Artist: Beatles
Title: Help!
Source: CD: Help!
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1965
One of the best-known songs of all time, Help! was the theme of the second Beatles movie. The soundtrack album featured a combination of songs that were used in the film and new material, most of which was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The album cover itself shows the four Beatles holding their arms out in positions resembling those used by flagmen using semaphore. Supposedly they were spelling out the word "help", but those knowledgeable in semaphore say that the four letters they are signaling are entirely different, and actually make no sense. Regardless, the album represents the zenith of the early Beatles sound, with a few hints of the direction they would begin to take with their next LP, Rubber Soul.
Artist: Woolies
Title: Who Do You Love
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Elias McDaniel
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1966
Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love had become somewhat of a rock and roll dance standard by the mid-1960s, with several bands recording the tune. Probably the most overtly psychedelic version came from East Lansing, Michigan's Woolies. The group was discovered by Dunhill Records' Lou Adler and were flown out to L.A. to record the song, which was originally considered the B side of their debut single. When some radio stations started flipping the record over to play Who Do You Love, Dunhill was slow to promote the song, and it stalled out in the lower reaches of the charts. Disillusioned by the whole experience, all but one member of the Woolies returned to Michigan, recording a handful of regionally-distributed records on small local labels before finally disbanding.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Queen Noimphet
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
To say the motives of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's Bob Markley were questionable was an understatement. The man, by all accounts, was lacking in any kind of musical talent. What he did have, however, was a huge trust fund that he would get a quarterly check from. He used the money to set himself up in a big house in the Hollywood hills, throwing parties for all the local hipsters to attend. It was at one of these parties in 1966 that he was introduced to the Harris brothers, sons of a classical composer who had recently formed their own band but were in need of decent equipment. Markley's friend Kim Fowley (singer of the original Alley Oop and all-around Hollywood hustler) had booked the Yardbirds to play at the party, and Markley was so impressed by the band's ability to attract young ladies that he decided then and there to be a rock star. Fowley introduced the 30-year-old Markley to the teenaged Harris brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was formed. As time went on it became apparent that the older Markley got, the younger his taste in women was becoming. Markley's lyrics for the song Queen Noimphet, from the album Volume II, are an indication of where his obsession with attracting young girls was taking him. Indeed, he was reportedly arrested in the 70s on sex charges, but was able to use his considerable financial resources to buy his way out of trouble.
Artist: Cream
Title: Tales Of Brave Ulysses
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Sharp
Label: RSO (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Cream was one of the first bands to break British tradition and release singles that were also available as album cuts. This tradition likely came about because 45 RPM records (both singles and extended play 45s) tended to stay in print indefinitely in the UK, unlike in the US, where a hit single usually had a shelf life of around 2-3 months then disappeared forever. When the Disraeli Gears album was released, however, the song Strange Brew, which leads off the LP, was released in Europe as a single. The B side of that single was Tales Of Brave Ulysses, which opens side two of the album.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: LP: The Best Of Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Often credited as the first progressive rock band, Procol Harum drew heavily from classical music sources, such as the Bach inspired theme used by organist Matthew Fisher as the signature rift for A Whiter Shade of Pale. The tracd itself hold the distinction of being the most-played recording on the British airwaves of the past 70 years.
Artist: Mike Proctor
Title: Mr. Commuter
Source: CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 PM single)
Writer(s): Roker/Littlewood
Label: EMI (original UK label: Columbia)
Year: 1967
In the US, the psychedelic era is generally considered to cover the years 1965 through 1969, more or less, and includes the garage/punk movement as well as early forms of hard rock, heavy metal and progressive rock. In the UK, on the other hand, the psychedelic era covers a much shorter time period, 1966-68, and is defined by two Beatle albums: Revolver at the beginning and the White album at the end. In between there were a variety of artists, many of whom made only one album (or even one single). Among these is classically-trained pianist Mike Proctor, whose Mr. Commuter was released in mid 1967 on EMI's Columbia label. Proctor hooked up with a couple bands after releasing the single, but never again recorded for a major label.
Artist: Love
Title: You I'll Be Following
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
When the Byrds decided to tour heavily to support their early hits Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn!, Arthur Lee's band Love was more than happy to fill the void left on the L.A. club scene. The group quickly established itself as the top band on the strip and caught the attention of Elektra Records, an album-oriented label that had previously specialized in blues and folk music but was looking to move into rock. Love was soon signed to a contract with Elektra and released their self-titled debut LP in 1966. That album featured songs that were primarily in a folk-rock vein, such as You I'll Be Following, although even then there were signs that bandleader Arthur Lee was capable of writing quality tunes that defied easy classification. Love would remain the top band on the strip for the next year and a half, recording two more albums in 1967. To maintain their status as local heroes, Love chose to stay close to home. The lack of time spent promoting their records ultimately led to them being supplanted as the star group for Elektra by the Doors, a band that had been recommended to the label by Lee himself.
Artist: Doors
Title: End Of The Night
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors first big break came when they opened for Love at L.A.'s most famous club, the Whisky-A-Go-Go, and became friends with the members of the more established popular local band. Love was already recording for Elektra Records, and enthusiastically recommended that the label sign the Doors as well. Elektra did, and the Doors went on to become one of the most successful and influential bands in rock history. Although not as well-known as Light My Fire or The End, the dark and moody End Of The Night is a classic early Doors tune, from the opening bent chords from guitarist Robby Krieger to the spooky keyboard work of Ray Manzarek and of course Jim Morrison's distinctive vocals.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Special Disc Jockey Record (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
My first two years as a student at the University of New Mexico were spent living off-campus in a large house shared by five other people (a varying number of which were also students). One day while rummaging through the basement I ran across a couple boxes full of reel-to-reel tapes. As I was the only person living there with a reel-to-reel machine and nobody seemed to know where the tapes had come from, I appropriated them for my own use. Unfortunately, many of the tapes were unlabeled, so all I could do was make a guess as to artists and titles of the music on them. One of those unknown tracks was this 1966 slowed way down version of Muddy Waters's Two Trains Running by the Blues Project. A few years later I ran across a nearly pristine cut-out copy of the album Projections at a thrift shop. As I had remembered being intrigued by the cover back when I couldn't afford albums I immediately snapped it up and took it home for a listen. I still have that copy of Projections, as well as a promo sampler I got from the WEOS archives in 2009 that I used for tonight's show.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Renaissance Fair
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): Crosby/McGuinn
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Younger Than Yesterday was David Crosby's last official album with the Byrds (he was fired midway through the recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers) and the last one containing any collaborations between Crosby and Jim (now Roger) McGuinn. Renaissance Fair is one of those collaborations.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Perhaps more than any other band, Country Joe and the Fish capture the essence of the San Francisco scene in the late 60s. Their first two releases were floppy inserts included in Joe McDonald's self-published Rag Baby underground newspaper. In 1967 the band was signed to Vanguard Records, a primarily folk-oriented prestige label that also had Joan Baez on its roster. Their first LP, Electric Music For the Mind and Body had such classic cuts as Section 43, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, and the political parody Superbird on it, as well as the mostly-instrumental tune The Masked Marauder. Not for the unenlightened.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Light Years From Home
Source: CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more noticeable than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover featured the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines and pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interesting enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) got significant airplay.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
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(s): 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 Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in truth 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, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, No Way Out, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that 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.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil
Source: CD: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: After Bathing At Baxter's)
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1967
The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil (the title being a reference to Fred Neil) was never issued as a single. Nonetheless, the band decided to include it on their first anthology album, The Worst of Jefferson Airplane. This, in fact, was typical of the collection, which favored the songs the band considered their best over those that were considered the most commercial. Interestingly enough, the original plan for After Bathing At Baxter's (the album the song first appeared on) was to use a nine minute live version of Ballad, but that idea was scrapped in favor of dividing the album into five suites, the first of which opened with the studio version of the tune.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Get Me To The World On Time
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single).
Writer(s): Tucker/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes' producer Dave Hassinger turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for two more tracks to include on the band's debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).
Artist: Joe Cocker
Title: With A Little Help From My Friends
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm (originally released on Woodstock soundtrack album)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1969
One of the most famous performances at Woodstock was instrumental in converting Joe Cocker from second tier British singer/bandleader to international superstar. This 2009 release of the live recording of With A Little Help From My Friends is virtually identical to what was originally included on the movie soundtrack album in the early 70s.
Artist: Chicago
Title: Beginnings
Source: LP: Chicago Transit Authority
Writer(s): Robert Lamm
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
The first album by Chicago shows a band that had spent several months on the road honing its craft. Many of the tracks on the double album were recorded in one take, with a minimum of overdubs. Beginnings, which finishes out side one of the album, was released as a single in 1969 but failed to chart. After the band became more well-known, Beginnings was re-released, this time becoming a moderate hit. The single version ran less than three minutes, essentially cutting out the entire second half of the song, but a later album edit running about six minutes has been used on most compilation albums. The original version heard here runs nearly eight minutes, including over two minutes of percussion and vocals at the end of the song.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
Source: LP: Gimme Some Lovin'
Writer(s): Jimmy Cox
Label: United Artists
Year: 1966
The Spencer Davis Group, featuring a teenage Steve Winwood on lead vocals and organ, came seemingly out of nowhere with their early 1967 hit, Gimme Some Lovin'. The reality was that the band had already racked up an impressive number of hits in their native England by the time Gimme Some Lovin' was released in late 1966. The band had also released several notable album tracks, including this 1966 cover of Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out, a song originally written and recorded by Jimmy Cox in the 1920s. Many of these tracks were collected for the band's first US album, Gimme Some Lovin', released in 1967.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: 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
Dirty Water has long since been adopted by the city of Boston, yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes in the early 60s. Lead vocalist/drummer Dickie Dodd, incidentally, was a former Mouseketeer who had played on the surf-rock hit Mr. Moto as a member of the Bel-Airs.
Artist: Limey And The Yanks
Title: Guaranteed Love
Source: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Reed/Paxton
Label: Rhino (original label: Star-Burst)
Year: 1966
Limey and the Yanks were an Orange County, California band that boasted an honest-to-dog British lead vocalist. Despite being kind of Zelig-like on the L.A. scene, they only recorded two singles. The first one, Guaranteed Love, was co-written by Gary Paxton, best known for his involvement in various novelty records, including the Hollywood Argyles' Alley Oop, which he co-wrote with Kim Fowley, and Bobby "Boris" Pickett's Monster Mash, which was released on Paxton's own Garpax label.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Hey Joe
Source: LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Possibly the greatest garage-rock album of all is the second Shadows Of Knight LP, Back Door Men. Released in 1966, the album features virtually the same lineup as their debut LP, Gloria. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Shadows were capable of varying their style somewhat, going from their trademark Chicago blues-influenced punk to what can only be described as early hard rock with ease. Like many bands of the time, they recorded a fast version of Billy Roberts' Hey Joe (although they credited it to Chet Powers on the label). The Shadows version, however, is a bit longer than the rest, featuring an extended guitar break by Joe Kelley, who had switched from bass to lead guitar midway through the recording of the Gloria album, replacing Warren Rogers, when it was discovered that Kelley was by far the more talented guitarist (Rogers was moved over to bass). Incidentally, despite the album's title and the Shadows' penchant for recording classic blues tunes, the band did not record a version of Howlin' Wolf's Back Door Man. The Blues Project and the Doors, however, did.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
Although San Jose, Ca. is a rather large city in its own right (the 10th-largest city in the US in fact), it has always had a kind of suburban status, thanks to being within the same media market as San Francisco. Nonetheless, San Jose had its own very active music scene in the mid-60s, and Count Five was, for a time in late 1966, at the top of the heap, thanks in large part to Psychotic Reaction tearing up the national charts.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: King Of The Jungle
Source: LP: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer(s): Wright/Tarachney/Weisberg
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Beacon Street Union's second album was quite a bit different from their first one, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Whereas Eyes consisted of all-original material, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens included a pair of cover tunes (Blue Suede Shoes and a 17-minute version of Baby, Please Don't Go), an orchestral piece (The Clown's Overture), and this bit of strangeness called King Of The Jungle. All this leads me to believe that the band itself gave up on the project halfway through, leaving producer Wes Farrell (he of Partridge Family fame) to scrounge through the outtakes and rejected tracks to fill out the album. Just my opinion, of course.
