https://exchange.prx.org/p/566408
The emphasis is on deep tracks this week, as we have a battle of the bands between the Beatles and Cream along with solo artists' sets from Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane. The Airplane set is made up entirely of recordings made before they were nationally famous, while the Jimi Hendrix tunes are among his most obscure recordings. There are a handful of more familiar tunes on the show this well, but even some of those, such as Joe Cocker's performance of a Beatles cover at Woodstock, haven't been played on the show in years.
Artist: Doors
Title: My Eyes Have Seen You
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
It's strange. Some reviewers seem to think that the album Strange Days is inferior to the first Doors album. They justify this view by citing the fact that almost all the songs on both albums were already in the band's repertoire when they signed their record contract with Elektra. The implication is that the band naturally selected the best material for the first album, making Strange Days a collection of sloppy seconds. There is one small problem with this theory however. Pick a song at random from Strange Days and listen to it and in all likelihood it will sound every bit as good as a song randomly picked from the first album (and probably better than one picked from either of the Doors' next two LPs). In fact, I'll pick one for you: My Eyes Have Seen You. See what I mean?
Artist: Byrds
Title: Change Is Now
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: McGuinn/Hillman
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1967
1967 saw the departure of two of the Byrds' founders and most prolific songwriters: Gene Clark and David Crosby. The loss of Clark coincided with the emergence of Chris Hillman as a first-rate songwriter in his own right; the loss of Crosby later in the year, however, created an extra burden for Hillman and Roger McGuinn, who from that point on were the band's primary composers. Change Is Now was the B side of the band's first post-Crosby single, released in late 1967 and later included (in a stereo version) on their 1968 LP The Notorious Byrd Brothers.
Artist: Who
Title: Sunrise
Source: Mono CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Polydor/UMC (original US label: Decca)
Year: 1967
One of the nicest tunes on The Who Sell Out is Sunrise, which is actually a Pete Townshend solo tune featuring Townshend's vocals and acoustic guitar. One of my favorites.
Artist: Joe Cocker
Title: With A Little Help From My Friends
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm (originally released on Woodstock soundtrack album)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1969
One of the most famous performances at Woodstock was instrumental in converting Joe Cocker from second tier British singer/bandleader to international superstar. This 2009 release of the live recording of With A Little Help From My Friends is virtually identical to what was originally included on the movie soundtrack album in the early 70s.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Light Your Windows
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Quicksilver Messenger Service)
Writer: Duncan/Freiberg
Label: Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
One of the last of the legendary San Francisco bands that played at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival to get signed to a major label was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Inspired by a conversation between Dino Valenti and guitarist John Cippolina, there are differing opinions on just how serious Valenti was about forming a new band at that time. Since Valenti was busted for marijuana possession the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in San Quentin), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love.
Artist: Cyrkle
Title: Weight Of Your Words
Source: Mono LP: Neon
Writer(s): CDannemann/Dawes
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
If you were to look up the term "diminishing returns" in a pop music encyclopedia, you might see a picture of the Cyrkle. Their first single, Red Rubber Ball, was a huge hit in 1966, going all the way to the #2 spot, with the album of the same name peaking at #47. The follow-up single, Turn Down Day, was also a top 20 hit, but it would be their last. Each consecutive single, in fact, would top out just a little bit lower than the one before it. Their track record with albums wasn't any better, as the Cyrkle's second LP, Neon, only managed to make it to #164 on the album charts, despite having some decent originals such as Weight Of Your Words. The group disbanded later that same year, with the two songwriting members of the band going on to become successful jingle writers (one came up with the 7UP song and the other the Pop Pop Fizz Fizz jingle for Alka-Seltzer).
Artist: Kinks
Title: Dead End Street
Source: Mono British import CD: Face To Face (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
The last big US hit for the Kinks in the 60s was Sunny Afternoon in late 1966. The follow-up, Dead End Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success (although it was a hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until the 1970 worldwide smash Lola.
