Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2504 (starts 1/20/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/558727 

    This week we have an all-British 3-way battle of the bands between two groups who never shared a gig themselves, but were the opening acts for the third one at one time or another (one of them several times). To follow it up we have a Beatles set with an unusual beginning. And earlier in the show we have a Byrds set as part of a 17-song first hour.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Pushin' Too Hard
Source:    LP: Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    Elektra (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1965
    Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic, although it took the better part of two years to catch on. Originally released in 1965 as You're Pushin' Too Hard, the song was virtually ignored by local Los Angeles radio stations until a second single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine, started getting some attention. After being included on the Seeds' debut LP in 1966, Pushin' Too Hard was rereleased and soon was being heard all over the L.A. airwaves. By the end of the year stations in other markets were starting to spin the record, and the song hit its peak of popularity in early 1967.

Artist:    Eric Clapton And The Powerhouse
Title:    I Want To Know
Source:    LP: What's Shakin'
Writer(s):    Paul Jones
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    In mid-1966 a curiousity appeared on the record shelves from a small, New York based record company specializing in folk and blues recordings. The label was Elektra and the LP was called What's Shakin'. It was basically a collection of mostly unrelated tracks that had been accumulating in Elektra's vaults for several months. Elektra had sent producer Joe Boyd to England to help open a new London office for the label, and while there he made the acquaintance of several local blues-rock musicians, some of which he talked into recording a few songs for Elektra. These included guitarist Eric Clapton (from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers), vocalist Steve Winwood and drummer Pete York (from the Spencer Davis Group), bassist Jack Bruce and harmonica player Paul Jones (from Manfred Mann), and pianist Ben Palmer, a friend of Clapton's who would become a Cream roadie. Recording under the name The Powerhouse, the group recorded four tracks in the studio, three of which were used on What's Shakin' (the fourth, a slow blues, has since gone missing). Only one of the three tracks was an original composition. I Want To Know was written by Jones, although on the label it was credited to his then-wife, Sheila MacLeod.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Death Sound Blues
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    I generally use the term "psychedelic" to describe a musical attitude that existed during a particular period of time rather than a specific style of music. On the other hand, the term "acid rock" is better suited for describing music that was composed and/or performed under the influence of certain mind-expanding substances. That said, the first album by Country Joe and the Fish is a classic example of acid rock. I mean, really, is there any other way to describe Death Sound Blues than "the blues on acid"?

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Flight Of The Byrd
Source:    German import CD: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Writer(s):    Ted Nugent
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    For their second LP, Detroit's Amboy Dukes decided to divide the songwriting on the album evenly between lead guitarist Ted Nugent and rhythm guitarist/vocalis Steve Farmer, with Nugent getting side one of the original LP and Farmer writing side two. As it turned out, the two ended up contributing to each other's side, but there were still some tracks, such as Nugent's Flyte Of The Byrd, that were solo compositions. The song itself gives a hint as to the direction the band's music would take over the next couple of years.
     
Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Boredom
Source:    LP: A Salty Dog
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    The third Procol Harum album, A Salty Dog, saw other members besides Gary Brooker, who with lyricist Keith Reid had written virtually all the songs on the band's first two LPs, providing material for the group to record. The Brooker/Reid team did provide some songs, however, such as Boredom, and would continue to dominate the group's sound for as long as the band existed.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    The Sound Of Silence
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The Sound Of Silence was originally an acoustic piece that was included on Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. The album went nowhere and was soon deleted from the Columbia Records catalog. Simon and Garfunkel themselves went their separate ways, with Simon moving to London and recording a solo LP, the Paul Simon Songbook, and Art Garfunkel going back to college in New York. While Simon was in the UK, something unexpected happened. Radio stations along the east coast began playing the song, getting a strong positive response from college students, particularly those on spring break in Florida. On June 15, 1965 producer Tom Wilson, who had been working with Bob Dylan on Like A Rolling Stone earlier in the day, pulled out the master tape of The Sound Of Silence and, utilizing some of the same studio musicians, added electric instruments to the existing recording. The electrified version of the song was released to local radio stations, where it garnered enough interest to get the modified recording released as a single. It turned out to be a huge hit, prompting Paul Simon to move back to the US and reunite with Art Garfunkel.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label:    Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1965
    San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small (at the time) city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities were then, as now, considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page and had shifted musical gears).

Artist:    Soft Machine
Title:    Feelin', Reelin', Squealin'
Source:    Mono British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Kevin Ayers
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1967
    The Soft Machine is best known for being at the forefront of the jazz-rock fusion movement of the 1970s. The bands roots were in the city of Canterbury, a sort of British equivalent of New York's Greenwich Village. Led by drummer Robert Wyatt, the band was first formed as the Wilde Flowers in 1963 with Kevin Ayers as lead vocalist. Heavily influenced by modern jazz, beat poetry and dadaist art, the Wilde Flowers were less a band than a group of friends getting together to make music from time to time. Things got more serious when Ayers and his Australian beatnik friend Daevid Allen made a trip to Ibiza, where they met  Wes Brunson, an American who was heir to a fortune. Brunson provided financial backing for a new band called Mister Head, which included Ayers, Wyatt, Allen and Larry Nolan. By late 1966 the group had added Mike Rutledge and changed its name to Soft Machine (after Allen had secured permission to use the name from author William Burroughs), performing regularly at London's legendary UFO club. After the departure of Nolan, the band recorded its first single for Polydor in early 1967. Both sides were written by Ayers, who by then was playing bass and sharing the vocals with Wright. The B side of that single was Feelin', Reelin', Sqealin', a track that helped define British psychedelic music.

Artist:     Humane Society
Title:     Eternal Prison
Source:     Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:     Danny Minnich
Label:     Rhino (original label: New World)
Year:     1968
     Simi Valley, California, was home to the Humane Society, a band who, at least on vinyl, showed a decidedly schizophrenic face to the world. The A side of their first single, released on the Liberty label in 1967, was Tip Toe Thru The Tulips (yes, the same song that Tiny Tim became famous for). The B side, on the other hand, was the truly psychotic Knock Knock. The following year they repeated the pattern with another forgettable A side backed with Eternal Prison, one of the creepiest psychedelic tracks ever recorded.

rtist:    Byrds
Title:    Everybody's Been Burned
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    There is a common misconception that David Crosby's songwriting skills didn't fully develop until he began working with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. A listen to Everybody's Been Burned from the Byrds' 1967 LP Younger Than Yesterday, however, puts the lie to that theory in a hurry. The track has all the hallmarks of a classic Crosby song: a strong melody, intelligent lyrics and an innovative chord structure. It's also my personal favorite tune from what is arguably the Byrds' best album.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
    After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the Byrds turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics adapted from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
    
Artist:    Byrds
Title:    C.T.A.-102
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Hippard
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Roger McGuinn of the Byrds always exhibited an interest in the subject of extraterrestrial life. C.T.A.-102, from the Younger Than Yesterday album, addresses this subject from the angle of aliens tuning in to earth broadcasts to learn our language and culture and finding themselves exposed to rock and roll (and apparently liking it). The song was co-written by McGuinn's like-minded friend, Bob Hippard.

Artist:    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:    Luke & The Apostles
Title:    Been Burnt
Source:    Mono LP: Also Dug-Its (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ray Bennett
Label:    Elektra (original label: Bounty)
Year:    1967
    Just as New York had its Greenwich Village music scene, with groups like the Blues Project, Lovin' Spoonful and Paul Butterfield Blues Band playing small clubs like the Cafe au Go Go, so did Toronto have Yorkville Village, home of artists like Buffy Sainte Marie, Gordon Lightfoot and the Paupers, and a coffee house known as the Purple Onion. Elektra Records had opened a Canadian division in 1965 and Paul Rothchild, who was serving as a talent scout for the label, caught a local blues band called Luke & The Apostles at the Purple Onion one evening in late 1965. He was so taken with the group that he had their lead vocalist, Dave "Luke" Gibson, audition for label head Jac Holzman...over the phone. The band flew down to New York to record a pair of songs, including Been Burnt, but then Rothchild got busted for marijuana possession and did a year at Sing Sing (or some other NY state facility). The band continued to build a following in the Toronto area, going through a series of personnel changes in the process. In April of 1967, still waiting for their single to be released, the band returned to New York for a week-long engagement at the Cafe au Go Go, which led to a return engagement at the same club in May. While in New York the band spent an entire day at the Elektra studios, recording an album's worth of material. During their May gig, the band was offered a management contract by Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan's manager) and Bill Graham, with Graham offering a slot at the Fillmore West that summer. In between the two Cafe au Go Go gigs, Elektra released Been Burnt/Don't Know Why as a single, which ended up putting a strain on relations within the band itself, with some members wanting to go with Grossman and Graham while others wanted to stay with Rothchild and Holzman. Three months later, Gibson left the band to join another Canadian group, Kensington Market, and the rest of the band quickly fragmented, only to reunite briefly in 1970, releasing their second and final single on Canada's True North label. Since then the band has occasionally gotten back together and finally released their first (and only) LP, Luke & The Apostles, in 2017, 50 years after the first appearance of Been Burnt on vinyl.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Jumpin' Jack Flash
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1968
    After the late 1967 LP Their Satanic Majesties Request was savaged by the critics, the Rolling Stones decided to make a big change, severing ties with their longtime producer Andrew Loog Oldham and replacing him 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. The song was actually the second Stones tune produced by MIller, although it was the first to be released. The song revitalized the band's commercial fortunes, and was soon followed by what is generally considered to be one of the Stones' greatest albums, the classic Beggar's Banquet (which included the first Miller-produced song, Street Fighting Man).

