Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer: Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
The day I recorded this week's show was the hottest day of 2011 (so far). At the time I figured it was appropriate to start off with the Blue Cheer version of Summertime Blues, despite having played the same track on the previous two shows. Maybe hearing it will help warm you guys in Brazil (listening on gulchradio.com) up a bit, too.
Artist: Animals
Title: How You've Changed
Source: LP: On Tour
Writer: Chuck Berry
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1965
If there was any one thing that characterized the original Animals, it was a love of early American Rhythm and Blues records. On their first US tour, the group spent virtually all of their free time searching small independent record stores for copies of hard to find recordings by the like of Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. They then went into the studio and recorded their own versions of these tunes. The result was the 1965 LP The Animals On Tour, their second US album. Although Chuck Berry is generally associated with early rock and roll, How You've Changed is a good example of his bluesier side.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
Artist: Turtles
Ultimate Spinach was the brainchild of Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. Although the group had no hit singles, some tracks, such as (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess received a significant amount of airplay on progressive "underground" FM stations. Bruce-Douglas left Ultimate Spinach after two albums, leaving only vocalist Barbara Hudson from the original lineup to carry on the band's name. Of all Bruce-Douglas's compositions, only (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess stayed in the group's repertoire after his departure.
Title: She's My Girl
Source: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1967
After a moderate amount of success in 1965 with a series of singles starting with a cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles found themselves running out of steam by the end of 1966. Rather than throw in the towel, they enlisted the services of the Bonner/Gordon songwriting team and recorded their most successful single, Happy Together, in 1967. They dipped into the same well for this tune later the same year.
Artist: Standells
Title: Try It
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Levine/Bellack
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
After a series of singles written by producer Ed Cobb had resulted in diminishing returns, the Standells recorded this tune co-written by Joey Levine, who would rise to semi-anonymous notoriety as lead vocalist for the Ohio Express, a group that was essentially a vehicle for the Kazenetz/Katz production team, purveyors of what came to be called "bubble gum" music. The song itself was quickly banned on most radio stations under the assumption that the phrase "try it" was a call for teenage girls to abandon their virginity. The fact is that nowhere in the song does the word "teenage" appear, but nonetheless the song failed to make a dent in the charts, despite its catchy melody and danceable beat.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Delicate Fawn
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band made it a point to emphasize the fact that they had complete artistic control of their second LP for Reprise, Volume II. The album itself lives up to the band's name, as many of the songs are indeed quite experimental. The song Delicate Fawn is in a sense prophetic, as vocalist Bob Markley would find himself on the wrong side of the law over issues involving underage girls in the 1970s.
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 Radio London, a pirate radio station operating off the English coast.
Artist: Castaways
Title: Liar Liar
Source: CD: More Nuggets
Writer: Donna/Craswell
Label: Rhino (original label: Soma)
Year: 1965
The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves with their song Liar Liar for a couple months before fading off into obscurity.
Artist: Cat Stevens
Title: I Love My Dog
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Cat Stevens
Label: Deram
Year: 1966
Cat Steven was one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the mid-1970s, with songs such as Peace Train, Wild World, and Morning Has Broken (now used in many modern Catholic Masses) making him a household name. What many people don't realize, however, is that his recording career extends all the way back to 1966, with his first single, I Love My Dog, being released in both the US and the UK (where it was a minor hit). Somehow I managed to find a copy of this somewhat scratchy 45 several years ago and thought I would, just for the fun of it, share it with you on this week's show.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Blues From An Airplane
Source: CD: Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off)
Writer: Balin/Spence
Label: RCA
Year: 1966
This week's artist set is also a progression through the years, as we feature tunes from the first, second and fourth Jefferson Airplane albums (there were two Airplane LPs released in 1967, so I skipped After Bathing At Baxter's this time). The first track, Blues From An Airplane was the opening song on the first Airplane album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. Although never released as a single, it was picked by the group to open their first anthology album, The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane, as well.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: CD: Somebody To Love
Source: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer: Darby Slick
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
Over 40 years after the fact, it's hard to imagine just how big an impact this song had on the garage band scene. Whereas before "Somebody To Love" came out you could just dismiss hard-to-cover songs as being "lame" anyway, here was a tune that was undeniably cool, and yet virtually impossible for anyone but the Airplane to play well (and even they were unable to get it to sound quite the same when they performed it live). Although garage bands would continue to exist (and still do), the days when a group of kids from the suburbs could form a band, play a handful of parties, maybe win a battle of the bands and write and record a hit record with virtually no prior experience were gone forever.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Lather
Source: CD: Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Crown Of Creation)
Writer: Grace Slick
Label: RCA
Year: 1968
One of Grace Slick's most memorable tunes was Lather, with its eerie instrumental bridge played on a tissue-paper covered comb (at least that's what I think it was). The song was reportedly about drummer Spencer Dryden, the band's oldest member, who had just turned 30. A popular phrase of the time was "don't trust anyone over 30", making it a particularly bad time to have that particular birthday.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Gloria
Source: LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer: Van Morrison
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Although the Blues Magoos are best known for their hit (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet, the band got a lot of airplay on underground FM stations for their extended psychedelic rave up on John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road, which had been a hit a couple of years before for the Nashville Teens. Both songs were featured on the band's debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop. For their second album, Electric Comic Book, the Magoos decided to do a similar treatment on Van Morrison's Gloria, which had been a hit for the Shadows of Knight in 1966. The result was six minutes of pure madness.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Randy Scouse Git
Source: CD: Headquarters
Writer: Barry/Sager
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
The original concept for the Monkees TV series was that the band would be shown performing two new songs on each weekly episodes. This meant that, even for an initial 13-week order, 26 songs would have to be recorded in a very short amount of time. The only way to meet that deadline was for several teams of producers, songwriters and studio musicians to work independently of each other at the same time. The instrumental tracks were then submitted to musical director Don Kirschner, who brought in Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith to record vocal tracks. Although some of the instrumental tracks, such as those produced by Nesmith, had Nesmith and Tork playing on them, many did not. Some backing tracks were even recorded in New York at the same time as the TV show was being taped in L.A. In a few cases, the Monkees themselves did not hear the songs until they were in the studio to record their vocal tracks. A dozen of these recordings were chosen for release on the first Monkees LP in 1966, including the hit single Last Train To Clarksville. When it became clear that the show was a hit and a full season's worth of episodes would be needed, Kirschner commissioned even more new songs (although by then Clarksville was being featured in nearly every episode, mitigating the need for new songs somewhat). Without the band's knowledge Kirschner issued a second album, More Of The Monkees, in early 1967, using several of the songs recorded specifically for the TV show. The band members were furious, and the resulting firestorm resulted in the removal of Kirschner from the entire Monkees project. The group then hired Turtles bassist Chip Douglas to work with the band to produce an album of songs that the Monkees themselves would both sing and play on. The album, Headquarters, spent one week at the top of the charts before giving way to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There were, however, no singles released from the album; at least not in the US. It turns out that the seemingly nonsensical title of the album's final track, Randy Scouse Git, was actually British slang for horny guy from Liverpool, or something along those lines. The song was released everywhere but the continental US under the name Alternate Title and was a surprise worldwide hit.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: I Can Feel Him In The Morning
Source: LP: Survival
Writer: Farner/Brewer
Label: Capitol
Year: 1971
In the late 1980s I met a woman from L.A who had been in high school the year Grand Funk Railroad's fourth studio LP came out. When she discovered that I still had my original copy of Survival she told me how an 8-track copy of that album got her through the summer of '71 when she was living with her mother in an apartment overlooking one of the hookers' corners on Hollywood Blvd. She said that whenever she was feeling overwhelmed by life she would draw inspiration from the song I Can Feel Him In The Morning. The tune, with its flowing beat and spiritual lyrics, was a departure from the loud, raw sound the band from Flint was known for.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: Bookends Theme/Save The Life Of My Child/America
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
An early example of a concept album (or at least half an album) was Simon And Garfunkel's fourth LP, Bookends. The side starts and ends with the Bookends theme. In between they go through a sort of life cycle of tracks, from Save The Life Of My Child (featuring a synthesizer opening programmed by Robert Moog himself), into America, a song that is very much in the sprit of Jack Kerouak's On The Road. One of these days I'll play the rest of the side, which takes us right into the age that many of us who bought the original LP are now approaching.
Artist: Lamp Of Childhood
Title: No More Running Around
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Mekler/Hendricks/Tani
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1967
I've often wondered how it was that a somewhat raunchy rock band like Steppenwolf ended up on the same pop-oriented record label as the Mamas and the Papas, the Grass Roots and 3 Dog Night. It turns out the Dunhill connection was from the man who produced Steppenwolf, Gabriel Mekler. Mekler was a member of the Lamp Of Childhood, a group that also included Cass Elliot's husband Michael Hendricks. Although the Lamp had a solid pop sound, they never really caught on and by the time their third and most successful single, No More Running Around, was released, the members had already moved on to other things (like, for instance, producing Steppenwolf records).
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
In the fall of 1966 my parents took by brother and me to a drive-in movie to see The Russians Are Coming and The 10th Victim (don't ask me why I remember that). In an effort to extend their season past the summer months, that particular drive-in was pioneering a new technology that used a low-power radio transmitter (on a locally-unused frequency) to broadcast the audio portion of the films so that people could keep their car windows rolled all the way up (and presumably stay warm) instead of having to roll the window partway down to accomodate the hanging speakers that were attached to posts next to where each car was parked. Before the first movie and between films music was pumped through the speakers (and over the transmitter). Of course, being fascinated by all things radio, I insisted that my dad use the car radio as soon as we got settled in. I was immediately blown away by a song that I had not heard on either of Denver's two top 40 radio stations. That song was Love's 7&7 Is, and it was my first inkling that there were some great songs on the charts that were being ignored by local stations. I finally heard the song again the following spring, when a local FM station that had been previously used to simulcast a full-service AM station began running a "top 100" format a few hours a day.
