Terry Melcher

Bryd's behind-the-scenes player and the band’s first producer

son of ‘virginal’ actress Doris Day at age 17

Melcher’s father was trombonist Al Jorden, who reportedly regularly beat Day, and likely Terry as well. Jorden wasn’t around for long though; his death, when Melcher was just two or three years old, was naturally ruled a suicide.

Doris Day married her agent and producer, Marty Melcher, who was universally regarded as one of the biggest assholes in Hollywood

He also reportedly embezzled some $20 million from his wife/client. On the bright side though, he did adopt and help raise Terry, who took his name.

the most important figures lurking about the periphery of the Laurel Canyon saga, by virtue of the fact that he had deep ties to virtually all aspects of the canyon scene, including the Laurel Canyon musicians, the Manson Family, the Vito Paulekas dance troupe, and the group of young Hollywood actors generally referred to as ‘The Young Turks.’

Melcher first met Vito Paulekas when Terry was still in high school in the late 1950s.

When I was in high school, we’d go to his art studio because he had naked models.”

Melcher befriended Bruce Johnston, the adopted son of a top executive with the Rexall drugstore chain.

recorded together as singing duo Bruce and Terry. Johnstone also played in a high school band with Phil Spector

Spector’s crack team of studio musicians, dubbed The Wrecking Crew, who would provide the instrumental tracks for countless albums by Laurel Canyon bands

Bruce Johnston, meanwhile, would go on to become a Beach Boy, replacing Wrecking Crew member Glen Campbell

Brian’s little brother Dennis, meanwhile, famously forged a close bond with Terry Melcher

Wilson, Melcher and Jakobson, who dubbed themselves the “Golden Penetrators” ( Wilson referred to himself rather subtly as “The Wood”), famously forged a close bond with a musician/prophet/penetrator by the name of Charlie Manson.

1966, Melcher, along with Mark Lindsay of the band Paul Revere and the Raiders, leased and moved into the soon-to-be infamous home at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon (Lindsay would later have the dubious distinction of also living for a time in the other infamous canyon death house, on Wonderland Avenue; Lindsay was also a regular visitor to the Log Cabin).

Melcher’s girlfriend, actress Candace Bergen. Melcher and Bergen remained in the home until early 1969, frequently entertaining numerous high-profile guests from both the music and film industries.

summer of 1968, when Charlie Manson and numerous members of his entourage, including Charles “ Tex ” Watson and Dean Moorehouse, were shacking up with Melcher’s best buddy, Dennis Wilson, Tex and Dean were known to regularly visit the Melcher/Bergen home on Cielo Drive . Charlie Manson is known to have visited the Melcher home on several occasions as well, and to have occasionally borrowed Melcher’s Jaguar.

Just after Melcher and Bergen vacated the home, Jakobson reportedly arranged for Moorehouse to live there briefly, before Tate and Polanski took possession in February of 1969. During Moorehouse’s stay, Tex , who would later be portrayed as the leader of the Tate and LaBianca hit squads, came calling regularly. His address book would later be found to contain a phone number for a former Polanski residence.

Tex Watson was the modish co-owner of Crown Wig Creations on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills .

1968, when Charles Watson met Charles Manson at Dennis Wilson’s home.

Charles (Tex) Watson - he began handling large drug transactions and large piles of cash for Charlie Manson.

Tex Watson was also “a regular patron of the Whisky,” which isn’t too surprising given that Elmer Valentine’s club was well known to be a major drug trafficking site during the late 1960s. Watson’s frequent sidekick Dean Moorehouse.

Dean Moorehouse - hailed from Minot , North Dakota - home of a Process Church faction with deep ties to Offutt Air Force Base.

Speculation that - Moorehouse served as a handler for both Charlies – Manson and Watson.

Bobby Beausoleil - 1969, the trio of Wilson, Melcher and Jakobson got close to Bobby Beausoleil

Jack Gerard, specialized in supplying topless dancers to seedy clubs, and actors and actresses for porno film shoots.

Beausoleil’s primary job with the agency was to deliver carloads of girls to the clubs; more than a few of those girls were members of Charlie’s Family.

Bobby had signed a songwriting contract with (Gerard Theatrical Agency) the agency and begun recording demos.

Beausoleil also accompanied Melcher and Jakobson on at least two trips out to the Spahn Movie Ranch

known to boast of having held over 100 hours of conversations with the all-knowing prophet known as Charles Manson

convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil, who had jammed with Dennis Wilson, played rhythm guitar for the pre-Love lineup known as the Grass Roots, knew Frank Zappa and had visited the Log Cabin, and later composed and recorded the film score for Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising.

Gregg also lobbied NBC to shoot a documentary film about the Manson Family’s ‘hippie commune,’ and the network was for a time quite interested in the project.

Dennis Wilson, Jakobson also arranged for Charlie to record at an unnamed studio in Santa Monica ; that session was also attended by Terry Melcher, Bobby Beausoleil and several of the Manson girls.

Charles Manson, of course, was widely viewed by his contemporaries in the canyon as a talented singer/songwriter/guitarist.

