Sunday, March 24, 2024

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2413 (starts 3/25/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/522156


    A lot of artists' sets this week, including a new battle of the bands between two of the original British invasion bands. Also, a final half hour jam packed full of obscurities to finish out the week.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Mystic Eyes
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Van Morrison
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1965
    The opening track of the first Them album (2nd track on the US version) was a song that started off as an extended studio jam, with vocalist Van Morrison playing harmonica and ad-libbing vocals as the band played behind him. Luckily the tape recorder was on for the whole thing and, with a little editing the track became the group's second biggest US hit, Mystic Eyes.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Masculine Intuition
Source:    CD:  The Very Best Of The Music Machine-Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    If you take out the cover songs that Original Sound Records added to the album without the band's knowledge or approval, Turn On The Music Machine has to be considered one of the best LPs of 1966. Not that the covers were badly done, but they were intended to be used for lip synching on a local TV show and were included without the knowledge or approval of the band, and that's never a good thing. Every one of the Sean Bonniwell originals on the other hand, combines strong musical structure and intelligent lyrics with musicianship far surpassing the average garage band. This is especially true in the case of Masculine Intuition, which was also issued as the B side of the band's second single.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Omaha
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Skip Spence
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.
    
Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Mrs. Robinson
Source:    CD :Collected Works (originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Possibly the most enduring song in the entire Simon And Garfunkel catalog, Mrs. Robinson (in an edited version) first appeared on the soundtrack for the film The Graduate in 1967. It wasn't until the Bookends album came out in 1968 that the full four minute version was released. Also released as a single, the song shot right to the top of the charts, staying there for several weeks.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Mr. Spaceman
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jim McGuinn
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Both Jim (now Roger) McGuinn and David Crosby were science fiction fans, which became evident with the release of the Byrds' third album, Fifth Dimension. The third single released from that album, Mr. Spaceman, was in fact, a deliberate attempt to contact extra-terrestrials through the medium of AM radio. It was McGuinn's hope that ETs monitoring Earth's airwaves would hear the song and in some way respond to it, perhaps even contacting the band members themselves. Of course McGuinn didn't realize at the time that AM radio waves tend to disperse as they travel away from the Earth, making it unlikely that the signals would be picked up at all. Now if someone wants to beam this week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era out into the universe...

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    C.T.A.-102
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Hippard
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Roger McGuinn of the Byrds always exhibited an interest in the subject of extraterrestrial life. C.T.A.-102, from the Younger Than Yesterday album, addresses this subject from the angle of aliens tuning in to earth broadcasts to learn our language and culture and finding themselves exposed to rock and roll (and apparently liking it). The song was co-written by McGuinn's like-minded friend, Bob Hippard.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    What's Happening?!?!
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    David Crosby was just beginning to emerge as a songwriter on the third Byrds album, 5D. Most of his contributions on the album were collaborations with Jim (Roger) McGuinn; What's Happening!?!, on the other hand, was Crosby's first solo composition to be recorded by the group.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Norwegian Wood
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    The first Beatles song to feature a sitar, Norwegian Wood, perhaps more than any other song, has come to typify the new direction songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney began to take with the release of the Rubber Soul album in December of 1965. Whereas their earlier material was written to be performed as well as recorded, songs like Norwegian Wood were first and foremost studio creations. The song itself was reportedly based on a true story and was no doubt a contributing factor to the disintegration of Lennon's first marraige.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    After an unsuccessful debut single (Wrapping Paper), Cream scored a bona-fide hit in the UK with their follow-up, I Feel Free. As was the case with nearly every British single at the time, the song was not included on Fresh Cream, the band's debut LP. In the US, however, hit singles were commonly given a prominent place on albums, and the US version of Fresh Cream actually opens with I Feel Free. To my knowledge the song, being purely a studio creation, was never performed live by the band.

Artist:    Third Bardo
Title:    I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source:    Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Evans/Pike
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1967
    The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).

Artist:    Blossom Toes
Title:    When The Alarm Clock Rings
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK on LP: We Are Ever So Clean)
Writer(s):    Jim Cregan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Marmalade)
Year:    1968
    Originally known as the Ingoes, Blossom Toes were discovered playing in Paris (where they had released an EP) by Giorgio Gomelsky, manager of the Yardbirds, who signed them to his own label, Marmalade, in 1967. Everyone on the British music scene was talking about (and listening to) the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, trying to figure out how to apply the album's advanced production techniques to their own material, including Gomelsky and Blossom Toes. The result was an album called We Are Ever So Clean, one of the first post-Sgt. Pepper albums to be released in the UK. When The Alarm Clock Rings shows just how strong the Sgt. Pepper's influence was in late 1967.

Artist:     Traffic
Title:     Feelin' Alright
Source:     LP: Best Of Traffic (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Writer:     Dave Mason
Label:     United Artists
Year:     1968   
    Dave Mason left Traffic after the band's first album, Mr. Fantasy, but returned in time to contribute several songs to the band's eponymous second album. Among those was his most memorable song, Feelin' Alright, which would become one of the most covered songs in rock history.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Paper Sun
Source:    CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    There were several notable differences between the US and UK versions of the first Traffic album. For one thing they had different titles. In the US the album was called Heaven Is In Your Mind when it was released in early 1968 in the hope that the single of the same name would be a hit. When it became evident that the song wasn't going anywhere on the US top 40 charts the album was quickly retitled Mr. Fantasy, matching the original 1967 UK album. There were differences in the tracks on the album as well. One of the most notable changes was the inclusion of Paper Sun, a non-LP single that had been a British hit in late 1967. The version on the US album, however, was slightly different from its UK counterpart in that the song fades out quite a bit earlier than on the original version, with the deleted portion showing up at the end of the album.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source:    LP: Best Of Traffic (originally released as 45 RPM B side and on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s):    Capaldi/Winwood
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The second Traffic album saw the band taking in a broader set of influences, including traditional English folk music. (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released in the UK as the B side to the tune No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.

Artist:    Love
Title:    My Little Red Book
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Bacharach/David
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The first rock record ever released by Elektra Records was a single by Love called My Little Red Book. The track itself (which also opens Love's debut LP), is a punked out version of tune originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the What's New Pussycat movie soundtrack. Needless to say, Love's version was not exactly what composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David had in mind.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Emotions
Source:    German import CD: Love
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Emotions, the last track on side one of the first Love album, sounds like it could have come directly from the soundtrack of one the spaghetti westerns that were popular with moviegoers in the mid-1960s. Probably not coincidentally, the instrumental is also the only Love recording to carry a writing credit for lead guitarist Johnny Echols (with the exception of the 17-minute jam Revelation on their second LP, which is credited to the entire band).

Artist:    Love
Title:    Alone Again Or
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either.

Artist:      Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:     4+20
Source:      LP: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Year:     1970
     Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were always more a collection of individuals than a true group. 4+20, from the group's second album, déjà vu, is a good illustration of this point. The song features Stephen Stills on acoustic guitar and vocal, with no other voices or instruments on the recording.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Love Her Madly
Source:    LP: L.A. Woman
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971   
    The first single released from L.A. Woman, the final Doors album to feature vocalist Jim Morrison, Love Her Madly was a major success, peaking just outside the top 10 in the US, and going all the way to the #3 spot in Canada. The album itself was a return to a more blues-based sound by the Doors, a change that did not sit well with producer Paul Rothchild, who left the project early on, leaving engineer Bruce Botnik to assume production duties. Rothchild's opinion aside, it was exactly what the Doors needed to end their run (in their original four man incarnation) on a positive note.

Artist:    Koobas
Title:    Barricades
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released on LP: Koobas)
Writer(s):    Ellis/Stratton-Smith/Leathwood
Label:    EMI (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    The Koobas were a Merseybeat band that never managed to achieve the level of success enjoyed by bands such as the Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers, despite having the patronage of Beatles manager Brian Epstein and even appearing in the film Ferry Across The Mersey.  They did record several singles for both Pye and Columbia, but with little to show for it. Nonetheless, EMI, the parent company of Columbia, commissioned an entire album from the band in 1969. Among the standout tracks from that self-titled LP was the five-minute long Barricades, a track that starts with a Motown beat, but before long morphs into a chaotic portrait of riot and revolution, complete with anarchic sound effects.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Ruby Tuesday
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    One of the most durable songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Ruby Tuesday was originally intended to be the B side of their 1967 single Let's Spend The Night Together. Many stations, however, balked at the subject matter of the A side and began playing Ruby Tuesday instead.

