to hit it there.
When you put all those creative people together
they start feeding off of each othe's energy.
I think the big picture is the fight
for personal, artistic and sexual freedom.
There was something going on here
that was pushing for expanded freedoms
across many dimensions.
[NARRATOR] Although in the mid-1960s
the city's crusade for expanded freedoms
was not unique, the driving force
behind its particular vision of freedom was.
While a vibrant youth culture had been thriving
in cities across Europe and America
since the emergence of the Beatles
at the start of the decade,
no other scene had access
to the Haight-Ashbury's drug of choice - LSD.
This powerful hallucinogen was at the very center
of the San Francisco experience,
informing the music, art and ideas
that were emerging from the city.
Where other drugs affected mood,
with LSD a user's perception of reality
was significantly altered,
and after only one "trip"
many felt they had undergone a spiritual awakening.
[SIMON WELLS] It can't be overstated, the power of LSD.
It literally elevated people from one place
to somewhere completely different
and transformed people's lives overnight.
[DIANNE LAKE] Everybody was seeking this enlightenment,
but LSD was kind of a shortcut.
It kind of opened up the top of your head
and let you see, or at least think you saw,
this other way of life.
But it also made us all very vulnerable
to people taking advantage.
[NARRATOR] And as the San Francisco counterculture began
to attract both national and international recognition
at the start of 1967,
it was the psychologist Timothy Leary
who emerged as the most prominent advocate of LSD,
publicly promoting
its therapeutic and spiritual benefits.
[PETER RICHARDSON] There was a lot of talk
about expanded consciousness.
sometimes that took on very strong spiritual dimensions
in the way people talked about LSD and its uses.
Leary was the new face of that story.
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] Tim Leary was a Harvard professor
who essentially became the apostle of LSD.
His background gave a patina of a kind of authority
to his ideas about LSD and the new world,
the kind of utopia that it was going to introduce.
[TIM LEARY] The message is very simple.
Six words:
turn on, tune in, drop out.
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] His slogan became:
turn on, tune in, drop out.
Get high, marijuana, LSD.
Tune in, connect with the kind of images,
ideas, visions that those drugs bring to you.
And then drop out of the society.
There was a sense that utopia is just in the offing.
That was the idea,
that paradise could be regained
and LSD was the path to it.
[PETER RICHARDSON] The drop out part of his message
was the most controversial.
Later he would walk that statement back a bit.
He didn't mean drop out.
He meant think harder about where you put your energy.
But the pebble had been dropped in that water
and it started rippling out in ways
that nobody could finally control,
least of all Timothy Leary.
[NARRATOR] In the summer of 1967,
the so-called Summer of Love,
young disenchanted people from across America
began dropping out en masse
and flocked to San Francisco,
searching for the utopia
that Timothy Leary's vision suggested was waiting for them.
[JEFF GUINN] One of the things we forget
is that Haight-Ashbury was such a concentrated place.
It could perhaps have handled
maybe a thousand people living there, eating there,
part of the community,
but during the so-called Summer of Love
from '67 through '69,
the estimate is to this day
that about 300 kids a day would show up.
And these were the ones who had no money,
they had no place to go,
just the belief if you get there we'll be taken care of.
That is the atmosphere.
It opened up the possibility for predators.
From around the country came hustlers,
the dope dealers, the pimps,
and above all, attracted by this wonderful hunting ground
came Charlie Manson.
[NARRATOR] First arriving in the Haight-Ashbury district
in the spring of 1967,
Charles Manson was 32 and just as keen to engage
with the utopia on offer as the youths surrounding him.
Freshly released from a seven-year stretch in prison,
like many of those flocking to San Francisco,
Manson too was looking to escape a troubled past
and to make a fresh start in this brave new world.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio to an unmarried teenager,
Kathleen Maddox, a wayward mother
at odds with her religious family,
young Charlie Manson never knew his father.
And at the age of only 4,
he watched his mother being led away by police
for armed robbery,
for which she would receive a five year jail sentence.
[SIMON WELLS] Manson was every part the throwaway kid.
He was passed to friends, to family,
anyone who would take him,
and he was then sent to his grandparents
and then on to his aunt and uncle.
So basically he was passed around
and from an early age he knew he wasn't wanted.
[JEFF GUINN] He lived with his aunt, uncle and cousin
and his grandmother came to see him.
There was no reason to say that Charlie's early life
as a child was ideal.
Having your mother in prison never is.
But he always had loving people who cared about him.
The problem was, of course,
that Charlie was from the beginning
a very disagreeable, violent child.
[NARRATOR] But although aggressive and sullen,
in his aunt and uncle's household in West Virginia
the young Charles Manson also found
a less destructive outlet for his energies.
[JEFF GUINN] There was a piano in his uncle and aunt's house
and even as a tiny child,
and you need to remember we're talking about a boy
who even at 5 years old looked perhaps 3.
His hands were tiny.
But he would stay at the keyboard
and by ear pick out songs.
The songs in his life at that time
came from one of two categories,
church music or country music.
He was something of a musical prodigy.
He hated going to church except singing,
and when he would sing,
he would join in so wholeheartedly
that his grandmother would believe the spirit of the Lord
must be descending on this child.
[NARRATOR] This natural gift for music was not enough
to curb Manson's delinquent tendencies, however.
In his teenage years his criminal activities,
including theft and burglary, saw him arrested countless times
and detained in a number of reform schools
and correctional institutions.
And as he gained a criminal education
while incarcerated,
by his early 20s his main aspiration was to become a pimp.
[SIMON WELLS] Manson was every bit the petty criminal.
He couldn't really organize much
and as his rap sheet concludes he kept getting caught.
[JEFF GUINN] Charlie Manson was a failure
as a criminal in every way.
He started out shoplifting and always got caught.
He would steal cars, they would track him down.
Finally, when we decided after learning the trade from pimps
and his first stint in prison
that he would run a string of girls,
he could never keep them very long.
The thing that carried over from his early criminal career
is a tremendous eye for those who can manipulate.
Manson would explain
his philosophy of attracting first his prostitutes
and later his female followers
as always find the ones who were bent or cracked
but not completely broken.
[NARRATOR] Despite a brief attempt
to settle down in the mid-50s
which saw him return to West Virginia
and marry a local waitress,
criminal instincts were now ingrained in Manson.
At the end of the decade
an attempt to establish himself as a pimp in New Mexico
once again led to his arrest,
and this time he was incarcerated
at the isolated, medium- security prison McNeil Island,
on a ten-year sentence.
With no chance of escape he learnt to play the guitar,
and his passion for music returned.
It was at first only a pastime.
And then, in 1964, through the radio
he heard a sound that would change his outlook entirely.
["I Want to Hold Your Hand", The Beatles]
* Oh yeah, I'll tell you somethin'
* I think you'll understand
* When I say that somethin'
* I want to hold your hand
[SIMON WELLS] The Beatles' music was extraordinary.
It was vibrant. It was alert.
It just swept up the youth of the world
and everyone who came across them
was affected, even if they disliked them
they were sort of affected by them.
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] It's impossible to overestimate
The Beatles' impact on aspiring musicians,
Charles Manson among them.
But... everybody, anybody from that generation
talks about The Beatles and the immediate effect.
It was huge, instantaneous and it was lasting.
[JEFF GUINN] It was a transformative moment
in his life hearing that music.
What The Beatles do for Charlie Manson
is they not only expand his musical horizons,
but they expand his ambition.
Previously all he wants to be is a successful pimp
where women go out and do all the work for you
and you don't have to work very hard yourself.
Now suddenly he's got a guitar,
he knows how to play it, he's got the inspiration
and he starts writing songs in prison.
[NARRATOR] Terminal Island, Los Angeles.
It was here, in 1966, that Manson was transferred
to complete his time in prison,
his 10 year stretch reduced due to good behavior.
At this low security prison, Manson met Phil Kaufman,
an actor serving a short sentence for drug possession.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] We were walking in the yard every day
between jobs and after dinner and breakfast.
You walk in the yard back and forth.
And this guy was playing a guitar
and he was singing "the shadow of your smile".
I said, "Wow, this guy's cool."
["The Shadow of Your Smile", Tony Bennett]
* The shadow of your smile...
[PHIL KAUFMAN] So I walked up to say,
let's introduce ourselves.
And he continued playing his guitar
and we were talking and a guard comes up to him
and says, "Manson! You can't play your guitar here.
"You got to play your guitar over there in the music area."
Charlie just kept playing his guitar.
He walked away. And the guard yelled,
"Manson, you ain't never gonna get out of here."
Charlie said, "Out of where, man? The shadow of your smile."
He just carried on. Charlie was he cool.
He played the guitar and sang music that I liked.
He was singing standards.
Like I said, "The Shadow of Your Smile",
other popular songs at the time.
And he sang well.
He sounded like Frankie Laine.
He was a big star back in the 40s
and Charlie and I are both from that era.
We're both older guys.
That was our frame of reference.
We had Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and that genre.
[NARRATOR] In March 1967,
Manson was up for release from Terminal Island.
And aware of his musical ambitions,
Phil Kaufman gave him the details
of a valuable entertainment contact.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] When Charlie was getting out,
I suggested he meet a friend of mine Gary Stromberg,
who was in the music business because I thought he was good.
