Everybody Had an Ocean: Music and Mayhem in 1960s Los Angeles

by William McKeen

Overview

"Excellent social history...an indispensable account of a time of beauty and terror." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

A modern epic of the battles between innocence and cynicism, joy and terror

Los Angeles in the 1960s gave the world some of the greatest music in rock ’n’ roll history: “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas, “Mr. Tambourine Man” by the Byrds, and “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, a song that magnificently summarized the joy and beauty of the era in three and a half minutes.

But there was a dark flip side to the fun fun fun of the music, a nexus between naive young musicians and the hangers-on who exploited the decade’s peace, love, and flowers ethos, all fueled by sex, drugs, and overnight success. One surf music superstar unwittingly subsidized the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. The transplanted Texas singer Bobby Fuller might have been murdered by the Mob in what is still an unsolved case. And after hearing Charlie Manson sing, Neil Young recommended him to the president of Warner Bros. Records. Manson’s ultimate rejection by the music industry likely led to the infamous murders that shocked a nation.

Everybody Had an Ocean chronicles the migration of the rock ’n’ roll business to Southern California and how the artists flourished there. The cast of characters is astonishing—Brian and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, eccentric producer Phil Spector, Cass Elliot, Sam Cooke, Ike and Tina Turner, Joni Mitchell, and scores of others—and their stories form a modern epic of the battles between innocence and cynicism, joy and terror.

You’ll never hear that beautiful music in quite the same way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641605717
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/07/2021
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,102,070
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

William McKeen is an author and editor whose books include Mile Marker Zero, Highway 61, and Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay. He is chair of the Department of Journalism at Boston University.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Introduction: Brothers 1

1 Dreamers of the Golden Dream 15

2 Magic Transistor Radio 27

3 They Put the Bomp 45

4 The Second Jesus 63

5 Everybody Had an Ocean 82

6 Sacred and Profane 97

7 The Beautiful Future 117

8 The Ransom of Junior Sinatra 134

9 From Al! Over the World 153

10 The Door Flies Open 183

11 The Loners 205

12 The Teenage Symphony to God 228

13 Captive on a Carousel 263

14 Peace, Love, and Flowers 286

15 The Dread 331

The Tag: Summer's Gone 349

Acknowledgments 369

Notes 371

Bibliography 391

Selected Discography 399

Index 408

Editorial Reviews

"William McKeen’s Everybody Had an Ocean brilliantly illuminates the day-glo rise of Los Angeles as a counterculture Mecca. The back pages of high-octane rock ’n’ roll history are ably explored by McKeen. And once again, the Beach Boys reign supreme.” —Douglas Brinkley, author of Cronkite



“People say the sixties died at Altamont, but William McKeen makes a compelling case that it was really Charlie Manson who brought down the flowered curtain. Everybody Had an Ocean sets a generation’s soundtrack to the improbable true tale of a scrawny career thief who befriended a Beach Boy, almost got himself a record deal, and then unleashed a spacey band of murderers on Los Angeles. Few novelists could dream up such a plot.” —Carl Hiaasen, author of Razor Girl and Tourist Season



“Everybody Had an Ocean is a fascinating, hypnotic look at the underside of the California dream. With smooth prose and keen reporting, William McKeen peels back the facade of peace and love and thoroughly examines the dark heart behind a generation of music. This is binge reading at its best.” —Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The Wrong Side of Goodbye and The Crossing



“A widescreen, meticulously researched account of how Los Angeles—the seedbed of surf pop and folk rock—became the epicenter of American music in the 1960s. McKeen follows the thread from the Beach Boys’ sunny innocence to Manson’s noir horrors—via Phil Spector, Jim Morrison, and a supporting cast of hundreds—and brings the music of the City of Angels brilliantly to life.” —Barney Hoskyns, author of Waiting for the Sun and Hotel California



“A good rock book is all about balance, and McKeen — the chair of journalism at Boston University — effectively and concisely describes… the rapidly evolving landscape of rock music in the '60s.” —The Current



“William McKeen’s Everybody Had an Ocean offers a detailed snapshot of the creative fertility, debauchery, and importance of a signal moment in pop music history. Highly recommended!” —Charles L. Granata, author of Wouldn’t It Be Nice



"This is the best kind of nonfiction—a real page-turner."—El Segundo Herald


"Excellent social history...an indispensable account of a time of beauty and terror." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

