“Pet Sounds” and “Good Vibrations,” an album and a single released by the Beach Boys in 1966, established the group as the leaders of a new type of pop music, Art Rock.

First came “Pet Sounds,” an album fraught with emotional, personal and introspective songs, an album that was a significant departure from all that had gone before and the first album by the group that was a commercial disappointment to the record company. At the same time, the release of “Pet Sounds” gave rise to the belief within the “hip” artistic and critical community that Brian Wilson was a genius.

While the American public had some trouble relating to Brian’s new direction, he was also experiencing resistance within the group. In general, there was a feeling that Brian was moving too fast, was getting too experimental, was advancing ahead of his audience and maybe even using the album as a stepping-stone to a solo career.

“Good Vibrations” is probably the one record most readily identified as a Beach Boys song, and it, too, was a battleground for Brian’s artistic impulses and the commercial interests. This one last time, however, Brian and the public clicked.

Despite the success of this single, the Beach Boys in 1966 found themselves falling out of favor on the home front while they were concurrently enjoying the worldwide acclaim. The Beach Boys’ juggernaut traveled from Japan to Europe to England. Everywhere, acceptance and love of the Beach Boys and their music were at an all-time high. Everywhere except the United States.

“Pet Sounds” is considered Brian’s masterpiece, and it was critically acclaimed at the time, even though its sales were a relative failure by Beach Boys standards.

Considering the relatively unsophisticated recording equipment that was available in 1966, his accomplishments are impressive. There wasn’t very much overdubbing in those days, so Brian had to hear the mix in his head and then get the musicians to play it live. “Pet Sounds” was, and remains, an unparalleled achievement in popular music. It predates the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album by a full year, and that album, upon its release, was considered the ultimate in production.

The song “Good Vibrations” had been composed during the creation of “Pet Sounds.” Despite initial resistance from radio programmers who were concerned that it might be both too long and too progressive, “Good Vibrations” became an instant hit, sold 400,000 copies in four weeks and became the Beach Boys’ first and only million-selling single.

By the fall of 1966, the Beach Boys, led by Brian Wilson, had musically gone past the Beatles. In October of that year, the Beatles had permanently quit touring, were working on separate projects, and “Sgt. Pepper” was barely in the beginning stages. With “Good Vibrations” Brian surpassed everything current in popular music.

“They’ve Found the New Sound at Last” claimed one British paper. That one song captured the emerging feelings of the almost-acid generation, and the title song soon became a byword.

But by 1967, the Beach Boys’ time seemed to have passed. It had taken only a matter of months, but the delay in following up “Good Vibration” with something of equal impact had damaged their commercial momentum. With the spring ‘67 release of “Sgt. Pepper” and the arrival of San Francisco psychedelia and the “Summer of Love,” the Beach Boys had become passe.

They had one final chance to create a bridge with the new “hippie” audience, and they may have sealed their own doom when they failed to play at the Monterey Pep Festival, which was the predecessor of Woodstock. “You’ll never hear surf music again.” That oft-quoted lyrical observation was made by Jimi Hendrix, one of the legendary stars to come out of that festival.

The San Francisco scene and the Monterey Pop Festival were the combined birthplace for a new set of musical leaders. The Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead were San Francisco’s hometown bands, but Monterey was a showcase for the world’s talent. Out of the festival burst Hendrix and Janis Joplin and The Who. The Mamas and Papas’ singing of “California Dreamin’” seemed to more than make up for the absence of the Beach Boys’ “California Girls.”

But for many, the “Summer of Love” was shattered by one man: Charles Manson.

Dennis Wilson first met Manson in the late spring of 1968. According to prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi in his book “Helter Skelter,” Dennis “twice picked up the same pair of hitchhikers while driving through Malibu. The second time, he took the girls home with him.”

The evening he picked up the hitchhikers for the second time, Dennis went to a recording session. Returning at 3 a.m., Dennis was met by a stranger, Charles Manson. When he entered the house, Dennis found he had nearly a dozen houseguests, most of them girls.

To understand why Dennis Wilson, a rich and famous rock star, would get involved with the Manson Family is a question that is hard to understand. By one account, Dennis in 1968 was feeling a lot of guilt about his material wealth. He didn’t think he deserved it, so he reportedly gave away his money to total strangers.

Besides the appeal of the male-dominated life style that Manson directed, for Dennis, Manson was a spiritual guru. While they lived together, Dennis appeared to be very much under his spell.

In an article in England’s Rave magazine, Dennis spoke of his “wizard.” “Sometimes,” Dennis admitted, “the wizard frightens me.” That fear wasn’t overpowering, not yet. Manson’s talking had not yet been translated into action.

In the late summer of 1968, Dennis tired of the Manson Family’s exploitation (which reportedly cost him about $100,000) and moved into a small room in his friend Gregg Jakobson’s Beverly Glen home. Dennis left the task of evicting the Family to the Beach Boys’ business management.

Even though Dennis wasn’t living with Manson anymore, a friend of Dennis’ remembers that “Dennis was still hypnotized enough by Manson to think he was going to do something tremendous. Dennis used to draw a lot of symbols in his notes, all the time practically quoting verbatim what Manson had been saying.”

Just after the Tate-LaBianca murders in August 1969, Manson visited Dennis and demanded money ($1,500) so he could go to the desert. Two friends of Dennis’ remember that night as “the first time we met him. We were at Gregg’s, down in Dennis’ little room. Dennis was playing the piano. All of a sudden, the door flew open, and Manson came flying through the air, jumped into the room. His eyes were just like on fire.”

Dennis greeted Manson and nervously asked him where he’d been lately. Charlie replied, “I been to the moon.” Dennis’ friends recall that Manson’s hair was standing straight out from his head and there was a tremendous amount of energy in the room.

The night Manson was arrested, in the fall of 1969, he apparently tried to contact Dennis for help. That night Gregg Jakobson’s wife was giving birth, and Gregg and Dennis had taken her to the hospital. Dennis’ live-in friends had stayed home, and one of them answered a “collect phone call for Dennis, and it was from Manson. I had already gotten instructions from Dennis and Gregg that they wanted nothing to do with him. I said, ‘No, I’m sorry, he’s not here.’ And Manson yelled, ‘I don’t care, anybody accept the charges,’ and he started screaming like a wild man. He said, ‘You’re going to be sorry if you don’t,’ and the operator cut him off.”

In the Manson Family’s attempts to stop Dennis from testifying at the trial, threats against his life were made. Besides this, the Family supposedly intimidated Dennis by “creepy crawling” Dennis’ home. This consisted of sneaking into his home while he was asleep and moving the furniture around at night. It was like a calling card — the Family’s way of letting a person know that despite all the security, they could penetrate his defenses and get inside his home.

Another friend of Dennis’ remembers how all this was shaking Dennis up. “He was very nervous. He couldn’t sit for more than two minutes at a time.” This fear wasn’t Dennis’ alone. The entire Wilson family reportedly feared for their lives.

Dennis never did testify at the Family’s trial but did have an extensive conversation with prosecutor Bugliosi. The Manson connection with the Beach Boys provided a certain unwelcome notoriety, but it also was one indication that the “Fun, Fun, Fun” image had new and more bizarre meanings.

Dennis offered Bugliosi one final observation on his whole involvement with Manson. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I got off only losing my money.”

By DAVID LEAF