The Beach Boys, Manson and my dad

My musician father taught me piano when I was five, but I eventually learned so much more

- AISLING MURPHY

Above: Bill Scanlan Murphy, right, interviewed Charles Manson in prison in the early '90s and produced a radio show about the cult leader's connection to the Beach Boys.

My parents make noise for a living. Mom is a professional opera singer and voice teacher. My father, at various points in his life, has been a session musician, church organist and electronic music programmer (not to mention a journalist, teacher and naval historian). So, growing up, I was surrounded by music.

Just after my fifth birthday, my dad, Bill Scanlan Murphy, decided it was time to sit me, his only kid, down at the piano.

He shared the bench with me as my fingers babbled over the keys. Slowly, he began to build a melody under my simple, rambling decant. Before long, my dad was playing “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, singing as he played, not minding the errant notes pealing from the right-hand side of the piano.

We played together like that often, him cycling through the Southern California band’s discography, and me experimenting with a soprano line, figuring out which notes sounded right. Before long, he was explaining basic music theory, showing me how I could play nearly any pop song using just four chords. When I took it upon myself to learn the theme from “Hannah Montana,” he taught me how to play a B-flat major chord on piano in a way that wouldn’t make my hands cramp up.

As I got a little older, I began to wonder just who these Beach Boys were and why they might be so important to my father. My dad’s always been eccentric; it didn’t occur to me at age eight to care much that he had performed with these rock stars, or that he’d had a close friendship with their drummer Dennis Wilson, or that his relationship with the band eventually led to him interview Charles Manson.