Artist: Gants
Title: Road Runner
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Elias McDaniel
Label: Rhino (original label: Statue/Liberty)
Year: 1965
The Gants were formed in 1963 in Greenwood, Mississippi. Originally knows as the Kingsmen, they changed their name to the Gants (after a popular brand of shirt) in 1965. Their first single was a cover of Bo Diddley's Road Runner for Tupelo based Statue Records that was quickly picked up and re-released on the Liberty label a month later. This led to a series of singles on Liberty over the next couple of years. The group, however, was handicapped by having half the members still in high school and the other half in college (and unwilling to drop out due to their being of draftable age during the height of the Viet Nam war), which led to personnel changes which in turn brought about the end of the band in 1967.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Time Is On My Side
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Jerry Ragovoy
Label: London
Year: 1964
A few years ago I got word of the passing of songwriter Jerry Ragovoy, who died on July 13th 2013 at the age of 83. Ragovoy's writing career extended back to the 1940s and included classics by artists such as Kai Winding. In later years he wrote several tunes that were recorded by Janis Joplin, including Try (Just A Little Bit Harder), My Baby, Cry Baby and the classic Piece Of My Heart. He occassionally used a pseudonym as well, and it was as Norman Meade he published his best-known song: Time Is On My Side, an R&B hit for Irma Thomas that became one of the first US hits for the Rolling Stones. The Stones actually released two versions of Time Is On My Side. The first one, quickly withdrawn, features an organ intro and some off-key backup vocals toward the end of the song, while the replacement version heard here has a guitar intro and a stronger performance overall.
Artist: Beatles
Title: You Like Me Too Much
Source: CD: Help! (originally released in US on LP: Beatles VI)
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1965
Up until 1965 only one George Harrison composition (Don't Bother Me) had ever appeared on a Beatles album. In June of 1965 his second one, You Like Me Too Much, was included on the US-only LP Beatles VI. Two months later the song was one of two Harrison-penned tunes included on the British version of the Help album. I can't help but think that John Lennon helped George out on this one.
Artist: Cream
Title: Dreaming
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were a few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Within You Without You
Source: CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
George Harrison began to take an interest in the Sitar as early as 1965. By 1966 he had become proficient enough on the Indian instrument to compose and record Love You To for the Revolver album. He followed that up with perhaps his most popular sitar-based track, Within You Without You, which opens side two of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Harrison would record one more similarly-styled song, The Inner Light, in 1968, before deciding that he was never going to be in the same league as Ravi Shankar, whom Harrison had become friends with by that time. For the remainder of his time with the Beatles Harrison would concentrate on his guitar work and songwriting skills, resulting in classic songs such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something and Here Comes The Sun.
Artist: Cream
Title: I'm So Glad
Source: Mono CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Skip James
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
Unlike later Cream albums, which featured psychedelic cover art and several Jack Bruce/Pete Brown collaborations that had a decidedly psychedelic sound, Fresh Cream was marketed as the first album by a British blues supergroup, and featured a greater number of blues standards than subsequent releases. One of those covers that became a concert staple for the band was the old Skip James tune I'm So Glad. The song has become so strongly associated with Cream that the group used it as the opening number for all three performances when they staged a series of reunion concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in 2004. For reasons unknown, the studio version of I'm So Glad has never been mixed in stereo.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Getting Better
Source: CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
Following their 1966 North American tour, the Beatles announced that they were giving up live performing to concentrate on their songwriting and studio work. Freed of the responsibilities of the road (and under the influence of mind-expanding substances), the band members found themselves discovering new sonic possibilities as never before (or since), hitting a creative peak with their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, often cited as the greatest album ever recorded. The individual Beatles were about to move in separate musical directions, but as of Sgt. Pepper's were still functioning mostly as a single unit, as is heard on the chorus of Getting Better, in which Paul McCartney's opening line, "I have to admit it's getting better", is immediately answered by John Lennon's playfully cynical "can't get no worse". The members continued to experiment with new instrumental styles as well, such as George Harrison's use of sitar on the song's bridge, accompanied by Ringo Starr's bongos.
Artist: Cream
Title: Wrapping Paper
Source: CD: Fresh Cream (bonus track originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Polydor
Year: 1966
Wrapping Paper is the nearly forgotten debut single from Cream, released two months before the Fresh Cream album in 1966. The song only made it to the #34 spot in the UK, and was not released in the US at all until several years later, when it appeared on an album called The Very Best Of Cream. Drummer Ginger Baker made no secret of his dislike of the song, calling it " the most appalling piece of shit I've ever heard in my life", adding that Eric Clapton didn't like the song either. Nonetheless, here it is, for the curious among you.
