'69 AND THE CRIME ETCHED IN TIME -

"When I Was 17, It was not a very good year"

Rich Buckland

Well. Here is something I've yet to get over in all the years since I first read the grisly details of Sharon Tate’s murder in the Sunday newspaper’s Parade magazine when I was just a wacky hippie teen and beach Boys fanatic.

Cult-leader and killer Charles Manson and Beach Boy drummer and surfer Dennis Wilson were friends. For a while, at least. Good enough friends that Manson and his “family” of young women lived with Wilson for several months. Good enough friends that Wilson convinced the Beach Boys to include a song written by Manson, who had musical ambitions, on their album 20/20.

Which brings me back to the main bad guy, Charles Manson. I knew as early as the Parade magazine article that Manson and his “family” had gone to Sharon Tate’s house looking for Terry Melcher, who did not live there. And I knew that Manson’s actual target was this Terry Melcher, who I also knew was Doris Day’s son. As it turns out, he was an important producer in the music industry.

Yes indeed gand. The 60's was not all Peace, Love and Understanding.

In 1988, Melcher earned a Golden Globe nomination for co-writing the song "Kokomo" with John Phillips, Scott McKenzie and Mike Love. Recorded by the Beach Boys, the song was featured in the 1988 Tom Cruise film Cocktail and hit No. 1 (the band's career fourth overall) on the Billboard Hot 100. The single was certified gold with U.S. sales of more than one million copies.[18] Melcher later co-wrote and produced the band's 1992 studio album Summer in Paradise, which was the first record produced digitally on Pro Tools.

Charles Manson- The White Album
One of the two great influences on the thinking of Charles Manson, along with the Book of Revelation, was the musical group the Beatles. According to Family members, Manson would most often quote "the Beatles and the Bible." The two influences were linked, in that Manson saw the four Beatles members as being the "four angels" referred to in Revelation 9. Revelation 9 also tells of "locusts"--the Beatles, of course--coming out upon the earth. It describes prophets as having "faces as the faces of men" but with "the hair of women"--an assumed reference too the long hair of the all-male English group. In Revelation 9, the four angels with "breastplates of fire"--electric guitars--"issued fire and brimstone"--song lyrics.
Manson believed that the Beatles spoke to him through their lyrics, especially those included in the White Album, released in December 1968. Several songs from the White Album crystalized Manson's thinking about a coming revolt by blacks against the white Establishment. He interpreted many of the songs idiosyncratically, believing, for example, that "Rocky Raccoon" meant black people and "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was a song about getting firearms to carry on the&