Once again, this is Charlie in prison I'm talking about.
So I'm taking that persona and introducing him
to respectable people in the music business,
and it turned out just the opposite.
Once he got out he says, "Game on."
[NARRATOR] Having been incarcerated
since the end of the previous decade,
upon his release Manson was cast
into a totally foreign landscape.
The America he had known had been transformed
by the youth culture revolution that followed
in the wake of The Beatles.
With the assassination of John F Kennedy,
the advent of the Vietnam War
and the draft that was seeing thousands of young men
thrown into a conflict they didn't believe in,
the generation gap that had developed in the 1950s
had now become a chasm.
The counterculture that was spreading across the nation
viewed their elders and the authorities with suspicion,
and was looking to reshape the American way of life.
[DAVID FELTON] People realized that as a nation,
we were spiritually bankrupt.
We'd lost our way.
The moral principles of our constitution
and the founding fathers seemed to have been forgotten.
This was a time of deep alienation in the country
because of the Vietnam War,
because of advances in sexual rights
and a greater awareness of racial discrimination
and the civil rights movement.
There was a great division,
but I thought not so much as a negative thing
but one as where we were exploring new things.
We were all going through these sort of phases
of exploration and innocence really.
[NARRATOR] And the 32-year-old Charles Manson
was very keen to exploit that innocence.
Heading first to Berkeley and then on to San Francisco,
the city enabled him to regain a youth lost in confinement,
and he embraced this new culture
and its liberating power.
In Haight-Ashbury, Manson's first impulse was to stand back
and observe the leaders of this scene.
Over a number of weeks he listened to the local bands,
watched the various preachers and social activists
at Golden Gate park and took LSD for the first time.
Then he headed down the street with his guitar in hand
and began looking for followers of his own.
[SIMON WELLS] San Francisco was awash with gurus
and philosophers, preachers, cults, religions,
everything imaginable on every street corner.
Manson had his own brand of philosophy.
He was known as the 'gardener'.
He used to plant seeds in people's minds.
So he brought a package with him.
[DAVID FELTON] He was a very crafty and charismatic person.
I mean, he was a great performer and a great preacher.
He did have a good act which was one of cosmic intelligence,
which frankly never made sense to me
beyond two or three sentences, but still he had it down.
[NARRATOR] Melding concepts from the Bible,
scientology and the acid gurus surrounding him,
Manson's philosophy - that morality was a lie,
that nothing was corrupt except for possessions, the ego
and family - began to draw to him
a small group of young women.
Mary Brunner, Lynette Fromme,
Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins
- all were seduced by Manson's charisma,
his music and the closeness he promised them.
This small harem of followers would act as Manson's entourage
for the next step in his plan.
With the phone number of Phil Kaufman's music contact,
Gary Stromberg, still to hand,
in November, 1967, he acquired a large yellow school bus
and headed south to the City of Angels,
his musical dream still burning bright.
[JEFF GUINN] In California in particular,
even the San Francisco bands that were big
and thought of themselves as sort of the upper echelon,
as Frank Zappa said, everybody had to go down
to Los Angeles and get their hands dirty.
That's where the record companies were,
there's the labels, there's the people who could sign you.
Manson went to Los Angeles for no purpose
other than to become a rock and roll star.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
[NARRATOR] Los Angeles, 1967. A sprawling city
powered by its immense entertainment industry.
And although it had been the heart the American
film world for decades,
its growth as a thriving music capital
was a relatively recent phenomenon.
At the dawn of the decade,
the music industry was predominantly concentrated
in New York.
Yet in 1961 a band emerged
who would help put Los Angeles on the musical map.
Amid a West Coast craze for surfing,
which produced its own local youth culture
and instrumental rock sound,
The Beach Boys released a run of hits
that brought this culture to national attention.
Led by the gifted composer and singer Brian Wilson,
with his brothers and cousin in support,
the band's unique sound
propelled them to the top of the music world
and immediately gave California a cultural kudos.
[DOMENIC PRIORE] The Beach Boys
and the surf music phenomenon
out of the West Coast, the waves and the suntans
and the girls in skimpy bikinis and dancing go-go girls
was something that kids in the Mid-West
especially were fascinated by. "I can go out in California
"and be living an endless summer."
Even people in the colder East Coast cities
saw that as an out, way out.
People started to head to California
in the early part of the 60s.
The Beach Boys created that mystique nationally.
[SCREAMING FANS]
["Surfin' U.S.A.", The Beach Boys]
* If everybody had an ocean
* Across the U.S.A.
* Then everybody'd be surfin'
* Like Californi-a
* You'd see 'em wearing their baggies
* Huarachi sandals too
* A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
* Surfin' U.S.A.
[SIMON WELLS] They had this sort of California sun surf
which for everyone, certainly across America
and certainly across the world,
it was a fantastic package.
And it was a brochure to a lifestyle
which many people aspired to.
So it was good time music.
["I Get Around", The Beach Boys]
* I get around get around round, round I get around
* From town to town get around round round I get around
* I'm a real cool head
* Get around round round I get around...
[JON STEBBINS] Surf music had been around,
but it was instrumental music.
They never had really good vocals on them
or vocals at all on them.
All of a sudden Brian Wilson matches
that Chuck Berry surf rock energy
with these amazing harmonies,
harmonies that have sort of a jazz element to them.
There hadn't been anything like that.
[NARRATOR] The Beach Boys didn't just bring
the allure of California to America's teenagers.
In 1964, record companies began opening offices in Los Angeles
and, following the impact
of The Beatles and the British Invasion,
music television shows were in high demand
and began filming at Hollywood studios.
With the industry booming, in LA itself promoters
and A&R men were looking for local bands
to thrust into the limelight.
Enter The Byrds.
[DOMENIC PRIORE] The Byrds changed
the West Coast music scene overnight.
We had all this record company and record business
moving out to Los Angeles in 1964
but The Byrds pretty much defined
what the future of music was going to be.
They took The Beatles' beat and The Beatles' harmony sound
and then mixed it with Bob Dylan's lyrical profundity.
["Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man", The Byrds]
* Hey Mister Tambourine Man, play a song for me
* I'm not sleepy and there ain't no place I'm goin' to...
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] You had a progression in L.A.
The Beach Boys were important in the early 60s
and would continue to be so.
But what The Beach Boys represented
by the time The Byrds came along seemed old school,
this fun and the sun and surfing and all this business.
This sense of a countercultural vision of a new world.
That was kind of inscribed in what The Byrds were doing.
["Turn! Turn" Turn", The Byrds]
* A time of love, a time of hate
* A time of war, a time of peace
* A time you may embrace...
[SIMON WELLS] The Byrds morphed a pop sensibility
with a much deeper theme,
which really up until the end of 1964
no one else had done in pop.
Dylan had done it but he was still a folk artist.
He really hadn't penetrated the higher echelons of pop.
We talk about "Teen Beat" or "16" magazine,
he wasn't featuring in that, but The Byrds were.
[JON STEBBINS] The Byrds were definitely something
that was more 60's, more modern.
They had more of a hippy look.
It was pre-hippy
but Crosby wore his cape
and McGuinn wore his weird sunglasses
and they looked a little edgy.
They had a cool sound.
It was just so perfect and right for the time.
["Riding on a Storm", The Doors]
[NARRATOR] And the Byrds' success soon inspired
a number of other local bands, including The Doors,
Love and Frank Zappa and his Mothers of Invention.
With marijuana more readily available in California
than on the East coast or in Britain,
these acts all shared an underground sensibility,
a stoned mystique that distinguished them
from the pop world.
And they developed as part of a blooming scene,
its center of activity the half-mile stretch of clubs
and restaurants in West Hollywood
known as the Sunset Strip.
Here, at venues like the Whisky a Go-Go,
the old Hollywood order was being dismantled
and the seeds of the coming hippy movement
were being sown.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Oh, it was everything.
The Strip was... there was the Whisky and the Trip
and then there were some lesser clubs up and down The Strip.
The Strip was the heart, the Mecca, where you went.
You were either one of those people who was hip,
smoking grass and stuff.
But for those people who weren't into it at all...
Oh, boy! They were like from another planet.
You couldn't even talk to them.
[DOMENIC PRIORE] In previous days like The Sunset Strip
when the Trocadero and the Mocambo and the original Ciro's,
those were exclusive nightclubs
where the rich and the Hollywood movie stars went to.
And you had pictures of Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe
and all the big names there
but it wasn't really accessible to normal 'Joe'.
You know, you'd see these pictures in movie magazines
and that's about it.
Now that group of people had gotten older.
They'd started performing in Vegas
and teenagers took over the nightclubs.
[DIANNE LAKE] There didn't seem to be this separation.
The musicians were doing their thing
and the audience was doing their thing
but it was all the same thing.
We were getting high.
We were tuning into this expressway to enlightenment.
People were just communing with each other,
both mentally, physically. We were in it together.
[NARRATOR] And it was into this hip new world
that Charles Manson and his four female followers arrived in late
Immediately arranging a meeting with Phil Kaufman's contact,
Gary Stromberg, who was a talent scout for Uni Records,
Manson prepared his best work for the audition.
