Les Paul, 1915 - 2009

Solid-Body Legend Plagued by arthritis, Les Paul acknowledges that his playing days are probably numbered, but new releases will preserve his work  November 24, 1991 By MICHAEL WALKER, Michael Walker is a free-lance writer based in New York. NEW YORK -- Les Paul is plowing through the last of his chicken supper at Fat Tuesday's, the tiny basement jazz club in Manhattan where he has performed two shows on Monday nights for the last eight years. It's 15 minutes or so before the start of the first set, and the tables ringing the stage are already filled. As usual, the 76-year-old guitarist and inventor, whose pioneering designs for the solid-body electric guitar and multi-track recording continue to reverberate throughout the music industry, has forsaken the privacy of a dressing room, preferring to devour his pre-show dinner in full view of the fans. Les Paul wouldn't have it any other way. Fat Tuesday's is his woodshed, the jamming haven he adopted after he resumed regular performing in 1984 as therapy for his arthritic hands. Since the club's management reluctantly agreed to let him take over the Monday night spot, the shows have apotheosized into the downtown equivalent of Bobby Short's eternal gig at the Hotel Carlyle. But where Short wears black tie, Paul performs in what looks like whatever he happened to throw on before driving in from his 29-room mansion/recording compound in Mahwah, N.J. Paul's unassuming bearing belies his considerable stature among musicians of virtually every persuasion. Over the years he has, it seems, played with just about everyone: Art Tatum, Charlie Christian, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby (with whom he recorded "It's Been a Long, Long Time"), the Andrews Sisters, Andy Williams--even W.C. Fields. Rock guitarists from Jeff Beck to Edward Van Halen have acknowledged their debt to his studio techniques and guitar design, and the walls of Fat Tuesday's are papered with photos of Paul draping his arm around the players who drop by to pay their respects: George Benson, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton and perhaps Paul's biggest fan, Jimmy Page, who is said to travel with a framed portrait of his idol. These are good times for Les Paul. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and received the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences Trustee Award in 1982. Now, 14 years after he shared a Grammy with country guitarist Chet Atkins for their "Chester and Lester" album, a slew of Les Paul recordings is being unleashed. Capitol Records has released "Les Paul: The Legend and the Legacy," a four-CD box set culled from Paul's and his vocalist wife Mary Ford's years on the label in the '40s and '50s. (See review on Page 74.) The set will include the couple's hits, plus their radio shows, "Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home," which were broadcast on NBC (they also did 170 television shows, sponsored by Listerine, from 1953 and 1960), as well as unreleased material from Paul's personal collection. Early next year, Columbia Records' Legacy label will release two albums of material that Paul and Ford made after leaving Capitol in the late '50s. Paul is also working on four albums of newly recorded material--one album each of rock, jazz, blues and country--featuring the guitarist soloing over songs performed by an all-star ensemble of players. "They're gonna be smokin'," Paul enthuses. Despite his arthritis, Paul still plays with surprising deftness the fluid, echo-drenched jazz-inspired lines he made famous on hits like "How High the Moon." His guitar, as always, is a custom version of the famous Gibson solid-body electric, introduced in 1952, that bears his name. (He still receives a royalty on each one sold.) When Paul and his sideman, Lou Pallo on rhythm guitar and Gary Mazzaroppi on bass, kick into one of the old hits, the club is immersed in the thick, reverb-heavy hi-fi sound that is the guitarist's legacy and signature. The relaxed atmosphere at the shows and Paul's genuinely easygoing demeanor--he graciously signs dozens of autographs and gamely honors requests shouted out from the audience--have attracted a group of hard-core regulars almost fanatical in their devotion. (One had the show piped into his hospital room over the telephone.) "Nobody wanders down here on Monday just because it's Fat Tuesday's--they come to see Les Paul," says Cate Ludlam, a computer consultant who has attended the shows for the last three years. As one Japanese fan exclaimed, marveling at the Les Paul guitar that Paul autographed for him at the club one night: "This is like having the Bible signed by Jesus Christ!" Yet Paul's Monday night gigs are somewhat bittersweet: Both he and the regulars know that his playing days are probably numbered. "These fingers are all shot," says Paul through a mouthful of chicken, holding up his gnarled right hand. "They just don't move. This hand's the same way. He moves there," he adds, wiggling a finger, "but he don't move there." Paul's pluck in the face of his disability seems to inspire the Fat Tuesday's regulars as much as his playing. "I've seen him here in the winter when his fingers looked like sausages," winces Ludlam. Working around his maladies is nothing new: A 1948 automobile accident in Oklahoma so mangled Paul's right arm that he instructed the doctors to set it at a right angle so he could continue playing. Since 1980, he has undergone quintuple bypass surgery and several operations for Meniere's syndrome, a vertigo-inducing ear disorder. "There's a way out of everything," Paul says in his soft, gravelly voice. "You just have to have the determination and will to go in there and fight." His frail health aside, Paul's career is at its most robust in years--or, as he puts, "I'm just gettin' started." Like the roots-mania that has pervaded jazz under the aegis of Wynton Marsalis, Paul's legacy to rock 'n' roll has benefited from his rediscovery by the likes of Van Halen and other rockers who had known him, if at all, through the Les Paul guitar. And his nascent renaissance is a far cry from 1965 when, the hits behind him and Ford and unable to make the transition from pop to rock, Paul hung up his guitar and retired from performing. (He and Ford, who died in 1977, divorced the year before.) "The late '50s and early '60s was a critical time for Sinatra, (Benny) Goodman, Les Paul and Mary Ford--whomever," explains Paul. "Everybody was in trouble, because they've got the devils on their back, and the Beatles and so forth. The record companies approached us and said, 'We want you to change your style.' Mary, who disliked rock, didn't feel as though she should change. We tried one or two things, but it didn't fit. We felt very uncomfortable trying to be somebody other than we were." Yet even if Paul had never played another note, his place in the musical pantheon would have been assured from his inventions, many of which he never patented. ("I was too busy playing," he shrugs.) Perhaps most crucial was his work with so-called sound-on-sound recording, or overdubbing, which he used to layer Ford's vocals into shimmering harmonic choruses and his