In 1960, The Beach Boys released "Surfin' USA ," a song that captured the joyful exuberance of girls, cars, surfing and everything Southern California had to offer. Los Angeles, at the time, was a surf rock mecca that had a beautiful and unpretentious side reflected in the music. But the promise of the early 60s turned tragic by the end of the decade. As a colorful cast of characters—including Charles Manson, Jan and Dean, Joni Mitchell, Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra Jr., the Mamas and the Papas, Elvis Presley, and Ike and Tina Turner—emerged, the Wilson brothers found themselves pulled into a terror-filled existence that spiraled from free love orgies and surf music to kidnappings and ransoms. Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped. Texas singer Bobby Fuller turned up dead in suspicious circumstances that were nonetheless ruled a suicide. Most notably, Dennis Wilson became closely involved with Manson in the late 60s, as Manson attempted to break into the music industry. The terror culminated in the infamous Manson murders, in which Manson and his followers brutally killed nine people.In Everybody Had an Ocean: Music and Mayhem in 1960s Los Angeles, released April 1 on Chicago Review press, rock author and Boston University professor William McKeen, whose diagnosis with cancer spurned him to complete the book he'd long contemplated writing, explores the dark and twisted story of the era. How did sun-tanned all-American boys known for their carefree teen anthems wind up roommates with a failed rock star turned one of the most vicious criminals of the century? How was music entangled with some of the other kidnappings and murders of the era? I talked to McKeen to find out.Continue reading on Noisey.
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