And Stromberg was impressed enough
to book an hour long recording session
at the illustrious Gold Star Studios,
the venue from which producers Phil Spector
and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson
had recorded their most famous work.
[SIMON WELLS] The first recording session we know of
for Charles Manson is for Universal Records subsidiary
Uni Records.
The tape remarkably exists.
It's unedited which is unusual...
and it presents a raw, untutored... busker
previewing 20 odd songs...
with no guidance, form or structure whatsoever.
[RECORDING] MAN: Hi, Charlie baby.
[CHARLES MANSON] It's very good.
[MAN] OK.
[CHARLES MANSON] Let's see...
[MAN] Do whatever you feel like doing, man.
[CHARLES MANSON] Yeah.
[MAN] Just groove, you know. Tell us when you're gonna start
and we'll turn the machine on.
[CHARLES MANSON] OK, well, you know...
Can't you just turn it on and let it go?
[MAN] OK. We're going to let it go right now.
[CHARLES MANSON] And then take out what you want
and the rest throw it away.
[NERVOUS LAUGHTER]
[DAVID FELTON] I was startled by Manson's voice.
It seemed different then the voice
that he had when we talked to him...
which must have been a year or two later, in prison.
He was more playful. He... a giggled a lot.
And he seemed nervous.
[MUSIC]
[CHARLES MANSON] If I can make myself nervous...
I should be able to make myself unnervous.
[NERVOUS LAUGHTER]
And it makes sense that it works both ways, don't it?
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] He seems younger than he is at the time.
You know he's in his... mid 30s.
And he seems like he's in his early 20s
maybe when you listen to him.
But he's also nervous as hell.
And you know the kind of command, if you know,
if someone were to say to you, "Well, you know this guy
"is going to be like..."
set aside murderer and all the other stuff
but , "cult leader."
You know he's going to be commanding people
and causing them to do whatever he wants them to do.
That just seems absurd.
He's got like ideas for a song,
he's got little sketches in his mind
and some of them really have potential.
They seem like they can become something.
["Home Is Where You're Happy", Charles Manson]
* Your home is where you're happy
* It's not where you're not free
* Your home is where you can be what you are
* 'Cause you were just born to be
* You can have a castle
* And diamonds for all to see
* But, you'll never show you their peace of mind
* 'Cause they don't know how to be free
* So burn...
[SIMON WELLS] Your home is where you're happy.
It's a fascinating piece of work.
That was very attractive to young people
with no visible home or no visible background
or no visible structure
or something they've been alienated from
'cause they knew their home wasn't happy.
They knew they weren't free at home.
So they could buy into Manson's utopian world
through the song.
["Close to Me", Charles Manson]
* Would you mind if I approach you
* With this song may I tell you that I watched you
* How very long that I watched you from afar
* And now right here you are, so close to me
* Now I know it isn't proper...
[JON STEBBINS] There's a Latin influence.
There's a Jazz influence in his stuff.
I was very surprised to hear
actually the smoothness of some of the arrangements
or potentially these arrangements
had a smoothness to them
that just I would never have guessed
that would have been coming out of Charlie.
[DOWNBEAT MUSIC]
[NARRATOR] The sessions didn't convince Uni Records
that Manson was ready for a recording contract.
Taking the rejection in his stride,
he and his Family looked for accommodation,
and found temporary lodging at a communal house
a short walk from Topanga Beach,
known as the Spiral Staircase.
Sharing the property with various drifters,
drug addicts and drop-outs,
Manson and the girls settled into a communal life.
And while he spent time working on his music,
Manson also used the opportunity to search for new recruits.
In December 1967, 14 year old drop-out Dianne Lake
attended a party at the Spiral Staircase house
and became easy prey for an ex-convict twice her age.
[DIANNE LAKE] Charlie comes up, gives me a... you know,
shares his root beer with me,
which was apparently really an honor.
And invites me to come and, you know...
sit in a circle and sing with them.
He was playing the guitar and the girls were all surrounding
and they all came up, hugged me, made me feel really welcome.
Later, Charlie took me under his wing and under his spell
and he seduced me.
He was funny. He was impish, childlike, playful.
You know he had this... he'd shake his head
and his hair would kind of dance around a little.
I mean, he thought he was... I was attracted to him.
I thought he was good-looking.
[NARRATOR] Instantly welcomed
by the other girls in Manson's troupe,
young Dianne quickly fell in
with the group's rituals of hallucinogens
and music, learning every word to Charlie's songs
and joining them in their communal performances.
[DIANNE LAKE] I think we took acid at least once a week.
We'd sit around in a circle
and Charlie would kind of administer it, like a sacrament.
He'd place it on your, tongue and go round the circle.
I mean, it was... it was special.
And most of the trips were good.
And most of them were centered around music.
I enjoyed his music.
At that time, a solo artist with his guitar
was not that uncommon.
[NARRATOR] But by 1968, Charlie began to question
whether his chances of making it in the music business
may be improved if he had a band behind him.
From the Spiral Staircase house and along Sunset Strip,
Manson put the word out that he was forming a group
and looking for young, gifted musicians.
One of the first to turn up for an audition
at the communal house near Topanga Beach
was guitarist Ernest Knapp.
[ERNEST KNAPP] It was creepy, right off the bat.
He had this sense about him that was... just uncomfortable.
Oddly, I didn't audition with the other musicians.
I just auditioned for Charlie and his family.
I set up in the middle of the living room floor.
Put my amp down and plugged it in.
Three of the girls had percussion instruments...
shakers, and a tambourine and some little drum
and actually were accompanying me.
So... which I liked. It was...
I'll take any help I can get, you know.
[NARRATOR] Knapp was invited to join the band,
and the following week returned to rehearse
with Manson's quickly assembled ensemble.
ERNEST KNAPP: Once we had some songs
we knew we could play...
"So, OK, Charlie, what you got?"
And he performed his stuff for us.
I thought he had talent.
I thought his songs were viable.
It was more of a singer-songwriter presentation.
[NARRATOR] Naming the band The Milky Way,
the following day they played
their one and only public performance -
an audition for the Saturday night slot
at the local live bar, the Topanga Corral.
[ERNEST KNAPP] We all met down there
and loaded up into a couple of cars
and drove on up to the Corral,
which at that time was a country and western beer bar
higher up in the canyon.
But we were probably one of the first hippy bands
to try to play there.
And this was in the afternoon
and there was a couple of guys sitting around,
and they were not very nice about it.
They said... no.
[NARRATOR] Manson's only ever band was stillborn,
and he refocused on his work as a solo artist.
Despite its failure, the project had brought him
into contact with another confident young musician.
Bobby Beausoleil, who bragged about his affiliations
to the band Love
and his late night jam sessions with Frank Zappa,
would become a sporadic presence around the family
over the coming two years.
[JEFF GUINN] He was more talented than Charlie.
Everybody who saw the two of them together
would agree, but Beausoleil as a creative artist
certainly saw there was a lot of creativity
in Charlie Manson
and there was a certain bond that was formed between them.
[SIMON WELLS] They shared a musical symmetry.
They had a similar outlook.
They complemented each other quite well.
But Bobby Beausoleil was a strong male.
He had his own independent mind.
That's not something that really fitted in
with Manson's Family.
So while they walked similar paths,
Beausoleil was never a member of the Manson family.
[NARRATOR] But he was well connected.
As Manson was looking to move on from the Spiral Staircase,
Beausoleil suggested the family head north
into Topanga Canyon,
and move into an empty property
where he had been staying in Horseshoe Drive.
Here, in March 1968, the family were joined by Phil Kaufman,
Manson's fellow inmate at Terminal Island,
who was a free man once again.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] When I got out in 1968,
Gary Stromberg knew another guy I knew, Harold True.
Harold had been in contact with Charlie.
So when I got out, Harold took me to Charlie.
When I first met him...
That wasn't the guy I knew in the yard
singing "The Shadow of Your Smile".
[NARRATOR] As impressed as he was
by Manson's harem of women,
Kaufman was also amazed
at the transformation in his music.
And in the compositions themselves,
he could see how these new songs Charlie was writing
were being used to seduce more followers...
[PHIL KAUFMAN] He had a message.
They got a meaning, kind of a pied piper meaning.
Charlie went from Frankie Lane to kind of an acid music.
He was using it.
It was a tool, because young people younger than him,
everybody was younger than him,
were into the new music so he put his lyrics
to kind of a folky type because he didn't have a band.
And "Look at Your Game Girl" was the thing...
"Look at your game girl, come with me."
["Look at Your Game Girl", Charles Manson]
* There's a time for living The time keeps on flying
* Think you're loving baby...
[SIMON WELLS] "Look at Your Game Girl" is the most complex
of all of Manson's songs of that period.
It's multi-layered, it harmonizes with his guitar.
It has different tempos.
His voice range is considerable on them.
So it's a very... It's hard to say,
given what we know about Manson,
but it's a very well-crafted piece of work.
Are those feelings real
* Look at your game, girl
* What a mad delusion...
[PHIL KAUFMAN] He was selling something.
He was selling him.
And they bought it. These girls were lost.
These children were lost.
And the hippy thing, peace and love, that was his bait.
[NARRATOR] But the atmosphere in Topanga wasn't sinister.
Peace and love reigned, and the family was beginning
to experience Manson's conception
of a communal life free from material concerns.
