Show # 1109 Playlist (3/4-3/6)

Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
We start off the week with a request from the first Neil Young album to feature the band Crazy Horse. The title track is one of those songs that never got as much airplay as it deserved.

Artist: Cream
Title: As You Said
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer: Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Cream started off as a British blues supergroup, but soon found themselves putting out some of the finest psychedelic tunes east of the Atlantic. Much of the credit for this goes to the songwriting team of bassist Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown was originally brought in as a songwriting partner for Ginger Baker, but soon found a better synergy with Bruce. The two went on to write some of Cream's most memorable songs, including Tales of Brave Ulysses, Deserted Cities of the Heart and White Room.

Artist: Who
Title: Underture
Source: CD: Tommy
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1969
One of the great rock instrumentals was the Underture from Tommy. Some of the musical themes used in the piece had appeared on the previous album, The Who Sell Out, as part of the song Rael. Here those themes are fleshed out considerably.

Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up
Source: LP: Zabriskie Point soundtrack
Writer: Gilmour/Waters/Wright/Mason
Label: 4 Men With Beards (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1970
Here we have something unusual: an album that is currently in print only on vinyl. A CD edition of the Zabriskie Point soundtrack (with an entire disc of bonus tracks) was issued several years ago, but was deleted due to lack of sales. The movie itself, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, was both a critical and box office flop; indeed, it often shows up on "worst movies ever made" lists due to its incomprehensible plot and unbelievable characters. Still, the soundtrack does have some outstanding tracks, including this remake of Be Careful With That Axe, Eugene, a tune that at that point had only appeared as a mono B side (it would be included on the next Pink Floyd album, however).

Artist: Mothers of Invention
Title: We're Only In It For The Money (part two)
Source: CD: We're Only In It For The Money
Writer: Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1968
Following the release of Absolutely Free, Frank Zappa began working on an album that would feature music by the Mothers of Invention interspersed with Lenny Bruce comedy routines. However, the events of the Summer of Love, along with the chart dominance that summer of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band caused him to rethink the whole thing. Instead, he came up with an album that satirized Sgt.Pepper's, the San Francisco scene, and American culture in general (the latter being a theme that would characterize his entire career).

Artist: Jerry Garcia
Title: EEP Hour
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Garcia/Kreutzmann
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1972
In 1972 Warner Brothers Records encouraged the members of the Grateful Dead to make solo albums. Unlike Bob Weir's album, which used all the members of the band, the Jerry Garcia album featured only drummer Bill Kreutzmann from the Dead. All other instruments were played by Garcia himself, making it more literally a solo album. The single from the album, Sugaree, became a Grateful Dead standard at their live performances. On the other hand EEP Hour (pronounced E Power), the album track issued as the B side of Sugaree, was more of a musical study than an actual song. It has never to my knowledge been performed live.

Artist: Byrds
Title: C.T.A.-102
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer: McGuinn/Hippard
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
Roger McGuinn has always exhibited an interest in the subject of extra-terrestrial 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 hearing rock and roll (and apparently liking it).

Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Soul Experience
Source: LP: Ball
Writer: Ingle/Bushy/Brann/Dorman
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
Following up on the success of the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album, Iron Butterfly released the Ball album in 1969. It was an immediate commercial success, despite none of its tracks getting extensive airplay on either top 40 AM or progressive FM stations. Subsequent LPs were not able to match the sales of either album and after several personnel changes the band called it quits.

Artist: Unrelated Segments
Title: Story Of My Life
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Mackavich/Stults
Label: Rhino (original label: Hanna-Barbera)
Year: 1967
The Unrelated Segments were a Detroit band that had most of its success regionally. Their nearest brush with national fame came when Story Of My Life was picked up for national distribution by Hanna-Barbera, the record label associated with such well-known TV stars as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and (later) Scooby-Doo. Hannah-Barbera not being known for its hit records, it's probably no surprise that the song did not climb too high on the charts.

Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Heart Full Of Soul
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Graham Gouldman
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
The follow-up single to For Your Love was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who was then a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and would later be a founding member of 10cc.

Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Don't Look Now (It Ain't You Or Me)
Source: More Creedence Gold
Writer: John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1969
Our second hour starts off with one of the most country-flavored songs in the CCR catalog. Don't Look Now (It Ain't You Or Me) was never released as a single. Nor did it receive much FM airplay, yet the song was featured on the second volume of the original Creedence greatest hits series of albums.

Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Me And Bobby McGee
Source: CD: Pearl
Writer: Kristofferson/Foster
Label: Columbia
Year: 1971
Continuing in a country vein we have Janis Joplin's most successful single, the Kris Kristofferson-penned Me and Bobby McGee. Joplin died before the single was released, leading to a rather unusual situation: Me and Bobby McGee ended up being Kristofferson's signature song, both as a songwriter and a performer, despite his own recorded version never having charted.

Title: Carey
Source: Blue
Writer: Joni Mitchell
Label: Reprise
Year: 1971
Joni Mitchell's Blue album is probably the one that most people point to as the one that introduced them to the Canadian singer-songwriter, despite it being her third LP for Reprise. Carey is one of many songs on the album that received extensive airplay on progressive FM stations, which by 1971 were looking for ways to expand beyond their rock base without alienating their counter-culture core audience.

Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess
Source: Ultimate Spinach
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
Our next pair of songs share a lyrical theme. I don't do this often (being more musically than lyrically oriented myself), but I have to admit this is a cool pairing. From Boston we have Ultimate Spinach with a song that could be considered the quintessential east coast psychedelic recording, Ian Bruce-Douglas's (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess, with its raga backbeat overlaid with tremeloed guitar and trippy female vocals.

Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Title: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer: Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
From Berkeley, California, we have the song that probably got the most airplay of any track on the first Country Joe and the Fish album during the Summer of Love. The idea of presenting a personification of Death as a young female entity (as opposed to the traditional Grim Reaper of indeterminate age and sex) would be revived decades later in the graphic arts medium by writer Neil Gaiman in his Sandman series.

Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original labeel: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells follow-up hit to Dirty Water is a 60s punk rock anthem, with the singer defiantly voicing his disdain for the upper class types (known at the time as "Socials") that had dominated high school and college culture in the early part of the decade. This was more than just a gender-reversed Patches or Rag Doll; this was the street kid asserting his right to be himself. The fact that it was all a put-on (singer Dicky Dodd being a somewhat priveledged type himself) didn't really matter. The song speaks for itself.

Artist: Kinks
Title: Love Me Till The Sun Shines
Source: CD: Something Else
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks featured an eclectic mix of tunes ranging from the soft pop of Waterloo Sunset to harder-edged songs like Love Me Till The Sun Shines, all from the pen of Ray Davies. Not a commercial success in the US upon release, the album has come to be appreciated more over the years.

Artist: Merry-Go-Round
Title: Listen
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Emmitt Rhodes
Label: Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year: 1968
In 1968, drummer/vocalist Emmit Rhodes was on the verge of branching out on a solo career. One of the last songs released under the Merry-Go-Round banner was this Beatle-influenced song.

Artist: Holy Modal Rounders
Title: If You Want To Be A Bird
Source: Easy Rider soundtrack
Writer: Antonia Duren
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1969
Our longest progression through the years in several weeks continues with this oddity from the Easy Rider soundtrack. The song originally appeared on an album called The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders. What more can I say after that?

Artist: Sugarloaf
Title: The Train Kept A-Rollin' (Stroll On)
Source: Sugarloaf
Writer: Relf/Page/Beck/Dreja
Label: Liberty
Year: 1970
We end up at the year 1970 with an instrumental version of one of the Yardbirds most famous tunes. The song was originally recorded as Train Kept A Rollin' in the band's early years. In 1966, with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page playing dueling lead guitars, the song was reworked with new lyrics for the Michelangelo Antonioni film Blow-Up (yeah, the same guy who directed Zabriskie Point). The Sugarloaf version closely resembles the 1966 version, even to the feedback-drenched intro that was Page's contribution to the song.

Title: The Great Banana Hoax
Source: Underground
Writer: Lowe/Tulin
Label: Collector's Choice
Year: 1967
Our 1967 set of the night starts off with the opening track for the second Electric Prunes album. Underground saw the band having greater creative control over the recording process that either previous or subsequent albums. The title of The Great Banana Hoax probably refers to the rumor circulating at the time that Donovan's Mellow Yellow was really about smoking banana peels to get high. The song itself is an indication of the musical direction the band itself wanted to go in before it got sidetracked (some would say derailed) by producer David Hassinger, who would assert control to the point of eventually replacing all the original members of the band by their fourth album.

Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: Garcia/Kreutzmann/Lesh/McKernan/Weir
Label: Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Speaking of David Hassinger, here is another band he produced. In this case, however, it was the band that ultimately took control, causing Hassinger to give up in frustration after a couple of albums. The last straw was reportedly when, during sessions for the third Dead album, Aoxomoxa, Hassinger was unable to deal with Bob Weir's request for the sound of "thick air".

Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Foxy Lady
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Foxy Lady was not released as a single in the UK. Instead it was the leadoff track for the album Are You Experienced?. In the US, however, neither Hey Joe or The Wind Cries Mary were issued as singles, and both songs found their way to the US version of Are You Experienced?. As a result, the mono single mix of Foxy Lady was only issued in the US, as Hendrix's European albums were only released in Stereo.

Artist: Lighthouse
Title: Lonely Places
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: P. Hoffert/B. Hoffert
Label: Evolution (original label: GRT)
Year: 1972
The Canadian band Lighthouse was an attempt by drummer Skip Prokop (formerly of The Paupers) and others to incorporate both horns and strings into a rock band. This instrumental shows that the idea had potential but never really got off the ground.

Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: Blind Eye
Source: LP: The Magician's Birthday
Writer: Ken Hensley
Label: Mercury
Year: 1972
Our final track of the night is from Uriah Heep. The single Easy Livin' from the album Demons and Wizards was a top 40 hit, giving the band some momentum for their follow up album, The Magician's Birthday. Both albums were certified gold. Blind Eye, the second single from The Magician's Birthday, barely made a dent in the charts, but by 1972 album sales were considered a more important measure of success anyway. Both albums were notable for their cover art by Roger Dean, who also did cover art for Yes during their most popular period.