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     Hotel Hell
Source:     British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer:     Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:     1967
     The first album by the New Animals (generally known as Eric Burdon and the Animals) was Winds of Change, issued in mid-1967. Although the album was not particularly well-received at the time, it has, in more recent years, come to be regarded as a classic. Hotel Hell is a moody piece that showcases Eric Burdon's contemplative side.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dear Doctor
Source:    CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    In late 1968 four new albums by four different bands were competing for space on the record racks: The Beatles (white album), Cream's Wheels Of Fire, the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Electric Ladyland and the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet. I can't imagine four albums that influential (or even that good) ever being released around the same time again. Just to further illustrate the point we have the song Dear Doctor. Compared to most of the songs on these four albums, the Appalachian-styled Dear Doctor is, at best, a novelty number. Yet taken on its own merits the song compares favorably with probably 90% of what's been recorded by any rock band (and a lot of country artists as well) in the years since.

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    San Franciscan Nights
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    In late 1966, after losing several original members over a period of about a year, the original Animals disbanded. Eric Burdon, after releasing one single as a solo artist (but using the Animals name), decided to form a "new" Animals. After releasing a moderately successful single, When I Was Young, the new band appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. While in the area, Burdon fell in love with the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, during what came to be called the Summer Of Love. The first single to be released from their debut album, Winds Of Change, was a tribute to the city by the bay called San Franciscan Nights. Because of the topicality of the song's subject matter, San Franciscan Nights was not released in the UK as a single. Instead, the song Good Times (which was the US B side of the record), became the new group's biggest UK hit to date (and one of the Animals' biggest UK hits overall). Eventually San Franciscan Nights was released as a single in the UK as well (with a different B side) and ended up doing quite well.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Parachute Woman
Source:    CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The last Rolling Stones album with the original lineup was Beggar's Banquet, released in 1968. The album itself was a conscious effort on the part of the band to get back to their roots after the psychedelic excesses of Their Satanic Majesties Request. Sadly, Brian Jones was fast deteriorating at the time and his contributions to the album are minimal compared to the band's earlier efforts. As a result, Keith Richards was responsible for most of the guitar work on Beggar's Banquet, including both lead and rhythm parts on Parachute Woman.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    White Houses
Source:    CD: Retrospective (originally released on LP: Every One Of Us)
Writer(s):    Eric Burdon
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1968
    Following two strongly psychedelic LPs, Winds Of Change and The Twain Shall Meet, Eric Burdon And The Animals returned to a more blues-based approach for their late 1968 release Every One Of Us, adding keyboardist Zoot Money to the lineup in the process. A highlight of the self-produced album was White Houses, a tune that previews the direction Burdon's music would take in the early 1970s, both as a solo artist and with the band War.

Artist:    Fat
Title:    Journey
Source:    LP: Fat
Writer(s):    Kaminsky/Newland
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1970
    Fat was formed at Holyoke Community College in Springfield, MA in 1968 by Peter J NewlandMichael Benson and Jim Kaminski. The three soon added bassist Guy DeVito and drummer Benji Benjamin. Like most bands, they started out playing cover tunes, but soon shifted their focus to doing original material. An early demo tape got the attention of producer Eddie Jason, who got them a deal to record an album for RCA Victor in New York, Urban legend has it that RCA Victor released only 400 copies of Fat's only major label LP. Somehow, WEOS-FM in Geneva, NY, where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is produced, has had one of those copies in its library since 1970. Although Fat, due as much to bad timing as anything else, never got the chance to record for a major label again, they remain active as a band (with a few inevitable personnel changes) as of 2020 and have several independent releases under their belt.

Artist:    Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Title:    One Way Glass
Source:    LP: Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Writer(s):    Manfred Mann
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    Keyboardist and band leader Manfred Mann is not known for his vocals. In fact, his band's have always featured someone else as front man, starting with Paul Jones (who sang Do Wah Diddy Diddy) and including Chris Thompson (who sang Blinded By The Light) in Manfred Mann's Earth Band. In between the original group and the Earth Band there was Manfred Mann Chapter Three, a group oriented toward progressive rock with heavy jazz overtones. Bassist Michael Hugg handled most of the lead vocals for that group, with the exception of One-Way Glass, from that band's first album, which is sung by Mann himself. Following a second album, Mann would disband Manfred Mann Chapter Three and form Manfred Mann's Earth Band in the early 1970s with an entirely different set of musicians.

Artist:    Jeff Beck
Title:    Love Is Blue (L'Amout Est Bleu)
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Blackburn/Cour/Popp
Label:    Sundazed/Epic (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    In early 1968 guitarist Jeff Beck, having parted company with the Yardbirds, found himself with all kinds of freedom, but few ideas about what to do with it. One of his earliest solo recordings was a cover of Paul Mauriat's L'Amour Est Bleu (Love Is Blue). Producer Mickey Most's arrangement of the piece, which made the British top 40, was actually quite similar to Mauriat's original, the main difference being Beck's guitar taking the part that had been played by a string section on the original. While recording Love Is Blue, Beck was also in the process of putting together a new band, the Jeff Beck Group, that featured a young Rod Stewart on lead vocals on the single's B side. The rest is history.

Artist:    Pleasure Seekers
Title:    What A Way To Die
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Dave Leone
Label:    Elektra (original label: Hideout)
Year:    1966
    One of the first all-female bands that played their own instruments in rock (and almost certainly the first in Detroit) was the Pleasure Seekers. Formed by then 16-year-old Patti Quatro and her 14-year-old sister Suzie, they were soon joined by the Ball sisters, Nancy and Mary Lou, and pianist Diane Baker. Brashly claiming they could play better than any of the bands currently appearing at the Hideout, the local teen night club, Patti convinced the club's owner Dave Leone, to give them a tryout. They soon became regulars and began to build a local reputation, which in turn led to the release of their first single on Leone's Hideout label. The B side of that single, What A Way To Die, features Suzie Quatro on lead vocals, and was covered by the Mummies in the 1988 cult film Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls.

Artist:    Weeds
Title:    It's Your Time
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets vol. 8-The Northwest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bowen/Wynne
Label:    Rhino (original label: Teenbeat Club)
Year:    1966
    The Weeds were formed in La Vegas in 1966 by Fred Cole (lead vocals), Eddie Bowen (guitar), Ron Buzzell (guitar), Bob Atkins (bass guitar), and Tim Rockson (drums). Cole had already established himself as a recording artist with other local bands that played at the Teenbeat Club (thought to be the first teens-only club in the US) in Paradise, a Las Vegas suburb, and it wasn't long before the Weeds released It's Your Time on the club's own record label. Not long after the single was released the band drove to San Francisco, where they had been promised a gig at the Fillmore Auditorium, but when they arrived they discovered that no one there knew anything about it. Rather than return to Las Vegas, the Weeds decided to head north for Canada to avoid the draft, but they ran out of gas in Portland, Oregon, and soon became part of that city's music scene. Cole would eventually become an indy rock legend with his band Dead Moon, co-founded by his wife Toody, herself a Portland native.

Artist:    Magic Mushrooms
Title:    It's-A-Happening
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Casella/Rice
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1966
    It's not known whether or not the Magic Mushrooms heard any of the tracks from the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out when they recorded It's-A-Happening. Still, it's hard to imagine this bit of inspired weirdness being created in a vacuum. Besides this one single, nobody seems to have any knowledge whatsoever of the group known as the Magic Mushrooms, other than the fact that they hailed from Philadelphia, Pa., and, along with Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, may well have been the reason that A&M Records shied away from signing any more psychedelic rock bands for the next few years. (Well, there were Procol Harum and Joe Cocker, but their stuff was recorded for British labels and reissued in the US by A&M, so I'm not counting them).

Artist:    Saturday's Children
Title:    Born On Saturday
Source:    Mono CD: If You're Ready! The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Bryan/Holder
Label:    Sundazed/Here 'Tis (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Despite being one of the most popular local bands in the Chicago area, Saturday's Children were never able to sell enough copies of their singles to be able to record an entire LP. Nonetheless, they did record some fine tunes such as Born On Saturday, which appeared as the B side of their first single for Dunwich Records. Bassist Jeff Bryan later went on to join H.P. Lovecraft, while guitarist Dave Carter ended up with the Cryan' Shames.