From the Publisher

04/01/2017
The opening vignette detailing Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's initial encounter with Charles Manson sets the tone for McKeen's (journalism, Boston Univ.; Mile Marker Zero, Too Old To Die Young) latest foray into narrative nonfiction. With equal appreciation for the pop music emanating from Southern California's musicians in the 1960s, McKeen also illuminates the lascivious, drug-addicted, and criminal activity undertaken by its makers. Though the central narrative is focused on the development of the Beach Boys and their enigmatic front man, Brian Wilson, McKeen relates their tragic success to seemingly unrelated artists of the same generation: Tina Turner and Joni Mitchell. In the tradition of music journalism, McKeen's language oscillates between historian and superfan depending on the artist. His love for the Beach Boys, for example, is noticeable in prose and tone. VERDICT There is no shortage of literature dedicated to the music of this decade in American history. However, McKeen manages to hint at some larger forces, both dark and bright, that constellated this particular group of artists underneath the palm trees of La-La Land.—Joshua Finnell, Los Alamos National Lab., NM

Library Journal

With his toolbox of skills, Johnny Heller provides a friendly and informative narration, sometimes resorting to speedy noirish vocal rhythms when retelling the mysteries of the L.A. music scene in the 1960s. And there are plenty of mysteries. Why did Dean (of Jan and Dean) finance the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr.? Who killed Bobby ("I Fought the Law") Fuller? How did Charles Manson implant himself in Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's home? The audiobook unveils itself like an ancestry chart with surprising associations (Neil Young and Rick James were once bandmates) and a few shotgun weddings (John Phillips was forced to make Cass Elliot part of the Mamas and Papas). Music buffs and musician memoir fans will especially enjoy this fascinating account. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2022 - AudioFile

With his toolbox of skills, Johnny Heller provides a friendly and informative narration, sometimes resorting to speedy noirish vocal rhythms when retelling the mysteries of the L.A. music scene in the 1960s. And there are plenty of mysteries. Why did Dean (of Jan and Dean) finance the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr.? Who killed Bobby ("I Fought the Law") Fuller? How did Charles Manson implant himself in Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's home? The audiobook unveils itself like an ancestry chart with surprising associations (Neil Young and Rick James were once bandmates) and a few shotgun weddings (John Phillips was forced to make Cass Elliot part of the Mamas and Papas). Music buffs and musician memoir fans will especially enjoy this fascinating account. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2022 - AudioFile

★ 2017-02-06
Searching account of 1960s Southern California, when the wistful innocence of the Beach Boys died alongside the victims of Charles Manson.It makes sense that the first figure really to take form in McKeen's (Chair, Journalism/Boston Univ.; Mile Marker Zero: The Moveable Feast of Key West, 2011, etc.) latest book is Murry Wilson, the psychologically tortured, reflexively violent father of Beach Boys Carl, Dennis, and Brian—in fact, the latter was so relentlessly damaged by the shock of a raging parent that, more than half a century later, he is not quite at home in this world. "The boys knew they could stem the brutality with music," writes McKeen, and so they sang—but also drank, drugged, and did all they could to escape. It was an accident of history that Dennis' path crossed that of would-be songwriter Charles Manson, whose creepy, ultimately murderous family would invade Dennis' life and home before committing their infamous acts. In between, McKeen recounts the rise and fall of LA pop-culture icons such as the Byrds, a band born in all sorts of conflict and personality clash even as it projected a flower-power cool: "They wanted to be rock 'n' roll stars, but they couldn't decide what would make the band distinctive." The "star-making machinery," a line of Joni Mitchell's that McKeen cheerfully echoes, took in all kinds of disparate characters, from the lost wild child Gram Parsons to the craggy Svengali Kim Fowley. As the author notes, that machinery had no problem with the waiflike Michelle Phillips straddling a couple of dudes in a bathtub on an album cover but recalled it to sticker over the edge of a toilet that had strayed into the picture. McKeen's book ends near where it begins, with the haunted Wilson family caught up in the terrible vortex of the post-Manson '70s, when hippies were now objects of fear and bedrooms and barrooms were the sanctuaries of choice. Excellent social history, bracketing David Talbot's Season of the Witch (2012) as an indispensable account of a time of beauty and terror.

Kirkus Reviews