Artist:    Bloodrock
Title:    Wicked Truth
Source:    CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s):    John Nitzinger
Label:    One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    I first heard of Bloodrock when our lead vocalist showed up at practice one day with their first album in hand and said "we gotta learn a couple of these songs". One of those songs was Wicked Truth, written by Fort Worth's John Nitzenger, who would go on to pen several more Bloodrock tunes over the next couple of years before releasing his first solo LP in 1972.

Artist:    Chicago
Title:    25 Or 6 To 4
Source:    CD: Chicago
Writer(s):    Robert Lamm
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    For their second LP, Chicago (which had justdropped the words "Transit Authority" from their name in response to a threatened lawsuit) tried out all three of their vocalists on each new song to hear who sounded the best for that particular song. In the case of Robert Lamm's 25 Or 6 To 4, bassist Peter Cetera did the honors. The song became a top 10 single both in the US and UK. Despite rumors to the contrary, Lamm says 25 Or 6 To 4 is not a drug song. Instead, he says, the title refers to the time of the morning that he was awake and writing the tune.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    There's A Chance We Can Make It
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Gilbert/Scala
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
     Following up on their biggest hit, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet, the Blues Magoos released a song called There's A Chance We Can Make It backed with Pipe Dream for their next single. Unfortunately for both songs, some stations elected to play There's A Chance We Can Make It while others preferred Pipe Dream. The result was that neither song charted as high as it could have had it been released with a weaker B side. This had the ripple effect of causing Electric Comic Book (the album both songs appeared on) to not chart as well as its predecessor Psychedelic Lollipop had. This in turn caused Mercury Records to lose faith in the Blues Magoos and not give them the kind of promotion that could have kept the band in the public eye beyond its 15 minutes of fame. The ultimate result was that for many years, there were an excessive number of busboys and cab drivers claiming to have once been members of the Blues Magoos and not many ways to disprove their claims, at least until the internet made information about the group's actual membership more accessible.

The first rock 'n' roll concerts were revues featuring several artists performing two or three songs (usually their hits) and then vacating the stage for the next act, with disc jockeys like Alan Freed sponsoring the event and usually serving as emcees. Although these revues continued well into the 1960s, they eventually gave way to shows that only featured two or three artists doing longer sets, with the most popular group being the last to take the stage. This week we feature a battle of the bands between three British groups, one of which was a headliner by the middle of the decade, while the other two, on separate occasions, served as their opening act. We begin, appropriately, with the two opening bands...

Artist:    Who
Title:    My Generation (live TV version)
Source:    Mono LP: The Kids Are Alright
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA
Year:    1967
    On September 15, 1967, the Who made their only appearance on an American TV variety show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. After performing their upcoming single, I Can See For Miles, the band members were introduced by Tommy Smothers before breaking into what was then their signature song, My Generation. Unbeknownst to the other band members, drummer Keith Moon had planted a small explosive device in his drum set, which he set off during the song's typically chaotic final seconds. The resulting explosion set guitarist Pete Townshend's hair on fire and a flying cymbal left a gash in Moon's own arm.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    It's All Meat
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    More than just about any other British invasion band, the Animals identified strongly with US Rhythm and Blues artists like John Lee Hooker and Ray Charles; all of their albums were filled with R&B covers, even as late as 1966, when other British bands were recording almost nothing but songs they wrote themselves. After the original group disbanded in late 1966, lead vocalist Eric Burdon set about forming a new version of the Animals. This new band, which came to be known as Eric Burdon And The Animals, shifted the emphasis to original compositions. Much of their original material, however, still had a strong connection to black American culture, especially in Burdon's lyrics on songs such as It's All Meat from the 1967 Winds Of Change album. Burdon would continue to move in this direction, culminating with his collaborations with the Los Angeles band War in the 1970s.

And who did those two bands open for? None other than the group who, in 1965, were ranked the #1 singles act of the year by Billboard magazine, Herman's Hermits.

Artist:    Herman's Hermits
Title:    Saturday's Child
Source:    LP: There's A Kind Of Hush All Over The World
Writer(s):    Graham Gouldman
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1967
    Herman's Hermits were unique among British Invasion groups in that they were far more popular in the US than they were in their native land during the early years of the British Invasion, with several of their US top 10 singles not even being released as A sides in the UK. This was still true in 1967, when their LP There's A Kind Of Hush All Over The World failed to chart in the UK while topping out at the #13 spot in the US. Among the notable tracks on that album was the Hermits' own version of Saturday's Child, a song written by David Gates (who would go on to fame as front man for Bread in the 1970s) and originally recorded by the Monkees for their 1966 debut LP.

rtist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Gratefully Dead
Source:    Mono British import CD: Winds Of Change (bonus track originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:    Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    One of the most successful singles by Eric Burdon And The Animals was a tribute to the summer of Love called San Franciscan Nights taken from their 1967 debut LP, Winds Of Change. The B side of that single was Good Times, from the same album. At first the band's British label was reluctant to release San Francisco Nights as a single, but eventually decided to go for it. Since Good Times had already been released as a single in the UK (making the top 10), the group recorded a new B side for San Franciscan Nights's UK release, a tune written by the band called Gratefully Dead. To my knowledge, the track has never been issued in the US.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere (live TV version)
Source:    Mono LP: The Kids Are Alright
Writer(s):    Townshend/Daltry
Label:    MCA
Year:    1965
    One of the earliest singles from the Who, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, [Wow! That's a lot of commas] is the only known songwriting collaboration between guitarist Pete Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey. The band performed the song on one of their many appearances on the British TV show Ready Steady Go! The show itself was sort of a British version of American Bandstand, with members of the audience dancing and interracting with the program's hosts.

Artist:    Herman's Hermits
Title:    Rattler
Source:    LP: There's A Kind Of Hush All Over The World
Writer(s):    Bruce Woodley
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1967
    Bruce Woodley was a co-founder and primary songwriter for the Seekers, an Australian Band that had their greatest success with the song Georgy Girl in 1966. Woodley was also the co-writer, with Paul Simon, of Red Rubber Ball, a major hit for American band the Cyrkle. Rattler is a country-flavored pop song Woodley wrote for the 1967 Herman's Hermits album There's A Kind Of Hush All Over The World, which was recorded in late 1966 and released in the spring of 1967. The Seekers own version of Rattler was included on an album called Seekers Seen in Green later that same year.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Good Times
Source:    Mono British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label (also M-G-M but run by different people) decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and ended up becoming a hit there as well.

Artist:    Herman's Hermits
Title:    Jezebel
Source:    LP: There's A Kind Of Hush All Over The World
Writer(s):    Wayne Shanklin
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1967
     Originally recorded by Frankie Laine with the Norman Luboff Choir and Mitch Miller and his orchestra on April 4, 1951 and released as both a 78 RPM and 45 RPM single later that same month, Wayne Shanklin's Jezebel was a major hit, going to the #2 spot on the Billboard chart. There have been numerous covers of the song recorded over the years, including versions by Gene Vincent in 1956 and the Everly Brothers in 1961. Herman's Hermits recorded their own version of Jezebel for their 1967 album There's A Kind Of Hush All Over The World. It may well be the most psychedelic recording they ever made.    