Artist: Bubble Puppy
Title: Hot Smoke And Sassafras
Source: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bubble Puppy
Label: Priority (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1969
From Houston we have an oft-requested song from a band that was a couple years ahead of its time, displaying musical dexterity on a par with later groups such as Flash and Yes. Soon after recording Hot Smoke and Sassafras the Bubble Puppy would relocate to California and change their name to Demian, at least in part to disassociate themselves with the then-popular "bubble gum" style (but also because of problems with the International Artists label).
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Screaming Night Hog
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): John Kay
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1970
By 1970 Steppenwolf had settled in to a fairly consistent groove, cranking out solid, if unspectacular hits on a regular basis. One such hit was Screaming Night Hog, which hit the top 40 that year. By this point John Kay had cemented his role as dominant figure in Steppenwolf, with the rest of the group pretty much serving as his backup band.
Artist: Neil Young
Title: Old Man
Source: CD: Harvest
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1972
Neil Young's most successful solo album was Harvest. The 1972 album featured two major hits, Heart Of Gold (which hit the #1 spot) and Old Man, which until this week has never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, even during the nearly 10 years it ran as a local non-syndicated show.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released 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 rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote most of the songs 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 from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1220 (starts 5/17/12)
Artist: Blues Project
Title: No Time Like The Right Time
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1967
The Blues Project were ahead of their time. They were the first jam band. They virtually created the college circuit for touring rock bands. Unfortunately, they also existed at a time when having a hit single was the considered a necessity. The closest the Blues Project ever got to a hit single was No Time Like The Right Time, which peaked at # 97 and stayed on the charts for all of two weeks. Personally, I rate it among the top 5 best songs ever.
Artist: Electric Flag
Title: Joint Passing
Source: LP: The Trip (movie soundtrack)
Writer(s): Michael Bloomfield
Label: Sidewalk
Year: 1967
The first Electric Flag LP was A Long Time Comin', released on Columbia Records in 1968. The group had actually made their recording debut the previous year on Mike Curb's Sidewalk label with the soundtrack for a Peter Fonda movie called The Trip. Unlike the Columbia releases, the movie soundtrack was essentially a Mike Bloomfield solo project, with the other members of the bad relegated to a purely supporting role. Most of the tracks on side one, in particular, are short instrumental pieces, such as Joint Passing, which runs almost exactly one minute.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Oops I Can Dance
Source: LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Jerry Jeff Walker
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Right from the start, the band Circus Maximus was being pulled in two musical directions by its co-founders, Bob Bruno and Jerry Jeff Walker. Although it was Bruno's song Wind that got the most airplay in 1967, it was Walker who went on to have a successful career as a singer/songwriter with songs like Mr. Bojangles. One of Walker's earliest songs was Oops I Can Dance from the first Circus Maximus album.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Tin Soldier Man
Source: CD: Something Else
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Ray Davies's songwriting continued to move in new and unexpected directions on the 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks. A good example is Tin Soldier Man, a tune that has an almost ragtime feel to it, yet is unmistakably a rock song.
Artist: Seeds
Title: The Wind Blows Her Hair
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1967
The Wind Blows Her Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released the whole concept of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news (at least in the L.A. area) and the single went nowhere.
Artist: Cream
Title: N.S.U.
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
Although most of Jack Bruce's Cream songs were co-written with lyricist Pete Brown, there were some exceptions. One of the most notable of these is N.S.U. from Cream's debut LP. The song has proven popular enough to be included in the band's repertoire when they reunited for a three-day stint at the Royal Albert Hall in 2005.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Hideaway
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Underground)
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: 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: Pearly Queen
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
The second Traffic LP was less overtly psychedelic than the Mr. Fantasy album, with songs like Pearly Queen taking the band in a more funky direction. When the band reformed in 1970 without Dave Mason (who had provided the most psychedelic elements) the songwriting team of Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, who had written Pearly Queen, continued the trend.
Artist: Hollies
Title: Here I Go Again
Source: LP: The Very Best Of The Hollies
Writer(s): Shuman/Westlake
Label: United Artists (original label: Imperial)
Year: 1964
Most US listeners first heard about the Hollies in 1966, when they took Bus Stop and Stop Stop Stop into the top 10. The group had actually been making hit records since 1963 in their native UK, where they were one of the most visible bands on TV dance programs. One of their earliest hits was 1964's Here I Go Again, a song that was co-written by Mort Shuman and Clive Westlake.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Alligator/Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
Source: CD: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): Lesh/McKernan/Hunter/Garcia/Kreutzmann/Weir
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After a debut album that took about a week to record (and that the band was unanimously unhappy with) the Grateful Dead took their time on their second effort, Anthem Of The Sun. After spending a considerable amount of time in three different studios on two coasts and not getting the sound they wanted (and shedding their original producer along the way) the Dead came to the conclusion that the only way to make an album that sounded anywhere near what the band sounded like onstage was to use actual recordings of their performances and combine them with the studio tracks they had been working on. Side two of the album, which includes the classic Alligator and the more experimental Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks), is basically an enhanced live performance, with new vocal tracks added in the studio. Alligator itself is notable as the first Grateful Dead composition to feature the lyrics of Robert Hunter, who would become Jerry Garcia's main collaborator for many many years.
Artist: Billy Preston
Title: I Wrote A Simple Song
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Preston/Greene
Label: A&M
Year: 1972
Journeyman R&B keyboardist Billy Preston first came to international prominence when he joined the Beatles for their famous rooftop performance of Get Back in 1969, a performance that was included in the Let It Be movie. Preston scored a solo hit a couple years later when he recorded a song of his own, That's The Way God Planned It, after performing the tune as part of George Harrison's Concert For Bangla Desh. Preston's biggest hit came in 1972, when Outa-Space became one of the top-selling instrumental singles of all time. The B side of Outa-Space was a song Preston wrote with Joe Greene called I Wrote A Simple Song.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Half Moon (mono single mix)
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Hall/Hall
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1971
A few weeks ago I gave away copies of the new Pearl Sessions CD by Janis Joplin and the Full Tilt Boogie Band. One of the conditions for entry was to tell me your favorite song from the original Pearl album. One of the more popular choices was the original B side of Me And Bobby McGee, the high-energy Half Moon. I realized at the time that I had never actually played Half Moon on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. I figured this was as good a time as any to change that.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Alley Oop
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Dallas Frazier
Label: Sundazed/Kama Sutra
Year: 1965/2011
The Lovin' Spoonful didn't actually release their version of the old Hollywood Argyles song Alley Oop as a single in 1965. In fact, they didn't release the song at all, even though it was recorded during the same sessions that became their debut LP that year. In 2011 the people at Sundazed decided to create a "single that never was", pairing Alley Oop with the full-length version of Night Owl Blues, a song that had been included on the 1965 debut in edited form. The Spoonful version of Alley Oop has an almost garage-band feel about it, and is perhaps the best indication on vinyl of what the band actually sounded like in their early days as a local fixture on the Greenwich Village scene.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: The Black Plague
Source: CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
One of the most interesting recordings of 1967 was Eric Burdon And The Animals' The Black Plague, which appeared on the Winds Of Change album. The Black Plague is a spoken word piece dealing with life and death in a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague (natch), set to a somewhat gothic piece of music that includes Gregorian style chanting and an occasional voice calling out the words "bring out your dead" in the background. The album itself had a rather distinctive cover, consisting of a stylized album title accompanied by a rather lengthy text piece on a black background, something that has never been done before or since on an album cover.
Artist: Who
Title: Rael 2/Top Gear Spot
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA
Year: 1967
This odd little piece was apparently intended as a coda to the final track of The Who Sell Out, but was not included on the album (although the label itself reads "Rael 1&2"). Rael 2, as well as the Top Gear commercial it segues into, is among the many bonus tracks added to the 1993 CD version of the album.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Jumpin' Jack Flash
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
After the commercial disappointment of their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request in late 1967, the Stones replaced longtime producer Andrew Loog Oldham with Jimmy Miller, who had made a name for himself working with Steve Winwood on recordings by both the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic. The collaboration resulted in a back-to-basics approach that produced the classic single Jumpin' Jack Flash, followed by the Beggar's Banquet album.
Artist: Nazz
Title: Open My Eyes
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Nazz)
Writer(s): Todd Rundgren
Label: Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year: 1968
The Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. The Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, among others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a new version would become a solo hit for Rundgren five years later).
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Gimme Some Lovin'
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label: United Artists
Year: 1966
The movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becomming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear in major markets as well. Most of them are now playing 80s oldies, by the way.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
Artist: Love
Title: Gazing
Source: LP: Love
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
L.A's Sunset Strip blossomed as a hangout for teenaged baby boomers in the mid-1960s, with clubs like Ciro's and the Whisky-A-Go-Go pulling in capacity crowds on a regular basis. These clubs had learned early on that the best way to draw a crowd was to hire a live band, which gave rise to a thriving local music scene. Among the many bands playing the strip, perhaps the most popular was Love, the house band at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. Led by Arthur Lee and boasting not one, but two songwriters (Lee and guitarist Bryan MacLean), Love made history in 1966 by being the first rock band signed to Elektra Records. Lee, a recent convert to the then-popular folk-rock style popularized by the Byrds (for whom MacLean had been a roadie) had come from an R&B background and counted a then-unknown Jimi Hendrix among his musician friends. Songs like Gazing, from Love's debut LP, gave an early indication that Lee, even while writing in the folk-rock idiom, had a powerful musical vision that was all his own.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: No Time
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Bachman/Cummings
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1970
The Guess Who hit their creative and commercial peak with their 1970 album American Woman. The first of three hit singles from the album was No Time, which was already climbing the charts when the LP was released. After American Woman the band's two main songwriters, guitarist Randy Bachman and vocalist Burton Cummings, would move in increasingly divergent directions, with Bachman eventually leaving the band to form the hard-rocking Bachman-Turner Overdrive, while Cummings continued to helm an increasingly light pop flavored Guess Who.
Artist: Flock
Title: Store Bought-Store Thought
Source: CD: The Flock
Writer(s): The Flock
Label: BGO (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
The Flock's 1969 debut album featured liner notes by British blues guru John Mayall, who called them the best band in America. Despite this stellar recommendation, the Flock (one of two bands with horn sections from the city of Chicago making their recording debut on Columbia Records in 1969) was unable to attract a large audience and disbanded after only two LPs. Most of the tracks on the album, including the seven minute Store Bought-Store Thought, were early examples of the progressive rock that was becoming popular on FM stations across the country at the time. Violinist Jerry Goodman would go on to be a founding member of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Love Story
Source: CD: This Was (bonus track-originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Living In The Past)
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol (original UK label: Island; original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Love Story was the last studio recording by the original Jethro Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornish. The song was released as a single following the band's debut LP, This Was. Shortly after it's release Abrahams left the group, citing differences with Anderson over the band's musical direction. The song spent eight weeks on the UK singles chart, reaching the #29 spot. In the U.S., "Love Story" was released in March 1969, with A Song for Jeffrey (an album track from This Was) on the B-side, but did not chart. Like most Jethro Tull songs released as singles in the UK, Love Story did not appear on an album until several years later; in this case on the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Comin' Back To Me
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to this Marty Balin tune. Balin, in his 2003 liner notes to the remastered release of Surrealistic Pillow, claims that Comin' Back To Me was written in one sitting under the influence of some primo stuff given to him by Paul Butterfield. Other players on the recording include Paul Kantner and Balin himself on guitars, Jack Casady on bass and Grace Slick on recorder.
Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: Help, I'm A Rock/It Can't Happen Here
Source: CD: Freak Out!