With more new members joining the fold,
he taught them how to live modestly,
feeding themselves by visiting garbage dumps.
Times were good, and these collective activities
would find their way into the songs themselves.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] You're not poor, you have a garbage tent.
You'll never starve, as long as you have a garbage dump.
You buy a piece of cheese.
It's dated today. You can't sell it tomorrow.
There's nothing wrong with it.
You can take it home and put it in the fridge.
And that's what Manson or I did.
I was with him.
[DIANNE LAKE] You know, at first it was like, eugh!
'Cause some of the dumpsters were, you know, stinky.
They don't get cleaned,
they don't get hosed down on a regular basis.
But, you know, there was lots of cardboard in there.
There was also food.
I mean, you know, some of them, you know...
You'd learn when they threw the food out,
you know, what time.
And so some of the stuff was still cold.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] We were eating America's garbage, if you will.
["Garbage Dump", Charles Manson]
* When you're livin' on the road
* And you think sometimes you're starvin'
* Get on off that trip my friend
* Just get in them cans and start carvin'
* Oh garbage dump my garbage dump
* Why are you called my garbage dump...
[JEFF GUINN] If you want to see what Charlie Manson
would have wanted the world to see himself as,
this is the image.
Not the image of some monster
who could make mindless robots go out and kill
but as a wonderful being
who could exist on practically nothing and be richer
than all the people who had all the things
that might otherwise look down on him.
[NARRATOR] But although the atmosphere
within the group was tranquil,
for Phil Kaufman, Manson's constant sermonizing
was becoming intolerable.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] I got old, you know, I got old and I got wiser.
And fortunately I got really wised up
and I saw the handwriting on the cell block.
It was time to get out of there
and divorce myself from him.
The day I left a friend of mine came and picked me up
and he said,
"I got to come, Charlie." He said, "Yeah, I know.
" You're still thinking, aren't you?"
I said, "Yeah, I'm gonna keep it up."
[NARRATOR] Sermons and communal activities
may have filled their time,
but Manson was also keen to make musical contacts.
While he attempted to rub shoulders
with the rock community
living in and around Topanga Canyon,
he also sent his followers to the Sunset Strip.
Here they were to attract the attention
of any musicians they may come across
and effect an introduction to Manson.
And in May, 1968, two of the girls hit pay dirt.
[JEFF GUINN] That was Jo Bailey, who was known as Yeller,
and Pat Krenwinkel, walking down the road
in Hollywood hitching.
A car stops to pick them up. A young good-looking guy says,
"Hey, do you girls need a ride?"
He suggests they go back to his place for milk and cookies.
They think they know exactly what that means,
so when they get back to his house,
which is really a spectacular place,
just off the Sunset,
he really does offer them milk and cookies.
And after a while, he says he's got to go,
he hopes he sees them again sometime.
He's in a band called The Beach Boys.
They dutifully go back and...
Charlie's asking, "Did you meet anybody?"
"Well, there's this one guy who picked us up
"and took us back to his house, you know..."
"What band was he is?" "The Beach... Boys."
And Charlie... that's it.
He is jumping out of his clothes.
"Where's this guy's house?"
[NARRATOR] The Beach Boy
they had unwittingly stumbled upon
was Dennis Wilson, the drummer and younger brother
of the band's celebrated producer and songwriter Brian.
That night, Manson and his entire family set off
for Wilson's property on Sunset Boulevard,
keen to make a real impression.
[JEFF GUINN] Dennis Wilson in the middle of the night,
coming back home, pulls into his driveway
and the lights are on in his house.
And there's a school bus parked there.
There's people in his house.
He gets out of his car and he's going in carefully
'cause he's a rich guy.
You never know what's gonna be there.
And out comes this little short dude with a beard,
"Hey man. How are you?" acting like a host.
And the first words out of Dennis' mouth are,
"Are you gonna hurt me"
And Charlie Manson kneels down
and he kisses Dennis Wilson's foot.
"Do I seem like somebody who's gonna hurt you, man?
"Come on in." And Dennis goes in and they're in his house.
It's the Manson Family making themselves at home.
[NARRATOR] With half-naked girls sprawled around his house,
Dennis Wilson was instantly enchanted
by Manson and his followers.
Of all The Beach Boys, they had unwittingly met
the one who would be most open to their charms.
[DOMENIC PRIORE] Dennis Wilson was 100% different
from the rest of the band in one important way.
He was the athlete.
He was the guy who went out and surfed,
and of course the girls liked him the most.
He was, you know, very ruggedly handsome
and he had a way with women.
The other guys were like, Brian is sort of tall and goggy,
and Carl's like chubby and taking guitar lessons,
and Al's gonna be a dentist,
and Mike's working at a gas station.
He's sort of like the jerk lead singer.
Dennis Wilson embodied what The Beach Boys were about.
Their first songs were about surfing and cars.
Brian Wilson was writing songs about Dennis' life.
[NARRATOR] And the Family had burst into Wilson's life
at a perfect juncture.
In the past year The Beach Boys had suffered
a series of commercial disappointments,
with their genius Brian Wilson
losing artistic control of the band
and mentally struggling
following his prolonged use of LSD.
Trying to refresh their tired image in the new, hip world,
in the weeks before the Manson Family arrived
Dennis had been on the road for a tour
that paired the band with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
This prominent Indian guru had been elevated to superstardom
following his involvement with The Beatles,
yet the combination of his speeches
on Transcendental Meditation
with a rock and roll show
unsurprisingly failed to make any impact.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] It was a disaster.
The people that want to see The Beach Boys
don't want to see Maharishi,
and the people who want to see Maharishi
don't want to see The Beach Boys.
It didn't work.
Interesting idea, but it was a failure.
[JON STEBBINS] '68 was a rough year for them
The Maharishi tour was a disaster.
They had problems
with the southern element of their tour
because of Martin Luther King's assassination.
They were losing money, they were hemorrhaging money.
Records weren't selling.
They really weren't catching up with people culturally.
They were still wearing matching outfits on stage.
So by 1968,
The Beach Boys were perceived as part of the past.
[NARRATOR] Dennis wasn't interested
in being part of the past.
A young man ever alive to new ideas,
he had been fascinated by the Maharishi's teachings
and was looking for greater meaning in his life.
Manson's sermons denouncing material possessions
and celebrating communal and spiritual unity,
along with the sexual allure of the girls,
won him over immediately,
and he invited them all to join him
at his 14400, Sunset Boulevard home.
[DIANNE LAKE] Dennis was a fun guy.
I remember him being kind of a wild man,
he liked... loved fast cars, fast women.
He liked living in the fast lane.
Dennis had just come off of retreat or something
with the Maharishi yogi so I think he...
And Charlie kind of fit that guru...
I think that Dennis was looking for this kind of inspiration.
[JON STEBBINS] Dennis was always looking for more.
He was always looking for the next thing,
and he was like a child in that way.
And I think that these people really interested him.
Part of the thing for Dennis at that time
was that he harbored a certain guilt for all that he had,
for all the wealth and trappings that came with it.
I don't think he ever felt like he deserved it.
I think he felt like he got all of this
basically because of his brother.
And all of this stuff just came to him,
not by his own hard work or not by his own talent,
but just by luck.
[NARRATOR] Wilson had only moved
into his sprawling, rented property on Sunset Boulevard
recently following the breakdown of his first marriage.
With Manson and his wandering harem
now permanent house guests,
he contacted his close friend and collaborator Gregg Jakobson
and invited him to the party...
[GREGG JAKOBSON] My first exposure to the wizard,
as Dennis would call him, was he called me up one night,
"Gregg, you have to come down here.
"You've got to see this guy. He's the wizard
"and he's got all these girls."
For me it was, "OK, Den, I've heard it before.
"Girls and a party. I'm married. I've got a couple of kids."
So I never responded until it was sometime,
maybe a week later when they were much more
part of the whole scene down there at the house.
I must say this. When Charlie was around, he had an energy.
You couldn't not pay attention to Charlie.
He was a likeable person.
He was very charming and he paid attention to you.
I can understand why Dennis called him 'The Wizard'
because he did have that unique ability
to make you feel like you were... he was concerned.
You were important. He didn't just shine you on.
[DIANNE LAKE] Just living on that estate was magical.
I remember getting high
and drinking like orange juice or grape juice
that was just, uh... heavenly.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Don't forget, Dennis had left his house
and his family and his wife and stuff.
Now he had all this adoration and all these girls.
They were making him clothes
and they almost would bow down to him.
So I'm sure for the moment
he was very charmed by the whole scene.
[NARRATOR] But it wasn't all about sex, drugs
and expanded consciousness -
Wilson was also fascinated by Manson's music.
And with his older brother Brian withdrawing from his role
as The Beach Boys' driving force, the other band members
were keen to find their own voice within the group,
none more so than Dennis.
[STEPHEN DESPER] At the time he was developing his skills
on the keyboard.
He would come in in the morning and practice and work things out
and sometimes Brian would help and show him things,
but most of the time he was experimenting on his own.
So he was different from the other guys
who were familiar with chords and transitions
and that kind of thing.
But he was extremely talented, he was a fast learner.
