These days, nothing grabs attention faster than a rumor of government conspiracy. Two new documentaries attempt to shed light on events of 1969 and 1970 that are still mysterious all these years later.
CHAOS: THE MANSON MURDERS (Netflix)
The gruesome Tate-LaBianca “Helter Skelter” murders of August 1969 have been well-documented. Charles Manson’s ‘family’ cult killed at least nine people.
The fact that they occurred the same week as Woodstock, the ultimate peace and love festival, made them all the more shocking.
Filmmaker Errol Morris has chased unanswerable questions in the past with films such as “The Thin Blue Line,” which helped get an innocent man off death row. “Chaos” uses author Tom O’Neill’s book as its foundation and ends up taking the viewer down even more rabbit holes as it investigates the mysterious life and influence of Charles Manson.
O’Neill challenges the official account of the Helter Skelter killings and opines that Manson was part of a top secret CIA mind-control experiment. Morris takes these theories and weaves a story that involves the CIA, LSD, Jack Ruby, and Vincent Bugliosi – the prosecutor whose bestselling book was for many years the official chronicle of the murder trials.
Music plays an important role in this retelling of the Charles Manson story. Manson had been a failed musician but had caught record producer Terry Melcher (son of Doris Day) and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson in his web of mystery. Manson was a charismatic leader and, after a stint in prison, became a part of the hippie movement in California and set about gathering like-minded followers. They created a commune at the Spahn dude ranch, completely isolated from the world, where they dropped acid and stared at campfires – all the while, their leader preparing them for the most evil acts anyone could have imagined.
Nobody knew how to even process such evil. Manson’s followers didn’t just murder people, they brutally tortured them in unimaginable ways and used Beatles song lyrics as their reasoning. The documentary does not shy away from showing the murder scenes and real-time testimony of the perpetrators. It is truly terrifying.
For fans of true crime documentaries, this is a must-watch, but it won’t provide any answers; in fact, the government conspiracy angle was more intriguing before I watched the movie.
WHAT HAPPENED TO BLOOD, SWEAT, & TEARS? (Amazon Prime)
Flash forward a few months to the spring of 1970. One of the top recording acts of the day was the brass-rock hybrid Blood, Sweat, & Tears. Originally a project led by Al Kooper on its first album, the band on its eponymous second album morphed into a tougher yet more radio-friendly version. BS&T were at the vanguard of the whole horn band movement that also included Chicago and the Ides of March.
This film by John Scheinfeld features footage from a never-seen documentary. Eleven performances were filmed in 26 days, all behind the Iron Curtain. BS&T were one of the most popular rock bands in the world in 1970. They won the Grammy for Best Album. That second album is a virtual greatest hits: “And When I Die,” “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “More and More,” “God Bless the Child,” and “Spinning Wheel” are all iconic recordings that have stood the test of time. These songs are powered by front man and vocalist David Clayton-Thomas, who added incredible energy to the brass-rock stylings of the band.
Yet, the story of what happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears is, in a way, a rock and roll tragedy. David Clayton-Thomas was from Canada, where he had been a troublemaker for years. Even in BS&T, he could still be wayward – such as when he threatened his girlfriend with a gun. U.S. officials denied him a green card and were ready to kick him out of the country, unless the band accepted a deal.
President Richard Nixon, interested in building credibility with the counterculture, had signed off on a cultural-exchange tour sponsored by the State Department. In an arrangement that saved Clayton-Thomas from being deported, Blood, Sweat, & Tears agreed to become the first rock band to play in eastern bloc countries behind the Iron Curtain and have the performances recorded.
To the fans of the band, making a deal with the Secretary of State, William P. Rogers, was like making a deal with the devil. This was at the height of the anti-Vietnam War protests, civil unrest in cities, and the generation gap. BS&T had notably been apolitical and had not made any real statements for or against the war, like many of their contemporaries. This made them a safe choice to send to Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland.
There was indeed a powerful reason behind the tour. The United States wanted to open up détente with eastern Europe, seeing this as a moral obligation. BS&T were both cool as well as conservative, and the band members were too interested in being musicians than being household names or making political statements. The concert footage in dour governmental stone buildings is truly mesmerizing as the crowds get whipped into a frenzy, then have dogs unleashed on them to calm the audience back down.
Instead of being celebrated back home, the band returns to find a media that is downright hostile, from a combative press conference to having bags of horse manure thrown at them on stage during a performance. Rolling Stone magazine decries their partnership with The Man. The hits stopped coming. So, to answer the question in the title: what happened to Blood, Sweat, & Tears is that they cared so much about the music, that trying to be friendly with the government got them cancelled by the very culture of which they had been a part.
Michael Bird is a music teacher at Faulkner University.