Artist:    New Colony Six
Title:    A Heart Is Made Of Many Things
Source:    Mono CD: Breakthrough
Writer(s):    Pat McBride
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Centaur)
Year:    1966
    When you're young and in a rock 'n' roll band, there is no greater thrill than hearing your song on the radio for the first time. Or at least that's the way it was in mid-1960s Chicago, when a song called I Confess by a local band called the New Colony Six started getting airplay on WLS. Back then there were no college radio stations or underground FM outlets, so if your song got played, it got played alongside the most popular hits of the day and was heard by literally millions of listeners. For the most part WLS did not play songs by local bands. They were, after all, the second most listened to radio station in the entire United States (after New York's WABC), with a nighttime signal that could be heard halfway across the country (I remember picking it up in New Mexico in the early 1970s). Still, there was something about I Confess that made people want to hear it over and over. The song ended up hitting the #2 spot on WLS in early 1966, which led to the band, consisting of Ray Graffia, Jr. (vocals), Chick James (drums), Pat McBride (harmonica), Craig Kemp (organ), Wally Kemp (bass), and Gerry Van Kollenburg (guitar), to return to the studio to record Breakthrough, their first LP for Centaur Records, which was owned by Ray Graffia, Sr. Unusual for the time, most of the songs on Breakthrough were original compositions, including A Heart Is Made Of Many Things. According to Graffia, McBride, who sang lead on the song, was so into his performance in the studio that he actually went into his stage act while the rest of the band members were snickering. The New Colony Six had a decent run over the years, scoring several more local hits, including I Will Always Think About You, which hit #1 on WLS on its way to becoming the group's first national top 40 hit, and Things I'd Like To Say, which topped out at #2 locally and made the top 20 on the national charts. Like many of their contemporaries, the NC6 went through many personnel changes over the years before finally disbanding in 1974.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Curtis Knight
Title:    Love, Love
Source:    British import CD: The Summer Of Love Sessions (originally released on LP: Flashing)
Writer(s):    Knight/Hendrix
Label:    Jungle (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Even after releasing three hit singles in the UK and making his US debut with his new band at the Monterey International Pop Festival, Jimi Hendrix still had time to sit in on sessions with old friends such as Curtis Knight, whom he had worked with previously on the so-called Chitlin' Circuit of venues catering to black audiences. Unfortunately, during some of those sessions in 1967 the tapes were rolling on tunes like Love, Love, and the following year Capitol released the recordings as a followup to the 1967 album Get That Feeling, credited to Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight. Hendrix was already dealing with a lawsuit filed by Capitol stemming from his signing a standard contract as a session man for Knight in 1965 (which is where the Get That Feeling album came from), and the fact that this group of songs was recorded while Hendrix was under contract to Britain's Track label just complicated the entire matter, and eventually led to Hendrix owing Capitol a new album, which became Band Of Gypsys.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2413 (starts 3/25/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/522150


    This week Rockin' in the Days of Confusion goes free-form, with several tracks that have never been heard on the show before. The most prominent of these (clocking in at over 23 minutes) is Pink Floyd's Echoes, from their 1971 album Meddle. We start the week, however, with an old favorite...

Artist:    Blue Oyster Cult
Title:    (Don't Fear) The Reaper
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Agents Of Fortune)
Writer(s):    Donald Roeser
Label:    Sony Music
Year:    1976
    Guitarist/vocalist Buck Dharma wrote (Don't Fear) The Reaper in his late 20s. At the time, he said, he was expecting to die at a young age. Dharma (real name Donald Roeser), is now in his 70s. Personally, I can't hear this track without thinking of the 1994 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand.

Artist:    Joe Walsh
Title:    Turn To Stone
Source:    LP: The Best Of Joe Walsh (originally released on LP: So What)
Writer(s):    Walsh/Trebandt
Label:    ABC
Year:    1974
    Turn To Stone is one of Joe Walsh's better known solo tracks, but his 1974 recording of the tune on the album So What was not his first version of the song. That came two years earlier, on Walsh's first post James Gang LP, Barnstorm. Interestingly, the Barnstorm version credited Terry Trebandt (bassist for the Detroit-based Rationals) as co-writer of Turn To Stone, but was listed as a Walsh solo composition on So What.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Echoes
Source:    CD: Meddle
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label:    Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    Meddle is often cited as the beginning of Pink Floyd's new direction that would define the band in the 1970s, leaving behind the last vestiges of founder Syd Barrett's influence. The most prominent track on the album, taking up the entire second side, is a piece called Echoes. The piece started off as an experiment; after setting some rough guidelines, each band member recorded their own part independently of the others, without hearing what anyone else in the band was doing. They then assembled some, but not all, of the various fragments into a running order they labeled as Nothing, Parts 1-24. They continued to add new parts to the piece under the working titles of The Son Of Nothing and later The Return Of The Son Of Nothing before settling on Echoes as a final title. The piece was first performed live, as The Return Of The Son Of Nothing, on April 22, 1971, with the final studio version of the track released in November of that year.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Sixty Years On
Source:    LP: Elton John
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    Uni
Year:    1970
    Elton John's self-titled US debut LP was actually his second overall, and, according to producer Gus Dudgeon, was designed mainly as a collection of polished demos meant to showcase the writing talents of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin team, in hopes that more prominent artists might record some of those songs themselves. Although a couple of the tunes did get covered by other artists, the album ended up being the launching pad for what has become a truly stellar career. One of the most overlooked tracks on that album is Sixty Years On, a subtle antiwar piece that opens the original LP's second side.

Artist:    Paul Simon
Title:    Some Folks Roll Easy
Source:    LP: Still Crazy After All These Years
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1975
    Paul Simon thanked Stevie Wonder for "not putting an album out" in 1975 in his acceptance speech at the 1976 Grammy Awards ceremony for receiving the award for best album that year (Wonder had won the two previous years and would win another Grammy the following year as well). The Simon album in question, Still Crazy After All These Years, was recorded as Simon was in the process of getting a divorce, and has emotional overtones that verge on the depressing. Despite its positive sounding title, Some Folks Roll Easy is actually a song about how most people's lives, including the songwriter's, are filled with disappointment.

Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    California
Source:    LP: Blue
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1971
    In early spring of 1970 Joni Mitchell, who had been living in California since 1967, decided to take a break from performing and go visit Europe for a while. It wasn't long, however, before she started longing for the creative atmosphere she had experience while living in Laurel Canyon with Graham Nash. She described how she felt in the song California, where she refers to Paris in particular as " too old and cold and settled in its ways". Mitchell recorded the song for her 1971 album Blue, where it became the second single released from that album. Blue has since come to be recognized as one of the greatest albums of all time and has made several "best of" lists, including Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, where it currently ranks #3 (the highest by a female artist), and was chosen by NPR in 2017 as the greatest album of all time made by a woman.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills And Nash
Title:    Helplessly Hoping
Source:    CD: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    By 1969 there was a significant portion of the record-buying public that was more interested in buying albums than in picking up the latest hit single. This in turn was leading to the emergence of album-oriented FM radio stations as a player in the music industry. Crosby, Stills and Nash took full advantage of this trend. Although they did release a pair of singles from the debut LP (Marrakesh Express and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes), it was their album tracks like Helplessly Hoping that got major airplay on FM radio and helped usher in the age of the singer/songwriter, making the trio superstars in the process.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    I'd Love To Change The World
Source:    LP: A Space In Time
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Although a favorite with the American counterculture since their appearance at Woodstock, Ten Years After, after five albums, had still not been able to crack the US top 40 charts. That changed in 1971 when the band switched labels from Deram to Columbia and released A Space In Time in 1971. I'd Love To Change The World, the first single released from the album, went into the top 10 in Canada and became the band's only US top 40 hit. It was also, at the time, one of the only songs to get extensive airplay on both AM and FM.

Artist:    Malo
Title:    Nena
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Garcia/Tellez/Zorate
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    Malo (Spanish for Bad) was formed in San Francisco by former members of the Malibus, Arcelio Garcia, Pablo Tellez, and Jorge Santana, along with three members of Naked Lunch, Abel Zarate, Roy Murray, and Richard Spremich. Their style was a synthesis of rock, latino, jazz and blues. Their best known tune, Suavacito, was taken from their self-titled debut LP. The B side of that single, Nena became popular in Central and South America.

Artist:    Frank Zappa
Title:    Uncle Remus
Source:    CD: Apostrophe (')
Writer(s):    Zappa/Duke
Label:    Zappa (original label: Discreet)
Year:    1974
    One of the shortest free-standing songs in the entire Frank Zappa catalogue, Uncle Remus is a bit of a rarity in that it was co-written by another musician, George Duke, who also performs on the track. The song itself has a more serious message than the rest of the tunes on the Apostrophe (') album, dealing as it does with the subject of continuing racism in America, albeit tempered by Zappa's typical sardonic wit.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2412 (starts 3/18/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/521183 


    The emphasis this week, at least in the first hour, is on uninterrupted sets of tunes from a variety of artists. For the second hour we have a new Advanced Psych segment that includes a track from a recently acquired 2012 LP from Ty Segall and White Fence. The hour itself ends with a set of protest tunes that at first sound dated, but somehow still remain relevant.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    It Ain't Me Babe
Source:    Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1965
    The Turtles started out as a local high school surf band called the Crossfires. In 1965 they were signed to a record label that technically didn't exist yet. That did not deter the people at the label (which would come to be known as White Whale) from convincing the band to change its name and direction. Realizing that surf music was indeed on the way out, the band, now called the Turtles, went into the studio and recorded four songs. One of those was Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe. The Byrds had just scored big with their version of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and the Turtles took a similar approach with It Ain't Me Babe. The song was a solid hit, going to the #8 spot on the national charts and leading to the first of many Turtles albums (not to mention hit singles) on the White Whale label.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    And I Like It
Source:    CD: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer:    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1966
    Jorma Kaukonen was giving guitar lessons when he was approached by Marty Balin about joining a new band that Balin was forming. Kaukonen said yes and became a founding member of Jefferson Airplane. The two seldom collaborated on songwriting, though. One of the few examples of a Balin/Kaukonen composition is And I Like It from the band's first album. The song sounds to me like early Hot Tuna, but with Balin's vocals rather than Kaukonen's.