Artist:    Who
Title:    A Quick One, While He's Away (live version)
Source:    LP: The Kids Are Alright
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original US label: Decca)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1979
    The Who's Pete Townshend is rightfully acknowledged as the creator of the musical form known as rock-opera. However, most people assume his first rock-opera was Tommy, released as a double-LP in 1969. In reality, Townshend had already composed an released a shorter rock opera called A Quick One While He's Away in late 1966 which became the title track of the Who's second LP (although the album itself was retitled Happy Jack for its US release). In December of 1968 the Who were invited to participate in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, a telefilm meant to be broadcast by the BBC. The idea was to film a live concert on a stage made up to look like a big top, but the entire process took far longer than planned, starting at around 2PM on December 11th and going continuously until 5 the next morning. The Who were one of the first acts to be filmed. The Stones, on the other hand, were the headliners and naturally were scheduled to perform last. The fact that they didn't go onstage until early in the morning after having been active in the filming process since the previous morning took its toll on the members of the Rolling Stones, and the band decided to withhold the film indefinitely. The fact that the Who, having spent most of the year touring, were at a performing peak, and in the opinion of everyone present had upstaged the Stones, probably had something to do with that decision as well. The telefilm itself sat in limbo until 1996, when it was finally completed and released on CD and home video, although the Who's performance of A Quick One While He's Away was included in the 1979 concert film The Kids Are Alright and accompanying soundtrack album.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    She's Leaving Home
Source:    Mono LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
    One of the striking things about the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the sheer variety of songs on the album. Never before had a rock band gone so far beyond its roots in so many directions at once. One of Paul McCartney's most poignant songs on the album was She's Leaving Home. The song tells the story of a young girl who has decided that her stable homelife is just too unfulling to bear and heads for the big city. Giving the song added depth is the somewhat clueless response of her parents, who can't seem to understand what went wrong. Although nobody seemed to notice for several years, the original mono version of She's Leaving Home runs a touch faster than the stereo version (and thus is in a slightly higher key). This week we are presenting the opening few seconds of each version so that you can hear the difference for yourselves.

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

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
    The top album of 1967 was the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was also the first US Beatles album to have a song lineup that was identical to the original UK LP. As such, it was also the first Beatles album released in the US to not include any songs that were also released as singles. Nonetheless, several tracks from the LP found their way onto the playlists of both top 40 AM and "underground" FM stations from coast to coast. Among the most popular of these tracks was John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which shows up on just about everyone's list of classic psychedelic tunes.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Long Hot Summer Night
Source:    CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    When Chas Chandler first discovered Jimi Hendrix playing at a club in New York's Greenwich Village in 1966, he knew that he had found one seriously talented guitarist. Within two years Hendrix would prove to be an outstanding songwriter, vocalist and producer as well. This was fortunate for Hendrix, as Chandler would part company with Hendrix during the making of the Electric Ladyland album, leaving Hendrix as sole producer. Chandler's main issue was the slow pace Hendrix maintained in the studio, often reworking songs while the tape was rolling, recording multiple takes until he got exactly what he wanted. Adding to the general level of chaos was Hendrix's propensity for inviting just about anyone he felt like to join him in the studio. Among all these extra people were some of the best musicians around, including keyboardist Al Kooper, whose work can be heard on Long Hot Summer Night.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s):    Capaldi/Winwood/Wood
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1967
    Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's the title track of Traffic's Mr. Fantasy album.   

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2504 (starts 1/20/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/558726

    This time around we're staying close to the turn of the decade, as we start with a set of tunes from 1968 and then slowly work our way up to 1972 and a somewhat lengthy piece from the second Flash LP.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Manic Depression
Source:     LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     My dad bought an Akai X-355 reel to reel tape recorder when we moved to Ramstein, Germany in early 1968. It was pretty much the state of the art in home audio technology at the time. The problem was that we did not have a stereo system to hook it into, so he bought a set of Koss headphones to go with it. One of my first purchases was a pre-recorded reel to reel tape of Are You Experienced. The Akai had an auto-reverse system and I would lie on the couch with the headphones on to go to sleep every night listening to songs like Manic Depression. Is it any wonder I turned out like I did?
    
Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    My Sunday Feeling
Source:    CD: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    For years my only copy of Jethro Tull's first LP, This Was, was a cassette copy I had made myself. In fact, the two sides of the album were actually on two different tapes (don't ask why). When I labelled the tapes I neglected to specify which tape had which side of the album; as a result I was under the impression that My Sunday Feeling was the opening track on the album. It turns out it was actually the first track on side two, but I still tend to think of it as the "first" Jethro Tull song, despite the fact that the band had actually released a single, Sunshine Day, the previous year for a different label.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Five To One
Source:    CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1968
    Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Salt of the Earth
Source:     LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     London
Year:     1968
     After scathing critical reviews and disappointing sales for their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones took a few months off to regroup. They returned to the studio with a new producer (Jimmy Miller, who had previously worked with Steve Winwood) and a back-to-basics approach that resulted in a new single, Jumpin' Jack Flash, followed by the release of the Beggar's Banquet album. The closing track of that album was Salt of the Earth, a song that started off sounding like a drinking song (thanks in large part to Keith Richards singing the opening lines), and gradually building up to a gospel-inflected fadeout, with guest keyboardist Nicky Hopkin's piano featured prominently.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s):    Bredon/Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1968
    It is the nature of folk music that a song often gets credited to one writer when in fact it is the work of another. This is due to the fact that folk singers tend to share their material liberally with other folk singers, who often make significant changes to the work before passing it along to others. Such is the case with Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You, which was originally conceived by UC-Berkeley student Anne Johannsen in the late 1950s and performed live on KPFA radio in 1960. Another performer on the same show, Janet Smith, developed the song further and performed it at Oberlin College, where it was heard by audience member Joan Baez. Baez asked Smith for a tape of her songs and began performing the song herself.  Baez used it as the opening track on her album, Joan Baez In Concert, Part One, but it was credited as "traditional", presumably because Baez herself had no knowledge of who had actually written the song. Baez eventually discovered the true origins of the tune, and later pressings gave credit to Anne Bredon, who had divorced her first husband, Lee Johannsen and married Glen Bredon since writing the song. Jimmy Page had an early pressing of the Baez album, so when he reworked the song for inclusion on the first Led Zeppelin album, he went with "traditional, arranged Page" as the writer. Robert Plant, who worked with Page on the arrangement, was not originally given credit for contractual reasons, although current editions of the album credit Page, Plant and Bredon as the songwriters.

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     Abbey Road Medley #2
Source:     CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:     1969
     The Beatles had been experimenting with songs leading into other songs since the Sgt. Pepper's album. With Abbey Road they took it a step further, with side two of the album containing two such medleys. The second one consists of Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End, with Her Majesty (not included on this week's show) tossed in as a kind of "hidden" track at the end of the album. The End is somewhat unique in that it features solos by all three guitar-playing members of the band, as well as the only Ringo Starr drum solo to appear on a Beatles album.

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    Duke Of Madness Motors
Source:    LP: Dear Friends
Writer(s):    Peter Bergman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    Recorded 1971, released 1972
    From September of 1970 to February 1971 the Firesign Theatre produced a weekly syndicated radio series called Dear Friends. In 1972 the foursome collected what they considered the best bits from the shows and released them as the double-LP Dear Friends. Duke Of Madness Motors features Alistair Crowley as a used car salesman in a short piece from the All Night Images episode of Dear Friends first broadcast on Jan 17, 1971. The minute and a half long bit was written and voiced by Peter Bergman, whose 1966 show on radio station KPFK, Radio Free Oz, led to the foundation of the Firesign Theatre.

Artist:     Grateful Dead
Title:     Truckin'
Source:     CD: Skeletons From the Closet (originally released on LP: American Beauty)
Writer:     Garcia/Weir/Hunter/Lesh
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1970
     After two performance-oriented albums that mixed live and studio material and one double live LP, the Grateful Dead decided to shift their focus in the studio to their songwriting skills. The result was Workingman's Dead, the band's most commercially successful album up to that point. Five months later the followup album,  American Beauty defined the Grateful Dead's sound for all but the most dedicated of concertgoers (the legendary Deadheads), thanks to songs like Truckin', which would stand as the band's most successful single until the mid-1980s.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Let The Sky Fall
Source:    LP: A Space In Time
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Although whether or not it's coincidental is debatable, the fact is that Ten Years After's first album released on the Columbia label in the US (after six on Deram), saw the band adding more acoustically-oriented material to their repertoire, including Let The Sky Fall, which, like much of Alvin Lee's material, is built around a distinctive guitar riff.

Artist:    Flash
Title:    Black And White
Source:    LP: Flash In The Can
Writer(s):    Banks/Bennett
Label:    Sovereign/Capitol
Year:    1972
    Once upon a time there was a band called Yes. This band had already released a pair of commercially unsuccessful albums and were on the verge of being dropped by their record label (Atlantic). The guitarist for Yes, one Peter Banks, at odds with the other band members over the use of strings on the second Yes album, Time And A Word, left to form his own band, Flash, in 1971, with vocalist Colin Carter. The lineup was soon filled out by bassist Ray Bennett and drummer Mike Hough. The group soon signed to Capitol Records' Sovereign sub-label and, along with guest keyboardist (and former Yes member) Tony Kaye, released their first LP in 1972. Although Kaye was invited to join Flash as a permanent member, he declined, and the group recorded their second LP, Flash In The Can, as a four-piece group (with Carter providing occasional keyboard parts) later the same year. Among the stronger tracks on that album is the Banks/Bennett collaboration Black And White, which opens side two of the original LP. The following year Capitol, without the band's knowledge or approval, released the group's third LP as "Flash featuring Peter Banks". This understandably caused a bit of friction within the band itself, culminating in the band breaking up rather abruptly in November of 1973 following a performance in Albuquerque, NM. As for Yes, they found another guitarist (Steve Howe) and keyboardist (Rick Wakeman) and didn't get their contract with Atlantic cancelled after all. One final note: Flash vocalist Colin Carter passed away at the age of 76 on January 10th, 2024.

Artist:    Badfinger
Title:    Baby Blue
Source:    45 RPM single    
Writer(s):    Pete Ham
Label:    Apple
Year:    1972
    The most successful band on the Apple label not to include former members of the Beatles, Badfinger had a string of hit singles in the early 1970s that helped define the genre that would come to be known as power pop. One of the best of these was Baby Blue, released in 1972. The song, like most Badfinger singles, was written by lead vocalist/guitarist Pete Ham.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2503 (starts 1/13/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/557807

    This week we manage to squeeze in a total of 19 songs in our first hour before presenting an entire 20 minute long album side of the Moody Blues from 1969. And if that weren't enough, we have an artists' set from Cream thrown in for good measure.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Here Comes The Sun
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    In a way, George Harrison's career as a songwriter parallels the Beatles' development as a studio band. His first song to get any attention was If I Needed Someone on the Rubber Soul album, the LP that marked the beginning of the group's transition from performers to studio artists. As the Beatles' skills in the studio increased, so did Harrison's writing skills, reaching a peak with the Abbey Road album. As usual, Harrison wrote two songs for the LP, but this time one of them (Something) became the first single released from the album and the first Harrison song to hit the top five on the charts. The other Harrison composition on Abbey Road was Here Comes The Sun. Although never released as a single, the song, written while Harrison, tired of dealing with the business aspects of Apple Corp., was hiding out at his friend Eric Clapton's place, has gone on to become Harrison's most enduring masterpiece.

Artist:     Who
Title:     Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde
Source:     Mono CD: The Who Sell Out bonus disc: The Road To Tommy (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    John Entwhistle
Label:     UMC/Polydor (original label: Decca)
Year:     1968
     The Who were blessed with not one, but two top-notch songwriters: Pete Townshend and John Entwhistle. Whereas Townsend's songs ranged from tight pop songs to more serious works such as Tommy, Entwistle's tunes had a slightly twisted outlook, dealing with such topics as crawly critters (Boris the Spider), imaginary friends (Whiskey Man) and even outright perversion (Fiddle About). Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde was originally released in the US as the B side to Call Me Lightning. Both songs were included on the Magic Bus album, which, to my knowledge has never been issued on CD in the US.
 
Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Itchycoo Park
Source:    CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1967
    Led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, the Small Faces got their name from the fact that all the members of the band were somewhat vertically challenged. The group was quite popular with the London mod crowd, and was sometimes referred to as the East End's answer to the Who. Although quite successful in the UK, the group only managed to score one hit in the US, the iconic Itchycoo Park, which was released in late 1967. Following the departure of Marriott the group shortened their name to Faces, and recruited a new lead vocalist named Rod Stewart. Needless to say, the new version of the band did much better in the US than its previous incarnation before itself being destroyed by Stewart's solo career.
    
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    I Am Waiting
Source:    British import LP: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    The Aftermath album was a turning point for the Rolling Stones. For one thing, it was their first album recorded entirely in the US, and at a much more leisurely pace than their previous albums. This afforded the band the opportunity to spend more time working on their arrangements before committing songs to tape. It also gave Brian Jones a chance to experiment with instruments not normally associated with rock and roll music, such as sitar, dulcimer, marimbas, and koto. Aftermath was also the first Rolling Stones album made up entirely of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, including the semi-acoustic I Am Waiting.
 
Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Nashville Cats
Source:    LP: Hums Of The Lovin' Spoonful
Writer(s):    John B. Sebastian
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Kama Sutra)
Year:    1966
    After the success of their debut LP, Do You Believe In Magic, The Lovin' Spoonful deliberately set out to make a followup album that sounded like it was recorded by several different bands, as a way of showcasing their versatility. With Hums Of The Lovin' Spoonful, released in 1966, they did just that. Songs on the album ranged from the folky Darlin' Be Home Soon to the rockin' psychedelic classic Summer In The City, with a liberal dose of what would come to be called country rock. The best example of the latter was Nashville Cats, a song that surprisingly went into the top 40 and became a staple of progressive FM radio in the early 70s. Perhaps even more surprisingly, Nashville Cats did not get played on country stations, despites the song's praise of the musicians making a living in the capitol of country music.

Artist:    Modern Folk Quintet
Title:    Night Time Girl
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk-Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Kooper/Levine
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1966
    The Modern Folk Quintet can be seen two ways: either as a group that constantly strived to be on the cutting edge or simply as fad followers. Starting off in the early 60s, the MFQ found themselves working with Phil Spector in the middle of the decade, complete with Spector's trademark "wall of sound" production techniques. When that didn't work out they signed with Lou Adler's Dunhill Records, cutting Night Time Girl, a tune that sounds like a psychedelicized version of the Mamas and the Papas.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Try Me On For Size
Source:    CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (original album title: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Jones
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Songwriter Annette Tucker struck gold when producer David Hassinger selected I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), a song she had co-written with Nancie Mantz, to be the new single by the Electric Prunes. The song was so successful that Hassinger picked up half a dozen more Tucker songs to be included on the Prunes' debut LP for Reprise. Most of those were co-written by Mantz, but a couple, including the band's next single, Get Me To The World On Time, carried a Jill Jones co-writing credit. The other Tucker/Jones collaboration on the album was a song called Try Me On For Size, a track that could be interpreted as an invitation to the kinds of activities rock musicians would become famous for during backstage parties in the 70s and 80s.

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

Artist:    Johnny Thompson Quintet
Title:    Color Me Columbuth
Source:    Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Johnny Thompson Quintet
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Guitarsville)
Year:    1966
    Not much is known about Monterey Park, California's Johnny Thompson Quintet. The group apparently only released two singles, the first of which was the punkish Color Me Columbus. Rather than come up with another song for the B side, one of the band members recorded a new vocal track doing what sounds like a Daffy Duck impersonation over the original instrumental track, titling it Color Me Columbuth. Strange stuff.

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

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s):    McGannahan Skjellyfetti
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    The Grateful Dead's major label debut single actually sold pretty well in the San Francisco Bay area, where it got airplay on top 40 stations from San Francisco to San Jose. Around the rest of the country, not so much, but the Dead would soon prove that there was more to survival than having a hit record. Writing credits on The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion) were given to McGannahan Skjellyfetti, which like the Rolling Stones' Nanker Phelge was a name used for songs written by the entire band (there was probably some copyright-related reason for doing so).

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    The Last Wall Of The Castle
Source:    LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer:    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    Following the massive success of the Surrealistic Pillow album with its two top 10 singles (Somebody To Love and White Rabbit) the members of Jefferson Airplane made a conscious choice to put artistic goals above commercial ones for their next LP, After Bathing At Baxter's. The result was an album that defines the term "acid rock" in more ways than one. One of the few songs on the album that does not cross-fade into or out of another track is The Last Wall Of The Castle from Jorma Kaukonen, his first fully electric song to be recorded by the band.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Stroll On
Source:    Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released on LP: Blow-Up (The Original Soundtrack Album))
Writer(s):    Relf/Page/Beck/Dreja
Label:    Raven (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1966
    There are only two known Yardbirds studio recordings featuring both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page on guitar. The first was the single Happenings Ten Years Time Ago. After releasing the single they then appeared in an avant-garde movie called Blow Up, playing a song called Stroll On. The song itself was a reworking of an earlier tune, Train Kept A-Rollin', with new lyrics provided by Keith Relf to avoid dealing with copyright issues. The rest of the film's soundtrack was provided by Herbie Hancock.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Red House
Source:    Mono LP: Are You Experienced (UK version)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original UK label: Track)
Year:    1967
    One of the first songs recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Red House was omitted from the US version of Are You Experienced because, in the words of one record company executive: "America does not like blues". At the time the song was recorded, Noel Redding was not yet comfortable using a bass guitar, and would work out his bass parts on a slightly-detuned hollow body six-string guitar with the tone controls on their muddiest setting (I learned to play bass the same way myself). The original recording of Red House that was included on the UK version of Are You Experienced features Redding doing exactly that. A second take of the song, with overdubs, was included on the North American version of the 1969 Smash Hits album, but the original mono version heard here was not available in the US until the release of the Blues CD in 1994.