guitar into dense, multiple voicings. "Nobody had done that before," says Brad Tolinski, editor of Guitar World magazine. "In that sense, Les Paul is the father of modern recordings." Paul's relentless tinkering throughout the postwar years brought forth several seminal innovations. He designed the first eight-track recording machine (the original, which stretches to the ceiling of his home studio, was used to remix some songs on the Capitol box set); perfected slap-back echo; recorded his guitar on a machine running slowly, then speeded up the tape to raise its tone several octaves. Bucking the then conventional wisdom that singers should stand no closer than 2 feet from the microphone, he introduced the now-standard technique of positioning the vocalist inches from the mike, which captured every rasp and sigh of Mary Ford's smoky voice. While encased in a body cast after his 1948 car accident, he designed what would have been the first musical synthesizer. "I had the schematics drawn up--it would have been as big as your refrigerator," laughs Paul, who let the project go after his recovery. Then there was the Log, the solid-body electric guitar he cobbled together in 1941. Unhappy with the tone and feedback problems of hollow-body electrics, Paul mounted two pickups on a 4x4 block of maple and attached to it the wings from an Epiphone guitar he had sawed in half. When he pitched it to M.H. Berlin, president of Chicago Musical Instruments, the parent company of Gibson guitars, Berlin dismissed it as "a broomstick with pickups." In the early '50s, after Leo Fender had scored with his solid-body Telecaster guitar, Berlin reconsidered. "He said, find that guy with the broomstick with pickups and sign him up,' " Paul says. The Log led indirectly to the elegant Les Paul model, which, in various guises, has been Gibson's crown jewel for most of the guitar's 30-some years of production. (Some vintage 1958-60 models, with two humbucking pickups and gorgeous flame-maple tops, command more than $30,000 on the rare-guitar market.) Renowned for its fat, round tone and ability to sustain notes, the Les Paul became the natural choice for rock players when the genre shifted into heavier playing in the late '60s. Jimmy Page used a Les Paul extensively on the second Led Zeppelin album, and Peter Frampton flashed one from the cover of his zillion-selling 1976 live album. Though the Les Paul was overtaken during the '80s by the rival Fender Stratocaster and its clones, its use by Guns N' Roses lead guitarist Slash and other third-generation rockers has returned it to prominence. "Culturally, my God, what a contribution," says Guitar World's Tolinski. "Almost any hard-rock record features it in some way. People say, 'Get me that Les Paul sound,' and you know exactly what they're talking about." Paul has been dreaming up music-related contraptions since his childhood in Waukesha, Wis., where he was born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915. By the time he was 7, he was punching extra holes in his mother's player piano rolls to alter the sound. After a ditchdigger gave him a harmonica that Paul had been ogling ("My mother boiled and boiled it"), he began performing around town, later adding the banjo and then the guitar to his act. He fashioned a harmonica rack from a clothes hanger, his first invention, so that he could play two instruments at once. Soon he was amplifying the sound of his mail-order acoustic guitar with a phonograph needle connected to a radio speaker and had assembled a crude recording device using a Cadillac flywheel. "I was just curious," Paul explains. "My brother would just throw the light switch and was never curious to find out what made the light light. Well, as soon as my mother left the house, I had a screwdriver and the plates off and I'm gonna find out, if I get knocked on my ass, I'm gonna know that there's 110 volts there, whether it's alternating or direct current. I'm gonna know what's happening." Paul dropped out of high school and ended up in Chicago, performing with a cowboy outfit under the name Rhubarb Red (he still tosses a few country groaners, like "Haul Off and Love Me Like You Should," into his Fat Tuesday's sets). At the age of 19 he was performing nationally on NBC radio. Tiring of country music, he immersed himself in Chicago's burgeoning jazz scene, and left for New York with his first Les Paul Trio in 1937, which performed on orchestra leader Fred Waring's national radio show. In 1943 he moved to Los Angeles, where Bing Crosby, impressed with his playing, got him a contract with Decca Records and later tapped him to play on "It's Been a Long, Long Time." With Crosby's encouragement, Paul soundproofed the garage of his Hollywood bungalow in 1945 and turned it into a studio, where he recorded the Andrews Sisters, Kay Starr and other luminaries while developing his recording inventions in earnest. It was there that Paul perfected the multi-tracked "New Sound" heard on his instrumental hits "Lover" and "Brazil," released by Capitol in 1948, and also where he met a country vocalist named Iris Colleen Summers, who later changed her name to Mary Ford and joined Paul as the partner on his biggest hits. (They married in Milwaukee in 1949.) Les Paul and Mary Ford were all over radio and television throughout the '50s, with hits like "How High the Moon," "Via Con Dios" and "Hummingbird." Though much of their work now sounds dated, Paul's recording techniques were nevertheless far ahead of the industry's standard. "If it weren't for him, the whole electric guitar and recording industry wouldn't be happening, y'know, wouldn't have moved out of that earlier era," Jimmy Page has said. "Those experiments of his with recording techniques paved the way for people like the Beatles with their innovations." These days, Paul is happily immersed in his new projects--including the refurbishment of his home studios with the latest equipment. Curators at the Smithsonian have let it be known they want his inventions and prototype guitars when he's ready to let them go (not yet, was his answer), there's his long-promised autobiography to be written, and he's been sorting through his and Mary's TV shows for a home-video release. But his first love remains performing the Monday night shows. "I wouldn't dare miss a night at Fat Tuesday's," he says at the club after a blazing first set. "I like it too much. I never enjoyed playing as much as I do down here." As well-wishers swarm around Paul at the bar, a visitor reflects on a story Paul had related earlier. Back in Waukesha, before he went to bed, the young Paul would tie a string around his big toe and dangle the rest out his second-story bedroom window. His neighborhood cronies had instructions to give the string a yank in the event an "emergency" required his attendance. One Sunday morning, when he was 9, Paul was wakened by a furious tugging on the string--one of his friends, it turned out, had seen a guitar player 90 miles away in Chicago. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair, with the road, the romance of music and especially the guitar. "When he pulled that string," says Les Paul, "the whole world changed for me."