Convicted murdere Steve “Clem” Grogan was a talented musician as well; he later played in the prison band assembled by Beausoleil to record the Lucifer Rising soundtrack

Convicted murderer Patricia Krenwinkle was an accomplished guitarist and songwriter

Brooks Poston and Paul Watkins were accomplished musicians

Catherine “Gypsy” Share was a virtuoso violin player as well as being a singer and occasional actress (see, for example, Ramrodder, costarring Bobby Beausoleil and filmed partially at – where else? – Spahn Movie Ranch). Orphaned as a child when both biological parents purportedly committed suicide, Gypsy was adopted by a psychologist and his wife. Her adoptive mother then allegedly committed suicide as well, leaving her to be raised by her adoptive father.

Share is also notable for being the oldest of Charlie’s girls, nearly twenty-seven at the time of the murders

Gypsy lived with Bobby Beausoleil before meeting and living with Manson, and she seemed to serve as a recruiter for both of them.

Gypsy Share also “arranged for Paul Rothschild, the producer of The Doors, to hear the family music.”

The Family was filmed at Spahn Ranch by Melcher as well. Family members also shot an extensive amount of film making ‘home movies,’ which many witnesses have claimed included Family orgies and ritualized snuff films.

When not hanging out with Charlie and Tex and Bobby, Terry Melcher also found time to produce the records that first catapulted the Byrds to fame: “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

The Byrds appear to have been initially conceived as an electric folk-rock group.

the first two Byrds to get together were James Joseph McGuinn III and Harold Eugene Clark

In 1962, he left the Chad Mitchell Trio and worked for a time in New York City as a studio musician – before hearing the call that so many others seemed to hear and making his way to Los Angeles . Once there, he wasted no time hooking up with Gene Clark.

The newly-formed folk duo soon added a third voice to the mix – our old friend David Crosby, who had formerly been a vocalist with Les Baxter’s Balladeers.

Chris Hillman - Jim Dickson cast him to play the part of the bass player in the world’s first folk-rock band. And as we already know, Hillman had just lucked upon luxurious living accommodations right in the heart of what was to become the music community’s epicenter, so he was all set to become a rock star. his father had – wait for it – reportedly committed suicide

Hillman would ultimately become a skilled bass player and a major figure in the Laurel Canyon-spawned country-rock movement

Donnell Clyde Spade Cooley - Ella Mae Cooley weekly shows at the Redondo Beach Pier

his own local television show, The Spade Cooley Hour

Ella Mae had been spending a considerable amount of time in the company of two men, identified as Luther Jackson and Bud Davenport, both of whom worked in the sprawling, CIA -infested medical research facility at UCLA. On the day of her death, Ella Mae had made the rather bold decision to inform Spade that the two men had initiated her into a ‘free love’ cult and that she had decided to give up her family and all her possessions to join the group, which was in the process of buying land near the ocean to build and operate a private compound.

Spade Cooley’s response to his wife’s declaration was to brutally beat, stomp and strangle her to death, but only after repeatedly burning her with a lit cigarette. All of this was witnessed by daughter Melody, who had been told by her father that “now you’re going to watch me kill this whore.”

Cooley was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to serve a life sentence

Vacaville facility where he served eight years before being offered early parole

November 23, 1969 comeback concert in Oakland for which his captors had agreed to release him on a three-day pass. - promptly dropped dead

manager Jim Dickson, who added fake bass player (but real musician) Chris Hillman

Crosby then rounded out the band by adding fake drummer Michael Clarke

Clarke and Crosby met in Big Sur , which coincidentally happens to be the location of the notorious Esalen Institute (where CSNY would play some years later).

end of 1964, Jim Dickson had signed the band to a deal with Columbia Records.

[They were] Assigned to staff producer Terry Melcher

rehearsal space just happened to be in the very same basement studio that Melcher snuck off to while in high school.

the band, or rather its surrogates, were already in the studio recording “Mr. Tambourine Man,” at the insistence of Jim Dickson

March 26, 1965 the Byrds played their first real live show, as the first act at the refurbished and reopened Ciro’s nightclub

“The Byrds first public gig was booked by Lenny Bruce’s mother, Sally Marr. She got them a job at Los Angeles City College , noon assembly, for a half hour.”

Vito Paulekas booked the Byrds’ first live show, at a rented hall on Melrose Avenue just a day or two before the show at Ciro’s

Terry Melcher recalled, “kids came from everywhere. It just happened. One day you couldn’t drive anymore. It was, like, overnight – you couldn’t drive on the Strip.”

the Monterey Pop Festival, held on June 16-18, 1967 , killed the Sunset Strip scene

Laurel Canyon bands quickly moved from clubs to concert halls to massive sports arenas

Byrds - Gene Clark, dropped out in March of 1966,

Jim McGuinn, joined the Subud religious sect in 1965. Two years later, upon the advice of the cult’s founder, he changed his name to Roger .A decade later, he became a born-again Christian.

Chris Hillman became an Evangelical Christian in the 1980s, but then later switched to the Greek Orthodox faith

Hillman played with Gram Parson’s Flying Burrito Brothers, and in David Geffen’s failed second attempt at creating a supergroup, this one known as Souther.

David Crosby, of course, left the Byrds and became 1/3 of David Geffen’s first supergroup, Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Jim Dickson and Terry Melcher continued to work with some of the Byrds, particularly Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman

Melcher formed a particularly close bond with his fellow ‘trust-fund kid,’ Gram Parsons, as did Melcher’s sometime sidekick, John Phillips

Both Melcher and Phillips, of course, knew Charlie Manson (Melcher raved about him to Ned Doheny), whose former prison buddy, Phil Kaufman, was Parsons’ road manager (and cremator).

Doors’ road manager, Bill Siddons, was once a paramour of Mansonite Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme.