Playlist 10/22-24/10

This week's show covers a lot of musical ground, starting off with a set from 1967.

Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Song Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: No Way Out)
Release Year: 1967
It took me many years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in truth the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.

Artist: Unrelated Segments
Song Title: Story of My Life
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1967
Detroit's musical history is so dominated by the Motown story that it's easy to overlook contributions from non-Motown artists over the years. Yet the motor city was the home of several successful and not-so-successful acts over the years, including the Amboy Dukes, Mitch Ryder, Bob Seger, and even a non-Motown soul band, the Capitols. The Unrelated Segments were from nearby Taylor, Michigan and recorded three singles in 1967 and 1968. The first of these, Story of My Life, got massive airplay in Detroit but had little impact anywhere else.

Artist: Yellow Balloon
Song Title: Yellow Balloon
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and included on LP: The Yellow Balloon)
Release Year: 1967
After Jan Berry's near-fatal car wreck in April of 1966, partner Dean Torrance turned to songwriter Gary Zeckley for material for a new album. Zeckley responded by writing the song Yellow Balloon, but was unhappy with Jan and Dean's recording of the song and decided to cut his own version. The resulting recording, utilizing studio musicians for the instrumental tracks was released in May of 1967 on the Canterbury label and was a moderately successful hit, peaking at #25 (Jan and Dean's version stalled out at #111).

Once again we take a romp through the years, this one stretching from 1966 to 1970.

Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Let Me In
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Release Year: 1966
Marty Balin deserves recognition for his outstanding abilities as a leader. Most people don't even realize he was the founder of the Airplane, yet it was Balin who brought together the diverse talents of what would become San Francisco's most successful band of the 60s and managed to keep the band together through more than its share of controversies. One indication of his leadership abilities is that he encouraged Paul Kantner to sing lead on this track, despite the fact that Balin himself had no other onstage role than to sing lead vocals.

Artist: Who
Song Title: Rael 2
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Release Year: 1967
This odd little piece was apparently intended as a coda to the final track of The Who Sell Out, but was not included on the album (although the label itself reads "Rael 1&2"). It is among the many bonus tracks on both the 90s and 2000s CD versions of the album.

Artist: Traffic
Song Title: (Roamin' Through the Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Release Year: 1968
In its original run, Traffic only released two full albums (and a third that consisted of non-LP singles, studio outtakes and live tracks). The second of these, simply titled Traffic, featured several memorable tunes, including this Steve Winwood/Jim Capaldi collaboration.

Artist: Fairport Convention
Song Title: Tam Lin
Source: LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Leige and Leaf)
Release Year: 1969
Fairport Convention was hailed as England's answer to Jefferson Airplane when they first appeared. As this track from 1969 shows, they soon established a sound all their own. Sandy Denny, heard here on lead vocals, is best known to US audiences for her backup vocals on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore.

Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Song Title: 4+20
Source: CD: déjà vu
Release Year: 1970
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were always more a collection of individuals than a true group. This tune from the second album is actually a Stephen Stills solo track, illustrating the point.

The second segment of tonight's show is another progression through the years, albeit somewhat shorter than the first one, covering the years 1966-1968.

Artist: Byrds
Song Title: Eight Miles High
Source: CD: 5D
Release Year: 1966
After two albums dominated by cover tunes such as Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Byrds surprised everyone with an album consisting of almost all original material. Eight Miles High, co-written by Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark, was to be the first hit single composed by group members, but got derailed when Top 40 radio czar Bill Drake branded it a drug song. Despite the song being banned on several key radio stations, it still managed to crack the top 20.

Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Song Title: May This Be Love
Source: CD: Are You Experienced?
Release Year: 1967
The original UK version of Are You Experienced? featured this song as the opening track of side two of the album. In the US, the UK single The Wind Cries Mary was substituted for it, with May This Be Love buried deep on side one.

Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Song Title: Gilded Lamp of the Cosmos
Source: LP: Behold and See (mono promo pressing)
Release Year: 1968
By 1968, even the cheap $10 record players used diamond needles and were able to play stereo albums without damaging the grooves (older sapphire needles were another story). Accordingly, most albums were only released in stereo, often with the notation "also playable mono" somewhere on the cover. A significant number of radio stations, however, were still using equipment that was several years old, and the major record labels often made special mono pressings that were only available to broadcasters. This version of the opening track from Behold and See is from one of those pressings, found among the vinyl archives of WEOS-FM. Interestingly enough, WEOS-FM was not actually on the air in 1968, so who this copy was originally distributed to is anyone's guess. My own best guess is that it was originally sent to the campus carrier current station (received by plugging an AM radio into a wall socket) at Hobart and William Smith Colleges that eventually became WEOS.

The great argument among school-aged Americans in the mid-sixties was "Beatles or Stones. Who's better?" Sometimes this argument actually ended in fisticuffs. Ultimately it decided that the Beatles were for the girls while the Stones were more of a guys' band. Obviously whoever decided that never caught the Stones backstage.

Artist: Rolling Stones
Song Title: Not Fade Away
Source: LP: More Hot Rocks (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1964
Like most British Invasion bands, the Rolling Stones were inspired by the early US rock and roll and rhythm and blues artists of the 1950s and often started their recording careers covering songs from that period. Not Fade Away was one of Buddy Holly's best-known tunes, and the Stones recording of it became their first US hit and the first of their UK singles to hit the top 10 in that country.

Artist: Beatles
Song Title: Nowhere Man
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Release Year: 1965
The original UK version of Rubber Soul, released in December 1965, had several songs that were left off the shorter US version. In the case of Nowhere Man, it was because Capitol Records decided to hold back the song for release as a single in early 1966.