Ritual Killings Terrorize L.A.

Aug. 11, 1969: The Times brings out an extra for the La Bianca killings.

Note: In keeping with the Daily Mirror's practice of posting original documents in Los Angeles history, often for the first time, we present former Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent Bugliosi's opening statement from July 24, 1970, in the Charles Manson trial. Bugliosi gave copies of his remarks to reporters covering the trial, including Sandi Gibbons, now of the district attorney's office, who provided a photocopy. Bugliosi's statement is a model of clear writing; there's barely a word out of place. The text has been edited to conform to Times style but has preserved Bugliosi's occasional errors ("their" for "there," for example). This is in part to preserve the quirks of the document ... and to make it easy to trace copies that are posted on other websites without permission. [handwritten notation: "I have Xed myself from your world."] OPENING STATEMENT TATE - LA BIANCA MURDER TRIAL Your honor, defense counsel, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. As the court has just stated, the purpose of my opening statement is to give you a very brief preview or outline of what evidence the prosecution intends to introduce at the trial and what we expect to prove by this evidence so as to assist you in following the testimony and the evidence as it comes from the witness stand. After weeks of extensive voir dire, you probably already have some rather general idea of what this trial is going to be all about. By the time this trial ends, you folks will probably be as familiar or more familiar with the facts and the evidence as we attorneys. Now and then an attorney will give a rather lengthy opening statement, going into considerable detail on what each witness will testify to. My particular style, if you will, is not to do this. I believe in rather brief opening statements. In the prosecutions final summation to you three or four months from now, you won't be quite so lucky. At that time, we will go into considerable depth, reviewing the testimony of each witness, tieing each witness' testimony in with the testimony of the other witnesses, analyzing the evidence, drawing inferences from the evidence, etc., etc. But today I am merely going to provide you with a very broad structure of the people's case. The testimony of the witnesses, given under oath from that witness stand, will supply all the necessary bricks, as it were. It is the custom of many lawyers to preface everything they say in an opening statement with the repetitious phrase "The evidence will show." Although I will frequently use this phrase, I do not intend to use it any more than I have to. However, on those occasions when I do not preface a statement with the words "The evidence will show," please understand that it is implicit in everything I say. As you know, there are eight counts to the grand jury indictment in this case. The first seven counts are murder counts, the eighth count charges the crime of conspiracy to commit murder. The first five counts of the indictment charge murders allegedly occurring on Aug. 9, 1969. These five murders are commonly referred to as the "Tate" murders. Counts six and seven of the indictment charge murders allegedly occurring on Aug. 10, 1969. These two murders were the murders of Mr. and Mrs. Leno La Bianca. Defendants Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel are charged in the indictment with all seven murders, that is, the five Tate murders on Aug. 9, 1969, and the murders of Mr. and Mrs. La Bianca on Aug. 10, 1969. Each of these three defendants are also charged with the eighth count of conspiracy to commit murder. Defendant Leslie Van Houten is not charged with the first five murder counts of the indictment, the five Tate murders. She is only charged with the murders of Mr. and Mrs. Leno La Bianca in counts six and seven of the indictment. So I would remind you that any evidence at this trial which pertains solely to the five Tate murders, should not be considered by you against Miss Van Houten for the simple reason that she is not charged with these murders. In addition to being charged in counts six and seven of the indictment with the murders of Mr. and Mrs. La Bianca, Miss Van Houten is charged in count eight of the indictment, along with all the other defendants in this case, with the crime of conspiracy to commit murder. Mr. Stovitz and I, representing the prosecution, that is, the people of the state of California, expect to offer evidence in this case proving that on or before Aug. 8, 1969, defendants Charles Manson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel, together with Charles Watson, who is presently in Texas, entered into a conspiracy to commit murder. Whether or not a fifth person, Linda Kasabian, was a member of the conspiracy, will probably be up to you folks to decide. Pursuant to the aforementioned conspiracy to commit murder, in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, 1969, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles Manson murdered five human beings at the Roman Polanski residence, a secluded home at the top of a long, winding driveway, located at 10050 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles. Those five victims were: Sharon Marie Polanski, whose stage name was Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Voityk Frykoswki, Jay Sebring and Steven Parent. As I've previously stated, these five murders are commonly referred to as the "Tate" murders and in the interests of brevity I will hereafter refer to them as such. I will also refer to the Roman Polanski residence as the Tate residence. As I've indicated, the Tate murders took place in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, 1969. Later that same day, in the late evening of Aug. 9, 1969, another defendant, defendant Leslie Van Houten, joined the continuing conspiracy to commit murder. Pursuant to that conspiracy, in the early morning hours of Aug. 10, 1969, these defendants murdered Leno and Rosemary La Bianca at their residence located at 3301 Waverly Drive, in the Los