Charles Manson's Strange Music Career

now i know it isn't proper to insist but my heart would not allow me to resist it so forgive me if i'm bold but my story must be told close to you i'm not pretending that i'm perfect i am nothing with no vanity but i want you and i need you can't you see you're just a part of me so just sit there for a moment while i sing and remember with his notes is love that i bring and if you enjoy the song then it's here that you belong close to me [Music] charles matson is one of the most talked about morbid icons of the last 100 years although he never killed anybody he is often grouped in with the most infamous serial killers of the 60s and 70s and for good reason the cult that he created known ominously as the family tormented much of california in the late 60s through their insane beliefs unconventional lifestyle and misguided leadership the manson family were responsible for at least nine different murders and dozens of other crimes however it all could have been avoided in an alternative timeline charles matson was destined for a different kind of legacy a well-known fact is that manson was a singer and songwriter during his time in california however this is rarely discussed as it's very often overshadowed by his other insane activities but this doesn't mean that manson's career was boring by any means people often underestimate how truly close he was to making it in the world of music which is understandable given the context but when you separate the art from the artist and you look at manson's musical endeavors from an objective standpoint he had a conventional talent and he was very close to making it on a number of occasions we could have looked at this man very differently if only a few small things happened in his life and it's for that reason that we are going to be having a look at charles manson's strange and bizarre music career and dissect who he was what he did in the world of music and what he could have achieved charles manson was originally called no name maddox when he was born on the 13th of november 1934 his 16 year old mother kathleen would eventually have this changed to charles maddox a few weeks later charles had a number of different paternal figures throughout his life that would influence his behavior and mind stage his biological father was a local con artist known as colonel scott henderson who charles most likely never met because when he was informed that kathleen was pregnant he claimed that he needed to leave on army business but he never returned it was later revealed that colonel was just a name and not actually a profession when kathleen realized this she moved on and married william eugene manson in august of 1934 a few months before charles was born this relationship wouldn't work because kathleen was a heavy drinker who would often binge with her brother luther eventually in 1937 william had enough and he filed for divorce charles would obviously keep his last name but not much else is really known about this relationship except for how rocky and brief it was and it's hard to tell what kind of impact william might have had on charles but one thing is for sure kathleen was alone again and this time it would mostly remain that way until kathleen and her brother luther were eventually arrested in august of 1939 for armed robbery they were sentenced to five and ten years respectively and charles was now a four-year-old who had no connection to his biological father no paternal figure whatsoever and an alcoholic mother who is now in prison this definitely had a pretty severe psychological toll on charles and we would see the effects of this pretty quickly given how mischievous and anti-social he was in his early years charles would move in with his aunt and uncle bill and glenna thomas in the small town of mcmeccan west virginia and there he would cause all sorts of trouble including an actual attempt on his cousin joanne's life that he would later claim to be self-defense one of the many lies told by charles at an early age his mother was eventually released on parole in 1942 and charles moved back in with her she would continue to drink and commit a myriad of crimes that would land her in hot water and it was clear that this would rub off on a young charles manson as he began to commit his own series of crimes from a very early age these included petty theft violent acts and most notably truancy madsen wouldn't just skip school he would also run away from home countless times he would sleep under bridges in the woods and generally he would do anything to escape his troubled home life or his strict catholic school that he attended he would be sent to a number of strict juvenile facilities and reform schools it was a vicious cycle where manson would be sent to a strict school get abused or tormented attempt to flee commit more crimes and then be sent to another school that was arguably stricter this cycle would continue for a few years until he was transferred to a prison in october of 1951 thus concluding most of his teenage years with an abrupt and upsetting ending all of this is pretty well known information and has been for decades but some of it is actually relatively new and comes from a book written in 2013 called manson the life and times of charles manson by jeff gwynne gwynne interviewed a number of people who provided new insights into manson's upbringing including his cousin joanne and some childhood friends who knew him unfortunately a lot of these interviews and insights neglect his musical background and it's difficult to tell if there even was one we do know