By 1968, album rock stations were starting to have an impact on the recording industry, resulting in a much more eclectic mix of material being released, as is evidenced by the following set.

Artist: Pentangle
Song Title: Way Behind the Sun
Source: LP: The Pentangle
Release Year: 1968
Every member of the Pentangle was an established member of the British folk music community, making Pentangle a folk supergroup by definition. Using elements of jazz and rock mixed with traditional folk music, they had a successful run up through the mid 1970s. This track from the first album is an adaptation of Rollin' and Tumblin' with new lyrics and a more sophisticated arrangement than better known versions by Cream and Johnny Winter.

Artist: First Edition
Song Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
The First Edition was led by former New Christy Minstrels members Mickey Newbury (who wrote this tune), and lead vocalist Kenny Rogers. As is usual in the US, the singer went on to become a superstar while the songwriter faded off into obscurity.

Artist: Blue Cheer
Song Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Release 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.

And now for something completely different:

Artist: Freddie and the Dreamers
Song Title: Money (That's What I Want)
Source: LP: Freddie and the Dreamers
Release Year: 1965
With hits like I'm Telling You Now and Do The Freddie, Freddie and the Dreamers established themselves as the clown princes of the British Invasion. Their 1965 album for Mercury is mostly covers, including this reworking of the Barrett Strong classic.

Our second 1967 set of the night focuses on album tracks.

Artist: Moby Grape
Song Title: Mr. Blues
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Release Year: 1967
Moby Grape got their name from the punchline of a joke that was circulating around the high schools of the time: What is purple and swims in the ocean? Regardless of that, the band's debut album was one of the strongest ever, but was marred by Columbia Records decision to release 10 of the albums 13 tracks simultaneously as singles, which was perceived as over-the-top hyperbole. Mr. Blues was one of those chosen to be a B side.

Artist: Music Machine
Song Title: Discrepancy
Source: CD: Beyond the Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Release Year: 1967
Sean Bonniwell was a former folk singer who emerged as one of the most talented songwriters on the L.A. club scene. A champion of bands performing their own material, he made sure the Music Machine's onstage sets moved quickly from song to song, in order to keep unwanted requests for cover tunes to a minimum. After a series of clashes with the band's first label, Original Sound Records, Bonniwell moved over to Warner Brothers, recruiting a new Music Machine in the process. Discrepancy is one of the finest album tracks of 1967, but received very little airplay at the time. Getting songs like this one heard is one of the main reasons I do this show.

Artist: Pink Floyd
Song Title: Pow R. Toc H.
Source: CD: Piper At the Gates of Dawn
Release Year: 1967
British psychedelic music was always more avant-garde than its US counterpart, and Pink Floyd was probably the most avant-garde of the British psychedelic bands. This track, written by the entire group, was a hint of things to come.

Here we have another short yearly progression from 1964-1966.

Artist: Beau Brummels
Song Title: Laugh Laugh
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Release Year: 1964
It was difficult for an American band to get a hit record in 1964. Some, such as San Francisco's Beau Brummels, decided the best way was to beat the Brits at their own game. Laugh Laugh, their debut single, was released in December of that year. Ultimately, the decision to emulate British rock worked against the Brummels, as they were never considered part of the blossoming San Francisco music scene.

Artist: Barry McGuire
Song Title: Eve of Destruction
Source: 45 RPM vinyl (reissue)
Release Year: 1965
One of the top folk-rock hits of 1965, Eve of Destruction was actually written by professional songwriter P.F. Sloane, who also wrote tunes for the Turtles, among others.

Artist: Donovan
Song Title: Mellow Yellow
Source: LP: Mellow Yellow
Release 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.

Artist: Them
Song Title: Black Widow Spider
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Release Year: 1968
Usually when a band used outside songwriters it's because their producer forced them into it, and almost always was a sore point with the band members. The liner notes for Them's second album for Tower (and the second without founder Van Morrison) included a thank you note from the band to Tom Lane and Sharon Pulley, who wrote nearly every song on Time Out! Time In! For Them.

This week's final segment begins with a set from 1969.

Artist: Country Weather
Song Title: Fly To New York
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released to radio stations as a single-sided promo album).
Release Year: 1969
Country Weather was a band from Walnut Creek, California that for two years regularly played all the hot spots in San Francisco but never seemed to be able to land a recording contract. Finally in 1969 they decided to take matters into their own hands, self-producing this six-plus minute track and distributing it to local radio stations.

Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Song Title: Green River
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
For some reason, nobody seems to remember that Creedence played Woodstock. I'm not sure why.

Artist: Zephyr
Song Title: Cross the River
Source: Zephyr
Release Year: 1969
I've been playing a bit of Denver's Sugarloaf lately, so I thought I'd switch over to a band from nearby Boulder that actually predated their neighbors by a few months. Zephyr featured the vocal talents of Candy Givens, who had an octave range that would not be equalled until Mariah Carey hit the scene years later. Also in the band was lead guitarist Tommy Bolin, who would go on to take over lead guitar duties with first the James Gang and then Deep Purple before embarking on a solo career. Unfortunately that career (and Bolin's life) was permanently derailed by a heroin overdose at age 28.

Artist: Tim Hardin
Song Title: A Tribute To Hank Williams
Source: LP: Tim Hardin 2
Release Year: 1967
Tim Hardin was one of the first singer-songwriters to hit the scene. He is best known for his song If I Were a Carpenter, recorded first by Bobby Darin and later by Johnny Cash and June Carter.

Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Song Title: Suppose They Give a War and No One Comes
Source: LP: Volume 2
Release Year: 1967
This song is either really cool or really pretentious. I've had a copy of it for over 30 years and still haven't figured out which.