Feliz-Griffith Park area of Los Angeles. What kind of diabolical, satanic mind would contemplate or conceive of these mass murders? What kind of mind would want to have seven human beings murdered? We expect the evidence at this trial to show that defendant Charles Manson owned that diabolical mind. Charles Manson, who, the evidence will show, at times has had the infinite humility, if you will, to call himself Jesus Christ. Evidence at this trial will show defendant Manson to be a vagrant wanderer, a frustrated singer and guitarist, a pseudo-philosopher, but most of all, the evidence will show him to be a killer who cleverly masqueraded behind the common image of a hippy, that of being peace-loving. The evidence will show Manson to be a megalomaniac who coupled his insatiable thirst for power with an intense obsession for violent death. The testimony at the trial from several witnesses will show that Charles Manson was the unquestioned leader and overlord of a nomadic band of vagabonds who called themselves "the Family." All of these defendants were members of Charles Manson's family. At the time of the Tate - La Bianca murders, the Family lived at the isolated Spahn Movie Ranch in suburban Chatsworth, Calif. Although Manson's Family varied in size from time to time, it invariably consisted mostly of females, and that was by Manson's design. He felt that to become powerful, he needed men, but he couldn't attract men to his Family without their being woman to satisfy their every need. We anticipate that Mr. Manson, in his defense, will claim that neither he nor anyone else was the leader of the Family and that he never ordered anyone in the Family to do anything, much less order them to commit these murders. We therefore intend to offer evidence showing that Manson was, in fact, the dictatorial leader of the Family, that everyone in the Family was slavishly obedient to him and that he, like the despots and tyrants of history, always had the other members of his Family do his bidding for him. Eventually, at his command, they committed the seven Tate - La Bianca murders. This evidence of Mr. Manson's total domination of the Family will be offered as circumstantial evidence that on the two nights in question, it was he who ordered the seven Tate - La Bianca murders. Although the evidence will show that Manson did not himself personally kill the Tate - La Bianca victims, we intend to show that since he was a member of the conspiracy to commit these murders, in fact, the leader of the conspiracy, he is equally responsible and equally guilty, under the laws of conspiracy, for these seven murders committed by his co-conspirators. The principal witness for the prosecution will be Linda Kasabian. Linda is also charged with the seven Tate - La Bianca murders, but we intend to petition the court to grant her immunity from prosecution. The evidence will show that Mrs. Kasabian was not a hard-core member of the Family, having come to live with the Family only one month before the Tate - La Bianca murders. In very brief outline form, Mrs. Kasabian will testify that on the evening of Aug. 8, 1969, at Spahn Ranch, Charles Manson instructed her to get a knife, a change of clothing, her driver's license and told her to go with Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel and do everything Tex Watson told her to do. She will testify that pursuant to those instructions, but without being specifically told what Watson, Atkins and Krenwinkel were going to do, she accompanied Watson, Atkins and Krenwinkel to the Tate residence in the late evening of Aug. 8, 1969 and early morning hours of Aug. 9, 1969. Although she did not enter the Tate residence and did not commit any of the murders, she will testify as to her observations, including being an eyewitness to Steven Parent's being shot to death by Charles Watson in the driveway of the Tate residence and to the murders of Voityk Frykowski and Abigail Folger by Charles Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel on the lawn of the Tate residence. The evidence will show that Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring were murdered inside the Tate residence. Mrs. Kasabian did not actually observe these two murders. However, she will testify, for instance, that she observed Susan Atkins coming out the front door of the Tate residence and to Miss Atkins telling her that she had lost her knife inside the residence. Mrs. Kasabian will testify that after Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and she left the Tate residence, at Tex Watson's instructions, she threw the knives which had been used to murder the Tate victims, and the blood-spattered clothing the killers wore, over the side of a hill in the Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles. When the group returned to Spahn Ranch after the five Tate murders, Manson was waiting for them. Tex Watson reported to Manson what had happened, after which Manson asked each of them if they had any remorse for having committed the murders, to which they all replied they did not. Mrs.Kasabian will testify that actually she personally was filled with remorse but she was afraid to admit this to Charles Manson. There will be testimony that after the murders, the word "PIG" was found printed in blood on the outside of the front door of the Tate residence. Among other things, will will introduce into evidence the firearm used to shoot Steven Parent to death, a .22-caliber Longhorn revolver. We will also introduce into evidence the actual clothing the killers wore during the murders of the Tate victims. Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the coroner of Los Angeles County, will testify that the cause of death of Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Voityk Frykowski and Jay Sebring was multiple stab wounds. He will also testify that the fifth victim, Steven Parent, was shot to death. Voityk Frykowski and Jay Sebring were also shot, but their gunshot wounds were not fatal. Both of them died from multiple stab wounds. The evidence will show that Manson knew the former occupant of the Tate residence, Terry Melcher, a music publisher and record producer who, in a rather subtle and oblique fashion, rejected Manson's efforts to have him record Manson commercially as a singer-guitarist. Mrs. Kasabian will further testify that in the late evening of Aug. 9, 1969, Manson told Tex Watson and the others that they had been too messy the night before and this time he was going to show them how to do it. She will testify that on the evening of Aug. 9, 1969, she accompanied Manson, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and one Steve Grogan in a car to various locations in Los Angeles County. Their mission: murder. Linda Kasabian's testimony will show that on this evening, Aug. 9, 1969, as contrasted to the previous night when they drove directly to the Tate residence, in this vast, sprawling metropolis of 7 million people, no one, be they in a home, in an apartment or in an automobile, were safe from Manson's lust for death, blood and murder. The testimony will show that at Manson's directions, the killer's roamed about, initially looking for their victims totally at random. Ultimately, however, Manson directed Linda, who was driving the car, to the address 3267 Waverly Drive in the Los Feliz-Griffith Park area of Los Angeles. A year earlier, Manson had on several occasions visited the former resident at that address, one Harold True. Manson got out of the car alone, walked to the home next door to Harold True's former residence, the home next door being the residence of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca at 3301 Waverly Drive. When Manson returned to the car several minutes later, he called Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, told them he had tied the hands of the occupants of the home, and instructed them on how to murder the victims. Dr. Katsuyama of the county coroner's office will testify that Leno and Rosemary La Bianca, like four out of five of the Tate victims, died of multiple stab wounds. Linda Kasabian will also testify that after Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Lesie Van Houten left the car and Manson and the others drove off, Manson gave Linda, Rosemary La Bianca's wallet and eventually instructed her to hide the wallet in the restroom of a gasoline station in Sylmar, which she did. Later in the night, Manson instructed Linda, Susan Atkins and Steve Grogan to murder a man in his apartment in Venice, a man whom Linda knew, but Linda prevented the murder by deliberately knocking on the wrong door. There will be other evidence connecting Mr. Manson with the Tate - La  Bianca murders which I will not go into at this time. Will the evidence show Manson's motive for these seven murders? As the court will instruct you at the conclusion of the evidence, but before you deliberate, the prosecution does not have the burden of offering one speck of evidence as to the motive these defendants had in committing these murders. We only have the burden of proving that these defendants committed these murders. We do not have the burden of proving why they did it. However, where we have evidence of motive, we naturally offer it, since if one has a motive for a murder, it is very powerful circumstantial evidence that it was he who committed the murder. In this trial, we will offer evidence of Manson's motive for ordering these seven murders. There was more than one motive. Besides the motives of Manson's passion for violent death and his extreme anti-establishment state of mind, the evidence at this trial will show that there was a further motive which was almost as bizarre as the murders themselves. Very briefly, the evidence will show Manson's fanatical obsession with Helter Skelter, a term he got from the English musical recording group, the Beatles. Manson was an avid follower of the Beatles and believed that they were speaking to him through the lyrics of their songs. In fact, Manson told his followers that he found complete support for his philosophies in the words sung by the Beatles in their songs. To Manson, Helter Skelter, the title of one of the Beatle's songs, meant the black man rising up against the white establishment and murdering the entire white race, that is, with the exception of Manson and his chosen followers, who intended to "escape" from Helter Skelter by going to the desert and living in the Bottomless Pit, a place Manson derived from Revelation 9. Revelation 9 is the last book of the New Testament from which Manson told others he found further support for his philosophies. The evidence will show that although Manson hated black people, he also hated the white establishment, whom he called "Pigs." As I've previously indicated, the word "PIG" was printed in blood on the outside of the front door of the Tate residence. The evidence at the trial will also show that the words "Death to Pigs," "Helter Skelter" and "Rise" were printed in blood inside the La Bianca residence. The evidence will show that one of Manson's principal motives for the Tate - La Bianca murders was to ignite Helter Skelter, in other words, start the black-white revolution by making it look like the black people had murdered the five Tate victims and Mr. and Mrs. La Bianca, thereby causing the white community to turn against the black man and ultimately lead to a civil war between blacks and whites, a war Manson foresaw the black man winning. There will be more circumstantial evidence in this trial pointing to Manson's efforts to make it appear that black people had murdered the seven victims. Manson envisioned that black people, once they destroyed the white race and assumed the reins of power, would be unable to handle the reins of power because of inexperience and would have to turn over the reins to those white people who had escaped from Helter Skelter, i.e. turn over the reins to Manson and his followers. In Manson's mind, his family and particularly he, would be the ultimate beneficiaries of the black-white civil war. When we offer this evidence on Manson's philosophy on life, please keep in mind that it is not legally necessary to your determination of the guilt or innocence of these defendants. We are simply offering the evidence to help you