[JON STEBBINS] 1968 was the first time
he was even being looked at
as something serious musically
and Brian was allowing the others
to show what they had.
And Dennis was showing the knack for writing songs.
He's a novice but it's obvious that there's something there.
[NARRATOR] The Beach Boys had also recently
set up their own record label,
Brother Records, with an eye to signing new talent
that would better reflect the times
than their own stale act.
Impressed by Manson's musical talents,
Wilson hoped to both learn from
and collaborate with his new houseguest.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] It was probably the first time
that Dennis got interested in somebody
and the music at the same time,
almost like a producer would start considering
how you deal with an artist
and I think that was where Dennis was coming from
and he realized that he really had something
that he could bring to the table.
And so he became musically Charlie's mentor, let's say.
[DIANNE LAKE] Primarily, the relationship
that bound them together was music.
What I remember is that he was truly fond of Charlie.
I mean, he introduced Charlie to his friends.
Charlie was teaching him how to play the guitar
and he, you know, it was kind of a mutual admiration...
bromance or whatever. That's what I remember seeing,
is that I think they genuinely liked each other.
[JON STEBBINS] It must have been a bit of a vindication
for Manson to be taken seriously by somebody
as well-known as Dennis.
Even though Dennis hadn't really developed himself
as an artist yet, Dennis was a superstar.
Suddenly, you were collaborating with someone
who was very well-known
and comes from a family
that is hugely respected in the industry.
[NARRATOR] Along with Gregg Jakobson,
Wilson was also keen to introduce
his dynamic new house guest and collaborator
to another friend, record producer Terry Melcher.
The son of Doris Day
and the partner of rising star Candice Bergen,
with his prominent role in the LA music scene
Melcher was a vital link between Hollywood past and present.
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] Terry Melcher was somebody
who was very much part
of the Hollywood entertainment scene
and, you know, he produced the first two Byrds' albums,
which are hugely important.
He was very involved with Paul Revere & The Raiders,
who were big hit makers at the time.
I mean, everybody knew who Terry Melcher was.
And so to get his blessing or to summon his interest
would have been a big get for any aspiring songwriter.
[NARRATOR] Over the coming months,
Manson became close enough to Melcher
that he was invited to the Beverley Hills property
the producer rented in Cielo Drive.
Although Melcher and Jakobson were his most frequent visitors,
Dennis Wilson's home was a popular hangout
for many prominent musicians.
[SIMON WELLS] Dennis' house was a gathering point.
Being very liberal, and people sort of felt welcome
and could drop in at all hours,
so many people called in on Dennis,
and obviously collided with the Manson Family.
The likes of Stephen Stills, Glenn Campbell.
Neil Diamond was another.
Neil Young, freshly released from Buffalo Springfield,
came across Manson and he was blown away
by Manson's musical playing.
If reports are to be believed,
he was enchanted with Manson.
He bought him a motorcycle.
Took him along to meet Warners,
who if accounts are to be believed,
wasn't that impressed.
So I think Manson's personable presence enchanted people.
The problem with Manson is
once you bounce that down onto tape it loses everything.
So what you're left with is some songs.
You don't have Manson the character,
you don't have Manson, the girls...
What enchanted people was the package.
[NARRATOR] Now an accepted figure
within the upper echelons of the LA counterculture,
Manson's presence at parties and clubs became common.
And in the very nerve center of the scene,
on the Sunset Strip
and its premiere venue the Whisky A-Go-Go,
he made an indelible impression...
[GREGG JAKOBSON] There was an incident at the Whisky.
One night we were all there at the table.
Charlie had come with us. Dennis was there.
Terry Melcher was there. So we were all there,
drinking beer and having a good time.
And we noticed a bit of a commotion
coming from the dance floor. And the Whisky's packed.
The girls were up in the cages
at the time at the Whisky and the band is playing full on.
The band's really into it because something's going on.
I stood up on the chair.
I stood up in the back of the booth and I said,
"Hey you guys, you've got to see this."
It was Charlie in the middle of the dance floor dancing
and he'd literally cleared the dance floor at the Whisky.
I mean, people slowly pulled back until...
And I swear to God to this day
it looked like electricity was coming out of him.
I mean, that kind of energy
and he literally blew everybody away
on the dance floor by himself.
Nobody could even come close to dancing with him.
But that was Charlie.
He had that explosiveness, that energy.
[NARRATOR] Although he was making his mark on the scene,
by the late summer Manson and his Family
had outstayed their welcome at Dennis Wilson's house.
In August The Beach Boys were embarking
on an extensive tour of the U.S. and Canada
to promote their latest album,
and Wilson decided this would be the perfect time
for his houseguests to move on.
[SIMON WELLS] The party had to end sometime
and it was costing Dennis a fortune
and if all the accounts are to be believed
it was $100,000 in food, gonorrhea treatment,
lost clothing everything. They were bleeding him dry.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] I was told by Dennis' PA man.
"I'm going on the road. Can you... find us a new place?"
He says, "I want my stuff out of there."
Charlie didn't have much choice. The house got closed down.
I closed it down while Dennis was gone.
He came back a couple of weeks later
to a new house.
[NARRATOR] Their friendship and musical collaboration continued,
and Manson used the opportunity to relocate his growing Family
to a more isolated venue.
Spahn Ranch, 30 miles north
of Dennis' Santa Monica home,
was a once a thriving movie location
during the heyday of Western films the previous decade.
Now largely inactive, it proved perfect for Manson's needs.
[JEFF GUINN] Cult leaders can always be identified
by a couple of things they do and Manson did them all.
The first thing is that you have to find people
who feel put upon, persecuted and convince them
that you know the way to protect them but only you.
The second thing you try to do is isolate them.
You've got to get them away from outside voices.
Families, friends, media. Anybody who would say,
"Wait a minute, this guy's a crackpot."
You want to get to a point
where the only voice they hear is yours.
That's not going to work at Dennis Wilson's house.
Spahn Ranch, just outside of Los Angeles,
and if you hear the distance involved,
it's not that many miles.
You think, "It's going to be smog
"and more of these buildings."
But it's actual sort of this natural area
that seems like it's the frontier.
It's the country.
It's as far removed from a big city as you can imagine.
And yet it's only about a 25 minute drive.
Charlie still can reach Los Angeles
but he can isolate his followers.
[NARRATOR] At Spahn Ranch the family became
a commune once again,
and its reputation grew around Los Angeles.
New followers found their way to this rustic idyll,
along with members of biker gangs
the Straight Satans and the Satan's Slaves
and figures from the music world.
[SIMON WELLS] The Manson Family's presence at Spahn Ranch
was like a psychedelic little house on the prairie.
I mean, it was just a lovely throwback.
These guys were on an old film set.
They were dressing up in costumes.
It was a happy-go-lucky scene.
It was free love, free drugs,
music, free food from the dumpster
and famous people were dropping in, yeah.
Dennis Wilson was there.
He took the girls on a garbage dump truck.
It's said Jim Morrison went there.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Whenever Terry and I showed up
or Dennis and I showed up out at the ranch,
he would definitely have everything set up.
When we were there, everybody was on alert
and we were supposed to be entertained.
I said, "Terry, we should... this should be filmed.
"We ought to film this thing. This is history.
"This is really unusual."
I mean, you have the girls. You have the horses.
You have some cowboys. You have the hippies.
You have the motorcycle gang
and you have this big movie ranch.
You couldn't make that kind of stuff up.
I thought, "Terry, we should be filming this."
[NARRATOR] And while the Family were acclimatizing
to this new rural life,
Dennis Wilson announced that The Beach Boys had agreed
to record one of the songs that he and Manson
had been working on earlier in the summer.
This track, "Cease to Exist", perfectly captured
the cult leader's spiritual outlook.
["Cease to Exist", Charles Manson]
* Cease to exist
* Just, come an' say you love me
* Give up, your world
* Come on you can be
* I'm your kind...
[GREGG JAKOBSON] It was more Charlie's composition
than Dennis'.
Charlie would really come from a different place.
Charlie was much more philosophic,
kind of an Eastern philosophy,
and Dennis was fascinated with that to some degree.
He could smell that there was something there
but didn't know what it was. So he went along with that.
He liked that. That was something new.
The Beach Boys weren't writing about that kind of stuff either.
They were still doing surf songs
and "Good Vibrations" and so on which was all cool.
But this was a big departure
and it was very much the '60s, you know.
This was new.
[NARRATOR] But as the band went into Brian Wilson's home studio
to record the track in September 1968,
they shaped the song into their own creation,
and its name was altered to "Never Learn Not to Love".
Stephen Desper, the band's in-house engineer,
oversaw the sessions.
[STEPHEN DESPER] We were all aware
that Dennis had a friend named Charles Manson
and the two of them were both musicians.
And as musicians do, they compare notes.
They write things together.
This was a collaboration
and Charles and Dennis had worked on it together.
It may have been the initial idea
may have been Charles',
but he had given it to Dennis and been compensated for it.
And... The Beach Boys were taking it
and embellishing it as they do and making it their own.
["Never Learn Not to Love", The Beach Boys]
* ...ooo I love you pretty girl
* My life is yours, and you can have my world
* I'm your kind, I'm your kind, and I see
* Never had a lesson I ever learned
* I know I could never learn not to love you...
