Charles Manson - All the Way Alive

All Music Guide

In an era when one of the biggest pop stars in history is facing charges for molesting children, it may not be a time to emphasize the importance of seperating an artist's personal life from their creations. At any rate, this concept has never really been appropriate in examining the musical output of Charles Manson. Despite humorous speculation about what might have happened had producerTerry Melcher decided to offer Manson a recording contract, the man's popstar level fame was achieved not as a singersongwriter but as the leader of a murderous cult. No one would argue the fascinating aspects of his case, one of which is a continuing interest in Manson music, although it would be an extreme exaggeration to suggest that there is anything other than a miniscule cult pursuing this particular muse. Thus we have All the Way Alive, a previously unreleased recording session from 1967, showing up in a limited edition of 1000 copies courtesy of a tiny indie label, People's Templea clear indica...tion that the household name recognition Manson seems to relish does not mean instant record sales. Many music writers and just plain enthusiasts have expressed the opinion that a lack of interest in Manson's music is the result of his horrifying deeds, the purchasing of a disc or even just spinning a side representing some kind of undesired support for a murderous fiend. But the cold hard reality is the opposite: if Manson had not been at the center of one of the notorious crimes in history, nobody would be the least bit interested in his music.It is not that he is as terrible a musician and singer as is sometimes made out to be the case by reviewers fattened by the attitude that nobody is going to bother sticking up for him. All the Way Alive, which actually has quite decent recorded sound, even winds up with him pulling off an incomplete but respectable cover version of Willie Nelson's "Night Life", which if used as a competency test would eliminate at least 75 of the musicians in existence, at least on the rock scene. He plays lots of majorseventh chords, he keeps a fairly steady beat and his voice is not unpleasant, at times approaching the appeal of an employable lounge performer or someone who pulls out a guitar at a party. While the major following for Manson as a performing artist over the years has come from the punk, grunge, heavy metal or other "extreme" music camps, Manson himself would never have been that comfortable with that kind of music. Working from the logical theory that it would be impossible to get an honest opinion about Manson's music once the listener knows who it is, some of these tracks were presented, identity not revealed, to subjects of various ages and musical tastes just to get a reaction. Besides boredom, the most common perception was that this was a casual recording of Jose Feliciano or Jim Croce. Read more Less