understand how and why these seven brutal murders came about, and also, we are offering it as circumstantial evidence that it was Manson and these defendants who committed the murders. I want to add one further point. We intend to call not just one, but many witnesses to testify to Manson's philosophy on life. Among the main witnesses who will testify to Manson's philosophies on life will be Greg Jacobsen, Paul Watkins and Brookes Posten . We intend to offer the testimony of several witnesses on Manson's philosophies because the evidence at the trial will show that Manson's philosophies are so strange and so bizarre that if you heard them from the lips of only one person, you probably wouldn't believe it. So when we offer this testimony [handwritten: about Helter Skelter, etc.] from several witnesses, though it will be somewhat repetitious, please understand the reason why Mr. Stovitz and I feel that it is advisable to do so. What about Manson's followers, the other defendants in this case? The evidence will show that they, along with Charles Watson, were the actual killers of the seven Tate - La Bianca victims. We expect the evidence to show that they were very willing participants in these mass murders. That by their overkill tactics -- for instance,Voityk Frykowski was stabbed 51 times -- they displayed that even apart from Charles Manson, murder ran through their own blood. Aug. 10, 1969: The Times reports the Tate murders. As I've previously indicated, the evidence will show that the five Tate murders took place in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, 1969. The two La Bianca murders took place in the early morning hours of Aug 10, 1969. In addition to Linda Kasabian's testimony implicating defendant Susan Atkins with the Tate - La Bianca murders, the evidence will show that in late October and early November 1969, approximately three months after the murders, while Miss Atkins was incarcerated at Sybil Brand Institute for Women in East Los Angeles, she had conversations with three of her co-inmates, Virginia Graham, Ronnie Howard and Roseanne Walker, in which she told them of her involvement in the Tate - La Bianca murders. And there will be other scientific evidence connecting Miss Atkins with the five Tate murders. With respect to defendant Patricia Krenwinkel, in addition to Linda Kasabian's testimony implicating her in the Tate - La Bianca murders, we will offer evidence proving that her fingerprints were found on the inside of the door to the master bedroom of the Tate residence. [Paragraph deleted: There will be other circumstantial evidence connecting Miss Krenwinkel with these murders. For instance, while Miss Krenwinkel was incarcerated at Sybil Brand Institute, she was told that the words "Rise," "Helter Skelter" and "Death to Pigs" were printed in blood inside the La Bianca residence. She was then asked to print these same words so that her printing could be compared with the printing inside the La Bianca residence. Although she was told that she did not have the constitutional right to refuse to give a printing exemplar, she nevertheless refused to print the requested words. We will offer this as circumstantial evidence showing a consciousness of guilt on her part]. With respect to defendant Leslie Van Houten, who is only charged with the two La Bianca murders, not the five Tate murders, in addition to Linda Kasabian's testimony implicating her in the La Bianca murders, we will offer evidence that at Death Valley in late September 1969 she had a conversation with Diane Lake, another member of the Family, in which she told Diane Lake of her involvement in the La Bianca murders. With respect to Charles Watson, the co-defendant who is presently in Texas, in addition to Linda Kasabian's testimony implicating him with the Tate - La Bianca murders, we will offer evidence that his fingerprints were found on the outside of the front door of the Tate residence. The evidence at this trial will show that Charles Manson started his Family in the Haight-Asbury district of San Francisco in early 1967. The Family's demise took place in October of 1969 with their arrest at Barker Ranch, a desolate, secluded, rock-strewn hideout from civilization on the shadowy perimeter of Death Valley inInyo County, Calif. Between early 1967 and October 1969, as I've already indicated, the evidence will show that seven human beings and an 8 1/2-month-old baby boy fetus in the womb of Sharon Tate met their deaths at the hands of these defendant members of the Family. The evidence at this trial will show that these seven incredible murders were perhaps the most bizarre, savage, nightmarish murders in the recorded annals of crime. I am of course excluding wartime atrocities. Mr. Stovitz and I intend to prove, not just beyond a reasonable doubt, which is our only burden, but beyond all doubt, that these defendants are guilty of those murders. In our final arguments to you at the termination of the evidence, we intend to ask you to return verdicts of first degree murder against each of these defendants. I do not have to tell you folks of the enormous importance and magnitude of this trial. I also don't have to tell you that it's going to be a long trial. As my partner Aaron Stovitz has said, borrowing from Tennessee Williams, "It's going to be a long, hot summer." There's an old Chinese proverb to which I have always subscribed, to the effect that the palest ink is better than the best memory. Because this trial is going to be a long trial with a great number of witnesses, I strongly urge that you take notes during the trial so that later on in the jury room, during your deliberations, you will be able to refresh your memory as to what each witness testified to. Without notes, it's almost an impossible task to recollect even the highlights of each witness' testimony, much less the details. Mr. Stovitz and I feel confident you will give your full, undivided attention to all of the evidence during the trial so that you can give both the people and the defendants the fair and impartial verdict to which they are both entitled. Thank you very much. [Vincent Bugliosi, July 24, 1970]