Artist: Charlatans
Title: Devil Got My Man
Source: British import CD: The Amazing Charlatans
Writer(s): Skip James
Label: Big Beat
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1996
Few bands have achieved such legendary status (without actually being heard by most people) as the Charlatans. Formed in 1964, The Charlatans were literally the first acid-influenced rock band, although their music actually bears little resemblance of what has come to be known as acid-rock. The Charlatans were actually hard to define musically, since each of the five individuals making up the group (George Hunter, Richard Olsen, Mike Wilhelm, Michael Ferguson and Dan Hicks) had their own unique musical vision. One thing the members did have in common was a sense of theatrics, with each member taking on a particular historical persona (Edwardian aristocrat, Mississippi gambler, old west gunfighter, etc.) and dressing to fit that persona. Another thing the band members had in common was a fondness for LSD, which until 1966 was still legal to ingest. They also had a sometimes member named Lynne Hughes, who accompanied the band on their trip to Coast Recorders in early 1966. The band recorded several tracks for a projected album on the Kama Sutra label, including a cover of Skip James's Devil Got My Man with Hughes on lead vocal, but the project ultimately fell through, and most of the completed recordings remained unreleased until 1996, when a British reissue label included them on a collection called The Amazing Charlatans.
Artist: The Ariel
Title: It Feels Like I'm Crying
Source: Mono British import CD: With Love- A Pot Of Flowers (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jack Walters
Label: Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
San Francisco occupies the north end of a peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and San Francisco Bay to the north and east. At the south end of the bay is the city of San Jose. In between the two, about halfway down the peninsula itself, is the city of San Mateo. The city serves as the western terminus of the only bridge across the bay south of San Francisco itself. For much of 1966 it was also the home of a band called The Ariel. The band, originally called the Banshees, was formed in 1965 by a group of high school students from the San Mateo suburbs. The renamed themselves The Ariel in 1966 (Ariel being the name of a female fan from Hayward, the city on the eastern end of the bridge). In July they cut some demos at Golden State Recorders, which got them an audition with Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records, who was doing some talent scouting in the Bay Area that summer. They passed the audition and headed south to L.A. (at their own expense) to make a record. Unfortunately, when they arrived they learned that Shad was no longer interested in recording them. Nevertheless, they persisted (sorry, couldn't resist) and eventually got Shad to book them a couple hours in a local studio, where they a pair of songs written by the band's vocalist/lead guitarist, Jack Walters. It Feels Like I'm Crying was issued as the A side of the band's only single in late summer, but by then some of the band members were attending college and were not able to support the record with live appearances with any kind of regularity. By the end of the year The Ariel was history.
Artist: Saturday's Children
Title: Tomorrow Is Her Name
Source: LP: The Dunwich Records Story
Writer(s): Bryan/Holder
Label: Voxx/Tutman
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1990
Saturday's Children was a Chicago area band formed in 1965 by vocalist/songwriter Geoff Bryan, who also played bass for the band. Other members included Ron Holder (rhythm guitar, vocals), Rich Goettler (organ/vocals), Dave Carter (lead guitar, vocals) and George Paluch (drums, vocals). With so many vocalists in the band, it was inevitable that the band would feature harmonies; with it being 1966 it was probably just as inevitable that these harmonies would be along the same lines as those of various British Invasion bands such as the Searchers, the Zombies and of course the Beatles. The group went into the studio and recorded at least five tracks in August of 1966, issuing two of them on a single in October. Of the remaining songs, one was included on an early 70s sampler album on the Happy Tiger label. Possibly the best of all the songs, however, was a Bryan/Holder original called Tomorrow Is Her Name. The recording remained in the vaults until 1990, when it was included on an album called the Dunwich Records Story on the Tutman label in 1990. It was well worth the wait.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: J.P.P. McStep B Blues
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track originally released on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