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    I'm Not Talking
Source:    British simulated stereo CD: Before The Dream Faded
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Cherry Red
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 1982
    The story of the legendary band the Misunderstood actually started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most of the bands at the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock and roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Among those was I'm Not Talking, a blues tune in much the same style as the early Yardbirds recordings. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, an Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were eventually joined by Ravencroft himself, who changed his name to John Peel and became perhaps the most well-known, and certainly the most influential, DJ in British radio history. The Misunderstood recorded six more songs in the UK, releasing a single in late 1966 before being deported back to the US (where one of the members was immediately drafted into military service) because of problems with their work visas.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: Electric Comic Book and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Gilbert/Scala/Esposito/Thielhelm
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1966
    The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably (of course the fact that they were on Mercury Records, one of the "big six" labels of the time, didn't hurt). Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Devil's Grip
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry & Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Brown
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Track)
Year:    1967
    Arthur Brown became an instant star with the words "I Am the God of Hellfire...And I Bring You Fire" opening the 1968 single Fire. This was not the first record released by the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, however. The previous year, on the recommendation of the Who's Pete Townshend, Kit Lambert, owner of Track Records, signed the group, releasing Devil's Grip as the band's debut single in September of 1967.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Feelings
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Feelings and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Coonce/Entner/Fukomoto
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    In 1968 the Grass Roots decided to assert themselves and take artistic control of their newest album, Feelings, writing most of the material for the album themselves. Unfortunately for the band, the album, as well as its title track single, fared poorly on the charts. From that point on the Grass Roots were firmly under the control of producers/songwriters Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, cranking out a series of best-selling hits such as I'd Wait A Million Years and Midnight Confessions (neither of which get played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, incidentally).

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Anji
Source:    LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s):    Davey Graham
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Paul Simon wrote nearly all the material that he and Art Garfunkel recorded. One notable exception is Davey Graham's instrumental Anji, which Simon played as a solo acoustic piece on the Sounds Of Silence. The song immediately follows a Simon composition, Somewhere They Can't Find Me, that is built around a similar-sounding guitar riff, making Anji sound somewhat like an instrumental reprise of the first tune.

Artist:    Paul Revere/Raiders
Title:    In My Community
Source:    LP: Spirit of '67
Writer(s):    Phil Volk
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Paul Revere And The Raiders had a truly great 1966, with three LPs going gold that year. The last of these (and, quite honestly, the last truly great Raiders album), was Spirit of '67, released in late November, just in time for the Christmas rush. Like the two previous albums, Spirit of '67 contains a handful of tunes written and sung by someone other than Mark Lindsay. One of these, In My Community, showcases the talents of Phil "Fang" Volk, the group's longtime bassist. Sadly, the band would come to rely more and more on studio musicians to get across the musical vision of Lindsay and keyboardist Revere, to the exclusion of other band members. In fact, Volk and drummer Mike Smith would soon leave the Raiders, hooking up with former Raider lead guitarist Drake Levin to form the harder rocking Brotherhood in 1967.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    On The Threshold Of A Dream (side two)
Source:    CD: On The Threshold Of A Dream
Writer(s):    Hayward/Thomas/Edge/Pinder
Label:    Deram
Year:    1969
    Ever since their 1967 album Days Of Future Passed, the Moody Blues have had this annoying habit of letting all the songs on their albums run into each other, making it difficult to impossible to play an individual track on the radio. As a result, I play the Moody Blues sparingly, essentially playing an entire album side about one sixth as often as I might play just one song. This time around it's side two of their third concept album, On The Threshold Of A Dream. The side begins with Justin Hayward's Never Comes The Day, which leads into Ray Thomas's Lazy Day followed by Hayward's Are You Sitting Comfortably. The rest of the side, known collectively as the Voyage Suite, starts with Graeme Edge's The Dream (recited by Mike Pinder), followed by Pinder's Have You Heard (part 1), The Voyage and Have You Heard (part 2). The side wraps up with a sound effect that continues on into the inner groove of the original LP and fades out after a few seconds on CD and tape versions of the album.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills and Nash
Title:    Guinnevere
Source:    CD: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    By 1969 David Crosby had developed into a first-class songwriter. Nowhere is that more evident than on Guinnevere, from the first Crosby, Still and Nash album. Instrumentally the song is essentially a solo guitar piece. It is the layered harmonies from Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash that make the song truly stand out as one of the best releases of 1969, and quite possibly Crosby's most beautiful composition.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Combination Of The Two
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Sam Andrew
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
     Everything about Big Brother And The Holding Company can be summed up by the title of the opening track for their Cheap Thrills album (and their usual show opener as well): Combination Of The Two. A classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, Big Brother, with Janis Joplin on lead vocals, had an energy that neither Joplin or the band itself was able to duplicate once they parted company. On the song itself, the actual lead vocals for the verses are the work of Combination Of The Two's writer, bassist Sam Houston Andrew III, but those vocals are eclipsed by the layered non-verbal chorus that starts with Joplin then repeats itself with Andrew providing a harmony line which leads to Joplin's promise to "rock you, sock you, gonna give it to you now". It was a promise that the group seldom failed to deliver on.

Artist:    Easybeats
Title:    Good Times
Source:    CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    The Easybeats were Australia's most popular band in the sixties. Formed in 1964 at a migrant hostel in Sidney (all the members came from immigrant families), the band's earliest British Invasion styled hits were written by rhythm guitarist George Young (older brother of AC/DC's Angus and Malcolm Young) and lead vocalist "Little" Stevie Wright. By 1966, however, lead guitarist Harry Vanda (originally from the Netherlands) had become fluent in English and with the song Friday On My Mind replaced Wright as Young's writing partner (although Wright stayed on as the band's frontman). Around that same time the Easybeats relocated to England, although they continued to chart hits on a regular basis in Australia. One of their most memorable songs was Good Times from the 1968 album Vigil, featuring guest backup vocalist Steve Marriott of the Small Faces. Originally released in Australia as a B side, the song was later retitled Gonna Have A Good Time for its international release as an A side in 1969. Young and Vanda later moved back to Australia and recorded a series of records under the name Flash and the Pan that were very successful in Australia and Europe. Stevie Wright went on to become Australia's first international pop star. The song Good Times became a hit for another Australian band, INXS, in the 1980s when it was used in the film The Lost Boys.

Artist:    Salvation
Title:    What Does An Indian Look Like
Source:    German import CD: 1st & Gypsy Carnival Caravan
Writer(s):    Al Linde
Label:    Head (original US label: ABC)
Year:    1968
    If there is any one band that typifies the San Francisco music scene of 1968 it would have to be Salvation. Originally from Seattle and known as the New Salvation Army Banned, the group came to the attention of ABC Records after a series of successful gigs at Golden Gate Park. The band was often seen cruising the streets of San Francisco in a converted school bus and often found themselves sharing the playbill with acts like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. After recording their debut LP, Salvation, the group did a coast to coast promotional tour "from the Golden Gate to the Village Gate", only to find themselves stranded on the east coast when their management team absconded with the band's advance money. The band's fate was sealed when they, to quote keyboardist Art Resnick, "acted so incredibly wild at the main offices of ABC In in NYC when going there to meet all the top execs. It was totally insane! Wilder than any rock movie I've ever seen." Most of the songs on their debut LP were written by the band's co-founder, vocalist Al Linde, including the album's final track, What Does An Indian Look Like. As far as I can tell none of those words actually appear in the song itself.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sitting On Top Of The World
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Chester Burnett
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Throughout their existence British blues supergroup Cream recorded covers of blues classics. One of the best of these is Sitting On Top Of The World from the album Wheels Of Fire, which in its earliest form was written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon and recorded by the Mississippi Shieks in 1930. Cream's version uses the lyrics from the 1957 rewrite of the song by Chester Burnett, better know as Howlin' Wolf.