Artist:    Cryan' Shames
Title:    The Sailing Ship
Source:    LP: A Scratch In The Sky
Writer(s):    Fairs/Kerley
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    If your entire exposure to Hinsdale, Illinois's Cryan' Shames was their 1966 cover version of the Searchers' Sugar And Spice, as I was, you might be surprised to hear their second album, A Scratch In The Sky. Although uneven, the album, written almost entirely by multi-instrumentalist Jim Fairs and bassist/guitarist Lenny Kerley, has some strong songs such as The Sailing Ship that deserve to be heard.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    A Song For Jeffrey
Source:    CD: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull's second single (and first European hit) was A Song For Jeffrey from their debut LP, This Was. The Jeffrey in the song title is Jeffrey Hammond, who, according to the liner notes, was "one of us, though he doesn't play anything". The notes go on to say he "makes bombs and stuff". In fact, Hammond would replace bassist Glen Cornick a few albums later and remain with the group for several years. The song itself proved popular enough that when the band compiled their first Anthology album, Living In The Past, A Song For Jeffrey was chosen to open the album.

Artist:    Mandrake Paddle Steamer
Title:    Strange Walking Man
Source:    Mono British import CD: Insane Times (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Briley/Engle
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    Mandrake Paddle Steamer was the brainchild of art school students Martin Briley and Brian Engle, who, with producer Robert Finnis, were among the first to take advantage of EMI's new 8-track recording equipment at their Abbey Road studios. The result was Strange Walking Man, a single released in 1969. The track includes an uncredited coda created by Finnis by splicing a tape of studio musicians playing a cover version of an Incredible String Band tune, Maybe Someday.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Take Me
Source:    CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    The is a story that Jimi Hendrix once told the members of Blues Image that although they had a sound all their own when they performed cover songs at Thee Image, the legendary South Florida club where they were the house band, their own material was lacking a consistent sound. The band's answer to this was to make rough recordings of new songs they came up with then promptly forget about them for awhile. At some point they would pull out an old recording and give it the Blues Image treatment as if it were a cover song. This might explain why a track like Take Me from their second LP, Open, almost sounds like it was recorded live.

Artist:    Temptations
Title:    Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Gordy
Year:    1971
    Just as the Temptations' third single to top the charts, Just My Imagination, was being released, vocalist Eddie Kendricks left the group for a solo career, blaming conflicts with fellow group members Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin for his departure. This didn't sit well with the remaining group members, or with their producers, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, who responded by writing Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are). Predictably, neither Kendricks or David Ruffin, another former member who had made disparaging remarks about the group, ever achieved the level of success as solo artists that they had as members of the Temptations.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    People Get Ready
Source:    LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer:    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967   
    The first Vanilla Fudge LP was all cover songs, done in the slowed-down Vanilla Fudge style that some say was inspired by fellow Long Islanders The Vagrants. People Get Ready, originally recorded by Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, is one of the better ones.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Am The Walrus
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    The Beatles' psychedelic period hit its peak with the BBC-TV premier of the surrealistic telefilm Magical Mystery Tour and its subsequent release on vinyl in December of 1967. Musically speaking, the centerpiece of Magical Mystery Tour was John Lennon's I Am The Walrus, which was the final track on both the British EP and side one of the US LP. The second half (more or less) of the piece contains audio from a live BBC radio broadcast that was added during the mono mixing process. At that time, the Beatles were still doing their original mixes in monoraul (single-channel) sound, then doing a stereo mix almost as an afterthought. The addition of live audio into the original mono mix meant that they would be unable to reproduce the process in stereo. So, at the point the BBC audio comes in, the true stereo version of I Am The Walrus suddenly becomes a "fake stereo" recording using techniques such as phasing and panning to create a stereo effect out of the mono mix. It also sounds really strange on headphones, like your sinuses all of a sudden got clogged up.

Artist:    Tim Buckley
Title:    Once Upon A Time
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s):    Buckley/Beckett
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2009
    Tim Buckley was one of those people whose style it is almost impossible to define. His first album, consisting of songs he and his friend Bob Beckett had written while still attending high school, was released in 1966 on Elektra Records, and was considered folk music. Before recording a follow-up, Buckley switched gears, recording Once Upon A Time in a deliberate effort to achieve commercial success. Elektra Records chose not to release the song, however, and Buckley soon eased into a more eclectic vein, writing songs that incorporated elements of several genres, including folk, rock and even jazz.

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     Gloria
Source:     Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer:     Van Morrison
Label:     Mercury
Year:     1967
     Although the Blues Magoos are best known for their hit (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet, the band got a lot of airplay on underground FM stations for their extended psychedelic rave up on John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road, which had been a hit a couple of years before for the Nashville Teens. Both songs were featured on the band's debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop. For their second album, Electric Comic Book, the Magoos decided to do a similar treatment on Van Morrison's Gloria, which had been a hit for the Shadows of Knight in 1966. The result was six minutes of pure madness.

Artist:    Clear Light
Title:    Black Roses
Source:    LP: Clear Light
Writer(s):    Dios/Clear Light
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    It's pretty well-known (among Stuck in the Psychedelic Era listeners, at any rate) that the first L.A. rock band signed to Elektra Records was Love, followed a few months later by the Doors. But do you know the name of the THIRD band signed to Elektra? Until a few years ago I had no idea either, but it turns out they were part of the same club scene that included bands like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the two previous Elektra signings. In fact, one of the members of Clear Light, drummer Dallas Greene, had been a member of Lowell George's legendary band, the Factory (he would go on to greater fame playing with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, among others). The album itself is a rather psychedelic mix of folk, rock, and even classical, with the opening track, Black Roses, being a rather obvious attempt at creating a hit single. Clear Light's vocalist, Cliff DeYoung, went on to become a successful actor, starring in the TV movie (and subsequent series) Sunshine in the mid-1970s and appearing in dozens of TV series since then.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Can't Explain
Source:    Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols/Fleckenstein
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1966
    Love's original lineup consisted of bandleader Arthur Lee on vocals, Johnny Echols on lead guitar, John Fleckenstein on bass and Don Conka on drums, with Lee, a prolific songwriter, providing the band's original material. They were soon joined by singer/songwriter/guitarist Bryan MacLean, who gave up his traveling gig as a roadie for the Byrds. Before they completed their first album, however, Fleckenstein and Conka had been replaced by Ken Forssi and Snoopy Pfisterer, although Lee himself provided most of the drums and some of the bass tracks on the LP. Two of the tracks on the album, however, are rumored to have been performed by the original five members, although this has never been verified. One of those tracks is Can't Explain, on which Fleckenstein has a writing credit. The song is certainly one of the band's earliest recordings and captures Love's hard-edged "L.A.-in" take on folk-rock.

Artist:    Wildflower
Title:    Coffee Cup
Source:    British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers
Writer(s):    Ehret/Ellis
Label:    Big Beat (original US LP label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    The Wildflower was somewhat typical of the San Francisco brand of folk-rock; less political in the lyrics and less jangly on the instrumental side. Although Coffee Cup was recorded in 1965, it did not get released until the summer of love two years later on With Love-A Pot Of Flowers, a collection of recordings by a variety of artists on Bob Shad's Mainstream label.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Waterloo Sunset
Source:    CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released on LP: Something Else)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Polygram (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    One of the most beautiful tunes ever recorded by the Kinks is Waterloo Sunset, a song that was a hit single in the UK, but was totally ignored by US radio stations. The reason for this neglect of such a stong song is a mystery, however it may have been due to the fear that American audiences would not be able to relate to all the references to places in and around London in the song's lyrics. Then again, it could have been because the Kinks were banned (by  the American Federation of Television and Recording Artists) from performing in the US at the time, and so could not effectively promote the song. We'll never know for sure.

Artist:    Ars Nova
Title:    General Clover Wins A War
Source:    CD: Ars Nova
Writer(s):    Copeland/Day
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1968
    Ars Nova was formed by guitarist/keyboardist Wyatt Day and trombonist Jon Pierson in 1967. The two had known each other in Spain and found themselves attending Mannes College in New York City, where they met drummer Maury Baker, the third core member of the band. Baker in turn introduced the others to lead guitarist Jonathan Raskin and bassist Johnny Papalia, who took over lead guitar duties upon Raskin's departure. With the addition of new bassist Bill Folwell, the lineup was set for the group's first LP, which was produced by Paul Rothchild. Following the release of the LP, Ars Nova found themselves booked as the second opening act for the Doors at the Fillmore East, a gig that was a total disaster, due in part to the first band overstaying their welcome, leading to Ars Nova being booed off the stage before playing a single note. This led to the band losing its contract with Elektra, which in turn led to several personnel changes, a second album for a different label and the eventual demise of Ars Nova. Of course, with songs like General Clover Wins A War, Ar Nova already had an uphill battle building a following among serious rock fans anyway.
 