Artist: Beatles
Title: We Can Work It Out (originally released as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Yesterday...And Today)
Source: CD: Past Masters vol. 2
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1965
The Beatles last single of 1965 was the double-sided hit Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out. As was common in the UK, the songs were not available on LP until many years later. In the US, however, both songs were included on an LP that never came out in the UK: Yesterday...And Today. Thus American audiences had exclusive access to the stereo versions of these songs throughout the rest of the decade.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Oh, Lonesome Me
Source: CD: After The Gold Rush
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1970
Although Neil Young is known primarily as a songwriter, he has recorded a cover tune here and there. One such tune is the Don Gibson rockabilly classic Oh, Lonesome Me, slowed down to about a quarter of its original tempo.
Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: The Magician's Birthday
Source: LP: The Magician's Birthday
Writer: Hensley/Box/Kerslake
Label: Mercury
Year: 1972
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what exactly does it mean when you imitate yourself? Uriah Heep did just that in 1972 when they followed up their breakthrough Demons And Wizards album with another one in virtually the same format, even down to the 10-minute plus title track to close out side two. What was missing, however, was a single to rival Easy Livin', which had been the engine that propelled Demons and Wizards into the realm of hit albums. Still, The Magician's Birthday was a solid and commercial successfully LP, and this week we are presenting the aforementioned title track in its entirety. Enjoy!
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain
Source: CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer: Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1970
After the fantasy of The Magician's Birthday I thought it might be fun to go with some science fiction to back it up. Well, Alvin Lee does mention going to every planet in the solar system during this nearly eight-minute track, after all.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Time Is On My Side
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Jerry Ragovoy
Label: London
Year: 1964
I recently got word of the passing of songwriter Jerry Ragovoy, who died on July 13th 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, one of the first US hits for the Rolling
Artist: Cyrkle
Title: LP: Big, Little Woman
Source: Red Rubber Ball
Writer: Dawes/Danneman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The Cyrkle rose to prominence with a pair of hit singles in 1966: Red Rubber Ball and Turn Down Day. Both those tunes were included on their first LP for Columbia, which also included several tunes written by members of the Cyrkle. Among those was Big, Little Woman, a solid example of the light pop the Cyrkle did so well. Unfortunately for the band, the maturing baby boomers that made up the bulk of the top 40 audience in 1966 were starting to look for heavier stuff, and the Cyrkle soon fell out of favor.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Little Women
Source: CD: Face To Face (previously unreleased bonus track)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary
Year: 1967
We finish the week with an unfinished track written and recorded sometime between the Kinks' 1966 LP Face To Face and 1967's Something Else. It would be interesting to hear just what sort of vocals Ray Davies had in mind for this song (if indeed he had any at all).
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1129 Playlist (week starting 7/21)
This week we start off with a set of songs released as singles. It's also a progression through the years that starts with the number one song of the year 1965.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Satisfaction
Source: CD: Out Of Our Heads (US version)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
Singles released in the UK in the 60s tended to stay on the racks much longer than their US counterparts. This is because singles were generally not duplicated on LPs like they were in the US. Satisfaction was a good example. In the US, the song was added to the Out Of Our Heads album, which had a considerably different song lineup than the original UK version. In the UK the song was unavailable as an LP track until Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) was released.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Walk Away Renee
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Brown/Calilli/Sansone
Label: Smash
Year: 1966
The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee is one of the most covered songs in rock history, starting with a version by the Four Tops less than two years after the original recording had graced the top 5. The Left Banke version kicked off what was thought at the time to be the latest trend: baroque rock. The trend died an early death when the band members themselves made some tactical errors resulting in radio stations being hesitant to play their records.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single. Unedited version originally released on LP: Vanilla Fudge)
Writer: Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer: 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: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Volunteers
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer: Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA
Year: 1969
By 1969 Jefferson Airplane's music was a staple of progressive FM stations but had all but disappeared from the top 40 charts. Still, the band continued to release singles from their albums, including the title track to their fifth (and final with the classic JA lineup) LP, Volunteers.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Writer: Grace Slick
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane. I decided to toss this one in at the last minute as a sort of bonus track. Enjoy!
Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Title: Bass Strings
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer: Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
A lot of songs released in 1966 and 1967 got labeled as drug songs by influential people in the music industry. In many cases, those labels were inaccurate, at least according to the artists who recorded those songs. On the other hand, you have songs like Bass Strings by Country Joe and the Fish that really can't be about anything else.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: The Twain Shall Meet-Part Two
Source: LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Twain Shall Meet was the second album from Eric Burdon and the Animals, the new group formed in early 1967 after Eric Burdon changed his mind about embarking on a solo career. Produced by Tom Wilson (who had also produced Bob Dylan's first electric recordings and the Blues Project's Projections album), The Twain Shall Meet was an ambitious work that shows a band often reaching beyond its grasp, despite having its heart in the right place. For the most part, though, side two of the album works fairly well, starting with the anti-war classic Sky Pilot and continuing into the instrumental We Love You Lil. The final section, All Is One, is a unique blend of rock instrumemtation combined with sitar, bagpipes, studio effects, and drone vocals that builds to a frenetic climax, followed by a spoken line by Burdon to end the album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunshine Superman
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and on LP: SUNSHINE SUPERMAN in edited form)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
This hugely successful single is sometimes credited as being the tsunami that launched the wave of psychedelic music that washed over the shores of pop musicland in 1967. OK, I made that up, but the song really did change the direction of American pop as well as Donovan's own career. Originally released as a 3:15 single, the full unedited 4:31 stereo mix of the song heard here did not appear on vinyl until Donovan's 1969 Greatest Hits album.
Artist: Byrds
Title: I See You
Source: CD: 5D
Writer: McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
The Byrd's third LP, 5D, saw Jim (Roger) McGuinn and David Crosby come into their own as songwriters, as this collaboration between the two clearly illustrates.
Artist: Kinks
Title: All Day And All Of The Night
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1964
Following up on their worldwide hit You Really Got Me, the Kinks proved that lightning could indeed strike twice with All Day And All Of The Night. Although there have been rumours over the years that the guitar solo on the track may have been played by studio guitarist Jimmy Page, reliable sources insist that it was solely the work of Dave Davies, who reportedly slashed his speakers to achieve the desired sound.
Artist: Harbinger Complex
Title: I Think I'm Down
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Writer: Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label: Rhino (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. The Harbinger Complex, from Freemont, California, is a good example, recording for local L.A. label Brent Records.
Artist: Young Rascals
Title: What Is The Reason
Source: LP: Collections
Writer: Cavaliere/Brigati
Label: Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1967
My first high school dance was a Sadie Hawkins Day dance held at the General H. H. Arnold High School gym in Weisbaden, Germany. Onstage was a band of military brats calling themselves the Collections, so called because they covered every tune on the second Young Rascals album. That night (probably the best night of my entire freshman year, thanks to a sophomore whose name I've long since forgotten but who looked a lot like Cindy Williams in American Graffiti) inspired me to A): talk my parents into buying a cheap guitar and amp so I could join up with other guys who lived in our housing area to form "The Abundance Of Love", aka "The Haze And Shades Of Yesterday", aka "The Shades", and B) find and buy a copy of the Collections album (which ended up taking over 40 years to do).
Artist: Frumious Bandersnatch
Title: Hearts To Cry
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on self-titled EP)
Writer: Jack King
Label: Rhino (original label: Muggles Grammophone)
Year: 1968
Rock music and the real estate business have something in common: location can make all the difference. Take the San Francisco Bay Area. You have one of the world's great Cosmopolitan cities at the north end of a peninsula. South of the city, along the peninsula itself you have mostly redwood forest land interspersed with fairly affluent communities along the way to Silicon Valley and the city of San Jose at the south end of the bay. The eastern side of the bay, on the other hand, spans a socio-economic range from blue collar to ghetto and is politically conservative; not exactly the most receptive environment for a hippy band calling itself Frumious Bandersnatch, which is a shame, since they had at least as much talent as any other band in the area. Unable to develop much of a following, they are one of the great "should have beens" of the psychedelic era.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: In The Time Of Our Lives
Source: Ball
Writer: Ingle/Bushy
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Iron Butterfly's followup to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Although Ball was a strong seller, it overall left the listener feeling vaguely disappointed, and was the last album to feature Eric Brann on lead guitar. Subsequent albums did even worse, and Iron Butterfly is now mostly remembered as progressive FM radio's first one-hit wonder.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Writer: Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
Although San Jose, Ca. is a rather large city in its own right (the 10th-largest city in the US in fact), it has always had a kind of suburban status, thanks to being within the same media market as San Francisco. Nonetheless, San Jose had its own very active music scene, and Count Five was, for a time, at the top of the heap.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Me Down
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Talk Me Down was, according to composer Sean Bonniwell, quite possibly the first punk rock song ever conceived. The tune was one of four songs recorded on a demo at Original Sound when the Music Machine still called itself the Ragamuffins. This recording was cut in 1967 by the band's original lineup, but not released until Warner Brothers released an album called Bonniwell Music Machine later that year. By the time of the album's release, all the members of the original band except Bonniwell had moved on to other things, and a new lineup was featured on several tracks on the album.