Artist:         Cream
Title:        Sunshine Of Your Love
Source:      CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released on LP: Disraeli Gears)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown/Clapton
Label:    Priority (original label: Atco)
Year:        1967
        Although by mid-1967 Cream had already released a handful of singles in the UK, Sunshine Of Your Love, featuring one of the most recognizable guitar rifts in the history of rock, was their first song to make a splash in the US. Although only moderately successful in edited form on AM Top-40 radio, the full-length LP version of the song received extensive airplay on the more progressive FM stations, and turned Disraeli Gears into a perennial best-seller. Clapton and Bruce constantly trade off lead vocal lines throughout the song. The basic compatibility of their voices is such that it is sometimes difficult to tell exactly who is singing what line. Clapton's guitar solo (which was almost entirely edited out of the AM version) set a standard for instrumental breaks in terms of length and style that became a hallmark for what is now known as "classic rock."

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Deserted Cities Of The Heart
Source:     LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:     Bruce/Brown
Label:     RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:     1968
     The most psychedelic of Cream's songs were penned by Jack Bruce and his songwriting partner Pete Brown. One of the best of these was chosen to close out the last studio side of the last Cream album released while the band was still in existence. Deserted Cities Of The Heart is a fitting epitaph to an unforgettable band.

Artist:    Syndicate Of Sound
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Baskin/Gonzalez
Label:    Bell
Year:    1966
    San Jose California, despite being a relatively small city in the pre-silicon valley days, was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced more than its share of hit records from 1966-68. One of the earliest and biggest of these hits was the Syndicate Of Sound hit Little Girl, which has come to be recognized as one of the top garage-rock songs of all time. Little Girl was originally released regionally in mid 1966 on the Hush label, and reissued nationally by Bell Records a couple months later.
   

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2503 (starts 1/13/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/557806

    This week the focus is on 1969, with a set of vintage rockers followed by a followup to a classic 1969 comedy creation from the Firesign Theatre.

Artist:    Blood, Sweat And Tears
Title:    More And More (live version)
Source:    CD: Blood, Sweat And Tears (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Vee/Juan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2000
    Blood, Sweat and Tears founder Al Kooper left the band after their first album, Child Is Father To The Man. Several people at Columbia Records were keen to see the band continue and a new vocalist, David Clayton Thomas, was recruited to front the band. The group then proceeded to record a self-titled second LP that yielded no less than three top 5 singles, as well as some strong album tracks such as More And More. The recording heard here was taken from their summer 1968 live debut at the Cafe Au-Go-Go, ironically the same place Kooper's (and BS&T guitarist Steve Katz's) former band the Blues Project had recorded their debut LP over two years before.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    From Here To There Eventually
Source:    LP: Monster
Writer:    Kay/McJohn/Edmonton
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1969
    The final track of Steppenwolf's fourth LP, Monster, is a perfect example of the band's typical hard-driving beat and John Kay's distinctive vocal style. The album itself is generally considered to be Steppenwolf's most blatantly political.

Artist:        Zephyr
Title:        Sail On
Source:    CD: Zephyr
Writer:        Bolin/Givens
Label:        One Way (original label: ABC Probe)
Year:        1969
        Boulder, Colorado was home to Zephyr, a blues-rock band originally centered around the powerful vocals of Candy Givens. As time went on, however, fellow member Tommy Bolin emerged as one of rock's top guitarists. Bolin would leave Zephyr after a couple albums to join the James Gang (replacing Dominick Troiano) and later take Richie Blackmore's place in Deep Purple as well as recording a pair of well-regarded solo albums. Unfortunately Bolin, like so many other talented young musicians, died in his mid 20s of a drug overdose, just as his career was kicking into high gear.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Proud Mary
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Chronicle (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bayou Country)
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1968
    Fun fact: Creedence Clearwater Revival never had a #1 hit. They did, however, manage to hit the #2 spot...five times. The first of these #2 hits was Proud Mary, written a week after John Fogerty's discharge from the National Guard. The song updates Mark Twain's portrait of life on a riverboat for the 20th century, a portrait that resonated well with a generation that was just reaching the age where the prospect of spending one's life "working for the man every night and day" was begining to look unavoidable. The song was released at the tail end of 1968 (according to some, early 1969), a year that had seen the idyllic hippie lifestyle of the summer of love give way to the radical politics of groups like the SDS and the Black Panthers, who advocated violence as a response to the continued intractability of the Establishment. The fact that hallucinogenics like LSD and mescaline were being replaced by harsher (and cheaper) drugs like speed and various narcotics was not lost on the members of CCR either, who, according to Fogerty, made a promise to themselves on the floor of the Fillmore that they would be a drug-free band, choosing to "get high on the music" instead. It's likely that the single was prepared separately from the album it appeared on, Bayou Country, since the LP itself uses an electronically rechanneled mono version of the song rather than a true stereo mix.

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    The Three Faces Of Al
Source:    LP: The Three Faces Of Al
Writer(s):    Austin/Proctor/Bergman
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1984
    Undoubtably the Firesign Theatre's best-known and best-loved creation was private detective Nick Danger, Third Eye. The character first appeared in The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger, a parody of 1930s radio dramas that took up the entire second side of the 1969 album How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All. After showing up on a variety of albums, radio shows and even a movie over the next decade and a half, Danger finally got his own full-length album, The Three Faces Of Al, in 1984. David Ossman, who played the 1000-year-old man Catherwood in Further Adventures, had left the Firesign Theatre (temporarily, as it turned out) to be a producer at NPR, and did not participate in the writing or recording of The Three Faces Of Al.

Artist:    Dr. John
Title:    Such A Night
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Mac Rebennack
Label:    Atco
Year:    1973
    Mac Rebennack was a fixture on the New Orleans music scene for over 50 years. He first started performing publicly in his teens, lying about his age to able to play in some of the city's more infamous clubs. At age 13 he was expelled from Jesuit school and soon found work as a staff songwriter and guitarist for the legendary Aladdin label. In 1957, at age 16, he joined the musicians' union, officially beginning his professional career. In the early 1960s he got into trouble with the law and spent two years in federal prison. Upon his release he relocated to Los Angeles, due to an ongoing cleanup campaign in New Orleans that had resulted in most of the clubs he had previously played in being permanently shut down. While in L.A., Rebennack developed his Dr. John, the Night Tripper personna, based on a real-life New Orleans voodoo priest with psychedelic elements thrown in (it was 1968 after all). By the early 1970s Dr. John had developed a cult following, but was getting tired of the self-imposed limitations of his Night Tripper image. In 1972 he recorded an album of New Orleans cover songs, following it up with his most successful album, In The Right Place, in 1973. Produced by the legendary Allen Toussaint, In The Right Place provided Dr. John his most successful hit single, Right Place Wrong Time, as well as a followup single, Such A Night, that peaked just outside the top 40. Around this time he returned to New Orleans, but continued to record at some of the top studios in the country, both as a solo artist and as a session player, appearing on literally thousands of recordings over the years. Dr. John continued to perform until shortly before his death on June 6, 2019.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2502 (starts 1/6/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/556994

    This week's show gets off to an unusual start, with back-to-back artists sets from the Who and Paul Revere And The Raiders. Later in the show we have a Battle of the Bands rematch between the Beatles and Love, along with a couple of interesting cover tunes to finish out. There's lots of good stuff in between as well.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Armenia City In The Sky
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    John Keene
Label:    Decca
Year:    1967
    Pete Townshend has always been a prolific songwriter. John Entwistle, while not as prolific as Townshend, wrote more than his share of quality tunes as well. It is a bit surprising, then, that the opening track of The Who Sell Out did not come from the pens of either of the band's songwriters. Instead, Armenia City In The Sky was written by one of the band's roadies, John "Speedy" Keene. Although not a household name, Keene was the lead vocalist for Thunderclap Newman (named for the band's recording engineer), who had a huge hit in 1969 with Keene's Something In The Air, which was produced by Townshend.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Run Run Run
Source:    Canadian import CD: Magic Bus-The Who On Tour (originally released on LP: A Quick One, re-titled Happy Jack in US)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    After the release of their first LP, My Generation, the Who terminated their contract with the British Brunswick label and signed with a new company, Reaction. The first Reaction release was a single, Substitute, which made the British top 5. In late 1966 the band released their first album for Reaction, A Quick One. The album was markedly different from My Generation, as the group had moved beyond their so-called maximum R&B phase and were exploring new directions. A Quick One was also the first Who album to be mixed in stereo, as can be heard on the opening track of the LP, Run Run Run. Although not released as a single, the song proved popular enough to include on the 1968 LP Magic Bus, along with several of their singles and B sides (and a couple more album tracks).