when he learned to play the guitar a story that we will soon get into and we know that the beatles were arguably his biggest musical influence but we don't know who influenced him before this it's entirely possible that matson was simply a late bloomer when it came to music and that he found his love for it later in life which is strange but given his insane upbringing it's really not that far-fetched regardless manson would find music one way or another he was at a strange point in his life a young man with a troubled childhood who was about to spend the next decade in and out of prison strangely prison is where he would truly begin to hone his musical abilities [Music] madsen left the prison he was in after his auntie convinced authorities to let him live with her the idea was that charles would live there and that he would find work this idea was short-lived because in february of 1952 matson was supposed to attend a parole meeting but a month before that happened he sexually assaulted a young boy at knifepoint and subsequently was sent to a federal reformatory in virginia there he continued to commit more crimes and because of this he was transferred to a maximum security reformatory in ohio he was surprisingly released on good behavior in the summer of 1954 and six months later he married a young woman named rosalie willis who he had a child with in 1956. madsen would not be there for the birth of his son however because a few months prior rosalie and charles stole a car and drove from ohio to los angeles after failing to show up for another parole meeting for another car theft madsen was sentenced to three years at terminal island california now that is a lot of bouncing around charles was being sent from prison to prison state to state and he was continuing to engage in criminal activities over and over again there was no end in sight to all of these wild crimes but there was one very important thing that happened amongst all this madness charles manson was now in california not only that but his mother his wife and his son were also living together in los angeles and matson now had a reason to stay rosalie would later move in with another man and matson would respond to this by trying to escape prison he failed and was given five years probation and in 1958 rosalie divorced charles the madness continued 1959 he was given a 10-year suspended sentence for attempting to forge a check at the end of that year he married leona candy stevens who actually helped him get that suspended sentence by making a plea to the parole board stevens was completely infatuated with madsen so much so that a year later in 1960 madsen took her and another woman to new mexico where he essentially became a pimp and attempted to sell these women on the streets this wasn't a very viable source of income and after manson was questioned about this by police he attempted to disappear suspecting that the investigation was ongoing which it was he was arrested again and this time he was forced to serve the 10-year suspended sentence now i previously mentioned that matson honed his musical abilities in prison and we just talked about an entire decade of crime-filled insanity without mentioning music once and that's because there simply was no music matson hadn't really shown any musical interest in this time at least if he did there's not much documentation about it and there definitely isn't music to show for it but this 10-year sentence was different and madsen would finally pick up a guitar and suffice to say he had one of the strangest teachers you can possibly imagine [Music] in july of 1961 manson was transferred from los angeles county jail to the united states penitentiary in washington there he met an unlikely ally that were proved to be instrumental to manson's musical endeavors this man was alvin creepy carpus born in 1907 alvin creepy carpus was a depression-era gangster who in the 1930s led a small but incredibly dangerous gang known as the barker karpis gang a group that he co-founded with fred barker this group had a network of around 25 people and throughout the early 1930s the gang were involved in countless crimes like kidnapping burglary and murder and the fbi were incredibly determined to put a stop to this gang so much so that karpis had become public enemy number one he is one of only four criminals in american history to be given this label and he is the only one who was captured alive when he was personally arrested by j edgar hoover the director of the fbi he was sentenced to life in prison and he was sent to alcatraz where he spent 26 years there making his sentence the longest in history of that notorious prison after alcatraz carpus was sent to mcneil island penitentiary in april of 1962 and this is where he met a strange young man named charles manson karpis took pity on charles after hearing about his troubled past and decided to teach him the guitar he wrote about this in his autobiography in 1980 this kid approaches me to request music lessons he wants to learn guitar and become a music star little charlie is so lazy and shiftless i doubt he'll put in the time required to learn the youngster had been in institutions all of his life first orphanages then reformatories and finally federal prison his mother a prostitute was never around to look after him i decide it's time someone did something for him and to my surprise he learns quickly he has a pleasant voice and a pleasing personality although he's unusually meek and mild for a convict he never has a harsh word to say and is never involved in even an argument it's honestly baffling that