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1966
Help, I'm A Rock and its follow up track It Can't Happen Here are among the best-known Frank Zappa compositions on the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out! The phrase Help I'm A Rock itself comes across as a kind of mantra, with various verbal bits (including Zappa's own take on the 1966 Sunset Strip riot) going on around a repeating bass/drum/guitar riff. The song eventually leads into It Can't Happen Here, an avant-garde piece composed almost entirely of vocal tracks. The title is a play on a popular misconception in many American cities that the various kinds of civil unrest (and occasional violence) going on could only happen in someone else's town.
Title: No Time Like The Right Time
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1967
The Blues Project were ahead of their time. They were the first jam band. They virtually created the college circuit for touring rock bands. Unfortunately, they also existed at a time when having a hit single was the considered a necessity. The closest the Blues Project ever got to a hit single was No Time Like The Right Time, which peaked at # 97 and stayed on the charts for all of two weeks. Personally, I rate it among the top 5 best songs ever.
Artist: Electric Flag
Title: Joint Passing
Source: LP: The Trip (movie soundtrack)
Writer(s): Michael Bloomfield
Label: Sidewalk
Year: 1967
The first Electric Flag LP was A Long Time Comin', released on Columbia Records in 1968. The group had actually made their recording debut the previous year on Mike Curb's Sidewalk label with the soundtrack for a Peter Fonda movie called The Trip. Unlike the Columbia releases, the movie soundtrack was essentially a Mike Bloomfield solo project, with the other members of the bad relegated to a purely supporting role. Most of the tracks on side one, in particular, are short instrumental pieces, such as Joint Passing, which runs almost exactly one minute.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Oops I Can Dance
Source: LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Jerry Jeff Walker
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Right from the start, the band Circus Maximus was being pulled in two musical directions by its co-founders, Bob Bruno and Jerry Jeff Walker. Although it was Bruno's song Wind that got the most airplay in 1967, it was Walker who went on to have a successful career as a singer/songwriter with songs like Mr. Bojangles. One of Walker's earliest songs was Oops I Can Dance from the first Circus Maximus album.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Tin Soldier Man
Source: CD: Something Else
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Ray Davies's songwriting continued to move in new and unexpected directions on the 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks. A good example is Tin Soldier Man, a tune that has an almost ragtime feel to it, yet is unmistakably a rock song.
Artist: Seeds
Title: The Wind Blows Her Hair
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1967
The Wind Blows Her Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released the whole concept of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news (at least in the L.A. area) and the single went nowhere.
Artist: Cream
Title: N.S.U.
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
Although most of Jack Bruce's Cream songs were co-written with lyricist Pete Brown, there were some exceptions. One of the most notable of these is N.S.U. from Cream's debut LP. The song has proven popular enough to be included in the band's repertoire when they reunited for a three-day stint at the Royal Albert Hall in 2005.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Hideaway
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Underground)
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: 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: Pearly Queen
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
The second Traffic LP was less overtly psychedelic than the Mr. Fantasy album, with songs like Pearly Queen taking the band in a more funky direction. When the band reformed in 1970 without Dave Mason (who had provided the most psychedelic elements) the songwriting team of Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, who had written Pearly Queen, continued the trend.
Artist: Hollies
Title: Here I Go Again
Source: LP: The Very Best Of The Hollies
Writer(s): Shuman/Westlake
Label: United Artists (original label: Imperial)
Year: 1964
Most US listeners first heard about the Hollies in 1966, when they took Bus Stop and Stop Stop Stop into the top 10. The group had actually been making hit records since 1963 in their native UK, where they were one of the most visible bands on TV dance programs. One of their earliest hits was 1964's Here I Go Again, a song that was co-written by Mort Shuman and Clive Westlake.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Alligator/Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
Source: CD: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): Lesh/McKernan/Hunter/Garcia/Kreutzmann/Weir
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After a debut album that took about a week to record (and that the band was unanimously unhappy with) the Grateful Dead took their time on their second effort, Anthem Of The Sun. After spending a considerable amount of time in three different studios on two coasts and not getting the sound they wanted (and shedding their original producer along the way) the Dead came to the conclusion that the only way to make an album that sounded anywhere near what the band sounded like onstage was to use actual recordings of their performances and combine them with the studio tracks they had been working on. Side two of the album, which includes the classic Alligator and the more experimental Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks), is basically an enhanced live performance, with new vocal tracks added in the studio. Alligator itself is notable as the first Grateful Dead composition to feature the lyrics of Robert Hunter, who would become Jerry Garcia's main collaborator for many many years.
Artist: Billy Preston
Title: I Wrote A Simple Song
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Preston/Greene
Label: A&M
Year: 1972
Journeyman R&B keyboardist Billy Preston first came to international prominence when he joined the Beatles for their famous rooftop performance of Get Back in 1969, a performance that was included in the Let It Be movie. Preston scored a solo hit a couple years later when he recorded a song of his own, That's The Way God Planned It, after performing the tune as part of George Harrison's Concert For Bangla Desh. Preston's biggest hit came in 1972, when Outa-Space became one of the top-selling instrumental singles of all time. The B side of Outa-Space was a song Preston wrote with Joe Greene called I Wrote A Simple Song.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Half Moon (mono single mix)
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Hall/Hall
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1971
A few weeks ago I gave away copies of the new Pearl Sessions CD by Janis Joplin and the Full Tilt Boogie Band. One of the conditions for entry was to tell me your favorite song from the original Pearl album. One of the more popular choices was the original B side of Me And Bobby McGee, the high-energy Half Moon. I realized at the time that I had never actually played Half Moon on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. I figured this was as good a time as any to change that.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Alley Oop
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Dallas Frazier
Label: Sundazed/Kama Sutra
Year: 1965/2011
The Lovin' Spoonful didn't actually release their version of the old Hollywood Argyles song Alley Oop as a single in 1965. In fact, they didn't release the song at all, even though it was recorded during the same sessions that became their debut LP that year. In 2011 the people at Sundazed decided to create a "single that never was", pairing Alley Oop with the full-length version of Night Owl Blues, a song that had been included on the 1965 debut in edited form. The Spoonful version of Alley Oop has an almost garage-band feel about it, and is perhaps the best indication on vinyl of what the band actually sounded like in their early days as a local fixture on the Greenwich Village scene.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: The Black Plague
Source: CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
One of the most interesting recordings of 1967 was Eric Burdon And The Animals' The Black Plague, which appeared on the Winds Of Change album. The Black Plague is a spoken word piece dealing with life and death in a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague (natch), set to a somewhat gothic piece of music that includes Gregorian style chanting and an occasional voice calling out the words "bring out your dead" in the background. The album itself had a rather distinctive cover, consisting of a stylized album title accompanied by a rather lengthy text piece on a black background, something that has never been done before or since on an album cover.
Artist: Who
Title: Rael 2/Top Gear Spot
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA
Year: 1967
This odd little piece was apparently intended as a coda to the final track of The Who Sell Out, but was not included on the album (although the label itself reads "Rael 1&2"). Rael 2, as well as the Top Gear commercial it segues into, is among the many bonus tracks added to the 1993 CD version of the album.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Jumpin' Jack Flash
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
After the commercial disappointment of their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request in late 1967, the Stones replaced longtime producer Andrew Loog Oldham with Jimmy Miller, who had made a name for himself working with Steve Winwood on recordings by both the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic. The collaboration resulted in a back-to-basics approach that produced the classic single Jumpin' Jack Flash, followed by the Beggar's Banquet album.
Artist: Nazz
Title: Open My Eyes
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Nazz)
Writer(s): Todd Rundgren
Label: Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year: 1968
The Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. The Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, among others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a new version would become a solo hit for Rundgren five years later).
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Gimme Some Lovin'
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label: United Artists
Year: 1966
The movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becomming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear in major markets as well. Most of them are now playing 80s oldies, by the way.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
Artist: Love
Title: Gazing
Source: LP: Love
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
L.A's Sunset Strip blossomed as a hangout for teenaged baby boomers in the mid-1960s, with clubs like Ciro's and the Whisky-A-Go-Go pulling in capacity crowds on a regular basis. These clubs had learned early on that the best way to draw a crowd was to hire a live band, which gave rise to a thriving local music scene. Among the many bands playing the strip, perhaps the most popular was Love, the house band at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. Led by Arthur Lee and boasting not one, but two songwriters (Lee and guitarist Bryan MacLean), Love made history in 1966 by being the first rock band signed to Elektra Records. Lee, a recent convert to the then-popular folk-rock style popularized by the Byrds (for whom MacLean had been a roadie) had come from an R&B background and counted a then-unknown Jimi Hendrix among his musician friends. Songs like Gazing, from Love's debut LP, gave an early indication that Lee, even while writing in the folk-rock idiom, had a powerful musical vision that was all his own.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: No Time
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Bachman/Cummings
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1970
The Guess Who hit their creative and commercial peak with their 1970 album American Woman. The first of three hit singles from the album was No Time, which was already climbing the charts when the LP was released. After American Woman the band's two main songwriters, guitarist Randy Bachman and vocalist Burton Cummings, would move in increasingly divergent directions, with Bachman eventually leaving the band to form the hard-rocking Bachman-Turner Overdrive, while Cummings continued to helm an increasingly light pop flavored Guess Who.
Artist: Flock
Title: Store Bought-Store Thought
Source: CD: The Flock
Writer(s): The Flock
Label: BGO (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
The Flock's 1969 debut album featured liner notes by British blues guru John Mayall, who called them the best band in America. Despite this stellar recommendation, the Flock (one of two bands with horn sections from the city of Chicago making their recording debut on Columbia Records in 1969) was unable to attract a large audience and disbanded after only two LPs. Most of the tracks on the album, including the seven minute Store Bought-Store Thought, were early examples of the progressive rock that was becoming popular on FM stations across the country at the time. Violinist Jerry Goodman would go on to be a founding member of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Love Story
Source: CD: This Was (bonus track-originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Living In The Past)
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol (original UK label: Island; original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Love Story was the last studio recording by the original Jethro Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornish. The song was released as a single following the band's debut LP, This Was. Shortly after it's release Abrahams left the group, citing differences with Anderson over the band's musical direction. The song spent eight weeks on the UK singles chart, reaching the #29 spot. In the U.S., "Love Story" was released in March 1969, with A Song for Jeffrey (an album track from This Was) on the B-side, but did not chart. Like most Jethro Tull songs released as singles in the UK, Love Story did not appear on an album until several years later; in this case on the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Comin' Back To Me
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to this Marty Balin tune. Balin, in his 2003 liner notes to the remastered release of Surrealistic Pillow, claims that Comin' Back To Me was written in one sitting under the influence of some primo stuff given to him by Paul Butterfield. Other players on the recording include Paul Kantner and Balin himself on guitars, Jack Casady on bass and Grace Slick on recorder.
Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: Help, I'm A Rock/It Can't Happen Here
Source: CD: Freak Out!
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1966
Help, I'm A Rock and its follow up track It Can't Happen Here are among the best-known Frank Zappa compositions on the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out! The phrase Help I'm A Rock itself comes across as a kind of mantra, with various verbal bits (including Zappa's own take on the 1966 Sunset Strip riot) going on around a repeating bass/drum/guitar riff. The song eventually leads into It Can't Happen Here, an avant-garde piece composed almost entirely of vocal tracks. The title is a play on a popular misconception in many American cities that the various kinds of civil unrest (and occasional violence) going on could only happen in someone else's town.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1219 (starts 5/10/12)
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
When reviewing the blog for previous comments on the opening track of side two of Surrealistic Pillow I discovered that every time I've played 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era it's been part of a Jefferson Airplane artist's set. This time is no exception, as the tune is indeed starting an Airplane set (as well as this week's show). Marty Balin says he came up with the song title by combining a couple of random phrases from the sports section of a newspaper. 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds works out to 216 MPH, by the way.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The War Is Over
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
The songs on the third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, are grouped into suites of two or three songs apiece. Most of the suites mix songs by different songwriters; the sole exception is The War Is Over, which is made up of two Paul Kantner tunes, Martha and Wild Thyme. The War Is Over is also the shortest of the five suites on After Bathing At Baxter's, clocking in at about six and a half minutes.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: D.C.B.A.-25
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25" part...it was early 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.