[JON STEBBINS] Dennis, who knew his way around a studio
and knew his way around vocal arrangements,
took that idea and expanded it
into something that was... more palatable,
that was pop.
And again for The Beach Boys,
it was pushing their sound forward.
* Come in now closer
* Come in closer come in closer ahhhh...
[JON STEBBINS] I think it's a really good song.
I think it's better actually than it gets credit for.
The harmonies are just gorgeous on that song.
I think that the collaboration between Dennis and Manson
really showed potential
with this "Never Learn Not to Love" song.
I think it definitely works.
I think it's a win for The Beach Boys.
And I think an album full of that kind of sound
would have been amazing for them at the time.
[NARRATOR] Yet it was not to be.
While the recording should have provided the Family
with new hope, back at Spahn Ranch
the atmosphere was changing,
and Manson's commune was losing its focus.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Things were getting a little bit rougher,
everybody I think started pulling away,
because more and more we were hearing stories
that The Satan Slaves were now hanging out there.
The picture was... the flower part was going away.
It wasn't flowers and beads anymore.
It was motorcycles and gasoline
and harder core drugs and people coming from downtown LA
that nobody knew. And winter was coming.
It was kind of like the summer was... the season was closing.
It was getting darker earlier and so on.
[NARRATOR] And this reflected a darkness
that had been spreading throughout the counterculture
during 1968.
The Summer of Love was now a distant memory,
the Vietnam War continued to escalate,
and following the assassinations of first Martin Luther King
and then Robert Kennedy,
the younger generation's faith
in conventional political change was crushed.
Across the nation,
the counterculture took up arms
and prepared for battle with the authorities,
with violent clashes breaking out in several cities.
At the same time,
the peaceful civil rights movement
was also transforming,
and as riots erupted following King's assassination,
Black Power became a new slogan
for numerous groups
looking to confront their white oppressors.
And all of these currents fed directly
into the mind of Charles Manson.
Now his sermons altered,
and his spiritual vision of a communal society
was replaced by predictions of a coming apocalypse -
a violent uprising in which African Americans
would overthrow the existing order.
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] The ideas
that Manson was playing around with, race war, revolution,
the sense that everything was falling apart.
I mean, these were commonly thought ideas.
Even at the point that Martin Luther King was assassinated,
he had been outflanked on his left
by more militant black political figures.
So once he was shot and killed,
there was the message of
you see where non-violence gets you?
The idea that the structure was under assault,
couple that with the complicated,
to say the very least,
racial history of the United States,
the sense that these forces were potentially in charge
of a takeover -
yeah, that again was something
that was very much in the air.
[NARRATOR] But Manson took these common beliefs
and warped them into a very singular vision.
In September, aware that his control over his followers
was slipping at the overpopulated Spahn Ranch,
he scouted a new location for their commune
deep in the heart of Death Valley.
200 miles north of Los Angeles,
Barker Ranch offered total isolation,
and he fed this into his prediction
of the coming revolution.
When the black population rose up
to overthrow the white authorities,
their commune would be hidden
in this remote desert retreat, and when the dust settled
they would emerge to rule over a brave new world.
[DIANNE LAKE] Times were different.
It wasn't the same loving... commune
kind of enlightenment thing anymore.
There was an agenda.
He'd always been kind of fostering
and laying some ground work
for this race war.
I think he truly believed that this was going to happen
and so he was always kind of preparing us.
But the whole impetus was to make money...
...to get dune buggies and knives and guns or whatever
and hide out in the desert until this war thing was over.
[NARRATOR] And just as music seemed to have receded
into the background
of the Family's day-to-day existence,
a record was released that shook Manson to his very core.
Having sent a number of his followers to Death Valley
to prepare their new accommodation in the desert,
he and the remaining family members
moved into a house on Gresham Street
in the northern part of Los Angeles.
It was here that he first heard the Beatles' new LP,
commonly known as The White Album.
Through a number of its songs,
somehow The Beatles were sending a message
directly to Manson himself,
confirming his prophesies of a violent race war.
[DIANNE LAKE] When I came back
from the desert to Gresham Street
and there was all this frenetic energy and a lot of it
had to do with the fact that Charlie felt like
The Beatles, through the White Album,
were telling him
that this black/white race war was helter-skelter.
It's coming down fast, you know,
and he would play it backwards.
He was obsessed
and I remember he made me stay and listen
and pee my pants on the rug
because he wouldn't let me leave to go to the bathroom.
"No, you have to you stay here. I want you to hear this."
["Piggies", The Beatles]
* Have you seen the little piggies
* Crawling in the dirt
* And for all the little piggies Life is getting worse...
[JEFF GUINN] "Piggies" was one of the first he talked about,
written by George Harrison. And George later said
his mother actually suggested some of the lyrics
that Charlie thought The Beatles were proclaiming
about how there were certain people
that needed to be punished.
What they need is a damn good whacking.
* In their eyes there's something lacking
* What they need's a damn good whacking...
[SIMON WELLS] Harrison was just doing a dig
at the upper classes etc, etc.
But of course Manson saw it as a call to arms.
What they need is a damn good whacking.
"Piggies" is certainly a violent song
and the word 'pig' would play an important part
in the Manson Family's infamy later on.
["Blackbird", The Beatles]
* Blackbird singing in the dead of night
* Take these broken wings and learn to fly
* All your life
* You were only waiting for this moment to arise...
[JEFF GUINN] The song "Blackbird",
Charlie led his followers to believe
was particularly significant.
That although black people in Charlie's view
were very inferior, they had been enslaved,
they had been mistreated for so long
and now The Beatles were saying they were going to rise up.
You were only waiting for your moment to arise.
And then there's the real hook. Helter Skelter.
In Britain, people would realize Paul McCartney is talking about
an amusement park ride.
But in America, nobody knew what a helter skelter was,
and Charlie took advantage of that.
["Helter Skelter", The Beatles]
* When I get to the bottom
* I go back to the top of the slide
* Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
* Till I get to the bottom and I see you again...
[JEFF GUINN] When you get to the bottom
you go back to the top - that's the blacks.
They're at the bottom, they're going to go to the top.
Helter Skelter is the name The Beatles have given
to the race war that's coming.
* Helter skelter, helter skelter Helter skelter...
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Charlie bought into that
because it's coming from The Beatles.
This fit Charlie's predictions. That that was coming,
that war, that black/white war was coming.
[NARRATOR] Life within the Family radically shifted
in the early months of 1969.
For their exodus to the desert,
they would need vehicles, gasoline and weaponry,
and Manson returned to his criminal ways
to fund these new activities.
But the musical dream was far from over.
In March, Dennis Wilson reappeared
with the offer of a demo session for Manson.
The results would be presented to The Beach Boys themselves
to see whether they would sign him to their new label,
Brother Records.
The recording would take place at Brian Wilson's home studio,
with the band's engineer Stephen Desper
in charge of the session.
[STEPHEN DESPER] Someone knocked on the studio door
and says your talent is here.
So I met him at the front door.
It was Charles and he had with him five girls.
He got his guitar out and he had talent.
I could see why Dennis wanted to do a demo with him
and consider him as a talent they would sign and produce.
It was the producing part that bothered me.
Once he got in front of the microphone
and into the recording environment
he was not like other people.
It was all very foreign to him
and he was annoyed by the whole thing.
And I just wasn't feeling comfortable
about being around him.
[DIANNE LAKE] Charlie had his way of doing things.
He knew best.
Being a rock star, a famous rock star
was not his highest priority,
because if it was his highest priority,
oh, to meet The Beach Boys,
to record in their studio...
Yeah, what do you want me to wear,
how would you like my hair, you know. Right?
[STEPHEN DESPER] After the first song,
he came up in the control room
and we made a playback.
In the course of the playback
he pulled out a 6 inch switchblade
and started cleaning his fingernails. I said to him,
"Charlie, take the knife out of the studio."
The reason for that was because it was Brian's house
and he has family there, he has little girls upstairs.
I don't know what this guy is... you know.
He called one of the girls and they took the knife
out to the car, and then I had to go out
and get him back in the studio,
make sure they weren't wandering round the house
and all that.
But he liked what he had done, he was satisfied with it.
I guess he was there about three or four hours
pretty well into the evening.
[NARRATOR] Despite Manson's satisfaction
with his performance,
he had failed to win over Stephen Desper,
whose job it was to report back to the band
and their management.
[STEPHEN DESPER] I took the tapes to the office.
They asked me how it went and I said,
"He won't take direction,
"and I don't think he's going to be producable.
"But his songs are fairly good.
"I like the lyrics," and so forth.
And, you know, take a listen.
[NARRATOR] Brother Records were not interested,
and although this news never fed directly to Charles Manson,
he assumed from their silence
that he was not going to be part of their roster.
His attentions then turned to Terry Melcher, the producer,
who he had been socializing with since the previous year
and who was still an infrequent visitor to Spahn Ranch.
[JEFF GUINN] Charlie figures out,
when Dennis Wilson can't get him a record deal,
that, "Wait a minute, I miscalculated."
The artists aren't high enough on the food chain themselves.
And now he's got a different target in mind.
That target is Terry Melcher.
You have to remember
that Manson has been trying to get Melcher
to listen to him for over a year.