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Music

June 27, 1979: The Zenith, with stereo tuner, plays records, cassettes and eight-track tapes. The price is $469.95, including speakers. That's $1,376.31 USD 2008. And you can probably pick up one in a thrift store for $10.

Michael Jackson: End of the Jacksons?

Sept. 13, 1981: Michael Jackson tells Robert Hilburn that he's done touring with the Jacksons. "I sometimes feel like I should be 70 by now," Michael Jackson says.

"Our parents did push us, but it wasn't against our will," Tito Jackson says. "I think I'd die on my own. I'd be so lonely. Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room sometimes and cry. It's so hard to make friends and there are some things you can't talk to your parents or family about. I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home," Michael Jackson says.

Michael Jackson -- Master of Marketing

Jan. 15, 1984: Michael Jackson as a master of marketing. "Jackson is assuredly not the innocent he's usually presumed to be."

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept: Your Music

June 25, 1973: Phil Ochs (1940 - 1976) performs at the Ash Grove, 8162 Melrose, (1958 - 1973).

Monorail Planned for Downtown Los Angeles!

"She Was Gone ... Real Gone!"

Voters reject higher taxes. View this page Beatnik robbers tell victim to "play it cool." Woof, Daddy-o. Above, another mass-transit plan that never got off the drawing board. All right, you kids, no more chopped and channeled five-window coupes, understand? And no more lowered front ends on your T-buckets! Next, we're going after your Glass Packs. Nice headline -- does that mean some women aren't upset?

Above, FBI agents give the governor of Mississippi the names of about 10 men involved in the lynching of African American truck driver Mack Charles Parker. Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike addresses a Planned Parenthood meeting and calls California's laws against birth control unconstitutional.

Pop Fligh helps Dondi get out of a jam. View this page Isn't that awfully close to "Miss Procreation?" The Dodgers lose to the Giants and Milwaukee beats Pittsburgh in the 13th inning. View this page

Crash Kills Drag Racer at Dead Man's Curve, May 23, 1959

Dead Man's Curve: Sunset Boulevard west of Groverton Place

Found on EBay -- Elvis Presley

This isn't just any Elvis pin. According to the EBay vendor, this was purchased during Elvis Presley's appearances at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium. Although the dealer gives the concert date of 1958 (when Presley was actually inducted into the Army) the notorious performances were in 1957. Bidding starts at $25.

Paul Coates -- Confidential File, March 25, 1959

Confidential File Quiet Costs Merely $14 for 15 Minutes RIPLEY, Tenn, (AP) -- A businessman who doesn't like rock 'n' roll music bought 15 minutes of radio time yesterday and devoted almost all of it to silence. James W. Porter began his quarter-hour on station WTRB by shattering several records and then proposing a national "Can the Racket League." Now there, I thought, is a man after my own ear. I thought it just before picking up the phone to initiate a long-distance friendship with Mr. James W. Porter of Ripley, Tenn. "Mr. Porter?" I asked the pleasant drawl which answered. (It wasn't one of those deep, chitlin and black-eyed peas types of Southern drawls. Just the kind that has a hint of ham hock in it). "This is James W. Portah," he replied. "Can ah help you?" "Well, Mr. Porter," I said, "I'm a reporter." "There was the briefest moment of silent confusion. Finally, he said: "How's that again? Say your name is Portah, too?" We worked our way out of that small dilemma well within the three-minute time limit. When he understood that I was a "reportah" from Los Angeles, I asked him to tell me what he did for a living down there in Ripley. "You aren't by any chance a music critic?" I wanted to know. "No, suh, ah'm not," he replied. "Ah'm a tobacco growah by trade. Grow the finest brand of tobacco in Tennessee." It took a little effort, but I was able to stop myself just short of asking him if he thought that everyone should grow his brand of tobacco. Instead, I got right to the point. "Mr. Porter, is it true that you bought 15 minutes of radio time just because you didn't like rock 'n' roll?" And that you devoted the time to silence?" "You not jus' whistlin' Dixie, son," he said. "That's what ah did. Daw'gonnest thing evah happened to me. Ah got nationwide publicity. They even wrote me up in the Miami papers. Imagine that! Ah didn't think the story'd evah get outside of Memphis. nothing evah does. "Why, ah even got a call from some Yankee up in Chicago. Mean to tell you, the old boy got real nasty with me." "How's come?" I asked. (I'm highly suggestible). "Tole me to mind my own business. Asked what ah got against rock 'n' roll. Jus' tole him ah don't think rock 'n' roll is music. An, mistah, ah don't!" "Well," I asked, "don't the radio stations down there play anything else?" "Some," he said. "We get country music. And Grand Ole Opry. But," he added dramatically, "we jus' don't evah get any Lawrence Welk." Mr. Porter let that sink in a moment then went on: "Thass an ole boy ah can REALLY listen to, that Lawrence Welk. How about you?" "I don't dig him," I said. "Say what?" Mr. Porter asked. "Tell me," I said, switching the subject away from that dangerous area, "how much does 15 minutes of silence cost on a Ripley radio station?" "Ah paid 14 dollahs," he chuckled. "Course it's a small station. Probably cost considerable more over in Memphis. Ever'thing does." "Mr. Porter," I said. "Just one more question. Have you got a favorite song?" "Well, suh," he replied, "Ah'm a tobacco man. So ah'm partial to ..." " 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' " I chanced. "Son," Mr. Porter assured me, "you ain't just whistlin' Dixie."