One of the first songs recorded for the Surrealistic Pillow album, J.P.P. McStep B. Blues ended up being shelved, possibly because drummer Skip Spence, who wrote the song, had left the band by the time the album came out.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: It's No Secret
Source: LP: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (Originally released on LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off)
Writer: Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Although national stardom was still an album (and a couple of essential personnel changes) away, It's No Secret got a lot of airplay in the San Francisco Bay area and was featured in a Bell Telephone TV special on the hippie movement in 1966.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: In The Morning
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track originally released on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: Grunt
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
One of the earliest and best collections of previously unreleased material from a major rock band was the Jefferson Airplane's Early Flight LP, released in 1974. Among the rarities on the LP is In The Morning, a blues jam recorded in late 1966 with Jorma Kaukonen on vocals and lead guitar, Jack Casady on bass, Spencer Dryden on drums, and guest musicians Jerry Garcia (guitar) and John Paul Hammond (harmonica). The track's long running time (nearly six and a half minutes) precluded it from being included on the Surrealistic Pillow album, despite the obvious quality of the performance. In The Morning is now available as a bonus track on the CD version of Surrealistic Pillow.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in late 1966 and hitting the charts in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets compilation album and the first LP in Rhino's own Nuggets series in the 1980s.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Mr. Second Class
Source: British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hardin/Davis
Label: 1967
Year: Grapefruit (original label: United Artists)
The Spencer Davis Group managed to survive the departure of their star member, Steve Winwood (and his bass playing brother Muff) in 1967, and with new members Eddie Hardin (vocals) and Phil Sawyer (guitar) managed to get a couple more singles on the chart over the next year or so. The last of these was Mr. Second Class, a surprisingly strong composition from Hardin and Davis.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: I Can Move A Mountain
Source: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s): Theilhelm/Kelly
Label: Mercury
Year: 1968
After parting with an increasingly bubble-gum oriented management team, the Blues Magoos set out to reinvent themselves as a more progressive rock band in 1968. The resulting LP, Basic Blues Magoos, was self-produced and self-recorded, and showed a side of the band that had not been heard before. The group was unable to shed their baggage in the eyes of the record-buying public, however, and the album sold poorly.
Artist: Stooges
Title: I Wanna Be Your Dog
Source: CD: The Stooges
Writer(s): The Stooges
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1969
In late 1968 Elektra Records sent out DJ/publicist Danny Fields to check out a new band that was getting a lot of attention on the Detroit music scene. That band was the MC5, and Fields signed them immediately after attending one of their gigs. The next day, the MC5's Wayne Kramer assured Fields that he would also like their "little brother" band, the Psychedelic Stooges. He did, and they also signed with Elektra. Former Velvet Underground member John Cale was brought in to produce the band's first album, but Elektra president Jac Holzman rejected his original mixes as "too arty" and, along with vocalist Iggy Pop, remixed the entire album.
Artist: Crow
Title: Cottage Cheese
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Weigand/Waggoner
Label: Amaret
Year: 1970
In late 1970 I found myself living in Alamogordo, NM, which was at the time one of those places that still didn't have an FM station (in fact, the only FM station we could receive was a classical station in Las Cruces, 60 miles away). To make it worse, there were only two AM stations in town, and the only one that played current songs went off the air at sunset. As a result the only way to hear current music at night (besides buying albums without hearing them first) was to "DX" distant AM radio stations. Of these, the one that came in most clearly and consistently was KOMA in Oklahoma City. My friends and I spent many a night driving around with KOMA cranked up, fading in and out as long-distance AM stations always do. One of those nights in 1970 we were all blown away by Cottage Cheese, Crow's follow-up to their 1969 hit Evil Woman, Don't Play Your Games With Me, which, due to the conservative nature of the local daytime-only station, was not getting any local airplay. Years later I was lucky enough to find a copy in a thrift store in Albuquerque. Here it is.