Artist: Them
Title: Time Out For Time In
Source: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer: Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them to embark on a successful solo career, the rest of the band continued to make records. The first effort was an offshoot group calling themselves the Belfast Gypsys, which released one LP in 1967. The actual band, meanwhile, had returned to their native Ireland and recruited Kenny McDowell as their new lead vocalist. They soon relocated to California, recording two LPs for Tower Records in 1968. The second of these was a collaborative effort between Them and the songwriting team of Tom Pulley and Vivian Lane. The opening track of the LP, Time Out For Time In, was an early example of the progressive rock that was developing on underground rock radio stations at the time.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Time Was
Source: CD: Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Al "Blind Owl" Wilson
Label: Capitol (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1969
Although not known for their single releases, Canned Heat actually had a reasonable amount of chart success, especially considering that they were essentially a blues band in a rock world. Time Was, written by co-founder and guitarist Al "Blind Owl" Wilson, was one of the last of these charted singles.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Friends Of Mine
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer: Bachman/Cummings
Label: Iconoclassic (original US label: RCA Victor; original Canadian label: Nimbus 9)
Year: 1969
On first listen, Friends Of Mine may appear to be a Doors ripoff, but the band members themselves claim it was inspired more by the Who's first mini-opera, "A Quick One While He's Away." Regardless of the source of inspiration, this was certainly the most pyschedelic track ever released by a band known more for catchy pop ballads like "These Eyes" and "No Sugar Tonight." Interestingly enough, RCA released a 45 RPM stereo promo of the song to radio stations, with the 10+ minute track split across the two sides of the record. I first heard this cut on the American Forces Network (AFN) in Germany on a weekly show called Underground that ran at midnight on Saturday nights. I doubt any Generals were listening.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: I Need A Man To Love
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer: Joplin/Albin
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded their first album at the Chicago studios of Mainstream records in 1967. Mainstream, however, was a jazz label and their engineers had no idea how to make a band like Big Brother sound good. When the band signed to Columbia the following year it was decided that the best way to record the band was onstage at the Fillmore West. As a result, when Cheap Thrills was released, four of the seven tracks were live recordings, including the Janis Joplin/Peter Albin collaboration I Need A Man To Love.
Artist: Diana Ross and the Supremes
Title: Love Child
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits-1968
Writer: Taylor/Wilson/Sawyer/Wilson
Label: Rhino (original label: Motown)
Year: 1968
After Flo got kicked out of the Supremes and replaced by Cindy Birdsong, Motown began marketing the group as Diana Ross and the Supremes. At first, the group continued to chart hits, but after a pair of stiffs in late 1967 a meeting of Motown's top people was called to see what could be done to get their top group back on track. The solution was to give a new songwriting and production team a shot, and to come up with something a bit more relevant than the love songs the Supremes had come to be known for. As Motown was billing itself as "the sound of young America", it was decided that the way to put Diana Ross and the Supremes back on top would be to release a song addressing the issue of teenage pregnancy, which was a problem of epidemic proportions at the time, especially in the inner cities. The result was Love Child, which has the distinction of being the song that finally knocked the Beatles' Hey Jude out of the number one spot in December of 1968.
Artist: Frijid Pink
Title: House Of The Rising Sun
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Alan Price
Label: Parrot
Year: 1970
Frijid Pink was a hard rocking blue collar band out of Detroit, Michigan. After releasing two singles on the Parrot label that went nowhere, they band scored big with their feedback-drenched version of House Of The Rising Sun, the song that had made the Animals famous six years earlier. The follow-up single, Sing A Song Of Freedom, barely dented the charts, however, and the group never made any inroads with the new progressive rock stations springing up on the FM dial. As a result, Frijid Pink has been known ever since as one-hit wonders.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Satisfaction
Source: CD: Out Of Our Heads (US version)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
Singles released in the UK in the 60s tended to stay on the racks much longer than their US counterparts. This is because singles were generally not duplicated on LPs like they were in the US. Satisfaction was a good example. In the US, the song was added to the Out Of Our Heads album, which had a considerably different song lineup than the original UK version. In the UK the song was unavailable as an LP track until Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) was released.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Walk Away Renee
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Brown/Calilli/Sansone
Label: Smash
Year: 1966
The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee is one of the most covered songs in rock history, starting with a version by the Four Tops less than two years after the original recording had graced the top 5. The Left Banke version kicked off what was thought at the time to be the latest trend: baroque rock. The trend died an early death when the band members themselves made some tactical errors resulting in radio stations being hesitant to play their records.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single. Unedited version originally released on LP: Vanilla Fudge)
Writer: Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer: 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: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Volunteers
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer: Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA
Year: 1969
By 1969 Jefferson Airplane's music was a staple of progressive FM stations but had all but disappeared from the top 40 charts. Still, the band continued to release singles from their albums, including the title track to their fifth (and final with the classic JA lineup) LP, Volunteers.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Writer: Grace Slick
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane. I decided to toss this one in at the last minute as a sort of bonus track. Enjoy!
Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Title: Bass Strings
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer: Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
A lot of songs released in 1966 and 1967 got labeled as drug songs by influential people in the music industry. In many cases, those labels were inaccurate, at least according to the artists who recorded those songs. On the other hand, you have songs like Bass Strings by Country Joe and the Fish that really can't be about anything else.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: The Twain Shall Meet-Part Two
Source: LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Twain Shall Meet was the second album from Eric Burdon and the Animals, the new group formed in early 1967 after Eric Burdon changed his mind about embarking on a solo career. Produced by Tom Wilson (who had also produced Bob Dylan's first electric recordings and the Blues Project's Projections album), The Twain Shall Meet was an ambitious work that shows a band often reaching beyond its grasp, despite having its heart in the right place. For the most part, though, side two of the album works fairly well, starting with the anti-war classic Sky Pilot and continuing into the instrumental We Love You Lil. The final section, All Is One, is a unique blend of rock instrumemtation combined with sitar, bagpipes, studio effects, and drone vocals that builds to a frenetic climax, followed by a spoken line by Burdon to end the album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunshine Superman
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and on LP: SUNSHINE SUPERMAN in edited form)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
This hugely successful single is sometimes credited as being the tsunami that launched the wave of psychedelic music that washed over the shores of pop musicland in 1967. OK, I made that up, but the song really did change the direction of American pop as well as Donovan's own career. Originally released as a 3:15 single, the full unedited 4:31 stereo mix of the song heard here did not appear on vinyl until Donovan's 1969 Greatest Hits album.
Artist: Byrds
Title: I See You
Source: CD: 5D
Writer: McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
The Byrd's third LP, 5D, saw Jim (Roger) McGuinn and David Crosby come into their own as songwriters, as this collaboration between the two clearly illustrates.
Artist: Kinks
Title: All Day And All Of The Night
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1964
Following up on their worldwide hit You Really Got Me, the Kinks proved that lightning could indeed strike twice with All Day And All Of The Night. Although there have been rumours over the years that the guitar solo on the track may have been played by studio guitarist Jimmy Page, reliable sources insist that it was solely the work of Dave Davies, who reportedly slashed his speakers to achieve the desired sound.
Artist: Harbinger Complex
Title: I Think I'm Down
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Writer: Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label: Rhino (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. The Harbinger Complex, from Freemont, California, is a good example, recording for local L.A. label Brent Records.
Artist: Young Rascals
Title: What Is The Reason
Source: LP: Collections
Writer: Cavaliere/Brigati
Label: Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1967
My first high school dance was a Sadie Hawkins Day dance held at the General H. H. Arnold High School gym in Weisbaden, Germany. Onstage was a band of military brats calling themselves the Collections, so called because they covered every tune on the second Young Rascals album. That night (probably the best night of my entire freshman year, thanks to a sophomore whose name I've long since forgotten but who looked a lot like Cindy Williams in American Graffiti) inspired me to A): talk my parents into buying a cheap guitar and amp so I could join up with other guys who lived in our housing area to form "The Abundance Of Love", aka "The Haze And Shades Of Yesterday", aka "The Shades", and B) find and buy a copy of the Collections album (which ended up taking over 40 years to do).
Artist: Frumious Bandersnatch
Title: Hearts To Cry
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on self-titled EP)
Writer: Jack King
Label: Rhino (original label: Muggles Grammophone)
Year: 1968
Rock music and the real estate business have something in common: location can make all the difference. Take the San Francisco Bay Area. You have one of the world's great Cosmopolitan cities at the north end of a peninsula. South of the city, along the peninsula itself you have mostly redwood forest land interspersed with fairly affluent communities along the way to Silicon Valley and the city of San Jose at the south end of the bay. The eastern side of the bay, on the other hand, spans a socio-economic range from blue collar to ghetto and is politically conservative; not exactly the most receptive environment for a hippy band calling itself Frumious Bandersnatch, which is a shame, since they had at least as much talent as any other band in the area. Unable to develop much of a following, they are one of the great "should have beens" of the psychedelic era.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: In The Time Of Our Lives
Source: Ball
Writer: Ingle/Bushy
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Iron Butterfly's followup to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Although Ball was a strong seller, it overall left the listener feeling vaguely disappointed, and was the last album to feature Eric Brann on lead guitar. Subsequent albums did even worse, and Iron Butterfly is now mostly remembered as progressive FM radio's first one-hit wonder.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Writer: Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
Although San Jose, Ca. is a rather large city in its own right (the 10th-largest city in the US in fact), it has always had a kind of suburban status, thanks to being within the same media market as San Francisco. Nonetheless, San Jose had its own very active music scene, and Count Five was, for a time, at the top of the heap.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Me Down
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Talk Me Down was, according to composer Sean Bonniwell, quite possibly the first punk rock song ever conceived. The tune was one of four songs recorded on a demo at Original Sound when the Music Machine still called itself the Ragamuffins. This recording was cut in 1967 by the band's original lineup, but not released until Warner Brothers released an album called Bonniwell Music Machine later that year. By the time of the album's release, all the members of the original band except Bonniwell had moved on to other things, and a new lineup was featured on several tracks on the album.