And he's getting put off and he's getting put off.
And finally Melcher said,
"I will come out to Spahn Ranch.
"I will listen to you."
He said, "Set the time and the date."
[DIANNE LAKE] It raised everybody's hopes
that we were going to make a record,
and earn some money.
And really at that point
the money was to go for gas and vehicles
and food and supplies... for the desert.
[JEFF GUINN] Terry Melcher has other things
going on in his life. His mother's estate
There's problems going on, and he doesn't go.
To him, "Well, so what,
"I'll just call the guy up at some point and say,
"'Hey, sorry I couldn't make it last time.'"
To Manson it's not only a personal betrayal...
but it threatens his hold on his followers and he's furious.
And he goes looking for Terry Melcher.
The first place he goes looking for Terry Melcher
is where he knew Terry Melcher lived, Cielo Drive,
but Melcher's moved.
He and Candice Bergen have gone to a place
on the beach, a property that Doris Day owned.
And now there's new folks renting.
Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.
[NARRATOR] Polanski and Tate
were one of LA's most glamorous couples,
representative of a new Hollywood
that was embracing the counterculture.
Polanski's European films earlier in the decade
had brought him to international attention,
and it was while working on the last of these,
"The Fearless Vampire Killers",
that he cast and fell in love with Sharon Tate,
the lead actress.
Close friends of Terry Melcher and Candice Bergen,
the couple had moved into the house on Cielo Drive
in March 1969.
It was at the end of that month that Charles Manson
came walking furiously up the driveway
looking for Melcher.
[JEFF GUINN] Sharon Tate has a photographer,
her personal photographer who happens to be out there.
And the guy sees storming up the drive
this little scrubby looking guy
looking kind of furious, "What do you want?"
And for Terry Melcher, this is the Polanski residence.
You're in the wrong place. The owner lives out back.
Manson says, "I'll go see him."
"Stay off the lawn, stay away from the main house."
He storms up and the guy who owns the property says,
"Oh, he's moved. I don't want you coming around again
"without telling people you're on your way."
Manson is storming off, and as he's storming off
a beautiful woman walks out of the main house
and he looks at her for a minute,
then he storms away.
Charlie Manson and Sharon Tate did look each other
in the eye very briefly.
[NARRATOR] When he was finally able to locate Terry Melcher,
Manson rearranged their meeting,
and on June 6th, 1969,
the producer travelled to Spahn Ranch
to watch the 34 year old ex-convict
perform an elaborate set.
It would take weeks before Manson was able
to draw a response from Melcher
as to whether he would be recommending him
to Columbia Records.
And it was not the response that he was hoping for...
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Terry finally told Charlie.
He said, "Hey Charlie, I really appreciate your music.
"It's really good, but it's just not my cup of tea.
"I don't know what I would do with you in the studio."
Charlie was heartbroken. He was crushed with that.
[DIANNE LAKE] Charlie was really counting on it
and I think that he had his hopes up...
I think they encouraged it.
They should have been a bit more upfront,
in the beginning.
But maybe they saw something in him.
And I think Dennis did.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] That was a karate chop
to the neck for him,
because I know he was really thinking that
he had it real in there. Terry was a record producer.
This is what a recording artist needs
and a record producer with a track record
and a carte blanche to a big studio.
Yeah, that's everything, if you're Charlie at that point.
So, yeah, that was crushing.
I'm sure that was crushing to Charlie.
[NARRATOR] The events that tragically followed
were fueled by this rejection and the desperation
that was setting in through the Family's chaotic activities.
And as had been the case in his youth,
Manson proved a hopeless criminal.
[JEFF GUINN] At this same time Charlie's been warning
about Helter Skelter
and we've got to get back to the desert.
Nobody here's getting money.
To buy the supplies they need is by doing drug deals.
And among the people he's doing deals with
there's a music teacher named Gary Hinman that he knows.
And there's a big black guy known as Lotsapoppa,
and Lotsapoppa claims to be a Black Panther.
And Hinman's talking about going to Europe.
So that means Hinman's got some money.
With Lotsapoppa, the drug deal goes wrong,
Charlie with a Buntline Special 22 pistol
that he brought, shoots him and thinks he's killed him.
Because he's killed Lotsapoppa,
suddenly becomes convinced that the Black Panthers
are going to be coming after Manson and the Family.
And Charlie may have talked about
a racial apocalypse and everything else
and was exaggerating, but Charlie was scared shitless
of the Black Panthers.
[NARRATOR] That disastrous drug deal in July 1969,
was followed by an even worse event
at the close of the month.
The family's sometime cohort Bobby Beausoleil
was running a drug deal
involving his Topanga Canyon supplier,
the musician Gary Hinman,
and the motorcycle gang The Straight Satans
who were frequent guests at Spahn Ranch.
When the bikers accused Beausoleil of ripping them off
with inferior product,
he and three members of the Family
visited Hinman to get their money back.
But a fight ensued,
the event spiraled out of control
and after two days in his apartment,
Bobby Beausoleil murdered Hinman,
scrawling messages in the musician's blood
across the apartment walls.
It took the police only two weeks
to apprehend the murderer.
[SIMON WELLS] The death of Gary Hinman,
which involved several members of the Manson family
and principally Bobby Beausoleil,
who was not a card carrying member of the Manson Family
but was certainly closely allied in many ways,
at this point also is drug dealing
with the Manson Family.
Ultimately and if who we are to believe apparently,
but allegedly Manson had said to Beausoleil,
"You know what to do", which led to Hinman's death.
Beausoleil is spinning out of control
is picked up very soon with blood all over him.
It led back to the murder and Beausoleil is arrested.
Manson's prison nous would say,
"Well, you know, this is gonna come back to me".
He might not have said, "You know what to do,"
but certainly the strands are all running back.
The deal was conducted from Spahn's Ranch,
possibly facilitated by Manson.
It was certainly all going to lead back to him.
[NARRATOR] Fearful that he would be caught up
in the Beausoleil case, Manson declared
that the time for 'Helter Skelter' had come,
and sent four of his followers into the Los Angeles night
to commit a copycat murder, led by 24 year old Tex Watson.
There were two objectives.
Firstly, that new crimes would lead the police
to assume that Beausoleil was innocent
and that the killer was still on the loose,
and secondly, that the police would target African Americans
for the murders and thus set the race war in motion.
And looking for high profile targets,
Manson sent his hunting party
to Terry Melcher's old residence on Cielo Drive.
[JEFF GUINN] It was location.
He needed to kill famous people
and try to make it look like the Panthers had done it
to get the heat off Bobby Beausoleil.
The place that he was most familiar with
where rich, famous people had to live was Cielo.
If somebody lived where Melcher had lived,
that was somebody important.
The second critical thing why that location was chosen
Tex Watson besides Charlie had been to the house in Cielo
and theoretically knew how to get there from Spahn Ranch.
That's why they picked that house.
[NARRATOR] The murders that occurred on August 8th, 1969,
were amongst the most brutal crimes of the era,
Sharon Tate and her three house guests
slain without any remorse.
And the following night, the killing spree continued,
with wealthy middle-class couple Rosemary and Leno LaBianca
suffering a similarly violent demise.
[SIMON WELLS] Another savage night of killing
but interestingly, in terms of the musical aspect,
this is the night when they decided
to daub "Death to Pigs".
The night before they put "pig" on the door again
referencing back to The Beatles.
The key motive that night was "Helter Skelter"
written on the fridge door.
I have my own feelings
that why the killings stopped at that point,
certainly those sort of killings,
is that when they went back to Spahn's Ranch
and Manson would debrief them of what had gone on.
When he heard Patricia Krenwinkel
had written "Helter Skelter"
in blood on the fridge door, he freaked.
Everyone knew about
Manson's 'Helter Skelter' theories, obsessions.
There was even a nightclub at Spahn's Ranch
called the Helter Skelter.
So I think that's when Manson spooked fully
and that's when the move to Barker Ranch occurred.
[NARRATOR] But Manson was still short of cash.
No longer worried about his relationships
in the music industry,
he decided he was still owed money
for The Beach Boys' recording of "Cease to Exist",
whose lyrics Dennis had changed
without even asking his permission.
He set out across LA to hunt for the drummer,
and eventually found him with Gregg Jakobson
and The Beach Boys' photographer Ed Roach.
[ED ROACH] It was just after the Woodstock festival started
so I know it was like a week or two
after the Cielo Drive episode and... he, he came in
and he just jumped into the room
and he looked just like he looked in the newspapers
where his hair was just like standing and he jumped in
and he said, "I've just come from the moon".
I went, "Holy shit, this is that guy Charlie."
Charlie said, "I need to talk with you,"
and he took him outside.
Dennis came back in, walked in, grabbed the guitar
and walked out and came back in without the guitar
and he said, "I had to give him all my money and the guitar
"or he said he was gonna kidnap my son in the morning
"and kill him."
That was... that was over the song.
[NARRATOR] It was the end of the relationship
and the end of Manson's connections
to the LA music scene.
The following week, he and his followers jumped
into their dune buggies and set out on the road,
heading for the desert.
And while the Los Angeles police force struggled
to make headway in the investigations
of either the Tate or LaBianca murders,
in Death Valley this newly arrived commune
soon sparked the interest of the local law enforcement.