matson was taught how to play the guitar by a man who was considered to be one of the most dangerous criminals in american history especially considering what manson himself would become but regardless of who taught him how to play the result was the same charles manson had picked up a guitar late in life but luckily for him he was a quick learner and a somewhat talented vocalist and this meant that he now had the tools to create his own music but he also had the charisma and confidence he told karpis that he was going to be bigger than the beatles which may come across as a bit delusional but for someone who is in his dire position it actually seemed like he had a bit of hope and that maybe he would pursue something bigger and better than a life of crime of course we know that this did not happen he was eventually sent back to terminal island in 1966 and during his sentence leona stevens divorced charles and it's possible that he was starting to feel institutionalized after having spent over half his life in prison at only 32 years of age he actually requested to stay in prison but this request was denied and in 1967 madsen was released he actually managed to stay out of prison for around two years this time but that isn't because he was an innocent man in fact the crimes he would commit in these two years were the worst things he ever did and he created a group that he used as an instrument for those crimes a group known as the manson family [Music] the story of the manson family's conception is a tale that has been told many times and while it does play a factor into charles manson's music it is not the main force behind it so for that reason we'll keep this brief soon after his relief from prison matson moved to san francisco and moved in with a 23 year old woman named mary brunner in the early days of their relationship matson would try and convince brunner that it would be a good idea to have multiple different women live there in the apartment with them an idea that brunner did not like at first but eventually through manson's manipulative nature he managed to convince her to do this and soon enough the pair were living in a reasonably small apartment with 18 other women this group would begin to revere charles and follow his every word they were the makings of his so-called family and manson was able to utilize a social phenomenon known as the summer of love to his advantage the summer of love was a period of time where around a hundred thousand people began living in a small district in san francisco this area became one of the primary homes to the hippie subculture that would take the nation by storm in the 1960s matson used this as a tool to establish himself as a guru in the area and a small number of enthusiastic followers would hang on his every word eventually manson and these newfound followers would leave san francisco and drift around areas like washington state mexico and the american southwest in this time manson had a son with mary brunner in april of 1968 and a few months later the group were back in los angeles where they would finally find a somewhat stable home being rented out by none other than dennis wilson the drummer of one of the most successful bands of all time the beach boys wilson had been driving through malibu in the spring of 1968. when he picked up two female hitchhikers he brought them back to his home in sunset boulevard in the western part of los angeles and later he left for a recording session when he came back he was greeted by a strange man in his driveway this man of course being charles manson wilson was confused but when he stepped into his house he saw around a dozen people mostly young women wilson was intrigued by this and he was fascinated by manson and he allowed them to stay manson had yet again used his charismatic and manipulative nature to get what he wanted except this time he had done something that most would deem to be impossible he had gone from aimlessly wandering around the southwest of america with his impressionable followers to actually living with one of the most successful artists in hollywood in the 1960s the beach boys were on top they had released 9 top 10 albums and sold millions of records by 1968 when wilson met manson their success had dwindled a bit but they were still a household name and a force to be reckoned with madsen's unlikely friendship with wilson could have led him to be given the same treatment but of course we know he did become a household name but for an entirely different reason still it's fascinating to look back and see how truly close he was to stardom [Music] charles manson and dennis wilson quickly became friends charles was a huge fan of the beach boys and thus was in awe of dennis and his accomplishments likely wanting the same thing dennis liked manson's way of life in an interview with rave magazine he called matson the wizard because of his strange and charismatic energy they would drink together take drugs and talk for hours while manson's followers essentially acted as their servants naturally the two began to play music together and they even formed a sort of collaboration they wrote music together on a consistent basis some of these songs would even be recorded and it seemed as if madsen had found his way into the collaboration process and was on his way to contributing to the beach boys as a whole wilson actually spoke about this in an interview that was given in december of 1968 for record mirror the article was written by david griffiths and it was appropriately titled i live with 17 girls interestingly this is before any of the crimes