Artist: Them
Title: Time Out For Time In
Source: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer: Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them to embark on a successful solo career, the rest of the band continued to make records. The first effort was an offshoot group calling themselves the Belfast Gypsys, which released one LP in 1967. The actual band, meanwhile, had returned to their native Ireland and recruited Kenny McDowell as their new lead vocalist. They soon relocated to California, recording two LPs for Tower Records in 1968. The second of these was a collaborative effort between Them and the songwriting team of Tom Pulley and Vivian Lane. The opening track of the LP, Time Out For Time In, was an early example of the progressive rock that was developing on underground rock radio stations at the time.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Time Was
Source: CD: Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Al "Blind Owl" Wilson
Label: Capitol (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1969
Although not known for their single releases, Canned Heat actually had a reasonable amount of chart success, especially considering that they were essentially a blues band in a rock world. Time Was, written by co-founder and guitarist Al "Blind Owl" Wilson, was one of the last of these charted singles.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Friends Of Mine
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer: Bachman/Cummings
Label: Iconoclassic (original US label: RCA Victor; original Canadian label: Nimbus 9)
Year: 1969
On first listen, Friends Of Mine may appear to be a Doors ripoff, but the band members themselves claim it was inspired more by the Who's first mini-opera, "A Quick One While He's Away." Regardless of the source of inspiration, this was certainly the most pyschedelic track ever released by a band known more for catchy pop ballads like "These Eyes" and "No Sugar Tonight." Interestingly enough, RCA released a 45 RPM stereo promo of the song to radio stations, with the 10+ minute track split across the two sides of the record. I first heard this cut on the American Forces Network (AFN) in Germany on a weekly show called Underground that ran at midnight on Saturday nights. I doubt any Generals were listening.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: I Need A Man To Love
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer: Joplin/Albin
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded their first album at the Chicago studios of Mainstream records in 1967. Mainstream, however, was a jazz label and their engineers had no idea how to make a band like Big Brother sound good. When the band signed to Columbia the following year it was decided that the best way to record the band was onstage at the Fillmore West. As a result, when Cheap Thrills was released, four of the seven tracks were live recordings, including the Janis Joplin/Peter Albin collaboration I Need A Man To Love.
Artist: Diana Ross and the Supremes
Title: Love Child
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits-1968
Writer: Taylor/Wilson/Sawyer/Wilson
Label: Rhino (original label: Motown)
Year: 1968
After Flo got kicked out of the Supremes and replaced by Cindy Birdsong, Motown began marketing the group as Diana Ross and the Supremes. At first, the group continued to chart hits, but after a pair of stiffs in late 1967 a meeting of Motown's top people was called to see what could be done to get their top group back on track. The solution was to give a new songwriting and production team a shot, and to come up with something a bit more relevant than the love songs the Supremes had come to be known for. As Motown was billing itself as "the sound of young America", it was decided that the way to put Diana Ross and the Supremes back on top would be to release a song addressing the issue of teenage pregnancy, which was a problem of epidemic proportions at the time, especially in the inner cities. The result was Love Child, which has the distinction of being the song that finally knocked the Beatles' Hey Jude out of the number one spot in December of 1968.
Artist: Frijid Pink
Title: House Of The Rising Sun
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Alan Price
Label: Parrot
Year: 1970
Frijid Pink was a hard rocking blue collar band out of Detroit, Michigan. After releasing two singles on the Parrot label that went nowhere, they band scored big with their feedback-drenched version of House Of The Rising Sun, the song that had made the Animals famous six years earlier. The follow-up single, Sing A Song Of Freedom, barely dented the charts, however, and the group never made any inroads with the new progressive rock stations springing up on the FM dial. As a result, Frijid Pink has been known ever since as one-hit wonders.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1128 Playlist (starts 7/14/11)
This week we have an entire segment of tracks from British bands (including a special five-song spotlight on the Who), and what has to be considered the first punk-rock album of the 1970s. On a less obvious basis, the first segment is a bit of an experiment, as the songs are grouped into pairs instead of the usual three or more in a set. One final note: while doing these notes I couldn't help but notice that I wasn't doing much copy/pasting this week. That's because there are fewer repeat songs from past shows than usual this time around (at least since I've been doing playlists on this blog).
Artist: Byrds
Title: The Times They Are A-Changin'
Source: LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Despite occupying a prominent place in rock history, the folk-rock movement actually had a fairly short lifespan. The most successful folk-rock band, the Byrds, only cut two albums with their original lineup before entering a more experimental phase with the 5D album. Both those early LPs were released in 1965, and by mid-1966 folk-rock had already given way to garage-rock, flower power and psychedelic music. Like the Mr. Tambourine Man album before it, Turn! Turn! Turn! was dominated by electrified versions of existing folk songs, many of which were written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan. Although The Times They Are A-Changin' was a staple of the band's live sets at Ciro's Le Disc on Sunset Strip and on the road, the song was never selected for release as a single.
Artist: P.F. Sloan
Title: Halloween Mary
Source: 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 LA-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 good as many of the recording stars of the time.
Artist: Sugarloaf
Title: West Of Tomorrow
Source: LP: Sugarloaf
Writer: Corbetta/Raymond/Philips
Label: Liberty
Year: 1970
Although not particularly noted for its music scene, Denver, Colorado has contributed its share of successful bands over the years. One of the best known was Sugarloaf, led by keyboardist Jerry Corbetta (who was the only band member not named Bob when they signed with Liberty Records). West Of Tomorrow, from the first Sugarloaf album, is a somewhat typical track for the band, featuring tight harmony vocals and a scathingly hot organ solo.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Just Trying To Be
Source: CD: Benefit (bonus track originally released on LP: Living In The Past)
Writer: Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol
Year: 1970
By 1970 Jethro Tull was firmly in the control of flautist/acoustic guitarist/vocalist Ian Anderson, who wrote all the band's material. During sessions for the Benefit album Anderson recorded a short piece called Just Trying To Be that stylistically presaged the Aqualung album. That piece remained unreleased until 1973's Living In The Past compilation, although it is now available as a bonus track on the Benefit CD.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: Bang Bang
Source: LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer: Sonny Bono
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Vanilla Fudge made their reputation by taking popular hit songs, such as the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On, and extensively re-arranging them, giving the songs an almost classical feel. In fact, some of their arrangements incorporated (uncredited) snippets of actually classical pieces. One glaring example is the Vanilla Fudge arrangement of Cher's biggest solo hit of the 60s, Bang Bang (written by her then-husband Sonny Bono). Unfortunately, although I recognize the classical piece the band uses for an intro to Bang Bang, I can't seem to remember what it's called or who wrote it. Anyone out there able to help?
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room (edited version)
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Wheels Of Fire; edited version released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of "White Room," clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example. It worked, too.
Artist: Lee Morgan
Title: The Sidewinder-Part II
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Lee Morgan
Label: Silver Spotlight (original label: Blue Note)
Year: 1964
Lee Morgan was a hard-bop trumpeter who had been recording since the 1950s when he recorded his best-known piece, the Sidewinder, in late 1963. The full-length version of the song served as the title cut for Morgan's first album of 1964, while an edited version graced the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 that summer. What really got the song (which is considered one of the best examples of "soul jazz") noticed, however, was Chrysler's use of the song in its commercials during the 1964 World Series. At that time, World Series commercials were used for the unveiling of the upcoming model year's cars, and were considered as important as Super Bowl commercials are today.
Artist: Who
Title: Doctor Doctor
Source: CD: A Quick One (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM B side)
Writer: John Entwhistle
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
Keeping an accurate chronology of recordings by the Who in their early years can be a bit difficult, mainly due to the difference in the ways songs were released in the US and the UK. Since the British policy was for songs released on 45 RPM vinyl not to be duplicated on LPs, several early Who songs were nearly impossible to find until being released on compilation albums several years after their original release. One such song is Doctor Doctor, a John Entwhistle tune released as the B side to their 1967 hit Pictures Of Lily. The single was released on both side of the Atlantic, but only received airplay in the UK, where it made the top 10. In the US the record failed to chart and was out of print almost as soon as it was released. The song is now available as a CD bonus track on the 1966 album A Quick One.
Artist: Who
Title: It's Not True
Source: CD: The Who Sings My Generation (Canadian CD issue)
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
Released in December, 1965, the first Who album (called simply My Generation in the UK) was recorded while the band was in their "maximum R&B" phase. The band members themselves were not happy with the album, feeling that they had been rushed through the entire recording process and did not have much say in how the final product sounded. Still, the album is considered one of the most influential debut albums of all time and has made several critics' top albums lists over the years. It's Not True is fairly typical of the songs Pete Townshend was writing at the time.
Artist: Who
Title: My Generation/Land Of Hope And Glory
Source: CD: A Quick One
Writer: Townshend/Elgar
Label: MCA
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1993.
This version of My Generation is actually a truncated version of the song that goes into its well-known chaotic ending after only one verse, with a choir singing Land Of Hope And Glory over the chaos. The recording was released as a bonus track when A Quick One was remastered and reissued on CD in the early 1990s.
Artist: Who
Title: Instant Party (Circles)
Source: CD: The Who Sings My Generation (US and Canadian versions only; song also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965 (Decca LP), 1966 (Atco 45 RPM B side)
As was the case with many British bands, the song lineups on the early Who albums were not exactly the same in the US and the UK. In the case of the My Generation album, the only difference was actually due to censorship by Decca Records, who felt that the band's version of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man was too risque for American teenagers. To replace it, Decca chose a song that had not yet been released in either the US or UK called Instant Party (Circles). The song was released in the UK as "Instant Party" a few months later when the band's original British label, Brunswick, issued it as the B side to A Legal Matter without the band's permission (the Who had changed labels to Reaction/Polydor after the My Generation LP was released). Making it even more confusing was the fact that the Who had released their latest single, Substitute, three days before the Brunswick single, with the song "Circles (Instant Party)" as the B side.