Matt Weinstock -- February 4, 1959

A Taxpayer Votes 'No!' As mentioned here recently, the Internal Revenue Service has the legal authority to attack bank accounts of persons who are delinquent in their payments. The policy, however, is not to work a hardship on those earnestly trying to co-operate. Apparently one slips through now and then, as in the case of an angry man who lives in a suburb. He owed less than $60 and had agreed to pay $20 a month until the debt was canceled. But life can be whimsical. When one payment came due he suddenly had to take his wife to the hospital for the birth of their first child. He had $21 in the bank. Not wanting to be absolutely broke, he sent the government $10 and a note explaining the circumstances. First thing he knew some checks bounced. A lien had been put on his bank account. "What's this country coming to?" he asks, among other things. The other things are not printable. * * A NEIGHBOR caught short several weeks ago in a baking emergency, borrowed three cups of flour from a Palms woman. The other day the neighbor's daughter, 15, brought it back, with five Green Stamps for good measure. * * POINT OF VIEW Picture windows high and wide, Provide a spacious view outside; But some intriguing scenes have been From the outside looking in. -- W.B. FRANCE * * IF YOU press him, North Young, a Malibu artist, will tell about the time he and a friend from New York set up their easels near the LaBrea tar pits.  Toward dusk they completed their paintings. The New Yorker's was a portrait of a famous publisher holding his beloved but miserable pet poodle, which he had rescued from the pits. North admired it and asked what he was going to title it. He replied, "Hoist, With His Own Pet Tarred." The New Yorker then looked at North's composition, an abstraction showing two fossils anthropologists had dug from the tar: The left femur of a baby bear from Iraq and the skeleton of a rabbit from an ancient Chinese city. "How about yours?" he asked. North replied, "Iraq Cub Bone and aHankow Hare."  Obviously the fires, floods and landslides didn't do some Malibutes any good. * * KID STUFF-- Kevin, 10, was sent to the grocery store for a can of crushed pineapple but brought chunks instead. When his mother chided him, Kim, 4, remarked, "Well, I see the Lone Ranger goofed again!" . . . As an exercise in originality, Mr.Leatherman had his sixth-graders at Culver School make up limericks. Nancy Guinn's : "I have a fish named Noel, who lives in a very small bowl. He swims all day, in the saddest way, for I think to get out is his goal." * * DURING a discussion of a case with a private investigator Clyde Duber in his Spring Street office, attorney James Starritt, former LAPD detective captain, asked his secretary to go out and get some coffee. While she was gone a sneak thief, a glass partition away from the two sleuths, entered the outer office and stole her purse. * * LOOSE ENDS -- Yep, they finally made it, the Chattanooga Choo Choo Cha Cha -- but Charlie Park is pretending he didn't hear it . . . A furniture store at Sherman Way and Laurel Canyon Boulevard lists among its specials, "Antic Beds." Gal named Rosetta can't figure if it should be "antique" or not. Antic means grotesque and bizarre . . . Frank Barron, just returned from Miami, Fla., reports a restaurant has just opened there named the Diner Shore . . . A Newport Beach paper had this Miscellaneous For Sale ad: "Weight lifting equipment, barbells, etc. Lifted very little" . . . Those who know the place wonder if the current excitement will really blow the lid off Tijuana.

Paul Coates -- Confidential File, February 3, 1959

Bail Cut on Yanks in Tijuana Bail on some of the 20 U.S. residents held in Tijuana on gambling charges has been reduced from $1,600 to $400 and on others to $800. State Atty. Gen. Stanley Mosk was informed by telephone today. The alleged operator of the games was still held in lieu of $3,200 bail.   BY PAUL COATES Mirror News Columnist TIJUANA, Feb. 3-- Twenty Americans shivered in the unheated city jail here today, awaiting word on their request to have their $1,600 bail lowered. Nineteen men and one woman remained in jail of the 43 U.S. residents arrested in a raid on a gambling casino at Rosarito Beach nine days ago. Federal District Judge Eduardo Langle Martinez has promised a decision today. Without bail, the gambling suspects face several months in jail awaiting trial. The woman, Mrs. Rita Nathaniel, 35, of 2330 Coolidge Ave., West Los Angeles, probably will get her freedom today regardless of the judge's decision. Friends Raise $1,600 Employees and patrons of cafes in Santa Monica where she worked as a waitress were reported to have raised $1,600 for her bail and sent an emissary here with it. Last night, when I visited her in her cell, she was taking it bravely -- but there were lines of worry on her face. She is concerned about her children, a girl 14 and a boy 12. Blue with the cold, her worst complaint was that she hasn't been permitted to wash in nine days. Mrs. Nathaniel said she hadn't been afraid until the other American women had been granted bail, leaving her alone. Homes Mortgaged Mr. and Mrs. Harry Rungo of San Diego, who had been released earlier, visited the jail with cigarettes and $10 in change -- all they said they could afford -- to make jail life easier for the others. "Relatives in the East mortgaged their homes so we could get out," Runge U.S. Consul Gen. Robert Hale petitioned the court here for lower bail. Other expressions of concern came from California's Gov. Brown, who said he had instructed State Atty. Gen. Stanley Mosk to check on the rights of the California residents involved. Mosk wired Baja California Atty. Gen. Silva Cota: "The people of California are disturbed at reports of excessive bail being demanded of Californians and other Americans arrested. Mosk asked Cota to "use your good offices to investigate."  Brown said he will ask the U.S. State Department to "make representations to the government of Mexico" if there is no satisfactory response from Cota.  Ask U.S. Help U.S. Reps. Bob Wilson and James Utt also have asked the State Department to intercede. Baja California residents generally seem to deplore the high bail set in the case, fearing that it may frighten off the heavy tourist trade. But Ruben Padilla, director of tourism for the state of Baja California, said there has been no appreciable change in the number of visitors from the U.S. since the raid. He said, however, that "we want to do all we can to have this situation clarified so that it isn't damaging to tourism -- Mexico's biggest industry." He urged potential visitors to look at the raid "in its true perspective." The Mexican government repeatedly had said card and dice gambling were illegal, he pointed out. "The people arrested were breaking the law," he said.