Artist:     Who
Title:     I Can See For Miles
Source:     LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer:     Pete Townshend
Label:     Decca
Year:     1967
     I Can See For Miles continued a string of top 10 singles in the UK and was the Who's biggest US hit ever. Pete Townshend, however, was disappointed with the song's performance on the UK charts. He said that the song was the ultimate Who song and as such it should have charted even higher than it did. It certainly was one of the heaviest songs of its time and there is some evidence that it prompted Paul McCartney to come up with Helter Skelter in an effort to take the heaviest song ever title back for the Beatles. What makes the story even more bizarre is that at the time McCartney reportedly had never actually heard I Can See For Miles and was going purely by what he read in a record review. I Can See For Miles was also used as the closing track of side one of The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. Some of the commercials and jingles heard at the beginning of the track were recorded by the band itself. Others were lifted (without permission) from Wonderful Radio London, a pirate radio station that had been operating off the English coast before being shut down by the passage of the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act a few months before The Who Sell Out was released.

Artist:     Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:     The Great Airplane Strike
Source:     Mono LP: Spirit of '67
Writer:     Revere/Melcher/Lindsay
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
      Often dismissed for their Revolutionary War costumes and frequent TV appearances, Paul Revere and the Raiders were actually one of the first great rock bands to emerge from the Pacific Northwest. Their accomplishments include recording Louie Louie (arguably before the Kingsmen did) and being the first rock band signed to industry giant Columbia Records. The Great Airplane Strike is a good example of just how good a band they really were.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Louie, Go Home
Source:    Mono LP: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Midnight Ride)
Writer(s):    Lindsay/Revere
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Nobody knows for sure who recorded Louie Louie first: the Kingsmen or Paul Revere And The Raiders. Both bands recorded the song in April of 1963 in the same studio in Portland, Oregon, but nobody seems to remember which band played at which session. Regardless, the Kingsmen ended up with the national hit version of the song, while Paul Revere And The Raiders went on to become one of the most successful American rock bands of the mid-1960s, thanks in part to Dick Clark, who discovered them playing in Hawaii and chose them to be the house band on his new show Where The Action Is. By this time the band had been signed to Columbia Records, releasing their first single for the label, Louie-Go Home, in 1964. By 1966 they were riding high on the charts, and re-recorded Louie, Go Home (different punctuation, same song, different arrangement) in stereo for their second of three albums released that year: Midnight Ride.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Our Candidate
Source:    Mono LP: The Spirit Of '67
Writer(s):    Mike Smith
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Paul Revere And The Raiders continued their winning ways with the release of their second LP of 1966. The Spirit Of '67, like its predecessor Midnight Ride, featured a mix of cover songs and originals, including My Candidate from drummer Mike "Smitty" Smith. The Spirit Of '67 was, in a sense, an ending for the group, however. Future albums would use studio musicians extensively, and virtually all the material would come from the pens of Paul Revere and Mark Lindsay, leading to most of the other members (including Smitty) leaving the band altogether.

Artist:    Bobby Fuller Four
Title:    I Fought The Law
Source:    CD: I Fought The Law-The Best Of The Bobby Fuller Four (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sonny Curtis
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mustang)
Year:    1965
    I Fought The Law is one of the truly iconic songs in rock history. Originally recorded by the Crickets in 1959 after Sonny Curtis, who wrote the song, had joined the band as lead guitarist and taken over lead vocals following the death of Buddy Holly, the song became a national hit when it was covered by the Bobby Fuller Four in late 1965. The song hit the #9 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1966, and has since been recorded by numerous artists from a variety of genres, including the Clash, Hank Williams, Jr., the Dead Kennedys and Bruce Springsteen, who has made it a staple of his live show over the years.
    
Artist:    Los Shakers
Title:    Break It All (US version)
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Hugo & Osvaldo Fatturosa
Label:    Rhino (original label: Audio Fidelity)
Year:    1966
    We're all familiar with the British Invasion of the American music industry that began with the arrival of the Beatles on US shores (well, technically an airport runway) in early 1964. Less known was a Uraguayan Invasion of Argentina about a year later. Inspired by the film A Hard Days Night, brothers Hugo and Osvaldo Fatturoso formed Los Shakers in the Uraguayan city of Montevideo in 1964. They soon signed with the Argentina-based Odeon label (Buenos Aires being less than 100 miles from Montevideo) and by 1965 had touched off an entire wave of Uraguayan bands recording songs in English for Argentinian labels and appearing on Argentinian TV shows. They even recorded a new version of their biggest hit, Break It All, for the Audio Fidelity label that was released in the US and Mexico in 1966. By 1967, however, bands in Argentina were favoring songs sung in Spanish, and the Uraguayan Invasion subsided, finally dying off entirely when a military dictatorship was established in Uraguay itself in 1973.

Artist:    Balloon Farm
Title:    A Question Of Temperature
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label:    Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year:    1967
    It's not entirely clear whether the Balloon Farm was an actual band or simply an East Coast studio concoction. Regardless, they did manage to successfully cross garage rock with bubble gum for A Question Of Temperature, originally released on the Laurie label in 1967. Band member Mike Appel went on to have greater notoriety as Bruce Springsteen's first manager.
    
Artist:     Cream
Title:        White Room
Source:    CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:        1968
        Musically almost a rewriting of Eric Clapton's Tales of Brave Ulysses (from Cream's Disraeli Gears album), White Room, a Jack Bruce/Pete Brown composition from the Wheels Of Fire album, is arguably the most popular song ever to feature the use of a wah-wah pedal prominently.

Artist:    Fingers
Title:    Circus With A Female Clown
Source:    Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Robin/Mills/Ducky
Label:    EMI (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    One of the first British bands to label themselves as "psychedelic", the Fingers included as part of their stage show a monkey named Freak Out, whom the band members claimed produced "psychotic" odors (having met someone with a pet monkey, I find that easy to believe). The band only released two singles, however. The second of these had the truly strange Circus With A Female Clown on its B side. The somewhat more conventional A side failed to chart, however, and the group broke up soon after the record was released.
        
Artist:      Donovan
Title:     Mellow Yellow
Source:      Mono CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Donovan Leitch
Label:     Epic/Legacy
Year:     1966
     Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to a contract dispute with Pye Records. Incidentally, electric banana didn't turn out to be a sudden craze after all, and it is not Paul McCartney whispering "quite rightly" on the chorus. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble.

Artist:    P.F. Sloan
Title:    Halloween Mary
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    P.F. Sloan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1965
    If there is any one songwriter associated specifically with folk-rock (as opposed to folk music), it would be the Los Angeles based P.F. Sloan, writer of Barry McGuire's signature song, Eve Of Destruction. Sloan also penned hits for the Turtles in their early days as one of the harder-edged folk-rock bands, including their second hit, Let Me Be. In fact, Sloan had almost 400 songs to his credit by the time he and Steve Barri teamed up to write and produce a series of major hits released by various bands under the name Grass Roots. Sloan himself, however, only released two singles as a singer, although (as can be heard on the second of them, the slightly off-kilter Halloween Mary) he had a voice as powerful as many of the recording stars of the time.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Gonna Send You Back To Walker
Source:    Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Matthews/Hammond
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1964
    The members of the Animals, particularly vocalist Eric Burdon, made their opinion of their home town known with the song Gonna Send You Back To Walker, released as the B side of their first single in 1964. Originally released twice by American rhythm and blues singer Timmy Shaw, first as a B side called City Slick, then as an A side called Gonna Send You Back to Georgia, the Animals reworked the lyrics to fit English localities. Walker itself was Burdon's home town, a distict of Newcastle upon Tyne that once was a major shipyard, but had long since fallen into hard times by the mid-20th century. The "south" referred to in the song is the "big city" of London.