In October, across two raids,
the police arrested the Manson Family
having discovered their fleet of stolen dune buggies.
Charles Manson and some of the murderers
were taken into custody, on far less serious charges,
and while waiting in a detention center,
Family member Susan Atkins,
a participant in both home invasions,
began bragging about the murders to a fellow inmate.
It was the lead the investigation needed.
Connecting the various strands of the story
and interrogating Manson's followers,
the LAPD and the District Attorney
soon were confident they'd found the murderers.
They called a press conference on December 1st, 1969,
to announce that the case was solved.
Charles Manson and his Family became instantly infamous.
[STEPHEN DESPER] My personal reaction was disbelief at first
'cause he didn't seem that bad.
He was weird but I didn't think he was capable.
I didn't think those girls out there in the studio
were capable of stabbing people.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] When I read about it, I was nervous. What?
I was in shock, you know. I didn't believe it at first.
The girls... I couldn't believe how they had changed.
I mean, they went out there and slaughtered people.
They're not, "Look at you game girl.
"Give it up. Give it up all your love."
They went out there and viciously killed people.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] I was at home and someone called me,
"have you heard what happened?"
When I was told that,
I thought for a second and I said, "That's real.
"That really happened." I wasn't surprised.
It all made sense to me.
It had gotten that far out of balance,
that far out of control.
[NARRATOR] Within the music world itself
panic quickly spread.
Although Manson and the murderers were behind bars,
many of the extended Family were still free.
Convinced he was the true target of the attack at Cielo Drive,
Terry Melcher in particular was anxious,
while those who had been involved
with Manson in any way
looked to protect their reputations
and distanced themselves from the story.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Terry went and bought a riot gun,
a 12-gauge shotgun with a sawn off short barrel.
It has like six shells in it.
He literally kept it by his front door.
They were very concerned.
Dennis a little bit less but Dennis would more laugh it off
but Terry was yeah... Oh no, Terry took it seriously.
He didn't know what those people were capable of
and he wasn't gonna take a chance.
[STEPHEN DESPER] I got a call from Beach Boy management.
They told me they were going to take the tapes
and put them in a safe place.
They wanted to make sure there were no copies
or anything like that.
Dennis was off to a non-disclosed area.
Nobody knew really where he was
but there was a sense that Dennis was threatened.
[ED ROACH] It didn't satisfy him at all that Charlie was in jail.
That he wasn't in danger anymore.
Dennis' whole personality changed.
He wasn't at all the same person.
There was a paranoia about him.
The fear of... you know, how close he was to it all...
[NARRATOR] And as the District Attorney prosecuting the case,
Vincent Bugliosi, began to look for witnesses
to call upon during the trial,
he found those close to Manson in the entertainment world
were unwilling to tarnish their reputations by taking the stand.
[GREGG JAKOBSON] Dennis was not going to cooperate with Bugliosi
and neither was Terry.
I believe Terry made a deal with Bugliosi.
What it was I don't know.
Bugliosi wanted to bring Dennis into court,
I mean, a Beach Boy.
He wanted to bring Candice Bergen into court,
Terry's girlfriend.
So, I mean, that couldn't happen in Terry's world.
He did everything possible to... to stay as far away from it
and Dennis did the same thing. OK, I was there.
I'll tell you... So I cooperated.
I wasn't telling any lies
and I didn't see anything criminal happen
so I didn't... I wasn't saying,
"Yeah, I saw the gun or something."
I just told the truth.
[NARRATOR] Manson, meanwhile, was trying to keep control
of his followers from the inside,
and was eager to generate some income
that would help him do this.
Now that he was on the front pages across the world,
he decided this was the perfect time to release a record,
the rock star dream refusing to die.
[JEFF GUINN] Manson felt the tapes
from Brian Wilson's house were brilliant music.
If this was going to be his only chance
to get a musical statement out, he liked that idea.
Also, he had, legal expenses
not just for himself but for the women in the trial.
He desperately had to make sure
that they were going to stay loyal to him.
Their lawyers all wanted to separate their cases
from Manson so that they could claim that,
"Oh, the women were just fooled by this man".
Charlie needed to keep everybody happy.
Charlie had to get money
and what better way to do it, he thought,
than finally releasing this great album of his
that simultaneously would make him a rock star
and at the same that covers all the legal fees.
[NARRATOR] Manson enlisted Lynette Fromme,
known within the Family as "Squeaky",
to make this happen.
And although she discovered
that the recordings from Brian Wilson's studio
were under lock and key, she convinced Gregg Jakobson
to release tapes from a session he had arranged
at Sound City Studios in mid-1968.
She then called Phil Kaufman to aid her
in the release of the record,
and Kaufman, who at this time believed
Manson must be innocent, agreed to help.
[PHIL KAUFMAN] Lynette... Squeaky contacted me,
"We've got to get Charlie's music out,"
'cause somehow he thought that the album would...
people would hear the music and would understand
that what he was doing was valuable.
She got the tape, and I took it into the studio,
we cleaned it up and we did the mix down.
I got some people to chip in some money
to put it out and we made 300 copies.
It was the "Life" magazine cover
which we dropped the 'f' out of 'life'
and it became the 'lie'. It's a lie, he's innocent.
How can you listen to his music,
how can you charge him for such a thing.
["Clang Bang Clang", Charles Manson]
* Clang bang clang Went the big iron door
* They put me in a cell With a concrete floor
* Nine other men in that cell with me
* Moanin' their fate, with destiny
* Clang bang clang...
[PHIL KAUFMAN] This is... one of the original albums.
You can tell it's original by the yellow label.
Anything else is a bootleg.
So he asked me to get the album and I did.
And to this day I regretted my association,
but you can't divorce yourself from the past.
[NARRATOR] The record, upon its release,
received none of the success that Manson felt it deserved,
and even his infamy failed to shift any copies.
[SIMON WELLS] Manson's career as a musician
I think was of little consequence to people
looking at the headlines of at that time.
I think they saw him more
as a cult leader than a musician,
and when they heard the music, it's difficult to marry that
to the carnage that went on and the horror.
So a curio at best, hugely distasteful,
actually what most people thought of it.
No record company would touch it of any note
and it was not going to get any radio play.
It's just another example
of Manson's innocence stroke hopelessness
that he'd imagined that anyone would want to buy it.
[NARRATOR] As the Manson trial became
an all-consuming media circus,
the counterculture itself struggled
to deal with this cult leader and his hippy credentials.
As the crusade against the ideals of this movement
had been emboldened
first by Californian Governor Ronald Regan
and then incumbent President Richard Nixon,
conservative American values were proving more robust
than the counterculture had once believed.
While some tried to politicize the Tate-LaBianca murders
and unwisely held Manson up as a revolutionary leader,
most simply acknowledged
that these desperate, shocking acts
had forever tarnished a movement extolling peace and love.
[SIMON WELLS] I don't think by design Charles Manson arrived
to destroy the hippy dream, but by God he did,
and people have said that from the moment in December 1969
that Manson was on the front of the newspapers,
anyone resembling a hippy was demonized.
[ANTHONY DECURTIS] If you were, somebody on the Right,
who just detested everything
that the counterculture stood for,
you couldn't have scripted Charles Manson
and those heinous murders any better.
It gave the Right every weapon it could use.
I mean, there was sex, there was drugs, there was violence.
The Beatles are in there. You know, all of it. All of it.
It just handed it to the Right.
[DAVID FELTON] The part of the human spirit
that is more tolerant and open
and trusting and less fearful
is one of our super powers really.
But of course you set yourself up sometimes
and I think that was one of the real shocks of Manson
that much like the Hell's Angels at Altamont,
in some cases we made friends with the wrong people.
[NARRATOR] For many who had befriended Charles Manson,
he would remain a permanent presence in their life.
While he became an exaggerated villain in popular culture -
a crazed maniac and psychotic mastermind -
for some drawn into his musical journey,
he was a real and complex figure,
and their association with him left lifelong damage.
Having placed such faith in the man he called The Wizard,
after the shocking news of the murders emerged,
Dennis Wilson was cast adrift.
The once vital soul of The Beach Boys
was left haunted by a friendship he could never erase,
and over time he lost himself in drink and drugs.
He died in 1983, aged only 39,
and had refused since Manson's arrest
to ever discuss the affair in public.
[STEPHEN DESPER] He never brought it up
and I didn't think it was my place to bring it up.
So Dennis never spoke about this.
I'm sure he felt responsible to some extent.
He was highly involved in it, he was all mixed up in it.
[ED ROACH] Dennis never really spoke about the murders.
I mean, he would reflect sometimes
back on his experiences with the Family,
but never... I don't know how much he actually...
You know, I mean, he really did kind of avoid
the whole massacre aspect of it.
[JON STEBBINS] Dennis never really recovered
from the emotional hit that he took from it.
Dennis was already the black sheep of the band
and, you know, this just basically...
Just as he was starting to grow out of that
and become something that people were taking
artistically seriously, this happened,
and it just basically stamped him as a loser forever.
I think that he thought of himself that way.
I think it was battle for people to convince him
he was more than that.
I just think that it followed him all the way,
all the way to the end.
I don't think he ever got over it.
[GENTLE MUSIC]