Artist: Magicians
Title: An Invitation To Cry
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Woods/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1965
In the late 1960s Columbia emerged as one of the top rock labels, with bands such as Blood, Sweat & Tears, Moby Grape and Chicago selling millions of copies of their LPs. It may come as a surprise, then, that just two years before the release of the first Moby Grape album, Columbia had not signed a single rock act. Prior to 1965, Columbia had established itself as a leading force in Jazz, Classical, and what had been known as popular music as personified by such middle of the road acts as Mitch Miller, Anita Bryant and Percy Faith. In addition, Columbia had a virtual lock on Broadway show soundtrack albums, but, other than Bob Dylan, who had originally been signed as a pure folk artist, the label had nothing approaching rock and roll. That began to change, however, with the label's signing of Paul Revere and the Raiders on the West coast and a Greenwich Village based band called the Magicians on the East. While the label turned to staff producer Terry Melcher for the Raiders, they instead went with the management/production team of Bob Wyld and Art Polhemus, who would later find success at Mercury Records with the Blues Magoos. The Magicians, however, were not so successful, despite the presence of band members Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon, who would go on to write major hits Happy Together and She's My Girl (among others) for the Turtles, as well as songs for other artists. It was Gordon, along with non-member James Woods, that wrote the Magicians' first single, An Invitation To Cry, which was released in November of 1965.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Last Laugh
Source: Mono LP: It Ain't Me Babe
Writer(s): Kaylan/Garfield
Label: White Whale
Year: 1965
The first Turtles album was recorded quickly to cash in on the popularity of their debut single, a cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe that went into the top 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. The band members were still in their teens and required parental permission to record the album, the first LP issued on L.A.'s White Whale label. Most of the tracks on the album were electrified folk songs in a similar vein to the title track. There were also a handful of originals penned by lead vocalist Howard Kaylan while still in high school. Among them was a song called Last Laugh which Kaylan co-wrote with Nita Garfield, who would remain active as a singer/songwriter in the L.A. area for the rest of her life.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard (uncut original studio version)
Source: Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs 1965-1970
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Big Beat
Year: Recorded 1965, released 2012
The Seeds' Pushin' Too Hard is rightfully considered one of the true classics of psychedelic garage rock. The version usually heard, however, is about half a minute shorter than the actual recording made by the band in 1965. The uncut mono mix of the song finally surfaced on the
Singles As & Bs 1965-1970 collection issued in the UK by Big Beat. The main difference is the presence of an extra verse that was cut from the final mix and a bit of a different ending.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title: Power Of Soul
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1970, released 2013
1969 was a strange year for Jimi Hendrix. For one thing, he did not release any new recordings that year, yet he remained the top money maker in rock music. One reason for the lack of new material was an ongoing dispute with Capitol Records over a contract he had signed in 1965 as a session player. By the end of the year an agreement was reached for Hendrix to provide Capitol with one album's worth of new material. At this point Hendrix had not released any live albums, so it was decided to tape his New Year's performances at the Fillmore East with his new Band Of Gypsys (with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox), playing songs that had never been released in studio form. As it turns out, however, studio versions of many of the songs on that album did indeed exist, but were not issued until after Hendrix's death, when producer Alan Douglas put out a pair of LPs (Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning), that had some of the original drum and bass tracks (and even some guitar tracks) re-recorded by musicians that had never actually worked with Hendrix. One of those songs is Power Of Soul, which has finally been released in its original Band Of Gypsys studio version, recorded just a couple of weeks after the Fillmore East gig with background vocals provided by Cox and Miles.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice
Source: Mono British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Track
Year: 1967
The fourth single released in Europe and the UK by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was 1967's Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, which appeared in stereo the following year on the album Electric Ladyland. The B side of that single was a strange bit of psychedelia called Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice, which is also known in some circles as STP With LSD. The piece features Hendrix on guitar and vocals, with background sounds provided by a cast of at least dozens. Hendrix's vocals are, throughout much of the track, spoken rather than sung, and resemble nothing more than a cosmic travelogue with Hendrix himself as the tour guide. The original mono mix of the track has never been released in the US, which is a shame, since it is the only version where Jimi's vocals dominate the mix, allowing his somewhat whimsical sense of humor to shine through.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Somewhere
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2013
Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience did not officially disband until 1969, Hendrix himself was spending more and more time working with musicians outside the band as early as mid-1968. The Electric Ladyland album itself features guest appearances by the likes of Steve Winwood, Buddy Miles and Chris Wood, among others, and for years there have been even more recordings by non-Experience members rumored to exist. Among those legendary tracks is Somewhere, a piece that features Miles on drums, and unusually, Stephen Stills on bass. In addition to a special 45 RPM single release, Somewhere is available on the 2013 album People, Hell and Angels. According to engineer Eddie Kramer, this was the final collection of unreleased studio tracks to be issued by the Hendrix family estate. Turns out he was wrong, as another collection, Both Sides Of The Sky, was released in 2018.
Artist: Eire Apparent
Title: The Clown
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Sunrise)
Writer: Chris Stewart
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1969
Eire Apparent was a band from Northern Ireland that got the attention of Chas Chandler, former bassist for the Animals in late 1967. Chandler had been managing Jimi Hendrix since he had discovered him playing in a club in New York a year before, bringing him back to England and introducing him to Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, who along with Hendrix would become the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Despite Eire Apparent having almost no recording experience, Chandler put them on the bill as the opening act for the touring Experience. This led to Hendrix producing the band's first and only album, Sunrise, in 1968, playing on at least three tracks, including, most obviously, The Clown.