Artist:    "E" Types
Title:    Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    The E-Types were originally from Salinas, California, which at the time was known for it's sulfiric smell experienced by passing motorists travelling along US 101. As many people from Salinas apparently went to "nearby" San Jose (about 60 miles to the north) as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene there, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. The Bonner/Gordon songwriting team were just a couple months away from getting huge royalty checks from the Turtles' Happy Together when Put The Clock Back On The Wall was released in early 1967. The song takes its title from a popular phrase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space) it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    The Walking Song
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Kaylan/Nichols
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1967
    When they weren't recording hit songs by professional songwriters, the Turtles were busy developing their own songwriting talents, albeit in a somewhat satirical direction. One early example is The Walking Song, which contrasts the older generation's obsession with material goods with a "stop and smell the roses" approach favored by the song's protagonist. This toungue-in-cheek style of writing would characterize the later careers of two of the band members, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who, after performing with the Mothers at the Fillmore would become known as the Phlorescent Leech (later Flo) and Eddie.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Smiling Phases
Source:    CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    The standard practice in the UK during the 60s was to not include songs that had been released as singles on LPs. This left several songs, such as the 1967 B side Smiling Phases, only available on 45 RPM vinyl until the group's first greatest hits anthology was released. In the US the song was more widely circulated, having been included on the American version of Traffic's debut LP (originally issued as Heaven Is In Your Mind but soon retitled Mr. Fantasy). Smiling Phases has since come to be recognized as one of Traffic's most iconic tunes, and has been covered by such bands as Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Mr. Soul
Source:    LP: Retrospective-The Best Of Buffalo Springfield (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Executives at Atco Records originally considered Neil Young's voice "too weird" to be recorded. As a result many of Young's early tunes (including the band's debut single Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing), were sung by Richie Furay. By the time the band's second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released, the band had enough clout to make sure Young was allowed to sing his own songs. In fact, the album starts with a Young vocal on the classic Mr. Soul.

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

Artist:    Love
Title:    My Little Red Book
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Bacharach/David
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    The first rock record ever released by Elektra Records was a single by Love called My Little Red Book. The track itself (which also opens Love's debut LP), is a punked out version of a tune originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the What's New Pussycat movie soundtrack. Needless to say, Love's version was not exactly what composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David had in mind when they wrote the song.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    EMI/Parlophone
Year:    1967
    According to principal songwriter John Lennon, Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite was inspired by a turn of the century circus poster that the Beatles ran across while working on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Most of the lyrics refer to items on the poster itself, such as Henry the Horse and the Hendersons.

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

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Baby, You're A Rich Man
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1967
    Baby, You're A Rich Man was one of the last collaborations between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and addresses the Beatles' longtime manager Brian Epstein, although not by name.  Lennon came up with the basic question "how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" (a popular term for the young and hip in late 60s London), which became the basis for the song's verses, which were combined with an existing, but unfinished, Paul McCartney chorus (Baby, You're A Rich Man, too). The finished piece was issued as the B side of the Beatles' second single of 1967, All You Need Is Love, and later remixed in stereo and included on the US-only LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.
 
Artist:    Love
Title:    A House Is Not A Motel
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer:    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
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:     Beatles
Title:     Good Morning Good Morning/Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)/A Day In The Life
Source:     CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:     1967
     One of the great accidents of record production was the splice that turned the chicken at the end of Good Morning Good Morning into a guitar, starting off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) and ultimately leading into A Day In The Life, with it's slowly dissolving orchestral chord that brings the number one album of 1967 to a close.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Fakin' It
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Fakin' It, originally released as a single in 1967, was a bit of a departure for Simon And Garfunkel, sounding more like British psychedelic music than American folk-rock. The track starts with an intro that is similar to the false ending to the Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever; midway through the record the tempo changes drastically for a short spoken word section (name-dropping Mr. [Donovan] Leitch) that is slightly reminiscent of the bridge in Traffic's Hole In My Shoe. The song was later included on the 1968 LP Bookends.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Highway Chile
Source:    Simulated stereo British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Polydor (original label: Track)
Year:    1967
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience already had three hit singles in the UK before releasing their first LP, Are You Experienced, in May of 1967. The following month the band made its US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The gig went over so well that Reprise Records soon made arrangements to release Are You Experienced in the US. To maximize the commercial potential of the LP, Reprise decided to include the A sides of all three singles on the album, even though those songs had not been on the British version. The B sides of all three singles, however, were not included on the album. Among those missing tracks was Highway Chile, a somewhat autobiographical song that was originally paired with The Wind Cries Mary. In April of 1968, prior to the release of the Electric Ladyland album, Polydor released an album called Smash Hits that collected all eight songs that had been released in single form up to that point, as well as a handful of tunes from the original UK version of Are You Experienced. Highway Chile was not included on the US version of Smash Hits, which was released the following year; in fact, Highway Chile was not released in the US at all during Hendrix's lifetime, finally appearing (in fake stereo) on the 1972 LP War Heroes.

Artist:    Show Stoppers
Title:    If You Want To, Why Don't You
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    W.E. Hjerpe
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    The Show Stoppers were a Rochester, NY based club band that included Don Potter and Bat McGrath, who would go on to release an album together on the Epic label in 1969. The Show Stoppers were discovered by John Hammond in 1967 and signed to the Columbia label, where they released two singles. Although three of the tracks would best be described as danceable pop music, the A side of their second single, If You Want To, Why Don't You, had more of a garage-rock sound, and has appeared on at least one garage-rock compilation. Both Potter and McGrath now reside in Nashville, where Potter became well-known as the creator of the "Judds sound" in the 1980s. Special thanks to Tom at the Bop Shop in Rochester (a record store that specializes in vinyl) for making this record available to me.

Artist:    Mothers of Invention
Title:    Big Leg Emma
Source:    CD: Absolutely Free (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Frank Zappa
Label:    Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    Sometime during the creation of the second Mothers Of Invention album, Absolutely Free, the band recorded a pair of stand alone tunes that were released as a 45 RPM single. The B side of that record was Big Leg Emma, a song that was written by Frank Zappa in 1962 and would eventually be added to his live show in the late 1970s.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Gates Of Eden
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: Bringing It All Back Home)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    Big record companies like to hedge their bets. In fact, they can hardly resist it. When Bob Dylan decided to release the six-minute long Like A Rolling Stone as a single, Columbia Records balked at the idea and cancelled the release. An acetate of the song, however, found its way into the hands of a New York club DJ, who literally played it to death (acetates having a very limited lifespan) in a single night due to multiple requests by club patrons to "play it again". Word got out quickly and the shirts decided to take a chance and release the song after all. But there was still the issue of Dylan's early fans considering him a traitor to folk music for using electric guitars, organ, piano and drums on the song, so they lifted the purely acoustic Gates Of Eden from Dylan's previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, for the B side. Ironically, Gates Of Eden is only about 20 seconds shorter than Like A Rolling Stone itself, making the total playing time of the two sides nearly twelve minutes, something not often seen in the US since the 1950s, when Extended Play 45s were still considered a viable format.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Caroline No
Source:    Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    According to lyricist Peter Asher, Caroline No was written because Brian Wilson was "saddened to see how sweet little girls turned out to be kind of bitchy, hardened adults". Though the song was originally included on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, it ended up being the only single ever released by Capitol credited to Brian Wilson as a solo artist.

Artist:     Electric Prunes
Title:     Big City
Source:     CD: Underground
Writer:     J. Walsh/D. Walsh
Label:     Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     The Electric Prunes were given more creative freedom on their second LP, Underground, than any of their other albums. Nonetheless, Underground did contain a few cover songs, one of which was the song Big City, which emphasizes the vocals more than most Prunes tunes.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Summertime Blues
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s):    Cochrane/Capehart
Label:    Priority (original label: Philips)
Year:    1968
    European electronics giant Philips had its own record label in the 1960s. In the US, the label was distributed by Mercury Records, and was known primarily for a long string of hits by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1968 the label surprised everyone by signing the loudest band in San Francisco, Blue Cheer. Their cover of the 50s Eddie Cochrane hit Summertime Blues was all over both the AM and FM airwaves that summer.

Artist:    Kindred Spirit
Title:    Blue Avenue
Source:    Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side_
Writer(s):    Wayne Ulaky
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original labels: Moxie and Intrepid)
Year:    1969
    Known primarily as a flood-prone steel processing center for most of its existence, Johnstown, PA, like many industrial cities, had its own music scene, and for a short time its own local record label in the 1960s. Moxie Records only released two singles, the first being a 1969 cover of the Rolling Stones' Under My Thumb by Kindred Spirit, a popular local band consisting of lead vocalist Greg Falvo, guitarists Joe Nemanich and John Galiote, keyboard and keyboard bassist Jim Smedo, drummer Tom "Boots" McCullough and vocalist Carl Mundok. Although most bands got to put an original tune on the B side of singles (so they could collect royalties on record sales), Kindred Spirit instead recorded another cover song, the Beacon Street Union's Blue Avenue for their own single's flipside. As it turned out, Kindred Spirit ended up outlasting Moxie Records after the single was picked up by Mercury Records and released on their new Intrepid subsidiary label in November of 1969. The following year a second Kindred Spirit single, Peaceful Man, was released on Intrepid. As far as I can tell, Peaceful Man was an original tune (lead vocalist Falvo is listed as co-writer), although the B side of that record was a cover of an album track from the first Flock LP.