Artist:    Claypool/Lennon Delirium
Title:    Breath Of A Salesman
Source:    LP: Monolith Of Phobos
Writer(s):    Claypool/Lennon
Label:    Ato/Prawn Song/Chimera
Year:    2016
    Fans of alternative rock are no doubt familiar with a band called Primus, led by bassist Les Claypool. One of the more colorful characters on the modern music scene, Claypool was once rejected by Metallica as being "too good" for them. Claypool himself has said that he thought James Hetfield was just being nice when he told him that, but the fact is that Claypool is indeed one of the most talented bass players (if not the best) in rock history. Sean Lennon is, of course, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Unlike his half-borther Julian, Sean has never felt the need to prove anything to anyone, and, thanks in large part to his mother's influence (and let's be honest here, money), has always felt free to pursue his own artistic path without having to bow to commercial pressures. The two of them met when their respective bands were on tour and they immediately recognized that they had a musical connection. That connection manifested itself in the album Monolith Of Phobos (a title inspired by Arthur Clarke's works), released in 2016. This week we check out Breath Of A Salesman, a song about people you really have no desire to hang out with showing up at your door anyway.

Artist:    Ty Segall/White Fence
Title:    Tongues
Source:    LP: Hair
Writer(s):    Segall/Presley
Label:    Drag City
Year:    2012
    Ty Segall is a multi-instrumentalist who played in various underground bands in his native Orange County, California while still in high school. His grunge band, the Epsilons, is noted for a 2007 music video that parodied the MTV show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, which he says ruined his hometown by popularizing the area and driving up the cost of living, making it too expensive for hippies, artists and surfers to live there anymore. In 2008 he embarked on a solo career which has so far resulted in over a dozen albums, singles, EPs and collaborations with other artists. One of those other artists is fellow Californian Tim Presley, who records under the name White Fence. Presley is a veteran of hardcore punk bands such as the Nerve Agents and in 2004 formed the neo-psychedelic band Darker My Love. He has been releasing material under the name White Fence since 2010, including multiple collaborations with Ty Segall, the first of which was Hair, released in 2012. My personal favorite tune from the album is the last track, Tongues, which was co-written by Segall and Presley.

Artist:    Higher State
Title:    I Suppose You Like That Now?
Source:    CD: Volume 27
Writer(s):    Marty Ratcliffe
Label:    13 O'Clock
Year:    2016
    Formed in the town of Sandgate, Kent in the UK in 2005, the Higher State are one of the best examples of modern garage rock. The group, featuring Marty Ratcliffe on guitar, vocals and organ, Paul Messis on bass and guitar and Scarlett Rickard on drums, has four album's the their credit, including their 2016 release Volume 27. All the tracks on Volume 27 were written by either Ratcliffe or Messis, including this Ratcliffe song with the delightfully snarky title I Suppose You Like That Now?

Artist:     Seeds
Title:     Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source:     Simulated stereo LP: The Seeds
Writer:     Sky Saxon
Label:     GNP Crescendo
Year:     1965
     One of the first psychedelic singles to get played on L.A. radio stations was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song, originally released in 1965, was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album the following year. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, predating the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.

Artist:    Wimple Winch
Title:    Save My Soul
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Christopholus/Kelman
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1966
    Dee Fenton and the Silhouettes were a fairly typical merseybeat band formed in 1961 by Dee Christopholus, a Greek immigrant whose parents had moved to Liverpool in the 1950s. In 1963 they changed their name to the Four Just Men, which became the Just Four Men when they were signed to Parlophone the following year. After a pair of singles failed to make a dent in the British charts EMI (Parlophone's parent company) cut the band from its roster. Rather than disband, the group decided to reinvent themselves as a British counterpart to the many garage bands popping up in the US. Changing their name to Wimple Winch, the group released three singles on the Fontana label, the second of which was Save My Soul, released in June of 1966. All three singles did well in Liverpool but failed to make an impression elsewhere. The group finally decided to call it quits when Fontana dropped them in early 1967.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Hideaway
Source:    CD: Underground
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After the moderately successful first Electric Prunes album, producer David Hassinger loosened the reigns a bit for the followup, Underground. Among the original tunes on Underground was Hideaway, a song that probably would have been a better choice as a single than what actually got released: a novelty tune called Dr. Feelgood written by Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, who had also written the band's first hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)

Artist:     Traffic
Title:     Feelin' Alright
Source:     CD: Traffic
Writer:     Dave Mason
Label:     United Artists
Year:     1968   
    Dave Mason left Traffic after the band's first album, Mr. Fantasy, but returned in time to contribute several songs to the band's eponymous second album. Among those was his most memorable song, Feelin' Alright, which would become one of the most covered songs in rock history.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Back Door Man
Source:    LP: Shadows Of Knight
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Super K
Year:    1969
    By mid-1967 the only original member of the Shadows Of Knight still in the band was vocalist Jim Sohns. Undaunted, Sohns soldiered on, fronting various incarnations of the Shadows until his death in 2022. His professional recording career, however, essentially ended in 1969 with the release of an album called Shadows Of Knight on the Super K label owned and operated by Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz, who had spearheaded the bubblegum pop movement that dominated the top 40 charts in 1968. As expected, the album was far more pop-oriented than Sohns and his new bandmates liked, and they actually instructed co-producers Joey Levine and Arthur Resnick to replace much of the band's own instrumental tracks with those done by studio musicians. The final track on the album, however, seems to be the unedited work by the band itself, a rendition of Willie Dixon's Back Door Man that could be seen as the last gasp of the original garage-rock movement. The Shadows Of Knight did release an album's worth of new material called A Knight To Remember, but it was self-released and it is not known how many copies actually made it to the CD racks.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    The first track on the original release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was moved to the middle of side 2. For some reason Reprise Records misspelled the title as Foxey Lady, and continued to do so on posthumous compilations such as The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    Wind Chimes
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released as 7" 33 1/3 RPM Extended Play mini-album)
Writer(s):    Mad River
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Wee)
Year:    1967
    Unlike most San Francisco Bay Area bands of the mid to late 1960s, Mad River was already a functioning band when they arrived on the scene from their native Ohio in 1967. The group, consisting of Lawrence Hammond (vocals, bass), David Robinson (guitar), Rick Bockner (guitar) and Greg Dewey (drums, vocals), had been formed in 1965 as the Mad River Blues Band in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where all of the members were attending college. By the time they relocated to Berkeley in early 1967 they had developed a unique style of their own. Once in Berkeley, the band quickly established themselves as one of the most "underground" bands in the area, often appearing on the bill with Country Joe And The Fish. In fact, it was the latter band that inspired Mad River to record an EP later that year. Following an unsuccessful audition for Fantasy Records, Mad River cut a three-song EP for the small Wee label. The entire second side of the disc was a six and a half minute long piece called Wind Chimes. The band recut the track in stereo for their first full-length album (on Capitol) the following year.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Matilda Mother
Source:    CD: An Introduction To Syd Barrett (originally released on LP: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn)
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Listening to tracks like Matilda Mother, I can't help but wonder where Pink Floyd might have gone if Syd Barrett had not succumbed to mental illness following the release of the band's first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in 1967. Unlike the rest of the band members, Barrett had the ability to write songs that were not only adventurous, but commercially viable as singles as well. After Barrett's departure, it took the group several years to become commercially successful on their own terms (although they obviously did). We'll never know what they may have done in the intervening years were Barrett still at the helm of the band he co-founded.

Artist:     Barry McGuire
Title:     Eve of Destruction
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     P.F. Sloan
Label:     Dunhill
Year:     1965
     P.F. Sloan had already established a reputation for writing songs that captured the anger of youth by the time he wrote Eve Of Destruction, which Barry McGuire took into the top 10 in 1965. It would be McGuire's only major hit, and represented folk-rock at the peak of its popularity.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Society's Child
Source:    Mono CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:    1966
    Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one (Now Sounds) to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record got picked up and re-issued in 1966 by M-G-M's "underground" label Verve Folkways, an imprint whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations, especially in the southern US, the song became a major hit when re-released yet another time in early 1967. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement. Ironic, considering that Society's Child ends with the protagonist backing down and giving in to society's rules.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    1984
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Epic
Year:    1969
    One of Spirit's best known songs is 1984, a non-album single released in 1969 in between the band's second and third LPs. Unlike the Rolling Stones' 2000 Man, 1984 was not so much a predictive piece as an interpretation of concepts first expressed in George Orwell's book of the same name. Of course, by the time the actual year 1984 arrived it had become obvious that politics had moved in an entirely different direction than predicted, although some of the mind control techniques described in both the book and song were already being used, while others had to wait until the 21st century to come to pass.
 


Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2412 (starts 3/18/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/521181


    There is a pattern in this week's playlist, but I'm going to let you figure out what it is for yourself. Or you could just sit back and enjoy the tunes from artists like Robin Trower, Steely Dan, Janis Joplin, Jethro Tull and more. Your choice.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Ups And Downs
Source:    CD: On Time
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    The first time I ever heard Grand Funk Railroad's Ups And Downs (on 8-track tape) I was caught off guard by the band suddenly breaking into a chorus of Row Row Row Your Boat midway through the song. Apparently the band had simply gone into the studio and knocked off eight tunes over a two-day period in June, performing them exactly as they did on stage for their 1969 debut album, On Time (along with a pair of tunes recorded a couple months earlier). The result was some of the most raw and honest hard rock ever recorded.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    You Don't Love Me
Source:    LP: Super Session
Writer(s):    Willie Cobb
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1968
    You Don't Love Me was originally recorded and released as a single by Willie Cobbs in 1960. Although the song is credited solely to Cobbs, it strongly resembles a 1955 Bo Diddley B side, She's Fine She's Mine, in its melody, lyrics and repeated guitar riff. The Cobbs single was a regional hit on the Mojo label in Memphis, but stalled out nationally after being reissued on Vee-Jay Records, due to the label pulling promotional support from the song due to copyright issues. A 1965 version by Junior Wells with Buddy Guy saw some minor changes in the lyrics to the song; it was this version that was covered by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills for the 1968 Super Session album. The recording extensively uses an effect called flanging, a type of phase-shifting that was first used in stereo on the Jimi Hendrix Experience track Bold As Love.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Lost Woman
Source:    CD: Yer' Album
Writer(s):    Dreja/McCarty/Beck/Relf/Samwell-Smith
Label:    MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year:    1969
    The first James Gang album was primarily designed to show off the performing talents of guitarist Joe Walsh, bassist Tom Kriss and drummer Jim Fox. As such, most of the album was made up of cover songs such as the Yardbirds' Lost Woman. Like other covers on Yer' Album, Lost Woman turns into a long extended jam, running a total of nine minutes before all is played and done. Subsequent albums would focus more on the songwriting talents of the band members, particularly Walsh.

Artist:    Cactus
Title:    You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover
Source:    CD: Cactus
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Wounded Bird (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Cactus was kind of an accidental supergroup formed in 1969, when plans for a new band featuring bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice from Vanilla Fudge, along with former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck, had to be scrapped due to Beck being injured in a car accident. Instead, Bogert and Appice recruited guitarist Jim McCarty, a veteran of Mitch Ryder's Detroit Wheels who had more recently been working with the Buddy Miles Express, and vocalist Rusty Day from the Amboy Dukes to form Cactus. The group released their self-titled debut LP in 1970. The album featured a mix of originals and high-energy covers of blues classics such as Willie Dixon's You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover, which had originally been recorded by Bo Diddley. The Cactus version of the tune runs six and a half minutes and includes some wailing guitar work from McCarty, who would eventually leave the band over creative differences with the other members.

Artist:     Janis Joplin
Title:     Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)
Source:     CD: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer:     Ragavoy/Taylor
Label:     Columbia/Legacy
Year:     1969
     A glance through the various playlists on this blog makes one thing abundantly clear: the psychedelic era was a time for bands, as opposed to individual stars. The music industry itself, however, tends to favor the single artist. Perhaps this is because it is easier to market (cynics would say exploit) an individual artist than a collective of musicians. In the case of Janis Joplin, people in the industry managed to convince her that her fellow members of Big Brother and the Holding Company were holding her back due to their lack of musicianship. A listen to her first album without her old bandmates puts the lie to that argument. Although the Kozmic Blues Band may indeed have had greater expertise as individual musicians than Big Brother, the energy that had electrified audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival and at various San Francisco ballrooms was just not there, and the album is generally considered somewhat limp in comparison to Cheap Thrills. The opening (and some would say best) track on the album is Try (Just A Little Bit Harder). While not a bad song, the recording just doesn't have the magic of a Piece of My Heart or Ball and Chain, despite a strong vocal performance by Joplin herself.
 
Artist:    Doors
Title:    Peace Frog/Blue Sunday
Source:    LP: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: Morrison Hotel)
Writer(s):    Morrison/Kreiger
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1970
    The Doors' Peace Frog, in a very basic sense, is actually two separate works of art. The track started off as an instrumental piece by guitarist Robbie Kreiger, recorded while the rest of the band was waiting for Jim Morrison to come up with lyrics for another piece. Not long after the track was recorded, producer Paul Rothchild ran across a poem of Morrison's called Abortion Stories and encouraged him to adapt it to the new instrumental tracks. Peace Frog, which appears on the album Morrison Hotel, leads directly into Blue Sunday, one of many poems/songs written by Morrison for Pamela Courson, his paramour since 1965.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Mother Goose
Source:    CD: Aqualung
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    Aqualung was Jethro Tull's breakthrough album, and it remains their all-time best-seller, with over seven million copies sold worldwide so far. The album, released in 1971, was the first to include keyboardist John Evan and bassist Jeffrey Hammond as full time members, and also the last to feature founding member Clive Barker on drums. The album also contains more acoustic material than the band's earlier works; a prime example of this is Mother Goose, a song that continues the abstract imagery of Cross-Eyed Mary, which appears earlier on the same side of the original LP.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Fire In The Hole
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    ABC
Year:    1972
    Donald Fagen's unique piano style is on display on Fire In The Hole, a track from the first Steely Dan album, Can't Buy A Thrill. The tune also appeared as the B side of Steely Dan's second single (and first hit), Do It Again.

Artist:    Nazareth
Title:    Broken Down Angel
Source:    45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Nazareth
Label:    A&M
Year:    1973
    Nazareth was formed in Dumfermline, Scotland in 1968, and recorded their first album in 1971. The band's original lineup included Dan McCafferty on lead vocals, Darrell Sweet on percussion, Pete Agnew on bass guitar and Manny Charlton on electric guitar, and had a series of hit singles in the UK, Canada and Europe in the early 1970s. The first of these was Broken Down Angel, which made the British top 10 in 1973. The song was not a hit in the US, however. Ironically, Love Hurts, the only Nazareth song to hit big in the US, failed to crack the top 40 in the UK.
    
Artist:    Robin Trower
Title:    Too Rolling Stoned
Source:    CD: Bridge Of Sighs
Writer(s):    Robin Trower
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1974
    One of the most celebrated guitar albums of all time, Bridge Of Sighs was Robin Trower's second solo LP following his departure from Procol Harum. Released in 1974, the LP spent 31 weeks on the Billboard album charts, peaking at #7. Bridge of Sighs has served as a template for later guitar-oriented albums, especially those of Warren Haines and Gov't Mule. Among the many tracks from Bridge Of Sighs to get extensive airplay on US FM rock stations in the mid-1970s was Too Rolling Stoned, which opens up the album's second side.

Artist:    Robin Trower
Title:    In This Place
Source:    CD: Bridge Of Sighs
Writer(s):    Robin Trower
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1974
    About half of the tunes on Bridge Of Sighs were co-written by vocalist/bassist James Dewar, with the remainder credited solely to Trower. In This Place is an example of the latter.
 


Sunday, March 10, 2024

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2411 (starts 3/11/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/520294 


    This week has a little bit of a lot of things, including sets from 1965, 1966 and 1967, progressions through the years, regressions through the years, and an Advanced Psych segment. After all that you might need a little Codine, and we've got that, too, from Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    The Girl I Knew Somewhere (single version)
Source:    Mono Australian import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Michael Nesmith
Label:    RCA
Year:    1967
    Although both Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork had participated in a few of the studio sessions for what became the first two Monkees albums (with Nesmith producing), the Monkees did not record as an actual band until January 16, 1967, when they taped the first version of Nesmith's The Girl I Knew Somewhere. Nesmith himself handled the lead vocals and guitar work, while Tork, the most accomplished musician in the group, played harpsichord. Mickey Dolenz played drums and Davy Jones added the tambourine part. The song was released less than two weeks after the same lineup re-recorded the song with Dolenz on lead vocals as the B side to A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You. Both sides made the top 40 in the spring of 1967.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Sunrise
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Decca
Year:    1967
    One of the nicest tunes on The Who Sell Out is Sunrise, which is actually a Pete Townshend solo tune featuring Townshend's vocals and acoustic guitar. One of my favorites.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Penny Lane (North American radio version)
Source:    LP: Rarities (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
    Here's a little known fact: the true stereo recording of the Beatles' Penny Lane was not released in the US until 1980, when the song appeared on an album called Rarities. The original 1967 single was mono only, while the version used on the US Magical Mystery Tour LP was created using Capitol's infamous Duophonic process. A true stereo mix that had previously been available only in Germany was used on Rarities, but modified to include a series of trumpet notes at the end of the song that had previously only appeared on promo copies of the single sent to radio stations in the US and Canada.
    