Artist: Who
Title: In The City
Source: CD: A Quick One (bonus track originally released in UK as a 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Entwhistle/Moon
Label: MCA (original UK label: Track)
Year: 1966
The war between the Who and Brunswick Records continued throughout 1966 with Brunswick responding to each new Who single with one of their own, using album tracks from the My Generation album. Despite this all the new Who singles on Reaction/Polydor that year made it to the top 5 in the UK, while the Brunswick singles did increasingly worse with each subsequent release. Brunswick finally gave up the battle after I'm A Boy (on Reaction) went all the way to # 2 on the UK charts, while Brunswick's La-La-La-Lies didn't even crack the top 100. The B side of I'm A Boy was In The City, a rare collaboration between bassist John Entwhistle and drummer Keith Moon. The song was included on the CD remastered version of the Who's second album, A Quick One, released in 1993.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Giving To You
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer: Winwood/Capaldi/Wood/Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Traffic's first LP, Mr. Fantasy, was released in late 1967 under the name Heaven Is In Your Mind by United Artists Records in the US. The reason for this is not entirely clear, although the label may have been expecting the song Heaven Is In Your Mind to be a hit and wanted to capitalize on the title. As it turns out the song didn't do much on the US charts, despite the lead vocals of Steve Winwood, whose voice had already graced two top 10 singles by the Spencer Davis Group (Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man) earlier that year. More recently Island Records, which always had the UK rights to Traffic's material and has had US rights since the early 70s, decided to release CDs under both titles. Mr. Fantasy contains the mono mixes of the songs (plus mono bonus tracks), while Heaven Is In Your Mind has the stereo mixes of the same songs (with some slight differences in bonus tracks). One track that benefits from the stereo mix is Giving To You. Basically an instrumental, the song has some interesting spoken parts and stereo sound effects at the beginning and end of what is otherwise a rather tasty jam session.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Lady Jane
Source: CD: Aftermath (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated seperately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).
Artist: Beatles
Title: Mother Nature's Son
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1968
The Beatles (aka the White Album) was in many respects a collection of solo efforts by the band members as opposed to being a group effort. Most of the double LP's 30 tracks did not feature the entire band. This was especially notable among the many Lennon/McCartney compositions. Even though John Lennon and Paul McCartney were not writing as a team at this point (although they continued to share writing credits for the rest of the band's existence), they did tend to play on each other's songs, most of which had little or no input from either George Harrison or Ringo Starr. The only member featured on Mother Nature's Son, however, was McCartney (including the drum parts). Stylistically the song links back to For No One from the Revolver album and also previews the first McCartney solo album, in which he plays every instrument himself.
Artist: Them
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: 12" single (from Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack)
Writer: Joe Williams
Label: A&M
Year: 1965
Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Led by Van Morrison, Them quickly got a reputation for being rude and obnoxious, particularly to members of the English press (although it was actually a fellow Irishman who labeled them as "boorish"). Their first single was what has come to be considered the definitive version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the single was never issued in the US. Oddly enough, the song's B side ended up being the song most people associate with Them: the classic Gloria, which was released as Them's US debut single in 1965 but promptly found itself banned on most US radio stations due to suggestive lyrics. Them's recording of Baby, Please Don't Go enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980s when it was used in the hit movie Good Morning Vietnam.
Artist: James Gang
Title: Funk # 48
Source: CD: Yer Album
Writer: Walsh/Fox/Kriss
Label: MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year: 1969
Cleveland's James Gang was one of the original power trios of the seventies. Although generally known as the starting place of Joe Walsh, the band was actually led by Jim Fox, one of the most underrated drummers in the history of rock. Fox, who was the only member to stay with the group through its many personnel changes over the years, sings lead on Funk # 48 from the band's debut album on Bluesway. Yer Album, incidentally, was the only rock LP ever issued on the Bluesway label.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer: Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of violence. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack of its time.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mickey Newbury decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Newbury wrote most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: Gary Lewis and the Playboys
Title: She's Just My Style
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Lewis/Russell/Leslie/Capps
Label: Liberty
Year: 1966
Gary Lewis was a clean-cut young man who happened to be the son of comedian Jerry Lewis. He first came to prominence with his band the Playboys with the smash hit This Diamond Ring in 1965. This was followed up by a string of hit singles, including Count Me In and Everybody Loves A Clown. The last major hit for the group was a song that actually sounded like it could have been written by Brian Wilson, but was in reality co-written by Lewis himself along with a team of professional songwriters than included Leon Russell, who also arranged the song. Lewis's career got put on hold when he went into military service in 1966. By the time he returned the music world had changed drastically and his brand of good time pop was no longer in demand.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: She Wandered Through The Garden Fence
Source: CD: Procol Harum (stereo bonus track)
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo (original label: A&M)
Year: 1967
The first Procol Harum LP, although recorded using 4-track equipment, was originally mixed in monoraul only. A few years later, a handful of songs were remixed from the original master tapes in stereo. One of those is She Wandered Through The Garden Fence, which is included on the import CD of the album.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: Visions Of Your Reality
Source: LP: Behold And See
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The second Ultimate Spinach continues in the same musical vein as the Boston group's debut album. Much of this is due to the fact that all the material on both albums was written by keyboardist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who would leave the band after the release of Behold And See in 1968. A solid, if unspectacular, example of the band at that point is the track Visions Of Your Reality. The group would continue in name only after Bruce-Douglas's departure, and there is even a band somewhere in the Pacific Northwest today calling itself Ultimate Spinach, but none of these sound anything like the original group.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Take What You Need
Source: CD: Steppenwolf
Writer: Kay/Mekler
Label: MCA
Year: 1968 (original label: Dunhill)
After playing a set of tunes I had never played on the show before, I thought I'd follow it up with...another song I'd never played on the show before. I guess I just wasn't feeling very creative at the time.
Artist: David Peel and the Lower East Side
Title: The American Revolution-Part 2
Source: The American Revolution
Writer: David Peel
Label: Elektra
Year: 1970
If there was any one band that could be called a Yippie band, it was David Peel and the Lower East Side. As much street theater as rock and roll, the group consisted of three core members: David Peel (guitar, vocals), Billy Joe White (guitar, vocals), and Harold C. Black (tambourine, vocals), plus just about anyone who wanted to play and/or sing along. The group's first album was Have A Marijuana, recorded live at New York's Washington Square at a cost of around $4,000. The album was a surprise cult hit, netting Elektra nearly a million dollars. The band's priorities, however, were more about social issues than musical ones, and the group did not get around to recording another album until 1970. By then the Yippie movement had run its course, and the decision was made to abandon the street theater aspect of the group and concentrate instead on making a studio album. To do this, they enlisted several new semi-official members to record The American Revolution, arguably the first true punk-rock LP ever recorded. The songs covered a variety of topical issues, including sex (Girls, Girls, Girls), religion (God), and the still-raging Vietnam War (I Want To Kill You and Hey, Mr. Draftboard). The songs themselves segue into each other on the LP, resulting in two suites running about 15 minutes each (one per side). This week we are presenting the second suite/side of The American Revolution, which includes the four songs mentioned above. Clash fans, enjoy!
Artist: Edwin Starr
Title: War
Source: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Whitfield/Strong
Label: Rhino (original label: Gordy)
Year: 1970
An appropriate follow up to the side of David Peel and the Lower East Side, War was a number one hit record for Edwin Starr in 1970. The song, Starr's biggest hit of his career, was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, who would go on to write a series of increasingly complex and psychedelic songs in the early 70s, mostly for the Temptations (culminating with the classic Papa Was A Rolling Stone in 1972).
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Van Morrison
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.
Artist: Great! Society
Title: Somebody To Love
Source: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: Darby Slick
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
Our closing number this week is the original version of one of the most important songs in rock history. As recorded by Jefferson Airplane in 1967, the song introduced the world to the San Francisco music scene, almost single-handedly bringing the garage-rock era to a close in the process due to its superb musicianship. As originally conceived by guitarist Darby Slick and recorded live in 1966 by Slick's band, the Great! Society, however, the song is revealed to be a solid piece of garage rock itself, highlighted by the vocals of Slick's sister-in-law, Grace.
Artist: Byrds
Title: The Times They Are A-Changin'
Source: LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Despite occupying a prominent place in rock history, the folk-rock movement actually had a fairly short lifespan. The most successful folk-rock band, the Byrds, only cut two albums with their original lineup before entering a more experimental phase with the 5D album. Both those early LPs were released in 1965, and by mid-1966 folk-rock had already given way to garage-rock, flower power and psychedelic music. Like the Mr. Tambourine Man album before it, Turn! Turn! Turn! was dominated by electrified versions of existing folk songs, many of which were written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan. Although The Times They Are A-Changin' was a staple of the band's live sets at Ciro's Le Disc on Sunset Strip and on the road, the song was never selected for release as a single.
Artist: P.F. Sloan
Title: Halloween Mary
Source: 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 LA-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 good as many of the recording stars of the time.
Artist: Sugarloaf
Title: West Of Tomorrow
Source: LP: Sugarloaf
Writer: Corbetta/Raymond/Philips
Label: Liberty
Year: 1970
Although not particularly noted for its music scene, Denver, Colorado has contributed its share of successful bands over the years. One of the best known was Sugarloaf, led by keyboardist Jerry Corbetta (who was the only band member not named Bob when they signed with Liberty Records). West Of Tomorrow, from the first Sugarloaf album, is a somewhat typical track for the band, featuring tight harmony vocals and a scathingly hot organ solo.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Just Trying To Be
Source: CD: Benefit (bonus track originally released on LP: Living In The Past)
Writer: Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol
Year: 1970
By 1970 Jethro Tull was firmly in the control of flautist/acoustic guitarist/vocalist Ian Anderson, who wrote all the band's material. During sessions for the Benefit album Anderson recorded a short piece called Just Trying To Be that stylistically presaged the Aqualung album. That piece remained unreleased until 1973's Living In The Past compilation, although it is now available as a bonus track on the Benefit CD.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: Bang Bang
Source: LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer: Sonny Bono
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Vanilla Fudge made their reputation by taking popular hit songs, such as the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On, and extensively re-arranging them, giving the songs an almost classical feel. In fact, some of their arrangements incorporated (uncredited) snippets of actually classical pieces. One glaring example is the Vanilla Fudge arrangement of Cher's biggest solo hit of the 60s, Bang Bang (written by her then-husband Sonny Bono). Unfortunately, although I recognize the classical piece the band uses for an intro to Bang Bang, I can't seem to remember what it's called or who wrote it. Anyone out there able to help?
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room (edited version)
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Wheels Of Fire; edited version released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of "White Room," clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example. It worked, too.