happened and dennis still brought manson's name up independently when speaking about charles he said his mother was a hooker his father was a gangster he drifted into crime but when i met him i found he had great musical ideas we're riding together now he's dumb in some ways but i accept his approach and have learned from him [Music] this was proof that madsen was very much so involved in the creative process and that it wasn't just a novelty idea that was exaggerated after the murders it was right there in writing after reading this interview i was interested to learn more about this unconventional approach that dennis wilson talked about after all madsen had a relatively limited skill set and it was difficult to imagine him keeping up with wilson from a conventional standpoint but that's probably what made the collaboration work matson was essentially a wild card completely ignorant to the ins and outs of the recording industry and therefore he was able to add a fresh and unique perspective to the creative process interestingly i did not find out much about manson's process through an interview with wilson but instead threw another massive star who also had an interaction with manson neil young would visit dennis wilson's house from time to time when the family were living there in this time he had a couple of interesting run-ins with charles when talking about one of these run-ins young states after a while a guy showed up picked up my guitar and started playing a lot of songs on it his name was charlie he was a friend of the girls and now of dennis his songs were the off the cuff things he made up as he went along and they were never the same twice in a row kind of like dylan but different because it was hard to glimpse a true message in them but the songs were fascinating he was quite good this isn't the only time manson's style was described as off the cuff or unconventional and at times it was probably a breath of fresh air it seemed as if madsen was impressing everybody he was meeting jung was so impressed in fact that he tried to get him a record deal which ultimately failed he also gave him a motorcycle which is a fact that he would nonchalantly bring up in future interviews but unfortunately he wouldn't elaborate much on it still it's a testament to matson's musical abilities and it was time to try and get those abilities out into the world he would record a number of songs at brian wilson's home studio which would never ultimately be released but later he would write a song that he called cease to exist which the beach boys would actually record and release under a new title called never learn not to love manson was not credited for this instead he was given money and strangely enough another motorcycle however this wasn't enough manson's ultimate goal was a record deal of his own he wanted to achieve the same success as dennis wilson and neil young and he was not a patient man while wilson did introduce manson to quite a few promoters and producers these meetings didn't lead anywhere mata particularly wanted to impress terry melcher a friend of wilson and also a prominent producer for columbia records in manson's mind he had done enough and wanted the proper reward for his work but understandably melcher was interested but wary about working with charles because of his brash nature this brash nature is also what ended his relationship with dennis wilson there was a lot of conflicting reports and stories about how this relationship truly ended but there are a number of key moments one of these moments is when manson pulled a knife on a studio engineer while they were recording another is that after wilson told manson about the song he had written being used on the latest beach boys album and that they had made some changes to the song charles had shown dennis a bullish and told him to think of his kids and how nice it is that they're safe which allegedly prompted dennis to beat him up a lot of these stories come from second-hand accounts so it's difficult to tell fact from fiction but either way the result was the same dennis distanced himself from charles and the family moved out of the house and into spawn ranch a disused movie ranch owned by george spahn charles convinced him to let his cult move in there rent free in exchange for free labor and let's just say other favors still after all of this charles wasn't giving up on his dream and surprisingly terry welcher still had some interest in working with him so much so that he gave charles an audition and not much is really known about what happened at this audition but in an article by the new york times in 1970 they quote a testimony from welcher where he states that he wasn't impressed enough to want to make a record and considered madsen to be average apparently even after the audition welcher was still interested in making a movie about madsen and his family but while he was at spahn ranch welcher saw charles get into a fight with a drunken stuntman and subsequently stopped filming sounds kind of familiar anyways welcher was essentially done with manson and so was dennis wilson it appeared as if the dream was dead after the praise the promise and the potential matson had essentially failed maybe he could have changed his ways and made more contacts climbed up the ladder he so desperately wanted to climb and get that record deal he had dreamed of for years but we all know how this story ends this was not a tale of redemption this was a tale of pure carnage and quite possibly revenge [Music] when terry melcher still had some interest in working with manson he met up with him at