Macabre Melodies: Linda Ronstadt’s dinner with a member of the Manson Family
No part of being a rock and roll star guarantees safety in the job description. There are many perks to being one of the biggest stars in the world, but the minute that someone gets onstage, they start to realise what they have become involved with once they start getting the jitters and try their best to make it through every single set they play. It’s enough for most people to go down a dark path into everything from drug abuse to alcoholism, but Linda Ronstadt found one of her most dangerous chapters when she was absent-mindedly having dinner.
Then again, the version of California that Ronstadt saw at the time was much different than the one that started in the early 1960s. It used to be about driving through the sunny highways and going out to surf along the coast, but now that the psychedelic scene had come and gone, there were many people out there to show everyone the dark side of life.
The Doors were already the prime candidate for putting some edge into their sound, but there were also people like the Grateful Dead who tried to soothe over those bad acid trips by preaching about everyone being one in a strange sense of musical harmony. It seemed innocent, but it was only a matter of time before people started to get incredibly carried away, especially when it involved Charles Manson.
While the mass murderer had the power to charm the pants off of anyone in the rock scene that he came into contact with before the eventual insanity took place, it wouldn’t have seemed all that out of place for any common person. The whole scene was about free love, and ‘The Family’ may as well have been another offshoot of that with Manson as their leader, only this time using means that were a lot more deadly.
Although Ronstadt came up right when Manson was put away, that didn’t stop a dark shroud over the California scene. It wasn’t out of the question for people to be packing a pistol in their car to protect themselves, and that sense of peace and love seemed dead and gone, but that didn’t mean some people didn’t get off easy when it came time to go to trial.
“She had done some bad things and gone to jail. Leslie replied that he full name was Leslie Van Houten, and she had been a part of Charles Manson’s ‘Family.’”
Linda Ronstadt
According to Ronstadt, she remembered going out to dinner and ended up having a full conversation with a member of the Family without ever suspecting it. When talking about rock’s history of drug abuse, Ronstadt was given the shock of a lifetime talking to an acquaintance, Leslie, about PCP, saying, “Quiet Leslie became animated and said that it was a very bad drug and could cause one to do things they would never do when sober. She had done some bad things and gone to jail. Leslie replied that he full name was Leslie Van Houten, and she had been a part of Charles Manson’s ‘Family.’”
Houten’s appeal had been up at the time that Ronstadt was at dinner with her, but that wasn’t enough to keep her out of the slammer, eventually going back after a year and still residing behind bars. But even though that would have given even the most stoic badass pause if a member of a murderous group was sitting beside you, Ronstadt could only keep going with her solo career and make sure to keep herself clean of any substances Houten might have been holding.
Because when you think about it, having Houten out of jail telling her story for those few months may have been the greatest drug PSA anyone could have ever written. There were many people claiming that rock and roll was what would ultimately bring down the entire moral code of the country, but it turns out that a bit of angel dust might be the downfall of any sane person.