Artist: Lee Morgan
Title: The Sidewinder-Part II
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Lee Morgan
Label: Silver Spotlight (original label: Blue Note)
Year: 1964
Lee Morgan was a hard-bop trumpeter who had been recording since the 1950s when he recorded his best-known piece, the Sidewinder, in late 1963. The full-length version of the song served as the title cut for Morgan's first album of 1964, while an edited version graced the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 that summer. What really got the song (which is considered one of the best examples of "soul jazz") noticed, however, was Chrysler's use of the song in its commercials during the 1964 World Series. At that time, World Series commercials were used for the unveiling of the upcoming model year's cars, and were considered as important as Super Bowl commercials are today.
Artist: Who
Title: Doctor Doctor
Source: CD: A Quick One (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM B side)
Writer: John Entwhistle
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
Keeping an accurate chronology of recordings by the Who in their early years can be a bit difficult, mainly due to the difference in the ways songs were released in the US and the UK. Since the British policy was for songs released on 45 RPM vinyl not to be duplicated on LPs, several early Who songs were nearly impossible to find until being released on compilation albums several years after their original release. One such song is Doctor Doctor, a John Entwhistle tune released as the B side to their 1967 hit Pictures Of Lily. The single was released on both side of the Atlantic, but only received airplay in the UK, where it made the top 10. In the US the record failed to chart and was out of print almost as soon as it was released. The song is now available as a CD bonus track on the 1966 album A Quick One.
Artist: Who
Title: It's Not True
Source: CD: The Who Sings My Generation (Canadian CD issue)
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
Released in December, 1965, the first Who album (called simply My Generation in the UK) was recorded while the band was in their "maximum R&B" phase. The band members themselves were not happy with the album, feeling that they had been rushed through the entire recording process and did not have much say in how the final product sounded. Still, the album is considered one of the most influential debut albums of all time and has made several critics' top albums lists over the years. It's Not True is fairly typical of the songs Pete Townshend was writing at the time.
Artist: Who
Title: My Generation/Land Of Hope And Glory
Source: CD: A Quick One
Writer: Townshend/Elgar
Label: MCA
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1993.
This version of My Generation is actually a truncated version of the song that goes into its well-known chaotic ending after only one verse, with a choir singing Land Of Hope And Glory over the chaos. The recording was released as a bonus track when A Quick One was remastered and reissued on CD in the early 1990s.
Artist: Who
Title: Instant Party (Circles)
Source: CD: The Who Sings My Generation (US and Canadian versions only; song also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965 (Decca LP), 1966 (Atco 45 RPM B side)
As was the case with many British bands, the song lineups on the early Who albums were not exactly the same in the US and the UK. In the case of the My Generation album, the only difference was actually due to censorship by Decca Records, who felt that the band's version of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man was too risque for American teenagers. To replace it, Decca chose a song that had not yet been released in either the US or UK called Instant Party (Circles). The song was released in the UK as "Instant Party" a few months later when the band's original British label, Brunswick, issued it as the B side to A Legal Matter without the band's permission (the Who had changed labels to Reaction/Polydor after the My Generation LP was released). Making it even more confusing was the fact that the Who had released their latest single, Substitute, three days before the Brunswick single, with the song "Circles (Instant Party)" as the B side.
Artist: Who
Title: In The City
Source: CD: A Quick One (bonus track originally released in UK as a 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Entwhistle/Moon
Label: MCA (original UK label: Track)
Year: 1966
The war between the Who and Brunswick Records continued throughout 1966 with Brunswick responding to each new Who single with one of their own, using album tracks from the My Generation album. Despite this all the new Who singles on Reaction/Polydor that year made it to the top 5 in the UK, while the Brunswick singles did increasingly worse with each subsequent release. Brunswick finally gave up the battle after I'm A Boy (on Reaction) went all the way to # 2 on the UK charts, while Brunswick's La-La-La-Lies didn't even crack the top 100. The B side of I'm A Boy was In The City, a rare collaboration between bassist John Entwhistle and drummer Keith Moon. The song was included on the CD remastered version of the Who's second album, A Quick One, released in 1993.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Giving To You
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer: Winwood/Capaldi/Wood/Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Traffic's first LP, Mr. Fantasy, was released in late 1967 under the name Heaven Is In Your Mind by United Artists Records in the US. The reason for this is not entirely clear, although the label may have been expecting the song Heaven Is In Your Mind to be a hit and wanted to capitalize on the title. As it turns out the song didn't do much on the US charts, despite the lead vocals of Steve Winwood, whose voice had already graced two top 10 singles by the Spencer Davis Group (Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man) earlier that year. More recently Island Records, which always had the UK rights to Traffic's material and has had US rights since the early 70s, decided to release CDs under both titles. Mr. Fantasy contains the mono mixes of the songs (plus mono bonus tracks), while Heaven Is In Your Mind has the stereo mixes of the same songs (with some slight differences in bonus tracks). One track that benefits from the stereo mix is Giving To You. Basically an instrumental, the song has some interesting spoken parts and stereo sound effects at the beginning and end of what is otherwise a rather tasty jam session.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Lady Jane
Source: CD: Aftermath (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated seperately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).
Artist: Beatles
Title: Mother Nature's Son
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1968
The Beatles (aka the White Album) was in many respects a collection of solo efforts by the band members as opposed to being a group effort. Most of the double LP's 30 tracks did not feature the entire band. This was especially notable among the many Lennon/McCartney compositions. Even though John Lennon and Paul McCartney were not writing as a team at this point (although they continued to share writing credits for the rest of the band's existence), they did tend to play on each other's songs, most of which had little or no input from either George Harrison or Ringo Starr. The only member featured on Mother Nature's Son, however, was McCartney (including the drum parts). Stylistically the song links back to For No One from the Revolver album and also previews the first McCartney solo album, in which he plays every instrument himself.
Artist: Them
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: 12" single (from Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack)
Writer: Joe Williams
Label: A&M
Year: 1965
Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Led by Van Morrison, Them quickly got a reputation for being rude and obnoxious, particularly to members of the English press (although it was actually a fellow Irishman who labeled them as "boorish"). Their first single was what has come to be considered the definitive version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the single was never issued in the US. Oddly enough, the song's B side ended up being the song most people associate with Them: the classic Gloria, which was released as Them's US debut single in 1965 but promptly found itself banned on most US radio stations due to suggestive lyrics. Them's recording of Baby, Please Don't Go enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980s when it was used in the hit movie Good Morning Vietnam.
Artist: James Gang
Title: Funk # 48
Source: CD: Yer Album
Writer: Walsh/Fox/Kriss
Label: MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year: 1969
Cleveland's James Gang was one of the original power trios of the seventies. Although generally known as the starting place of Joe Walsh, the band was actually led by Jim Fox, one of the most underrated drummers in the history of rock. Fox, who was the only member to stay with the group through its many personnel changes over the years, sings lead on Funk # 48 from the band's debut album on Bluesway. Yer Album, incidentally, was the only rock LP ever issued on the Bluesway label.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer: Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of violence. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack of its time.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mickey Newbury decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Newbury wrote most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: Gary Lewis and the Playboys
Title: She's Just My Style
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Lewis/Russell/Leslie/Capps
Label: Liberty
Year: 1966
Gary Lewis was a clean-cut young man who happened to be the son of comedian Jerry Lewis. He first came to prominence with his band the Playboys with the smash hit This Diamond Ring in 1965. This was followed up by a string of hit singles, including Count Me In and Everybody Loves A Clown. The last major hit for the group was a song that actually sounded like it could have been written by Brian Wilson, but was in reality co-written by Lewis himself along with a team of professional songwriters than included Leon Russell, who also arranged the song. Lewis's career got put on hold when he went into military service in 1966. By the time he returned the music world had changed drastically and his brand of good time pop was no longer in demand.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: She Wandered Through The Garden Fence
Source: CD: Procol Harum (stereo bonus track)
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo (original label: A&M)
Year: 1967
The first Procol Harum LP, although recorded using 4-track equipment, was originally mixed in monoraul only. A few years later, a handful of songs were remixed from the original master tapes in stereo. One of those is She Wandered Through The Garden Fence, which is included on the import CD of the album.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: Visions Of Your Reality
Source: LP: Behold And See
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The second Ultimate Spinach continues in the same musical vein as the Boston group's debut album. Much of this is due to the fact that all the material on both albums was written by keyboardist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who would leave the band after the release of Behold And See in 1968. A solid, if unspectacular, example of the band at that point is the track Visions Of Your Reality. The group would continue in name only after Bruce-Douglas's departure, and there is even a band somewhere in the Pacific Northwest today calling itself Ultimate Spinach, but none of these sound anything like the original group.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Take What You Need
Source: CD: Steppenwolf
Writer: Kay/Mekler
Label: MCA
Year: 1968 (original label: Dunhill)
After playing a set of tunes I had never played on the show before, I thought I'd follow it up with...another song I'd never played on the show before. I guess I just wasn't feeling very creative at the time.
Artist: David Peel and the Lower East Side
Title: The American Revolution-Part 2
Source: The American Revolution
Writer: David Peel
Label: Elektra
Year: 1970
If there was any one band that could be called a Yippie band, it was David Peel and the Lower East Side. As much street theater as rock and roll, the group consisted of three core members: David Peel (guitar, vocals), Billy Joe White (guitar, vocals), and Harold C. Black (tambourine, vocals), plus just about anyone who wanted to play and/or sing along. The group's first album was Have A Marijuana, recorded live at New York's Washington Square at a cost of around $4,000. The album was a surprise cult hit, netting Elektra nearly a million dollars. The band's priorities, however, were more about social issues than musical ones, and the group did not get around to recording another album until 1970. By then the Yippie movement had run its course, and the decision was made to abandon the street theater aspect of the group and concentrate instead on making a studio album. To do this, they enlisted several new semi-official members to record The American Revolution, arguably the first true punk-rock LP ever recorded. The songs covered a variety of topical issues, including sex (Girls, Girls, Girls), religion (God), and the still-raging Vietnam War (I Want To Kill You and Hey, Mr. Draftboard). The songs themselves segue into each other on the LP, resulting in two suites running about 15 minutes each (one per side). This week we are presenting the second suite/side of The American Revolution, which includes the four songs mentioned above. Clash fans, enjoy!