his house the address was 150 cedillo drive and this would be the home to the most brutal crime the matson family ever committed it goes without saying but the manson family were not some happy-go-lucky group of hippies they were manson's sworn supporters and they revered him like a god anything he said they did and this was ultimately their downfall matson told his followers to go to this address and to kill anybody who was in there four of his followers tex watson susan atkins linda kasabian and patricia krenwinkel went to this address and killed a man named steven parent who was leaving the house they then entered the premises and proceeded to kill everybody inside the victims were jaycee bring wojek furkowski abigail folger and actress sharon tate who was eight months pregnant at the time terry welcher was not there in fact he had moved out months prior and while many people speculated that killing welcher was the primary goal of this attack this was probably not true both tex watson and mark lindsey who was terry's former roommate stated that manson knew welcher was no longer living there and that this was simply a familiar address that manson could send his family to but this was also most likely supposed to be a warning to terry melcher one of the killers susan watkins stated that the act was done to instill fear into terry melcher because terry had given us his word on a few things and never came through with them it is quite possible that matson had an ulterior motive maybe he wanted to scare melcher so badly that he would succumb to the fear and give charles a recording contract maybe madsen still had a small bit of hope in him that things would work out and that he would make it regardless of how unconventional his road to success was but this simply didn't happen and the manson family even continued their killing spree after the tate murders apparently manson was disgruntled that the four murderers had panicked so much when murdering their victims so a day later he took those four murderers and two other family members on a drive so that he could show them how to do it it was on this night that the family brutally killed leno and rosemary labianca meaning that they had now killed seven people and an unborn baby in the space of around 24 hours surprisingly the madsen family would not be apprehended for months in fact there was a time where it seemed as if they were going to get away with it at the end of august three weeks after these murders were committed the lapd released a report stating that all of their leads had gone nowhere they also ruled out any connection between the tate and labianca homicides and they even set up separate teams to work on these cases if the matson family simply laid low for a few months or even left california then it's entirely possible that they would have gotten away with these crimes at least for a few years but they continued to operate out of spahn ranch and also continued to commit crimes such as car theft assault and yet another killing this time donald shay was the victim the previously mentioned stuntman who manson had gotten to a fight with he was living on the ranch with the family as he worked as a ranch hand for george spahn at the time they lived peacefully enough together for a few weeks but eventually tensions began to rise and shay was killed on the 26th of august 1969 when manson believed that he had informed the police of the tate murders this never happened and it was probably just a made up excuse as manson had a lot of other reasons for disliking shay but he used this excuse to convince the family to kill him it was clear that even though they were not being investigated for the tate la bianca murders at the time madsen was still as paranoid as ever and this paranoia would eventually lead to his downfall when investigators were able to piece together similar crimes in the area and link it all back to the matson family although it took a while the family were apprehended on the 1st of december 1969 and from there fingerprints were discovered weapons that were used for the murders were found and confessions were made when looking at all the evidence they eventually found it's actually surprising that it took so long to prosecute the family but they did not have this evidence to begin with and the picture only became clear after the arrests in the summer of 1971 the trial began and the prosecution had a key witness that helped put the murderers and manson behind bars linda kasabian was there on the night of the murders but simply kept watch and didn't actually kill anybody herself in fact she was having a lot of second thoughts about her role in the family and for obvious reasons she was terrified of manson so much so that she fled spahn ranch two days after the killings she then turned herself in and the family were arrested and agreed to testify against him this testimony lasted 18 days and it's often been cited as one of the main reasons that the madsen family were convicted on the 25th of january 1971 each defendant was found guilty by a jury of their peers and finally it was over the family and manson in particular had become infamous in the eyes of the public over the last year charles had wanted to be a loved musician who was respected and revered but instead he was the nation's villain the poster child for evil and a man who would go down in history for all the wrong reasons strangely we had to wait until manson was locked up in order to hear some of his music phil kaufman a record producer who had met matson in prison and briefly lived with him raised around three thousand