Artist: Jesse Lee Kincaid
Title: She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jesse Lee Kincaid
Label: Rhino (original label: Kelly/Capitol)
Year: 1966
Jesse Lee Kincaid was the only songwriting member of the Rising Sons, a band that also included future stars Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. At one point in 1966 they were the hottest band on the Sunset Strip and were soon signed to a contract with Columbia Records, at the time the second-largest record label in the world. While the band was working in the studio with staff producer Terry Melcher (Columbia's only rock producer at the time), Kincaid got the attention of another local record producer, Dan Dalton. When it became clear that Columbia was not going to release the Rising Son's recordings anytime soon, Dalton booked studio time for a couple of Kincaid solo sides, including She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune, which Kincaid says was inspired by his ex-wife.
Artist: Teddy And His Patches
Title: Suzy Creamcheese
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dave Conway
Label: Rhino (original label: Chance)
Year: 1967
Teddy And His Patches were a group of high school students who heard the phrase "Suzy Creamcheese, what's got into you" from a fellow San Jose, California resident and decided to make a song out of it. Reportedly none of the band members had ever heard the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out, where the phrase had originated. Nonetheless, they managed to turn out a piece of inspired madness worthy of Frank Zappa himself.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Street Fighting Man
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.
Artist: Cream
Title: Doing That Scrapyard Thing
Source: LP: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
In its original form, the album Goodbye Cream had three new studio tracks on it, one for each member of the band. Jack Bruce's contribution was this tune, co-written (as were the majority of Bruce's compositions) by Pete Brown. Lyrics don't get much more psychedelic than this.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Don't You Fret
Source: LP: Kinkdom (originally released in UK on EP: Kwyet Kinks)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise (original UK label: Pye)
Year: 1965
The British record market was considerably different than its American counterpart in the mid-1966s. Unlike in the US, where artists were expected to prove themselves with at least two hit singles before being allowed to record an LP, British acts often found themselves recording four or five song EPs as a transition between single and album. Furthermore, British singles were generally not included on British albums. When those albums were released in the US, the American labels often deleted songs from the original LP in favor of hit singles, which were considered necessary to generate album sales. This led to a surplus of songs that would appear on US-only LPs made up of material that had been previously released only in the UK. Such is the case with Kinkdom, a collection of singles, B sides, album tracks and the entire Kwyet Kinks EP from 1965. Kwyet Kinks itself was a significant release in that it was the first indication of a change in direction from the early hard-rocking Kinks hits such as You Really Got Me toward a more mellow style that the group would come to favor toward the end of the decade. Songs such as Don't You Fret can be considered a direct precursor to later songs such as A Well Respected Man and Sunny Afternoon.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Act Naturally
Source: LP: Yesterday…And Today
Writer(s): Russell/Morrison
Label: Capitol
Year: 1965
Act Naturally, featuring Ringo Starr on lead vocals, was a country hit for Buck Owens. It is also one of the songs left off the US version of the Help! album and included on Yesterday and Today instead.
Artist: Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders
Title: Game Of Love
Source: CD: Reelin' And Rockin' (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Clint Ballard, Jr.
Label: Happy Days (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1965
The Mindbenders were formed in 1963 to backup British pop singer Wayne Fontana. The group scored their biggest hit in 1965 with Game Of Love, a song that went to the top of the US charts. Later that year Fontana parted company with the band, which continued on without him for several years, scoring another major hit, Groovy Kind Of Love, in 1966.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Castles Made Of Sand
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA
Year: 1967
When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, and stands in direct contrast to the usual goal-oriented American attitude.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Goin' Down (alternate mix)
Source: CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. (original version released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Hilderbrand/Tork/Nesmith/Dolenz/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
The Monkees released two singles in 1967 that were not included on any albums released that year. The second of these, Daydream Believer, became one of the biggest hits of the year. The B side of that song was a mostly improvisational number called Goin' Down, with Mickey Dolenz providing the vocals. A longer, alternate mix was later issued as a bonus track on the CD version of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Artist: Love
Title: And More
Source: CD: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
Artist: Love
Although the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was already recording for Elektra, the first genuine rock band to be signed to the label was L.A.'s Love. The band had originally planned to call itself the Grass Roots, but soon discovered that the songwriting team of Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan had already locked up the name. Jan Holzman, owner of Elektra, was so high on Love that he created a whole new numbering series for their first album (the same series that later included the first few Doors LPs). Most of Love's songs were written by multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Arthur Lee, with a handful of tunes provided by rhythm guitarist/vocalist Bryan MacLean. The two seldom collaborated, despite sharing a house in the Hollywood hills that had once belonged to Bela Lugosi. One of the few songs they did work together on was And More, a tune from the first album that shows the two songwriters' interest in folk-rock as popularized by fellow L.A. band the Byrds.
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single. Stereo version released on LP: Da Capo)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
Artist: Love
The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.
Title: A House Is Not A Motel
Source: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of a recluse, despite leading the most popular band on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. When the band was not playing at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go Lee was most likely to be found at his home up in the Hollywood Hills, often in the company of fellow band member Bryan McLean. The other members of the band, however, were known to hang out in the most popular clubs, chasing women and doing all kinds of substances. Sometimes they would show up at Lee's house unbidden. Sometimes they would crash there. Sometimes Lee would get annoyed, and probably used the phrase which became the title of the second track on Love's classic Forever Changes album, A House Is Not A Motel.
Artist: Byrds
Title: I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better (originally released on LP: Mr. Tambourine Man and as 45 RPM single B side)
Source: LP: Greatest Hits
Writer(s): Gene Clark
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Even though the title of the B side of the Byrds' second single is I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better, the actual sung line is "I'll *probably* feel a whole lot better when you're gone." The addition of that one extra word adds a whole new dimension to what is already a good song, turning it into a great one. Despite being a B side, the song received heavy promotion from the people at Columbia Records, and almost outperformed the A side, It Won't Be Wrong.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Source: LP: Procol Harum (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Deram
Year: 1967
The US version of the first Procol Harum included one song, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, that was recorded by a different lineup than the rest of the album. In July of 1967, about three months after the single was released, guitarist Ray Royer and Bobby Harrison left the band, to be replaced by Robin Trower and Barrie Wilson respectively. It was the new lineup that went to work on the album, which was released in August in the US and January in the UK. The song itself has been covered numerous times, and holds the record for being played on the British airwaves more than any other song in history.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Mystic Mourning
Source: LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Ulaky/Weisberg/Rhodes
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
If I had to choose one single recording that captures the essence of the psychedelic era, my choice would be Mystic Mourning, from the album The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Everything about the tune screams psychedelic, starting with a short spacy intro of electric piano over cymbals, leading into a raga beat with a solo bass line that builds up to a repeating riff that ends up getting played at various times by guitar, bass, and/or piano. The lyrics are appropriately existential, and both guitar and piano get a chance to show their stuff over the course of the nearly six-minute track.
Artist: Doors
Title: Take It As It Comes
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Rhino (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's most popular bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening Jac Holtzman of Elektra Records was among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holtzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band to record for Elektra (after Love itself).
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: Where Is My Mind
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Mark Stein
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Following the belated success of their cover of the Supremes' 1967 hit You Keep Me Hangin' On, Vanilla Fudge was primed to release a follow-up single. The group had already released a second LP, a concept album based around the Sonny & Cher song The Beat Goes On, but none of the tracks on that LP were considered single material. The first LP had been around for over a year at that point, and the band felt it would be better to record something new rather than release another of that album's cover tunes. The result was Where Is My Mind, one of the first original tunes to be recorded by the band. The song was not a major hit, but it was a preview of what their next LP, Renaissance (their first to be made up primarily of original material) would sound like.
Artist: B. B. King
Title: Having My Say
Source: CD: Blues On Top Of Blues
Writer(s): B.B. King
Label: BGO (original label: Bluesway)
Year: 1968
Although not the best-known of B.B. King's many albums, 1968's Blues On Top Of Blues is one of the most polished, featuring, in addition to the traditional guitar, bass and drums, a horn section and an organist. The result is a surprisingly fresh sounding album, even well over forty years later. All the songs on the album, including Having My Say were written by King.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Eighteen Is Over The Hill
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
The contributions of guitarist Ron Morgan to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band are often overlooked, possibly due to the fact that Morgan himself often tried to distance himself from the band. Nonetheless, he did write some of the group's most memorable tunes, including their best-known song, Smell Of Incense (covered by the Texas band Southwest F.O.B.) and the opening track of what is generally considered their best album, A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. Unfortunately, the somewhat senseless lyrics added by Bob Markley detract from what is actually a very tasty piece of music.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: I'm A Man
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Elias McDaniel
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
For many, the Yardbirds version of I'm a Man is the definitive version of this Bo Diddley classic. Oddly enough, the song was released as a single only in the US, where it made it into the top 10 in 1965.
Artist: Mamas And The Papas
Title: Dancing Bear
Source: CD: The Mamas And The Papas
Writer(s): John Phillips
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1966
The second Mamas And The Papas album was marked by internal strife that came about when it was discovered that mama Michelle and papa Denny were having an affair, despite Michelle's being married to papa John. Mama Michelle was fired shortly before work on the album commenced and a new mama, Jill, was brought in to replace her. Midway through the album the group realized the inherent unfairness of firing Michelle but not Denny and invited her back to the band, letting Jill go in the process. As a result, nobody is sure just which vocals on the album are Michelle's and which are Jill's. One thing that is not in question is that Dancing Bear (which predates Simon & Garfunkel's similarly-themed El Condor Pasa by several years) is one of the most memorable songs on the album.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
Source: CD: Good Vibrations-Twenty Years Of The Beach Boys (originally released on LP: Pet Sounds)
Writer(s): Wilson/Asher
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
Early on Brian Wilson recognized that his greatest strength was in writing music, as opposed to performing or even writing lyrics. Being the leader and producer of the most successful recording artists in southern California, Wilson was able to take his pick of the best lyricists available, including Mike Love, Van Dyke Parks, and, on the Pet Sounds album, Tony Asher, whose introspective lyrics complemented Wilson's maturing musical themes perfectly. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is an excellent example of how well the two worked together to capture a specific mood and theme.
Artist: Hollies
Title: I Can't Let Go
Source: CD: The Best Of The Hollies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Taylor/Gorgoni
Label: Cema (original label: Imperial)
Year: 1966
Of all the early Hollies hits, it is the 1966 hit I Can't Let Go that most showcases the voice of Graham Nash, singing a high counterpoint that Paul McCartney reportedly mistook for a trumpet part the first time he heard the song.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband (recording as The Hogs)
Title: Blues Theme
Source: CD: One Step Beyond (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Curb/Allen
Label: Sundazed (original label: HBR)
Year: 1966
The Chocolate Watchband's first experience in a recording studio came in October of 1966. The band had set up and was getting their sound levels checked when a friend of the producer burst into the studio with the news that the latest "hot thing" was a new movie called the Wild Ones. Davie Allen and the Arrows had cut something called Blues Theme for the soundtrack, and the word was that there were no plans to release the song as a single. Sensing an opportunity, the producer asked the band if they could record their own version of Blues Theme. The Watchband, even at that early point, had a knack for doing convincing covers on a moment's notice, and by the time the session was over they had cut a credible version of Blues Theme. The record was quickly released on the Hanna Barbera (yes, the cartoon people) label, but as by the Hogs rather than the Chocolate Watchband. Although I don't know why this was done, I do have a couple theories. It's entirely possible that the band signed their contract with Tower Records before Blues Theme was released, in which case Tower would naturally forbid the use of the name Chocolate Watchband by another label. Or it could simply be that the unknown producers at HBR felt that a name like the Hogs was more appropriate for a song used in a biker flick. We may never know for sure.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution (at least according to Dylan). On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.
Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: Rainbow Demon
Source: LP: Demons And Wizards
Writer(s): Ken Hensley
Label: Mercury
Year: 1972
The last time I played something from Uriah Heep's Demons And Wizards album it was All Hallow's Eve and I naturally chose The Wizard. This time around I figured it was time to give the devil his due and play Rainbow Demon. The album itself was a major turning point for Uriah Heep, who up to that point had been considered a second-tier British metal band. With Demons And Wizards, however, the band took on an identity of its own, with fantasy imagery becoming the focus of the music. Demons And Wizards also saw keyboardist Ken Hensley take a more dominant role in the songwriting, having a hand in every track on the album.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: 17
Source: CD: Stand Up (bonus track)
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol
Year: 1969
Jethro Tull was one of the last groups to continue to British practice of not including songs that had been released on 45 RPM vinyl on their albums. As a result, songs such as 17, which were not released in any form in the US, were generally not heard by American audiences. Even when many of the band's UK-only singles were included on the 1973 LP Living In The Past, 17 was not part of the package. As a result, this may well be the first time you've heard this 1969 B side.
Title: 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
When reviewing the blog for previous comments on the opening track of side two of Surrealistic Pillow I discovered that every time I've played 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era it's been part of a Jefferson Airplane artist's set. This time is no exception, as the tune is indeed starting an Airplane set (as well as this week's show). Marty Balin says he came up with the song title by combining a couple of random phrases from the sports section of a newspaper. 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds works out to 216 MPH, by the way.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The War Is Over
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
The songs on the third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, are grouped into suites of two or three songs apiece. Most of the suites mix songs by different songwriters; the sole exception is The War Is Over, which is made up of two Paul Kantner tunes, Martha and Wild Thyme. The War Is Over is also the shortest of the five suites on After Bathing At Baxter's, clocking in at about six and a half minutes.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: D.C.B.A.-25
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25" part...it was early 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.
Artist: Jesse Lee Kincaid
Title: She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jesse Lee Kincaid
Label: Rhino (original label: Kelly/Capitol)
Year: 1966
Jesse Lee Kincaid was the only songwriting member of the Rising Sons, a band that also included future stars Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. At one point in 1966 they were the hottest band on the Sunset Strip and were soon signed to a contract with Columbia Records, at the time the second-largest record label in the world. While the band was working in the studio with staff producer Terry Melcher (Columbia's only rock producer at the time), Kincaid got the attention of another local record producer, Dan Dalton. When it became clear that Columbia was not going to release the Rising Son's recordings anytime soon, Dalton booked studio time for a couple of Kincaid solo sides, including She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune, which Kincaid says was inspired by his ex-wife.
Artist: Teddy And His Patches
Title: Suzy Creamcheese
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dave Conway
Label: Rhino (original label: Chance)
Year: 1967
Teddy And His Patches were a group of high school students who heard the phrase "Suzy Creamcheese, what's got into you" from a fellow San Jose, California resident and decided to make a song out of it. Reportedly none of the band members had ever heard the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out, where the phrase had originated. Nonetheless, they managed to turn out a piece of inspired madness worthy of Frank Zappa himself.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Street Fighting Man
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.
Artist: Cream
Title: Doing That Scrapyard Thing
Source: LP: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
In its original form, the album Goodbye Cream had three new studio tracks on it, one for each member of the band. Jack Bruce's contribution was this tune, co-written (as were the majority of Bruce's compositions) by Pete Brown. Lyrics don't get much more psychedelic than this.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Don't You Fret
Source: LP: Kinkdom (originally released in UK on EP: Kwyet Kinks)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise (original UK label: Pye)
Year: 1965
The British record market was considerably different than its American counterpart in the mid-1966s. Unlike in the US, where artists were expected to prove themselves with at least two hit singles before being allowed to record an LP, British acts often found themselves recording four or five song EPs as a transition between single and album. Furthermore, British singles were generally not included on British albums. When those albums were released in the US, the American labels often deleted songs from the original LP in favor of hit singles, which were considered necessary to generate album sales. This led to a surplus of songs that would appear on US-only LPs made up of material that had been previously released only in the UK. Such is the case with Kinkdom, a collection of singles, B sides, album tracks and the entire Kwyet Kinks EP from 1965. Kwyet Kinks itself was a significant release in that it was the first indication of a change in direction from the early hard-rocking Kinks hits such as You Really Got Me toward a more mellow style that the group would come to favor toward the end of the decade. Songs such as Don't You Fret can be considered a direct precursor to later songs such as A Well Respected Man and Sunny Afternoon.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Act Naturally
Source: LP: Yesterday…And Today
Writer(s): Russell/Morrison
Label: Capitol
Year: 1965
Act Naturally, featuring Ringo Starr on lead vocals, was a country hit for Buck Owens. It is also one of the songs left off the US version of the Help! album and included on Yesterday and Today instead.
Artist: Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders
Title: Game Of Love
Source: CD: Reelin' And Rockin' (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Clint Ballard, Jr.
Label: Happy Days (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1965
The Mindbenders were formed in 1963 to backup British pop singer Wayne Fontana. The group scored their biggest hit in 1965 with Game Of Love, a song that went to the top of the US charts. Later that year Fontana parted company with the band, which continued on without him for several years, scoring another major hit, Groovy Kind Of Love, in 1966.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Castles Made Of Sand
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA
Year: 1967
When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, and stands in direct contrast to the usual goal-oriented American attitude.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Goin' Down (alternate mix)
Source: CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. (original version released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Hilderbrand/Tork/Nesmith/Dolenz/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
The Monkees released two singles in 1967 that were not included on any albums released that year. The second of these, Daydream Believer, became one of the biggest hits of the year. The B side of that song was a mostly improvisational number called Goin' Down, with Mickey Dolenz providing the vocals. A longer, alternate mix was later issued as a bonus track on the CD version of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Artist: Love
Title: And More
Source: CD: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
Artist: Love
Although the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was already recording for Elektra, the first genuine rock band to be signed to the label was L.A.'s Love. The band had originally planned to call itself the Grass Roots, but soon discovered that the songwriting team of Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan had already locked up the name. Jan Holzman, owner of Elektra, was so high on Love that he created a whole new numbering series for their first album (the same series that later included the first few Doors LPs). Most of Love's songs were written by multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Arthur Lee, with a handful of tunes provided by rhythm guitarist/vocalist Bryan MacLean. The two seldom collaborated, despite sharing a house in the Hollywood hills that had once belonged to Bela Lugosi. One of the few songs they did work together on was And More, a tune from the first album that shows the two songwriters' interest in folk-rock as popularized by fellow L.A. band the Byrds.
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single. Stereo version released on LP: Da Capo)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
Artist: Love
The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.
Title: A House Is Not A Motel
Source: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of a recluse, despite leading the most popular band on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. When the band was not playing at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go Lee was most likely to be found at his home up in the Hollywood Hills, often in the company of fellow band member Bryan McLean. The other members of the band, however, were known to hang out in the most popular clubs, chasing women and doing all kinds of substances. Sometimes they would show up at Lee's house unbidden. Sometimes they would crash there. Sometimes Lee would get annoyed, and probably used the phrase which became the title of the second track on Love's classic Forever Changes album, A House Is Not A Motel.
Artist: Byrds
Title: I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better (originally released on LP: Mr. Tambourine Man and as 45 RPM single B side)
Source: LP: Greatest Hits
Writer(s): Gene Clark
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Even though the title of the B side of the Byrds' second single is I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better, the actual sung line is "I'll *probably* feel a whole lot better when you're gone." The addition of that one extra word adds a whole new dimension to what is already a good song, turning it into a great one. Despite being a B side, the song received heavy promotion from the people at Columbia Records, and almost outperformed the A side, It Won't Be Wrong.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Source: LP: Procol Harum (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Deram
Year: 1967
The US version of the first Procol Harum included one song, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, that was recorded by a different lineup than the rest of the album. In July of 1967, about three months after the single was released, guitarist Ray Royer and Bobby Harrison left the band, to be replaced by Robin Trower and Barrie Wilson respectively. It was the new lineup that went to work on the album, which was released in August in the US and January in the UK. The song itself has been covered numerous times, and holds the record for being played on the British airwaves more than any other song in history.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Mystic Mourning
Source: LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Ulaky/Weisberg/Rhodes
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
If I had to choose one single recording that captures the essence of the psychedelic era, my choice would be Mystic Mourning, from the album The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Everything about the tune screams psychedelic, starting with a short spacy intro of electric piano over cymbals, leading into a raga beat with a solo bass line that builds up to a repeating riff that ends up getting played at various times by guitar, bass, and/or piano. The lyrics are appropriately existential, and both guitar and piano get a chance to show their stuff over the course of the nearly six-minute track.
Artist: Doors
Title: Take It As It Comes
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Rhino (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's most popular bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening Jac Holtzman of Elektra Records was among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holtzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band to record for Elektra (after Love itself).
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: Where Is My Mind
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Mark Stein
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Following the belated success of their cover of the Supremes' 1967 hit You Keep Me Hangin' On, Vanilla Fudge was primed to release a follow-up single. The group had already released a second LP, a concept album based around the Sonny & Cher song The Beat Goes On, but none of the tracks on that LP were considered single material. The first LP had been around for over a year at that point, and the band felt it would be better to record something new rather than release another of that album's cover tunes. The result was Where Is My Mind, one of the first original tunes to be recorded by the band. The song was not a major hit, but it was a preview of what their next LP, Renaissance (their first to be made up primarily of original material) would sound like.
Artist: B. B. King
Title: Having My Say
Source: CD: Blues On Top Of Blues
Writer(s): B.B. King
Label: BGO (original label: Bluesway)
Year: 1968
Although not the best-known of B.B. King's many albums, 1968's Blues On Top Of Blues is one of the most polished, featuring, in addition to the traditional guitar, bass and drums, a horn section and an organist. The result is a surprisingly fresh sounding album, even well over forty years later. All the songs on the album, including Having My Say were written by King.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Eighteen Is Over The Hill
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
The contributions of guitarist Ron Morgan to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band are often overlooked, possibly due to the fact that Morgan himself often tried to distance himself from the band. Nonetheless, he did write some of the group's most memorable tunes, including their best-known song, Smell Of Incense (covered by the Texas band Southwest F.O.B.) and the opening track of what is generally considered their best album, A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. Unfortunately, the somewhat senseless lyrics added by Bob Markley detract from what is actually a very tasty piece of music.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: I'm A Man
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Elias McDaniel
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
For many, the Yardbirds version of I'm a Man is the definitive version of this Bo Diddley classic. Oddly enough, the song was released as a single only in the US, where it made it into the top 10 in 1965.
Artist: Mamas And The Papas
Title: Dancing Bear
Source: CD: The Mamas And The Papas
Writer(s): John Phillips
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1966
The second Mamas And The Papas album was marked by internal strife that came about when it was discovered that mama Michelle and papa Denny were having an affair, despite Michelle's being married to papa John. Mama Michelle was fired shortly before work on the album commenced and a new mama, Jill, was brought in to replace her. Midway through the album the group realized the inherent unfairness of firing Michelle but not Denny and invited her back to the band, letting Jill go in the process. As a result, nobody is sure just which vocals on the album are Michelle's and which are Jill's. One thing that is not in question is that Dancing Bear (which predates Simon & Garfunkel's similarly-themed El Condor Pasa by several years) is one of the most memorable songs on the album.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
Source: CD: Good Vibrations-Twenty Years Of The Beach Boys (originally released on LP: Pet Sounds)
Writer(s): Wilson/Asher
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
Early on Brian Wilson recognized that his greatest strength was in writing music, as opposed to performing or even writing lyrics. Being the leader and producer of the most successful recording artists in southern California, Wilson was able to take his pick of the best lyricists available, including Mike Love, Van Dyke Parks, and, on the Pet Sounds album, Tony Asher, whose introspective lyrics complemented Wilson's maturing musical themes perfectly. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is an excellent example of how well the two worked together to capture a specific mood and theme.