Artist:    Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title:    Yellow Brick Road
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Van Vliet/Bermann
Label:    Buddah/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    Following a pair of singles for Herb Alpert's A&M that garnered modest airplay on a handful of Los Angeles area radio stations, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band set out to record a set of heavily R&B flavored demos. The label, however, didn't like what they heard and soon dropped the band from their lineup. Undeterred, the group soon signed with Kama Sutra's brand new subsidiary label, Buddah. The resulting album, Safe As Milk, was the first LP to be released on the new label. Among the more experimental tracks on the album was Yellow Brick Road, a mono mix of which has recently been reissued as the B side of a single. Also of note is the presence of 20-year-old Ry Cooder on slide guitar.

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic folk-rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle was the official leader on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Hammer Song ( aka This Hammer)
Source:    Mono LP: Gimme Some Lovin' (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: The Second Album)
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Winwood/Winwood/York/Davis
Label:    United Artists (original UK label: Fontana)
Year:    1965
    When originally released in the UK (as a B side) this track was title This Hammer. On later releases however, such as the compilation LP Gimme Some Lovin', available only the US and Canada, the title is given as Hammer Song. I guess when it comes to traditional pieces even the title can be a bit hazy.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Peepin' And Hidin'
Source:    CD: Dark Sides-The Best Of The Shadows Of Knight (originally released on LP: Back Door Men)
Writer(s):    Jimmy Reed
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    When the Shadows Of Knight first entered the recording studio to work on their first LP, Gloria, the band featured Warren Rogers on lead guitar and Joe Kelley on bass. It soon became evident, however, the Kelley had a lot more talent as an instrumentalist than anyone had realized, and by the time the album was completed Kelley and Rogers had traded instruments. The band's second LP, Back Door Men, saw Kelley taking even a bigger role on tracks like Jimmy Reed's Peepin' And Hidin', which features Kelley on lead vocals, as well as his usual lead guitar and blues harp.

Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     Catfish Blues
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Canned Heat)
Writer:     Robert Petway
Label:     United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year     1967
     Like many other US cities in the 1960s, San Francisco had a small but enthusiastic community of blues record collectors. A group of them got together in 1966 to form Canned Heat, and made quite an impression when they played the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. This led to a contract with Liberty Records and an album consisting entirely of cover versions of blues standards. One standout track from that album is Robert Petway's Catfish Blues, expanded to over six minutes by the Heat. Original drummer Frank Cook would leave Canned Heat after their first album, eventually finding his way into Pacific Gas & Electric, where he also served as manager for a time. Meanwhile, Canned Heat would recruit Fito de la Parra as his replacement, completing the band's classic lineup.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    War Of Distortion
Source:    CD: Hey Joe
Writer(s):    Bobby Arlin
Label:    One Way (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    The most psychedelic piece on L.A.'s Leaves' first LP, Hey Joe, is guitarist Bobby Arlin's War Of Distortion. Oddly, the track does not contain any of the usual distortion effects heard on many garage-rock albums, but instead manages to sound like a merry-go-round speeding up and slowing down without actually speeding up or slowing down, thanks in large part to the use of a children's slide whistle. The vocals go back and forth between the extreme right and left throughout the song, so listening in stereo, preferably with headphones, is highly recommended.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Why Pick On Me
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1966
    Ed Cobb was, in many ways, the Ed Wood of the record industry. The bands who recorded under his guidance, such as LA.'s Standells, have become legends of garage rock. Wood wrote the first three singles released by the Standells, including their biggest hit, Dirty Water, and its follow-up, Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. Why Pick On Me, the title track of the band's second LP, was the third single released by the band, although it did not chart as well as its predecessors.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Get It On
Source:    LP: Midnight Ride
Writer(s):    Volk/Levin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The first four LPs by Paul Revere and the Raiders were, like most albums in the early 1960s, made up primarily of cover songs. 1965's Just Like Us, for instance, had only one song written by band members (Steppin' Out, by Revere and vocalist Mark Lindsay). That all changed with the release of Midnight Ride in 1966. Of the album's nine songs, all but two were written by band members; in fact, it is the only Raiders album to include compositions from every member of the group. Three of the songs were written or co-written by lead guitarist Drake Levin, the band's youngest member. Those three songs included Get It On, which features lead vocals by co-writer and bassist Phil "Fang" Volk.

Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    My Baby (alternate take)
Source:    CD: The Pearl Sessions
Writer(s):    Ragovoy/Schuman
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2012
    By far the most polished of Janis Joplin's albums was Pearl, recorded in 1970 and released in January of 1971. Much of the credit for the album's sound has to go to Paul Rothchild, who had already made his reputation producing the Doors. Another factor was the choice of material to record. In addition to some of Joplin's originals such as Mercedes Benz and Move Over, the LP featured several songs from songwriter Jerry Ragovoy, who had co-written (with the legendary Bert Berns) Joplin's first big hit with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Piece Of My Heart. Working with another legendary songwriter, Doc Schuman, Ragovoy provided some of Joplin's most memorable songs on the album, including My Baby, a song that suited Joplin's vocal style perfectly, as can be heard on this alternate take from The Pearl Sessions, released in 2012.

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    White Bird
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: It's A Beautiful Day)
Writer(s):    David & Linda LaFlamme
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    San Francisco's It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were desperately trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's San Francisco Sound label.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Square Room
Source:    British import CD: Now And Them
Writer(s):    Armstrong/Elliot/Harley/Henderson/McDowell
Label:    Rev-Ola (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    With new lead vocalist Kenny McDowell replacing the departed Van Morrison, Them relocated to the US and recorded a single for Sully Records, a label based in Amarillo, Texas and co-owned by Ray Ruff. The B side of that single was a three-minute long tune called Square Room. Not long after the single was released Ruff and the band all relocated to Los Angeles, where Ruff produced two Them albums for Capitol's Tower subsidiary. The first of these, Now And Them, features a nearly ten minute long version of Square Room that has come to be regarded as one of the finest examples of raga-rock to come out of the psychedelic era. Jim Armstrong in particular turns in a strong performance on lead guitar.
        
Artist:    Early Rationals [circa 1966]
Title:    I Need You
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Rhino (original label: A Squared)
Year:    1967
    The Rationals were formed in 1965 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They soon got the attention of local label A2 (A Squared), and had a series of regional hits in the same Detroit soul-rock style favored by such notables as Mitch Ryder and Bob Seger. One of the best of these was a cover of a Kinks B side, I Need You, which the Rationals recorded in 1966, but did not release until late 1967, when it appeared as a B side backing another artist entirely. To confuse the matter the record was credited to the Early Rationals (circa 1966). Even stranger was the fact that the Rationals had released a Gerry Goffin/Carole King song called I Need You on the same label earlier that same year. My money's on this one as the better of the two tracks.

Artist:    Strawberry Zots
Title:    Pretty Flowers
Source:    LP: Cars, Flowers, Telephones
Writer(s):    Mark Andrews
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    Albuquerque's Strawberry Zots were led by Mark Andrews, who either wrote or co-wrote all of the band's original material. Their only LP, Cars, Flowers, Telephones, was released locally on the StreetSound label and reissued on CD the following year by RCA records. My personal favorite track on the album is Pretty Flowers, which starts off the LP's second side. Unfortunately the song is handicapped by its low-fidelity production, which may have been a deliberate attempt to emulate the sound of 60s psychedelia, but ends up sounding over-compressed (like much of the music of the 1980s).
        
Artist:    Ace Of Cups
Title:    Interlude: Transistor/Stones
Source:    CD: Ace Of Cups
Writer(s):    Mary Gannon
Label:    High Moon
Year:    2018
    Stones is one of the oldest songs in the Ace Of Cups repertoire, dating back to 1967. What makes the 2018 version of the track truly unique, however, is the fact that drummer Diane Vitalich puts some of the band's shared experience into her lead vocals on the tune, which was written, and originally sung, by the group's founder, Mary Gannon. It turns out that bandmate Denise Kaufman was present (and five months pregnant) at the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones concert at Altamont that erupted into violence, and was in fact seriously injured when her skull was fractured by a thrown beer bottle. To make things worse, the Stones themselves refused to let their helicopter be used to transport her to a hospital, endangering both her and the baby. Although things turned out OK in the long run, Vitalich, for the studio version of Stones, replaced a line in the song's bridge about how the Ace Of Cups loved the Rolling Stones with the following: "You can rock like a Rolling Stone, but baby I ain't buyin' it."