dollars and managed to release the album known as lie the love and terror cult a 14-track album that featured songs from charles matson that were recorded between 1967 and 1968. the album was raw and unconventional but filled with interesting moments it started out with look at your game girl manson's most popular song by far a song that was more upbeat and more cohesive than most of the other songs on the album it was surprisingly cheery although some of the lyrics did have dark undertones the album would have a few more moments that had a somewhat positive tone like the songs home is where your heart is and arkansas but songs like mechanical man i'll never say never to always and big iron door were a lot more blatant when it came to how dark the lyrics were this actually created an interesting contrast and you didn't really know what you were going to get on the next song but the album still flowed quite well and overall it was a decent psychedelic folk album i don't think it would have achieved the success that it did without the major controversy behind it as you could tell some of these songs or at least the lyrics were just made up on the spot as he had a tendency to ramble on about a myriad of topics still there was potential and maybe if madsen had been given the right tools to make more polished coherent music he might have made an album that could have propelled him to success manson would go on to release some more music from prison but these jail recordings were even less polished for obvious reasons and they were never really discussed in the same way that his first album was most of these songs essentially faded into obscurity matson and his cult would have a large cultural impact especially in the world of music but this had little to do with the recorded work and more to do with the manson family's dark image the english group kasabian named themselves after linda kasabian and they would achieve immense success in the uk shock rocker marilyn manson named himself after marilyn monroe and charles manson and he would become one of the biggest industrial metal acts in the last few decades and the electro-industrial group spawn ranch would name themselves after the home that the manson family lived in on top of this madsen's name has been dropped in countless songs his tracks have been covered by massive musical acts and his image has been used or referenced on numerous occasions so yes manson and the lore surrounding his life made a significant impact on the world of music and quite possibly changed it forever in some way but it had very little to do with his actual music and more to do with the insane man that he was charles matson died in prison on the 19th of november 2017 at the age of 83 from cardiac arrest and it's safe to say that he was not remembered for his music overall the story surrounding charles matson and his insane attempts to enter the musical world are almost hard to believe he learned to play guitar from one of the most wanted men in american history he wrote a song for the beach boys and lived with one of their members for several months he drew comparisons to bob dylan by people like neil young and he met with record producers label reps and influential people in the industry and after all of this he still failed he was able to manipulate his way into insane positions but right when he should have capitalized on those opportunities he would do something erratic or violent and squander any real chance he could have had he was his own worst enemy and his self-destructive tendencies led him down a path of carnage and bloodshed that almost seemed inevitable a lot of people cite manson's upbringing as a reason for his violent tendencies but when it comes to manson's musical endeavors there was nobody to blame for his failure except for himself it wasn't dennis wilson's fault it wasn't terry welch's fault and it wasn't his mother's fault the only person that stopped charles matson from making it in the world of music was charles matson people look at you today 20 years later and they still have no idea what you're about tell me in a sentence who you are nobody i'm nobody i'm a [ __ ] a bum a hobo i'm a box car and a jug of wine and a straight razor if you get too close to me and that is it for this episode of morbid musicians thank you very much for watching as always i will leave link down below to a document titled the charles matson document there you can find further reading sources articles books and everything else that i use to make this video on top of that i will leave a link to a playlist that i've called the charles manson playlist where you can find some music that i listen to and also music that relates to this story you can follow me over on twitter or instagram both of which is actoberg321 and my second channel which is d burke all caps they are the places that i will be when i'm not here obviously it takes a lot longer to make these kinds of videos so i won't be as active on this channel once again big thank you to ridge wallets for sponsoring this video i really do appreciate it and i will see you guys in the next episode of morbid musicians

Channel: Deburke321

Views: 104,890

Keywords: Charles Manson, Charles Manson Interview, Charles Manson Documentary, Documentary, Deburke321, Charles Manson Music, charles manson once upon a time in hollywood, charles manson mindhunter, charles manson album, charles manson answer, charles manson beach boys song, charles manson cease to exist, charles manson court

Id: dTD4uqcTVRw

Length: 34min 8sec (2048 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020