Artist: Hollies
Title: I Can't Let Go
Source: CD: The Best Of The Hollies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Taylor/Gorgoni
Label: Cema (original label: Imperial)
Year: 1966
Of all the early Hollies hits, it is the 1966 hit I Can't Let Go that most showcases the voice of Graham Nash, singing a high counterpoint that Paul McCartney reportedly mistook for a trumpet part the first time he heard the song.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband (recording as The Hogs)
Title: Blues Theme
Source: CD: One Step Beyond (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Curb/Allen
Label: Sundazed (original label: HBR)
Year: 1966
The Chocolate Watchband's first experience in a recording studio came in October of 1966. The band had set up and was getting their sound levels checked when a friend of the producer burst into the studio with the news that the latest "hot thing" was a new movie called the Wild Ones. Davie Allen and the Arrows had cut something called Blues Theme for the soundtrack, and the word was that there were no plans to release the song as a single. Sensing an opportunity, the producer asked the band if they could record their own version of Blues Theme. The Watchband, even at that early point, had a knack for doing convincing covers on a moment's notice, and by the time the session was over they had cut a credible version of Blues Theme. The record was quickly released on the Hanna Barbera (yes, the cartoon people) label, but as by the Hogs rather than the Chocolate Watchband. Although I don't know why this was done, I do have a couple theories. It's entirely possible that the band signed their contract with Tower Records before Blues Theme was released, in which case Tower would naturally forbid the use of the name Chocolate Watchband by another label. Or it could simply be that the unknown producers at HBR felt that a name like the Hogs was more appropriate for a song used in a biker flick. We may never know for sure.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution (at least according to Dylan). On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.
Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: Rainbow Demon
Source: LP: Demons And Wizards
Writer(s): Ken Hensley
Label: Mercury
Year: 1972
The last time I played something from Uriah Heep's Demons And Wizards album it was All Hallow's Eve and I naturally chose The Wizard. This time around I figured it was time to give the devil his due and play Rainbow Demon. The album itself was a major turning point for Uriah Heep, who up to that point had been considered a second-tier British metal band. With Demons And Wizards, however, the band took on an identity of its own, with fantasy imagery becoming the focus of the music. Demons And Wizards also saw keyboardist Ken Hensley take a more dominant role in the songwriting, having a hand in every track on the album.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: 17
Source: CD: Stand Up (bonus track)
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol
Year: 1969
Jethro Tull was one of the last groups to continue to British practice of not including songs that had been released on 45 RPM vinyl on their albums. As a result, songs such as 17, which were not released in any form in the US, were generally not heard by American audiences. Even when many of the band's UK-only singles were included on the 1973 LP Living In The Past, 17 was not part of the package. As a result, this may well be the first time you've heard this 1969 B side.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1218 (starts 5/3/12)
This week each half hour has its own mini-theme (for the most part). For instance, the first segment is made up mostly of B sides (although the first couple of selections are exceptions), while the second half hour is made up entirely of tracks from 1967. The second hour starts off with a large number of tunes from 1966 (most of which are making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut) before going off on a tangent with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. This is immediately followed by one of the earliest known examples of Japanese Heavy Metal. From there we finish out with this week's only progression through the years and a pair of tunes from 1967.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Cinnamon Girl
Source: LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used a re-arranged version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Quicksilver Girl
Source: CD: Sailor
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
Steve Miller moved to San Francisco from Chicago and was reportedly struck by what he saw as a much lower standard of musicianship in the bay area than in the windy city. Miller's response was to form a band that would conform to Chicago standards. The result was the Steve Miller Band, one of the most successful of the San Francisco bands, although much of that success would not come until the mid-1970s, after several personnel changes. One feature of the Miller band is that it featured multiple lead vocalists, depending on who wrote the song. Miller himself wrote and sings on Quicksilver Girl, from the band's second LP, Sailor.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Plastic Fantastic Lover
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Jefferson Airplane scored their first top 10 hit with Somebody To Love, the second single released from the Surrealistic Pillow album. Almost immediately, forward-thinking FM stations began playing other tracks from the album. One of those favored album tracks, Plastic Fantastic Lover, ended up being the B side of the band's follow-up single, White Rabbit. When the Airplane reunited in 1989 and issued their two-disc retrospective, 2400 Fulton Street, they issued a special stereo pressing of the single on white vinyl as a way of promoting the collection.
Artist: Rising Sons
Title: Sunny's Dream
Source: CD: The Rising Sons
Writer(s): Jesse Lee Kincaid
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
Los Angeles was home to a thriving teen scene in the mid-60s. The epicenter of that scene was the legendary Sunset Strip, home to several clubs catering to the underage crowd. Most of these clubs featured live music, and the bands that provided that music often found themselves in the recording studio when not playing live. Among those is a band that has become legendary: The Rising Sons. Like the Buffalo Springfield, the Rising Sons included members who would go on to become widely respected among their fellow musicians, including guitarist Ry Cooder and vocalist Taj Mahal. Another member of the Sons, Jesse Lee Kincaid, would achieve more success as a songwriter than as an artist. The Rising Sons made it into the studio in 1966 and even scored a contract with major label, Columbia Records. The recordings, including the Kincaid song Sunny's Dream, remained unreleased for 25 years, due to the label not knowing how to market a multi-racial band whose music was not easily defined.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Lady Jane
Source: CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Aftermath)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated separately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).
Artist: Brigands
Title: (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man
Source: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kris/Arthur Resnick
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Virtually nothing is known about the Brigands, other than the fact that they recorded in New York City. Their only single was a forgettable piece of imitation British pop, but the B side, (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man, holds up surprising well. The song itself was written by the husband and wife team of Kris and Artie Resnick, who would end up writing a series of bubble gum hits issued under various band names on the Buddah label in 1968.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Mike Settle
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
The First Edition was formed by Mike Settle and Kenny Rogers, both members of the New Christy Minstrels, a group that made more appearances on TV variety shows than on the record charts (imagine a professional version of high school madrigal choir). The two wanted to get into something a little more hip than watered-down choral versions of Simon and Garfunkel songs and the like, and recorded an album that included folk-rock, country-rock and even the full-blown psychedelia of Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), which ended up being their first single. For the B side of that single one of Settle's songs, Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind, was selected. The song, a decent piece of folk-rock with reasonably intelligent lyrics, would have been hit record material itself if it weren't for the fact that by 1968 folk-rock had pretty much run its course.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Withering Tree
Source: LP: Last Exit (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
One of Traffic's best-known songs is Feelin' Alright from their eponymous second LP. When the song was issued as a single in 1968, a brand-new song, Withering Tree, was included as a B side. The stereo version of Withering Tree would not be heard until 1969, when it was included on the post-breakup Traffic LP Last Exit.
Artist: Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Title: Cocaine (aka Cocaine Blues)
Source: LP: Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Writer(s): Reverend Gary Davis
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1967
No single person, musician or otherwise, had a greater impact on the Greenwich Village music scene than Dave Van Ronk. Born in Brooklyn in 1936, Van Ronk was among the first white musicians to combine folk music and the blues, and was a fixture in Village coffeehouses from about 1958 on. Virtually every major artist to emerge from the area (including Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell and the Blues Project's Danny Kalb) considered Van Ronk to be a mentor and a friend. Van Ronk's own major influence was Reverend Gary Davis, who taught him to approach the guitar as if it were "a piano around his neck". David Van Ronk's recording of Davis' Cocaine Blues remains one of the definitive versions of that song. Van Ronk seldom left Greenwich Village and never learned to drive a car. In later years he was given the nickname "the Mayor of MacDougal Street." Van Ronk died of cardio-pulmonary failure while undergoing post-operative treatment for colon cancer in 2002. A section of Sheridan Square has been named Dave Van Ronk Street in his memory.
Artist: Doors
Title: Love Me Two Times
Source: CD: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Although the second Doors album is sometimes dismissed as being full of tracks that didn't make the cut on the debut LP, the fact is that Strange Days contains some of the Doors best-known tunes. One of those is Love Me Two Times, which was the second single released from the album. The song continues to get heavy airplay on classic rock stations.
Artist: Youngbloods
Title: Get Together
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Youngbloods)
Writer(s): Chet Powers
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
The Youngbloods were the second San Francisco band signed to industry leader RCA Victor Records. Their first album was released in 1967 but was overshadowed by the vinyl debuts of the Grateful Dead and Moby Grape, among others. In fact, the Youngbloods toiled in relative obscurity until 1969, when their own version of Dino Valenti's Let's Get Together (from the 1967 LP) was used in a TV ad promoting world peace. The song was subsequently released (with the title slightly shortened) as a single and became the group's only hit record.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)).
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit.
Artist: Thee Midnighters
Title: Jump, Jive And Harmonize
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Espinoza/Garcia/Marquez
Label: Rhino (original label: Whittier)
Year: 1967
Although Max Uballez was the top producer of rock records by Hispanic artists in the Los Angeles area, the region's top band, Thee Midnighters, did not use Uballez's studios. Instead they chose to record at their own practice hall, the Jewel Theater. The result was a raw, energetic sound that suited their particular brand of raunch and roll.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Gone And Passes By
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Dave Aguilar
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Producer Ed Cobb, years after the fact, expressed regret that he didn't take the time to discover for himself what made the Chocolate Watchband such a popular band among San Jose, California's teenagers. Instead, he tried to present his own vision of what a psychedelic band should sound like on the group's debut LP, No Way Out. Many of the tracks on the album used studio musicians, and two of the tracks featuring the Watchband itself used studio vocalist Don Bennett instead of Dave Aguilar, including the single Let's Talk About Girls. The remaining tracks, altough featuring the full band, were somewhat obscured by additional instruments, particular the sitar, which was not normally used by the band when performing live. This synthesis of Cobb's vision and the actual Watchband is probably best illustrated by the song Gone And Passes By, an Aguilar composition that somewhat resembles a psychedelicized version of the Rolling Stones' cover of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Zilch/No Time
Source: CD: Headquarters
Writer(s): Jones/Nesmith/Tork/Dolenz/Cicalo
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
From a creative standpoint, the highpoint of the Monkees' career as a band was the Headquarters album, which topped the album charts for one week in late spring of 1967 before being toppled by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Unlike the previous and subsequent Monkees albums, Headquarters featured a minimum of outside musicians, and was under the total creative control of the Monkees themselves, even to the hiring of Chip Douglas as producer. Although most of the songs on Headquarters were from professional songwriters, a few were written by the band itself, including the back-to-back tracks Zilch (a strange spoken word piece that features each member repeating a different phrase), and No Time, a 50s-style rocker that the band credited to engineer Hank Cicalo as a "tip" (that enabled him to buy a house, as it turned out).
Artist: Leaves
Title: Hey Joe
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
The origins of the song Hey Joe are surrounded in mystery. Various writers have been given credit for the tune, including Chet Powers, aka Dino Valenti, who wrote Get Together, but David Crosby claimed the song was actually an old folk tune dating back to the 19th century that he himself had popularized as a member of the Byrds before the Leaves got ahold of it. The most likely source is California folk singer Billy Roberts, who holds a 1962 copyright on the song. Regardless of where the song came from, the Leaves version was the first to be released as a single and is generally considered the definitive fast version of the song. In Britain it was the slower version favored by the Jimi Hendrix Experience that became a hit, using an arrangement pioneered by songwriter Tim Rose and the Music Machine's Sean Bonniwell.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Louise
Source: LP: Spirit Of '67
Writer(s): Jesse Lee Kincaid
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
One interesting by-product of the Rising Sons being signed to Columbia in 1966 was that, although their album was never released, singer/songwriter Jesse Lee Kincaid did get the opportunity for his songs to be heard by people at the label, including producer Terry Melcher. This led to one of his compositions being recorded by Columbia's only successful rock band at the time, Paul Revere and the Raiders (also produced by Melcher). Louise was included on the Raiders' third top 10 LP of 1966, ironically titled The Spirit of '67.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Wrong
Source: CD: Turn On The Music Machine
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
Sean Bonniwell was a member of the mainstream (i.e. lots of appearances on TV variety shows hosted by people like Perry Como and Bob Hope) folk group the Lamplighters in the early 60s. By 1966 he had morphed into one of the more mysterious figures on the LA music scene, leading a proto-punk band dressed entirely in black. Bonniwell himself wore a single black glove (Michael Jackson was about seven years old at the time), and was one of the most prolific songwriters of the time. His recordings, often featuring the distinctive Farfisa organ sound, were a primary influence on later LA bands such as Iron Butterfly and the Doors. A classic example of the Music Machine sound was the song Wrong, which was issued as the B side of the group's most successful single, Talk Talk.