Artist: Edwin Starr
Title: War
Source: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Whitfield/Strong
Label: Rhino (original label: Gordy)
Year: 1970
An appropriate follow up to the side of David Peel and the Lower East Side, War was a number one hit record for Edwin Starr in 1970. The song, Starr's biggest hit of his career, was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, who would go on to write a series of increasingly complex and psychedelic songs in the early 70s, mostly for the Temptations (culminating with the classic Papa Was A Rolling Stone in 1972).
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Van Morrison
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.
Artist: Great! Society
Title: Somebody To Love
Source: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: Darby Slick
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
Our closing number this week is the original version of one of the most important songs in rock history. As recorded by Jefferson Airplane in 1967, the song introduced the world to the San Francisco music scene, almost single-handedly bringing the garage-rock era to a close in the process due to its superb musicianship. As originally conceived by guitarist Darby Slick and recorded live in 1966 by Slick's band, the Great! Society, however, the song is revealed to be a solid piece of garage rock itself, highlighted by the vocals of Slick's sister-in-law, Grace.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1127 Playlist and notes
I decided to change the post title starting this week in the hopes of making it easier to find using a search engine. The content is still pretty much the same, though (and yes I have been doing some copy/pasting to be able to get these up a day or two sooner).
Artist: Balloon Farm
Title: A Question Of Temperature
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Writer: Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
We start off the show with a tune last heard a couple weeks ago. A Question Of Temperature, unlike most of the tracks heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, is a studio creation from New York City that was released in late 1967, hitting its peak of popularity in March of 1968. One of the writer/musicians involved in the project was Mike Appel, who later went on to discover Bruce Springsteen and became, for a time, Springsteen's personal manager.
Artist: Doors
Title: I Can't See Your Face In My Mind
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors second LP, Strange Days, was essentially a continuation of the band's first album stylistically, even down to closing the LP with a long extended jam track featuring a Jim Morrison monologue (or poem, if you prefer). In all likelihood there were several songs on the album that had already been written by the time the Doors signed a recording contract with Elektra, but had to be left off the first LP due to space limitations. If I had to make a guess I'd put I Can't See Your Face In My Mind in that category.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)
Source: LP: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer: Ragovoy/Taylor
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
A glance through the various playlists on this blog makes one thing abundantly clear: the psychedelic era was a time for bands, as opposed to individual stars. The music industry itself, however, tends to favor the single artist. Perhaps this is because it is easier to market (cynics would say exploit) an individual artist than a collective of musicians. In the case of Janis Joplin, people in the industry managed to convince her that her fellow members of Big Brother and the Holding Company were holding her back due to their lack of musicianship. A listen to her first album without her old bandmates puts the lie to that argument. Although the Kozmic Blues Band may indeed have had greater expertise as individual musicians than Big Brother, the energy that had electrified audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival and at various San Francisco ballrooms was just not there, and the album is generally considered somewhat limp in comparison to Cheap Thrills. The opening (and some would say best) track on the album is Try (Just A Little Bit Harder). While not a bad song, the recording just doesn't have the magic of a Piece of My Heart or Ball and Chain, despite a strong vocal performance by Joplin herself.
Title: I Put A Spell On You
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer: Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Label: Rhino
Year: 1969
Before getting major attention for its string of top five singles (including three consecutive # 2 songs), CCR released a pair of cover tunes in 1968: Dale Hawkins' Suzy Q and this one from an entirely different Hawkins, Screamin' Jay. Although the Creedence version only made it to the # 58 spot on the national charts, it was still part of their repertoire when they played at Woodstock the following year.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Down By The River
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was Neil Young's second solo album. It was also the first one with Crazy Horse. Down By the River was one of three tracks on the album to get significant FM airplay and continued to be a staple of album rock stations for years. Coincidentally (or maybe not) the same three songs were all written while Young was running a 104 degree fever. We should all be so sick.
Artist: Peter, Paul and Mary
Title: Flora
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Stookey/Travers/Mezzetti
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1963
A gem from the early days of Peter, Paul and Mary, Flora originally was released on the LP Moving and was issued as the B side of the group's successful Dylan cover, Blowin' In The Wind, in 1963.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Thoughts And Words
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer: Chris Hillman
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
In addition to recording the most commercially successful Dylan cover songs, the Byrds had a wealth of original material over the course of several albums. On their first album, these came primarily from guitarists Gene Clark and Jim (now Roger) McGuinn, with David Crosby emerging as the group's third songwriter on the band's second album. After Clark's departure, bassist Chris Hillman began writing as well, and had three credits as solo songwriter on the group's fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. Hillman credits McGuinn, however, for coming up with the distinctive reverse-guitar break midway through the song.
Artist: Byrds
Title: 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song)
Source: LP: 5D
Writer: Roger McGuinn
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
1966 was the beginning of a time when rock musicians began to experiment in the recording studio. One early effort was Roger (then Jim) McGuinn's 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song), which uses a recording of an actual jet plane throughout the track.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Why
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer: McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
The closing track for the Byrds' fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday, was originally recorded in late 1965 at RCA studios and was released as the B side of Eight Miles High in 1966. The Younger Than Yesterday version of Why is actually a re-recording of the song.
Artist: Cream
Title: Swalbr
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears (also released as 45 RPM B side)
Writer: Bruce/Brown
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, the song was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Skip Softly (My Moonbeams)
Source: LP: Shine On Brightly
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1968
Procol Harum is not generally thought of as a novelty act. The closest they ever came was this track from the Shine On Brightly album that steals shamelessly from a classical piece I really should know the name of but don't.
Artist: Tommy James and the Shondells
Title: Breakaway
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: James/Vale
Label: Roulette
Year: 1969
From a modern perspective it seems obvious that the only thing keeping Roulette Records going in the late 60s was the string of hits on the label by Tommy James and the Shondells. Oddly enough, Tommy James was one of many acts that initially tanked on the label. It was only when a Pittsburgh DJ began playing a two year old copy of Hanky Panky he had rescued from the throwaway pile in 1966 that the band's career took off. By then, however, the original Shondells had long-since disbanded and James found himself suddenly in demand with no band to back him up. He soon found a new group of Shondells and began cranking out an amazing streak of hits, including I Think We're Alone Now, Mony Mony, Crystal Blue Persuasion and Crimson and Clover. By 1969, however, the streak was coming to an end, with Sweet Cherry Wine being one of the group's last top 40 hits. The B side of that record was the decidedly psychedelic Breakaway. James would continue as a solo artist after the Shondells split up, scoring his last hit in 1971 with Draggin' The Line.
Artist: Beau Brummels
Title: Just A Little
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Writer: Elliott/Durand
Label: Rhino (original label: Autumn)
Year: 1965
Often dismissed as an American imitation of British Invasion bands such as the Beatles, the Beau Brummels actually played a pivotal role in rock music history. Formed in San Francisco in 1964, the Brummels were led by Ron Elliott, who co-wrote most of the band's material, including their two top 10 singles in 1965. The second of these, Just A Little, is often cited as the first folk-rock hit, as it was released a week before the Byrds' recording of Mr. Tambourine Man. According to Elliott, the band was not trying to invent folk-rock, however. Rather, it was their own limitations as musicians that forced them to work with what they had: solid vocal harmonies and a mixture of electric and acoustic guitars. Elliott also credits the contributions of producer Sly Stone for the song's success. Conversely, Just A Little was Stone's greatest success as a producer prior to forming his own band, the Family Stone, in 1967.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: A Hazy Shade Of Winter
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Originally released as a single in 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs written for the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used in the film was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Everybody's Wrong
Source: LP: Buffalo Springfield
Writer: Stephen Stills
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
We finish out the first hour this week with a seldom-heard Stephen Stills track from the first Buffalo Springfield album. Like much of Stills's early work, the song has a harder edge than the material he became famous for in the 1970s.
Artist: Bob Weir
Title: Mexicali Blues
Source: CD: Skeletons From the Closet (originally released on LP: Ace)
Writer: Weir/Barlow
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1972
In 1972 Warner Brothers gave all the members of the Grateful Dead an opportunity to record solo albums. Three of them, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart and Bob Weir, took the label up on their offer. Unlike Garcia, who played many of the instruments on his album himself, Weir chose to use the other members of the Dead (with the sole exception of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan) on his LP, entitled Ace.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Caress Me Baby
Source: LP: Projections
Writer: Jimmy Reed
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
After deliberately truncating their extended jams for their first LP, Live At The Cafe Au-Go-Go, the Blues Project recorded a second album that was a much more accurate representation of what the band was all about. Mixed in with the group's original material was this outstanding cover of an old Jimmy Reed tune, sung by lead guitarist and Blues Project founder Danny Kalb, running over seven minutes long. Andy Kuhlberg's memorable walking bass line would be lifted a few year later by Blood, Sweat and Tears bassist Jim Fielder for the track Blues, Part II.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Try A Little Tenderness
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer: Woods/Campbell/Connelly
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the most electrifying performances at the legendary Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 happened on Saturday night during a rainstorm. Otis Redding (backed by Booker T. and the MGs, with Wayne Jackson on trumpet and Andrew Love on sax) was scheduled for the closing slot, but due to technical problems earlier in the day found himself with only enough time for five songs before the festival had to shut down for the night. At the end of his closing song, Try A Little Tenderness, Redding can be heard saying "I've got to go now. I don't want to go" as the festival's organizers, mindful of the terms of their permit, were rushing him off the stage.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Gonna Have A Good Time
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
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 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). One of the Easybeats' biggest hits in Australia was Good Times from the album Vigil. I can't verify whether Gonna Have A Good Time is actually Good Times or not, but what little information I have (such as the fact that Good Times was covered by INXS for the film The Lost Boys and my own memory of hearing a remake of this song sometime in the late 80s) leads me to believe that the two are one and the same. Young and Vanda later 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.