Artist:    27 Devils Joking
Title:    Indian Joe
Source:    LP: Actual Toons
Writer(s):    Brian S. Curley
Label:    Live Wire
Year:    1986
    This seems like a good place to talk about Craig Ellis. Craig was a talented, if somewhat troubled songwriter/guitarist/vocalist whom I first heard of in the early 1980s when I ran across a single by a group called Cosmic Grackles at KUNM radio at the University of New Mexico. I finally met Craig in late1986, when both of us were recording at Bottomline Studios in southeast Albuquerque. I was working on something called Civilian Joe ("a real American zero"), while Craig was putting together a project called Uproar At The Zoo involving guitarist Larry Otis and drummer John Henry Smith, among others. Around that same time I interviewed a guy from Santa Fe named Brian S. Curley, who was appearing on my Rock Nouveaux radio show to promote his new group, 27 Devils Joking. During the interview Brian mentioned that he had until recently been working with Craig Ellis, and that 27 Devils Joking was actually a result of a falling out between the two. Which brings us to Indian Joe, a track from the first 27 Devils Joking LP, Actual Toons. You see, in early 1987 Craig gave me a cassette tape of some of his most recent work, including a song called Indian Joe. It's the same song, using an almost identical arrangement, yet on the LP the song is listed as being the sole work of Brian Curley. One of these days I'll find that old cassette tape Craig gave me and try to figure out once and for all whose song it is.
        
Artist:    Glass Family
Title:    House Of Glass
Source:    British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US on LP: The Glass Family Electric Band)
Writer(s):    Ralph Parrett
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    The Glass Family (Ralph Parrett, David Capilouto and Gary Green) first surfaced in 1967 with a single called Teenage Rebellion on Mike Curb's Sidewalk label. The following year they signed with Warner Brothers, releasing their only LP, The Glass Family Electric Band, that same year. The opening track from the album, House Of Glass, is, in the words of Capilouto, self-explanatory, which is a good thing, as it saves me the trouble of trying to figure out what it's about.

Artist:     Steppenwolf
Title:     Sookie Sookie
Source:     LP: The ABC Collection (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s):     Covay/Cropper
Label:     ABC (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1968
     Not every song on the first Steppenwolf album was an original composition. In fact, some of the best songs on the LP were covers, from Hoyt Axton's The Pusher to Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man. A third cover, Sookie Sookie, was actually released as a follow-up single to Born To Be Wild, but failed to chart. The song had been an R&B hit a couple years earlier for Don Covay and was co-written by the legendary MGs guitarist Steve Cropper.

Artist:    Chocolate Watch Band
Title:    Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer:    McElroy/Bennett
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watch Band. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In), a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watch Band's first album, is one of those few. Ironically, the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album. According to legend, the band actually showed up at the movie studio without any songs prepared for the film, and learned to play and sing Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) right there on the set. This, combined with the story of their first visit to a recording studio the previous year (a story for another time) shows one of the Watch Band's greatest strengths: the ability to pick up and perfect new material faster than anyone else. It also shows their overall disinterest in the recording process. This was a band that wanted nothing more than to play live, often outperforming the big name bands they opened for.

Artist:    Little Boy Blues
Title:    The Great Train Robbery
Source:    Mono CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jordan Miller
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Ronko)
Year:    1966
    When Bob Dylan went electric in 1965 it not only shocked the folk music community, it transformed the world of rock music as well. Suddenly it was OK to write a rock song about something other than relationships with the other sex, and the Little Boy Blues, from Skokie, Illinois, rose to the occasion with The Great Train Robbery. Released in late 1966, the song describes an event from recent history (an actual train robbery near London in 1963), as told by one of the ringleaders of the gang that perpetrated the robbery itself. The last verse of the song, which was issued on the tiny Ronko label, expresses the regret of the narrator, who is now doing 30 years in prison. The Little Boy Blues, consisting of Ray Levin (bass), Paul Ostroff (lead guitar), Jim Boyce (drums), and a series of rhythm guitarists, released half a dozen records on three different labels from 1965 to 1968.

Artist:    Five Americans
Title:    I See The Light
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Durrill/Ezell/Rabon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Abnak)
Year:    1965
    For years I was under the impression that the Five Americans were a Texas band, mainly due to Abnak Records having a Dallas address. It turns out, though, that the band was actually from Durant, Oklahoma, although by the time they had their biggest hit, Western Union, they were playing most of their gigs in the Lone Star state. I See The Light is an earlier single built around a repeating Farfisa organ riff that leads into a song that can only be described as in your face. The song was produced by the legendary Dale Hawkins, who wrote and recorded the original version of Suzy Q in the late 1950s.

Artist:    Barbarians
Title:    Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ron and Doug Morris
Label:    Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year:    1965
    The Barbarians were formed in Boston in 1963, and got their big break when they were picked for a slot on the T.A.M.I. show in 1964. The group was somewhat unusual in that the lead vocalist, Vic "Moulty" Moulton, was also the drummer. The fact that Moulty wore a hook only made the band stand out even more. In 1965 they hit the charts with Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl, a satirical song based on a rather snide question that was often heard coming out of the mouths of conservative types (and greasers) that saw the current trend toward longer hair on boys (inspired by the Beatles) as being a threat to their way of life.
        
Artist:    Mouse And The Traps
Title:    A Public Execution
Source:    Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Henderson/Weiss
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year:    1965
    It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousin down in Tyler. Speaking of cousins, A Public Execution was inspired by a misunderstanding concerning a cousin and a motorcycle ride. According to Ronnie "Mouse" Weiss, his fiancee actually broke up with him after getting word that Mouse had been seen giving an attractive girl a ride. It turned out the attractive girl in question was his cousin from across the state who had come for a visit, but by the time the truth came out Weiss and his band had their first of many regional hit records.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:    1966
    Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one willing to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record was released in September of 1966 by M-G-M subsidiary Verve Folkways, a label whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations the song became a major hit when re-released the following year after being featured on an April 1967 Leonard Bernstein TV special. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It
Source:    LP: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    The first Neil Young song I ever heard was Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, which was issued as the B side of For What It's Worth in 1967. I had bought the single and, as always, after my first listen flipped the record over to hear what was on the other side. (Years later I was shocked to learn that there were actually people who never listened to the B side of records they bought. I've never been able to understand that.) Anyway, at the time I didn't know who Neil Young was, or the fact that although Young was a member of Buffalo Springfield it was actually Richie Furay singing the song on the record. Now I realize that may seem a bit naive on my part, but I was 14 at the time, so what do you expect? At least I had the good taste to buy a copy of For What It's Worth in the first place (along with the Doors' Light My Fire and the Spencer Davis Group's I'm A Man if I remember correctly). Where I got the money to buy three current records at the same time is beyond me, though.

Artist:    Love
Title:    She Comes In Colors
Source:    Mono CD: Da Capo (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1966
    Arthur Lee's transition from angry punk (on songs like 7&7 Is and My Little Red Book) to a softer, more introspective kind of singer/songwriter was evident on Love's second LP, Da Capo. Although there were still some hard rockers, such as Stephanie Knows Who, the album also includes songs like She Comes In Colors, which was released ahead of the album as the band's third single in late 1966. The song was one of Lee's first to inspire critics to draw comparisons between Lee's vocal style and that of Johnny Mathis. Lee may indeed have been, as many assert, a musical genius, but his reference to "England town" shows his knowledge of geography to be somewhat lacking.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Sunshine Superman
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1966
    Up until the early 1970s there was an unwritten rule that stated that in order to get played on top 40 radio a song could be no more than three and a half minutes long. There were exceptions, of course, such as Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, but as a general rule the policy was strictly adhered to. Sometimes an artist would record a song that exceeded the limit but nonetheless was considered to have commercial potential. In cases like these the usual practice was for the record company (or sometimes the record's own producer) to create an edited version of the master recording for release as a single. Usually in these cases the original unedited version of the song would appear on an album. In the case of Donovan's Sunshine Superman, however, the mono single version was used for the album as well, possibly because the album itself was never issued in stereo. In fact, it wasn't until 1969 that the full-length original recording of Sunshine Superman was made available as a track on Donovan's first Greatest Hits collection. This was also the first time the song had appeared in stereo, having been newly mixed for that album.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Codine
Source:    LP: Revolution soundtrack
Writer(s):    Buffy St. Marie
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    Buffy St. Marie's Codine was a popular favorite among the club crowd in mid-60s California. In 1967, L.A. band The Leaves included it on their second LP. Around the same time, up the coast in San Francisco, the Charlatans selected it to be their debut single. The suits at Kama-Sutra Records, however, balked at the choice, and instead sold the band's master tapes to Kapp Records, who then released the group's cover of the Coasters' The Shadow Knows (and sped up the master tape in the mastering process). The novelty-flavored record bombed so bad that the label decided not to release any more Charlatans tracks, thus leaving their version of Codine gathering dust in the vaults until the mid 1990s, when the entire Kama-Sutra sessions were released on CD. Meanwhile, back in 1968, fellow San Francisco band Quicksilver Messenger Service was still without a record contract, despite pulling decent crowds at various Bay Area venues, including a credible appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. Quicksilver did find their way onto vinyl, however, when the producers of the quasi-documentary film Revolution decided to include footage of the band playing Codine, and commissioned this studio recording of the song for the soundtrack album.