Artist: Standells
Title: Little Sally Tease
Source: CD: Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Dirty Water)
Writer(s): James Valley
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells are often considered the quintessential 60s garage/punk band, thanks to songs like Dirty Water and Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. Much of the credit for this image, however, must go to their producer, Ed Cobb, who wrote both of those songs and was directly responsible for converting the group from a covers-oriented band that had been playing in L.A. clubs since the surf era to a gritty no-holds-barred punk combo. The band's albums are generally considered to be somewhat inconsistent, although they include some quality tracks such as Little Sally Tease.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: I'm Gonna Make You Mine (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Back Door Men)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer(s): Carr/Derrico/Sager
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Possibly the loudest rockin' recordings of 1966 came from the Shadows of Knight. A product of the Chicago suburbs, the Shadows (as they were originally known) quickly established a reputation as the region's resident bad boy rockers (lead vocalist Jim Sohns was reportedly banned from more than one high school campus for his attempts at increasing the local teen pregnancy rate). After signing a record deal with the local Dunwich label, the band learned that there was already a band called the Shadows and added the Knight part (after their own high school sports teams' name). Their first single was a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that changed one line ("around here" in place of "up to my room") and thus avoided the mass radio bannings that had derailed the original Them version. I'm Gonna Make You Mine was the follow up to Gloria, but its lack of commercial success consigned the Shadows to one-hit wonder status until years after the band's breakup, when they finally got the recognition they deserved as one of the founding bands of garage/punk, and perhaps its greatest practicioner.
Artist: Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title: Take A Pebble
Source: CD: Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Writer(s): Greg Lake
Label: Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1970
From the flamboyant piano of Jerry Lee Lewis to the cheesy Farfisa sound of ? and the Mysterians, keyboards were an integral part of rock music right from the start. Nonetheless, the electric guitar was still the instrument of choice for most rock musicians. A new development in the late 1960s, however, would forever change the balance between guitar and keyboards: the invention of the Moog synthesizer (and subsequent electronic keyboard instruments). One of the first rock musicians to experiment with the new technology was Keith Emerson, keyboardist for the Nice. In 1970 Emerson teamed up with bassist Greg Lake and drummer Carl Palmer to form a new band that, shockingly, had no electric guitars at all (although Lake did occassionally play an acoustic guitar). The new band's self-titled debut album was a surprise hit, thanks in large part to the tune Lucky Man, which managed to get airplay on both AM and FM radio. The Lake composition Take A Pebble, at twelve and a half minutes, was way too long for AM airplay, but did get considerable exposure on the album-oriented rock stations that were starting to show up on the FM band. Emerson, Lake and Palmer would continue to have success throughout the 70s, particularly in Italy, where they were the number one band in the country for several years.
Artist: Flower Travellin' Band
Title: Satori-Part V
Source: CD: Satori
Writer(s): Satori
Label: Phoenix
Year: 1971
Possibly the first Japanese heavy metal band and almost certainly the first Japanese psychedelic group, the Flower Travelin' Band was created as a side project of Yuyu Yuchida, a friend of John Lennon's who, having heard Jimi Hendrix and Cream on a trip to England, wanted to introduce Japanese audiences to this new kind of music. After returning to Japan he gathered a group of musicians together and recorded the first Flowerin' Travellin' Band LP in 1969. The album was made up entirely of covers of bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin. It wasn't until 1971 (and several personnel changes) that the FTB recorded their first LP made up entirely of original material. The album was called Satori, as were all five tracks on the album. It was worth the wait.
Artist: Turtles
Title: You Baby
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Sloan/Barri
Label: White Whale
Year: 1966
After first hitting the charts with their version of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles released yet another "angry young rebel" song, P.F. Sloan's Let Me Be. Realizing that they needed to vary their subject matter somewhat if they planned on having a career last longer than six months, the band formerly known as the Crossfires went with another Sloan tune, You Baby, for their first single of 1966. Although the music was in a similar style to Let Me Be, the lyrics, written by Steve Barri, were fairly typical of teen-oriented love songs of the era. The Turtles would continue to record songs from professional songwriters for single release for the remainder of their existence, with their original compositions showing up mostly as album tracks and B sides.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Flying
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1967
1967 was an odd year for the Beatles. They started it with one of their most successful double-sided singles, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, and followed it up with the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. From there, they embarked on a new film project. Unlike their previous movies, the Magical Mystery Tour was not made to be shown in theaters. Rather, the film was aired as a television special shown exclusively in the UK. The airing of the film coincided with the release (again only in the UK) of a two-disc extended play 45 RPM set featuring the six songs from the special. It was not until later in the year that the songs were released in the US, on an album that combined the songs from the film on one side and all the non-LP single sides they had released that year on the other. Among the songs from the film is Flying, a rare instrumental track that was credited to the entire band.
Artist: Cream
Title: As You Said
Source: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Cream started off as a British blues supergroup, but soon found themselves putting out some of the finest psychedelic tunes east of the Atlantic. Much of the credit for this goes to the songwriting team of bassist Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown was originally brought in as a songwriting partner for Ginger Baker, but soon found a better synergy with Bruce. The two went on to write some of Cream's most memorable songs, including Tales of Brave Ulysses, Deserted Cities of the Heart and White Room. As You Said, from Cream's third LP, Wheel's Of Fire, is somewhat unusual in that it features acoustical instruments exclusively (including Ginger Baker setting aside his drumsticks in favor of brushes).
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: I Am A Child
Source: LP: Last Time Around
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
The final Buffalo Springfield album, Last Time Around, was released after the members of the band had gone their separate ways. Not surprisingly, the album lacks cohesion, sounding more like an anthology of solo efforts (which for the most part is exactly what Last Time Around is). One notable Neil Young tune is I Am A Child, one of the few Buffalo Springfield songs that Young included on his Anthology 3-record set years later.
Artist: Roger Nichols Trio
Title: Montage Mirror
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Nichols/Roberds
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
The Parade was an L.A. studio group made up of actors and studio musicians that had a top 20 hit with Sunshine Girl in early 1967. This track, recorded later the same year is pretty much the same group but credited to the Roger Nichols Trio instead. An attempt to subvert an unpleasant contract with another label perhaps? I guess we'll never know, as the song sat on the shelf for 41(!) years before being included on a Parade anthology.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Conquistador (1971 stereo mix)
Source: CD: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo
Year: 1967
For reasons that are lost to history, the first Procol Harum album was released five months earlier in the US than it was in the UK. It also was released with a slightly different song lineup, a practice that was fairly common earlier in the decade but that had been pretty much abandoned by mid-1967. One notable difference is the inclusion of A Whiter Shade Of Pale on the US version (the British practice being to not include songs on LPs that had been already issued on 45 RPM records). The opening track of the UK version was Conquistador, a song that would not become well-known until 1972, when a live version with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra backing up the band became a hit single. There was no stereo version of the album made, although in 1971 Malcolm Jones created new stereo mixes of three of the songs from the LP, including Conquistador.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Cinnamon Girl
Source: LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used a re-arranged version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Quicksilver Girl
Source: CD: Sailor
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
Steve Miller moved to San Francisco from Chicago and was reportedly struck by what he saw as a much lower standard of musicianship in the bay area than in the windy city. Miller's response was to form a band that would conform to Chicago standards. The result was the Steve Miller Band, one of the most successful of the San Francisco bands, although much of that success would not come until the mid-1970s, after several personnel changes. One feature of the Miller band is that it featured multiple lead vocalists, depending on who wrote the song. Miller himself wrote and sings on Quicksilver Girl, from the band's second LP, Sailor.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Plastic Fantastic Lover
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Jefferson Airplane scored their first top 10 hit with Somebody To Love, the second single released from the Surrealistic Pillow album. Almost immediately, forward-thinking FM stations began playing other tracks from the album. One of those favored album tracks, Plastic Fantastic Lover, ended up being the B side of the band's follow-up single, White Rabbit. When the Airplane reunited in 1989 and issued their two-disc retrospective, 2400 Fulton Street, they issued a special stereo pressing of the single on white vinyl as a way of promoting the collection.
Artist: Rising Sons
Title: Sunny's Dream
Source: CD: The Rising Sons
Writer(s): Jesse Lee Kincaid
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
Los Angeles was home to a thriving teen scene in the mid-60s. The epicenter of that scene was the legendary Sunset Strip, home to several clubs catering to the underage crowd. Most of these clubs featured live music, and the bands that provided that music often found themselves in the recording studio when not playing live. Among those is a band that has become legendary: The Rising Sons. Like the Buffalo Springfield, the Rising Sons included members who would go on to become widely respected among their fellow musicians, including guitarist Ry Cooder and vocalist Taj Mahal. Another member of the Sons, Jesse Lee Kincaid, would achieve more success as a songwriter than as an artist. The Rising Sons made it into the studio in 1966 and even scored a contract with major label, Columbia Records. The recordings, including the Kincaid song Sunny's Dream, remained unreleased for 25 years, due to the label not knowing how to market a multi-racial band whose music was not easily defined.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Lady Jane
Source: CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Aftermath)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated separately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).
Artist: Brigands
Title: (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man
Source: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kris/Arthur Resnick
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Virtually nothing is known about the Brigands, other than the fact that they recorded in New York City. Their only single was a forgettable piece of imitation British pop, but the B side, (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man, holds up surprising well. The song itself was written by the husband and wife team of Kris and Artie Resnick, who would end up writing a series of bubble gum hits issued under various band names on the Buddah label in 1968.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Mike Settle
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
The First Edition was formed by Mike Settle and Kenny Rogers, both members of the New Christy Minstrels, a group that made more appearances on TV variety shows than on the record charts (imagine a professional version of high school madrigal choir). The two wanted to get into something a little more hip than watered-down choral versions of Simon and Garfunkel songs and the like, and recorded an album that included folk-rock, country-rock and even the full-blown psychedelia of Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), which ended up being their first single. For the B side of that single one of Settle's songs, Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind, was selected. The song, a decent piece of folk-rock with reasonably intelligent lyrics, would have been hit record material itself if it weren't for the fact that by 1968 folk-rock had pretty much run its course.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Withering Tree
Source: LP: Last Exit (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
One of Traffic's best-known songs is Feelin' Alright from their eponymous second LP. When the song was issued as a single in 1968, a brand-new song, Withering Tree, was included as a B side. The stereo version of Withering Tree would not be heard until 1969, when it was included on the post-breakup Traffic LP Last Exit.
Artist: Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Title: Cocaine (aka Cocaine Blues)
Source: LP: Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Writer(s): Reverend Gary Davis
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1967
No single person, musician or otherwise, had a greater impact on the Greenwich Village music scene than Dave Van Ronk. Born in Brooklyn in 1936, Van Ronk was among the first white musicians to combine folk music and the blues, and was a fixture in Village coffeehouses from about 1958 on. Virtually every major artist to emerge from the area (including Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell and the Blues Project's Danny Kalb) considered Van Ronk to be a mentor and a friend. Van Ronk's own major influence was Reverend Gary Davis, who taught him to approach the guitar as if it were "a piano around his neck". David Van Ronk's recording of Davis' Cocaine Blues remains one of the definitive versions of that song. Van Ronk seldom left Greenwich Village and never learned to drive a car. In later years he was given the nickname "the Mayor of MacDougal Street." Van Ronk died of cardio-pulmonary failure while undergoing post-operative treatment for colon cancer in 2002. A section of Sheridan Square has been named Dave Van Ronk Street in his memory.
Artist: Doors
Title: Love Me Two Times
Source: CD: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Although the second Doors album is sometimes dismissed as being full of tracks that didn't make the cut on the debut LP, the fact is that Strange Days contains some of the Doors best-known tunes. One of those is Love Me Two Times, which was the second single released from the album. The song continues to get heavy airplay on classic rock stations.
Artist: Youngbloods
Title: Get Together
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Youngbloods)
Writer(s): Chet Powers
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
The Youngbloods were the second San Francisco band signed to industry leader RCA Victor Records. Their first album was released in 1967 but was overshadowed by the vinyl debuts of the Grateful Dead and Moby Grape, among others. In fact, the Youngbloods toiled in relative obscurity until 1969, when their own version of Dino Valenti's Let's Get Together (from the 1967 LP) was used in a TV ad promoting world peace. The song was subsequently released (with the title slightly shortened) as a single and became the group's only hit record.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)).
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit.
Artist: Thee Midnighters
Title: Jump, Jive And Harmonize
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Espinoza/Garcia/Marquez
Label: Rhino (original label: Whittier)
Year: 1967
Although Max Uballez was the top producer of rock records by Hispanic artists in the Los Angeles area, the region's top band, Thee Midnighters, did not use Uballez's studios. Instead they chose to record at their own practice hall, the Jewel Theater. The result was a raw, energetic sound that suited their particular brand of raunch and roll.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Gone And Passes By
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Dave Aguilar
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Producer Ed Cobb, years after the fact, expressed regret that he didn't take the time to discover for himself what made the Chocolate Watchband such a popular band among San Jose, California's teenagers. Instead, he tried to present his own vision of what a psychedelic band should sound like on the group's debut LP, No Way Out. Many of the tracks on the album used studio musicians, and two of the tracks featuring the Watchband itself used studio vocalist Don Bennett instead of Dave Aguilar, including the single Let's Talk About Girls. The remaining tracks, altough featuring the full band, were somewhat obscured by additional instruments, particular the sitar, which was not normally used by the band when performing live. This synthesis of Cobb's vision and the actual Watchband is probably best illustrated by the song Gone And Passes By, an Aguilar composition that somewhat resembles a psychedelicized version of the Rolling Stones' cover of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Zilch/No Time
Source: CD: Headquarters
Writer(s): Jones/Nesmith/Tork/Dolenz/Cicalo
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
From a creative standpoint, the highpoint of the Monkees' career as a band was the Headquarters album, which topped the album charts for one week in late spring of 1967 before being toppled by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Unlike the previous and subsequent Monkees albums, Headquarters featured a minimum of outside musicians, and was under the total creative control of the Monkees themselves, even to the hiring of Chip Douglas as producer. Although most of the songs on Headquarters were from professional songwriters, a few were written by the band itself, including the back-to-back tracks Zilch (a strange spoken word piece that features each member repeating a different phrase), and No Time, a 50s-style rocker that the band credited to engineer Hank Cicalo as a "tip" (that enabled him to buy a house, as it turned out).
Artist: Leaves
Title: Hey Joe
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
The origins of the song Hey Joe are surrounded in mystery. Various writers have been given credit for the tune, including Chet Powers, aka Dino Valenti, who wrote Get Together, but David Crosby claimed the song was actually an old folk tune dating back to the 19th century that he himself had popularized as a member of the Byrds before the Leaves got ahold of it. The most likely source is California folk singer Billy Roberts, who holds a 1962 copyright on the song. Regardless of where the song came from, the Leaves version was the first to be released as a single and is generally considered the definitive fast version of the song. In Britain it was the slower version favored by the Jimi Hendrix Experience that became a hit, using an arrangement pioneered by songwriter Tim Rose and the Music Machine's Sean Bonniwell.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Louise
Source: LP: Spirit Of '67
Writer(s): Jesse Lee Kincaid
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
One interesting by-product of the Rising Sons being signed to Columbia in 1966 was that, although their album was never released, singer/songwriter Jesse Lee Kincaid did get the opportunity for his songs to be heard by people at the label, including producer Terry Melcher. This led to one of his compositions being recorded by Columbia's only successful rock band at the time, Paul Revere and the Raiders (also produced by Melcher). Louise was included on the Raiders' third top 10 LP of 1966, ironically titled The Spirit of '67.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Wrong
Source: CD: Turn On The Music Machine
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
Sean Bonniwell was a member of the mainstream (i.e. lots of appearances on TV variety shows hosted by people like Perry Como and Bob Hope) folk group the Lamplighters in the early 60s. By 1966 he had morphed into one of the more mysterious figures on the LA music scene, leading a proto-punk band dressed entirely in black. Bonniwell himself wore a single black glove (Michael Jackson was about seven years old at the time), and was one of the most prolific songwriters of the time. His recordings, often featuring the distinctive Farfisa organ sound, were a primary influence on later LA bands such as Iron Butterfly and the Doors. A classic example of the Music Machine sound was the song Wrong, which was issued as the B side of the group's most successful single, Talk Talk.
Artist: Standells
Title: Little Sally Tease
Source: CD: Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Dirty Water)
Writer(s): James Valley
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells are often considered the quintessential 60s garage/punk band, thanks to songs like Dirty Water and Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. Much of the credit for this image, however, must go to their producer, Ed Cobb, who wrote both of those songs and was directly responsible for converting the group from a covers-oriented band that had been playing in L.A. clubs since the surf era to a gritty no-holds-barred punk combo. The band's albums are generally considered to be somewhat inconsistent, although they include some quality tracks such as Little Sally Tease.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: I'm Gonna Make You Mine (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Back Door Men)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer(s): Carr/Derrico/Sager
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Possibly the loudest rockin' recordings of 1966 came from the Shadows of Knight. A product of the Chicago suburbs, the Shadows (as they were originally known) quickly established a reputation as the region's resident bad boy rockers (lead vocalist Jim Sohns was reportedly banned from more than one high school campus for his attempts at increasing the local teen pregnancy rate). After signing a record deal with the local Dunwich label, the band learned that there was already a band called the Shadows and added the Knight part (after their own high school sports teams' name). Their first single was a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that changed one line ("around here" in place of "up to my room") and thus avoided the mass radio bannings that had derailed the original Them version. I'm Gonna Make You Mine was the follow up to Gloria, but its lack of commercial success consigned the Shadows to one-hit wonder status until years after the band's breakup, when they finally got the recognition they deserved as one of the founding bands of garage/punk, and perhaps its greatest practicioner.
Artist: Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title: Take A Pebble
Source: CD: Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Writer(s): Greg Lake
Label: Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1970
From the flamboyant piano of Jerry Lee Lewis to the cheesy Farfisa sound of ? and the Mysterians, keyboards were an integral part of rock music right from the start. Nonetheless, the electric guitar was still the instrument of choice for most rock musicians. A new development in the late 1960s, however, would forever change the balance between guitar and keyboards: the invention of the Moog synthesizer (and subsequent electronic keyboard instruments). One of the first rock musicians to experiment with the new technology was Keith Emerson, keyboardist for the Nice. In 1970 Emerson teamed up with bassist Greg Lake and drummer Carl Palmer to form a new band that, shockingly, had no electric guitars at all (although Lake did occassionally play an acoustic guitar). The new band's self-titled debut album was a surprise hit, thanks in large part to the tune Lucky Man, which managed to get airplay on both AM and FM radio. The Lake composition Take A Pebble, at twelve and a half minutes, was way too long for AM airplay, but did get considerable exposure on the album-oriented rock stations that were starting to show up on the FM band. Emerson, Lake and Palmer would continue to have success throughout the 70s, particularly in Italy, where they were the number one band in the country for several years.
Artist: Flower Travellin' Band
Title: Satori-Part V
Source: CD: Satori
Writer(s): Satori
Label: Phoenix
Year: 1971
Possibly the first Japanese heavy metal band and almost certainly the first Japanese psychedelic group, the Flower Travelin' Band was created as a side project of Yuyu Yuchida, a friend of John Lennon's who, having heard Jimi Hendrix and Cream on a trip to England, wanted to introduce Japanese audiences to this new kind of music. After returning to Japan he gathered a group of musicians together and recorded the first Flowerin' Travellin' Band LP in 1969. The album was made up entirely of covers of bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin. It wasn't until 1971 (and several personnel changes) that the FTB recorded their first LP made up entirely of original material. The album was called Satori, as were all five tracks on the album. It was worth the wait.
Artist: Turtles
Title: You Baby
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Sloan/Barri
Label: White Whale
Year: 1966
After first hitting the charts with their version of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles released yet another "angry young rebel" song, P.F. Sloan's Let Me Be. Realizing that they needed to vary their subject matter somewhat if they planned on having a career last longer than six months, the band formerly known as the Crossfires went with another Sloan tune, You Baby, for their first single of 1966. Although the music was in a similar style to Let Me Be, the lyrics, written by Steve Barri, were fairly typical of teen-oriented love songs of the era. The Turtles would continue to record songs from professional songwriters for single release for the remainder of their existence, with their original compositions showing up mostly as album tracks and B sides.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Flying
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1967
1967 was an odd year for the Beatles. They started it with one of their most successful double-sided singles, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, and followed it up with the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. From there, they embarked on a new film project. Unlike their previous movies, the Magical Mystery Tour was not made to be shown in theaters. Rather, the film was aired as a television special shown exclusively in the UK. The airing of the film coincided with the release (again only in the UK) of a two-disc extended play 45 RPM set featuring the six songs from the special. It was not until later in the year that the songs were released in the US, on an album that combined the songs from the film on one side and all the non-LP single sides they had released that year on the other. Among the songs from the film is Flying, a rare instrumental track that was credited to the entire band.
Artist: Cream
Title: As You Said
Source: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Cream started off as a British blues supergroup, but soon found themselves putting out some of the finest psychedelic tunes east of the Atlantic. Much of the credit for this goes to the songwriting team of bassist Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown was originally brought in as a songwriting partner for Ginger Baker, but soon found a better synergy with Bruce. The two went on to write some of Cream's most memorable songs, including Tales of Brave Ulysses, Deserted Cities of the Heart and White Room. As You Said, from Cream's third LP, Wheel's Of Fire, is somewhat unusual in that it features acoustical instruments exclusively (including Ginger Baker setting aside his drumsticks in favor of brushes).
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: I Am A Child
Source: LP: Last Time Around
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
The final Buffalo Springfield album, Last Time Around, was released after the members of the band had gone their separate ways. Not surprisingly, the album lacks cohesion, sounding more like an anthology of solo efforts (which for the most part is exactly what Last Time Around is). One notable Neil Young tune is I Am A Child, one of the few Buffalo Springfield songs that Young included on his Anthology 3-record set years later.
Artist: Roger Nichols Trio
Title: Montage Mirror
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Nichols/Roberds
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
The Parade was an L.A. studio group made up of actors and studio musicians that had a top 20 hit with Sunshine Girl in early 1967. This track, recorded later the same year is pretty much the same group but credited to the Roger Nichols Trio instead. An attempt to subvert an unpleasant contract with another label perhaps? I guess we'll never know, as the song sat on the shelf for 41(!) years before being included on a Parade anthology.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Conquistador (1971 stereo mix)
Source: CD: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo
Year: 1967
For reasons that are lost to history, the first Procol Harum album was released five months earlier in the US than it was in the UK. It also was released with a slightly different song lineup, a practice that was fairly common earlier in the decade but that had been pretty much abandoned by mid-1967. One notable difference is the inclusion of A Whiter Shade Of Pale on the US version (the British practice being to not include songs on LPs that had been already issued on 45 RPM records). The opening track of the UK version was Conquistador, a song that would not become well-known until 1972, when a live version with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra backing up the band became a hit single. There was no stereo version of the album made, although in 1971 Malcolm Jones created new stereo mixes of three of the songs from the LP, including Conquistador.
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