Artist: Leigh Stephens
Title: Drifting
Source: LP: Red Weather
Writer: Leigh Stephens
Label: Philips
Year: 1969
After two albums lead guitarist Leigh Stephens left Blue Cheer to work on solo projects. The resulting album, Red Weather, was recorded in England and included some of the UK's top session players such as Nicky Hopkins. Drifting, a semi-acoustic instrumental piece, is stylistically worlds away from the proto-metal sound of Blue Cheer. To my knowledge Red Weather has never been issued on CD (at least not in the US).
Artist: G.T.O.s
Title: Do Me In Once And I'll Be Sad, Do Me In Twice And I'll Know Better (Circular Circulation)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: George/Rowe
Label: Straight
Year: 1969
The G.T.O.s were the infamous "groupie" group that made a few memorable appearances in the L.A area, usually on the same bill with the Mothers of Invention. All the members used stage names staring with "Miss", such as Miss Cynderella, Miss Mercy and Miss Sandra, who was in reality Sandra Rowe, who wrote the lyrics to Do Me In Once And I'll Be Sad, Do Me In Twice And I'll Know Better (Circular Circulation). The song, which was co-written and produced by Lowell George, appeared on the group's only LP, recorded by Frank Zappa for his Straight records label. Interestingly enough, the single release of the song gave the title as Circular Circulation, no doubt to improve the record's chance of getting played on the radio (like that was gonna happen).
Artist: Serpent Power
Title: Up And Down
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Serpent Power)
Writer: David Meltzer
Label: Rhino (original label: Vanguard)
Year: 1967
David Meltzer was a beat poet who by the late 60s had already spent several years in the San Francisco Bay area, recording a spoken word album in 1959. For reasons having something to do with yoga, Meltzer and his wife Tina decided to form a band in 1967, calling it the Serpent Power. The group cut one LP for Vanguard. Up and Down is one of the shorter tracks from that album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Writer In The Sun
Source: CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
In 1966-67 Donovan's career was almost derailed by a contractual dispute with his UK label, Pye Records. This resulted in two of his albums, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, not being issued in the UK. At the time he felt that there was a real chance that he would be forced into retirement by the dispute, and with that weighing heavily on his mind he wrote the song Writer In The Sun. Ironically his career was moving in the opposite direction in the US due to him switching from the relatively small Hickory label to Epic Records (a subsidiary of Columbia, at the time the second-largest record company in the US) and scoring top 10 singles with the title tracks from both albums. His success with those records in the US may have been a factor in Pye settling with the singer-songwriter and issuing a British album that combined tracks from the two albums in late 1967.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Take Up Thy Stethescope And Walk
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer: Roger Waters
Label: Capitol
Year: 1967 (original label: Tower)
Contrary to popular belief, Syd Barrett did not write all the material on Pink Floyd's first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. One of the non-Barrett tracks is Take Up Thy Stethescope And Walk, an early composition by Roger Waters, who would take over as de facto leader of the band when Barrett's mental health issues forced him into retirement.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
In late 1966 five guys from San Jose California managed to sound more like the Yardbirds that the Yardbirds themselves, especially considering that Jeff Beck was no longer a Yardbird in late 1966. One interesting note about this record is that as late as the mid-1980s the 45 RPM single on the original label was still available in record stores, complete with the original B side. Normally songs more than a year or two old were only available on anthology LPs or on reissue singles with "back-to-back hits" on them. The complete takeover of the record racks by CDs in the late 1980s changed all that.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source: LP: The Seeds
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. market in early 1966 was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, predating the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Writer: 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: Jefferson Airplane
Title: And I Like It
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer: Balin/Kaukonen
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Jorma Kaukonen was giving guitar lessons when approached by Marty Balin to join a new band he was forming. Kaukonen said yes and became a founding member of Jefferson Airplane. The two seldom collaborated on songwriting, though. One of the few examples of a Balin/Kaukonen composition is And I Like It from the band's first album. The song sounds to me like what Hot Tuna would sound like but with Balin's vocals instead of Kaukonen's.
Artist: Balloon Farm
Title: A Question Of Temperature
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Writer: Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
We start off the show with a tune last heard a couple weeks ago. A Question Of Temperature, unlike most of the tracks heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, is a studio creation from New York City that was released in late 1967, hitting its peak of popularity in March of 1968. One of the writer/musicians involved in the project was Mike Appel, who later went on to discover Bruce Springsteen and became, for a time, Springsteen's personal manager.
Artist: Doors
Title: I Can't See Your Face In My Mind
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors second LP, Strange Days, was essentially a continuation of the band's first album stylistically, even down to closing the LP with a long extended jam track featuring a Jim Morrison monologue (or poem, if you prefer). In all likelihood there were several songs on the album that had already been written by the time the Doors signed a recording contract with Elektra, but had to be left off the first LP due to space limitations. If I had to make a guess I'd put I Can't See Your Face In My Mind in that category.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)
Source: LP: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer: Ragovoy/Taylor
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
A glance through the various playlists on this blog makes one thing abundantly clear: the psychedelic era was a time for bands, as opposed to individual stars. The music industry itself, however, tends to favor the single artist. Perhaps this is because it is easier to market (cynics would say exploit) an individual artist than a collective of musicians. In the case of Janis Joplin, people in the industry managed to convince her that her fellow members of Big Brother and the Holding Company were holding her back due to their lack of musicianship. A listen to her first album without her old bandmates puts the lie to that argument. Although the Kozmic Blues Band may indeed have had greater expertise as individual musicians than Big Brother, the energy that had electrified audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival and at various San Francisco ballrooms was just not there, and the album is generally considered somewhat limp in comparison to Cheap Thrills. The opening (and some would say best) track on the album is Try (Just A Little Bit Harder). While not a bad song, the recording just doesn't have the magic of a Piece of My Heart or Ball and Chain, despite a strong vocal performance by Joplin herself.
Title: I Put A Spell On You
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer: Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Label: Rhino
Year: 1969
Before getting major attention for its string of top five singles (including three consecutive # 2 songs), CCR released a pair of cover tunes in 1968: Dale Hawkins' Suzy Q and this one from an entirely different Hawkins, Screamin' Jay. Although the Creedence version only made it to the # 58 spot on the national charts, it was still part of their repertoire when they played at Woodstock the following year.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Down By The River
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was Neil Young's second solo album. It was also the first one with Crazy Horse. Down By the River was one of three tracks on the album to get significant FM airplay and continued to be a staple of album rock stations for years. Coincidentally (or maybe not) the same three songs were all written while Young was running a 104 degree fever. We should all be so sick.
Artist: Peter, Paul and Mary
Title: Flora
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Stookey/Travers/Mezzetti
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1963
A gem from the early days of Peter, Paul and Mary, Flora originally was released on the LP Moving and was issued as the B side of the group's successful Dylan cover, Blowin' In The Wind, in 1963.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Thoughts And Words
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer: Chris Hillman
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
In addition to recording the most commercially successful Dylan cover songs, the Byrds had a wealth of original material over the course of several albums. On their first album, these came primarily from guitarists Gene Clark and Jim (now Roger) McGuinn, with David Crosby emerging as the group's third songwriter on the band's second album. After Clark's departure, bassist Chris Hillman began writing as well, and had three credits as solo songwriter on the group's fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. Hillman credits McGuinn, however, for coming up with the distinctive reverse-guitar break midway through the song.
Artist: Byrds
Title: 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song)
Source: LP: 5D
Writer: Roger McGuinn
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
1966 was the beginning of a time when rock musicians began to experiment in the recording studio. One early effort was Roger (then Jim) McGuinn's 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song), which uses a recording of an actual jet plane throughout the track.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Why
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer: McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
The closing track for the Byrds' fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday, was originally recorded in late 1965 at RCA studios and was released as the B side of Eight Miles High in 1966. The Younger Than Yesterday version of Why is actually a re-recording of the song.
Artist: Cream
Title: Swalbr
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears (also released as 45 RPM B side)
Writer: Bruce/Brown
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, the song was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Skip Softly (My Moonbeams)
Source: LP: Shine On Brightly
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1968
Procol Harum is not generally thought of as a novelty act. The closest they ever came was this track from the Shine On Brightly album that steals shamelessly from a classical piece I really should know the name of but don't.
Artist: Tommy James and the Shondells
Title: Breakaway
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: James/Vale
Label: Roulette
Year: 1969
From a modern perspective it seems obvious that the only thing keeping Roulette Records going in the late 60s was the string of hits on the label by Tommy James and the Shondells. Oddly enough, Tommy James was one of many acts that initially tanked on the label. It was only when a Pittsburgh DJ began playing a two year old copy of Hanky Panky he had rescued from the throwaway pile in 1966 that the band's career took off. By then, however, the original Shondells had long-since disbanded and James found himself suddenly in demand with no band to back him up. He soon found a new group of Shondells and began cranking out an amazing streak of hits, including I Think We're Alone Now, Mony Mony, Crystal Blue Persuasion and Crimson and Clover. By 1969, however, the streak was coming to an end, with Sweet Cherry Wine being one of the group's last top 40 hits. The B side of that record was the decidedly psychedelic Breakaway. James would continue as a solo artist after the Shondells split up, scoring his last hit in 1971 with Draggin' The Line.
Artist: Beau Brummels
Title: Just A Little
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Writer: Elliott/Durand
Label: Rhino (original label: Autumn)
Year: 1965
Often dismissed as an American imitation of British Invasion bands such as the Beatles, the Beau Brummels actually played a pivotal role in rock music history. Formed in San Francisco in 1964, the Brummels were led by Ron Elliott, who co-wrote most of the band's material, including their two top 10 singles in 1965. The second of these, Just A Little, is often cited as the first folk-rock hit, as it was released a week before the Byrds' recording of Mr. Tambourine Man. According to Elliott, the band was not trying to invent folk-rock, however. Rather, it was their own limitations as musicians that forced them to work with what they had: solid vocal harmonies and a mixture of electric and acoustic guitars. Elliott also credits the contributions of producer Sly Stone for the song's success. Conversely, Just A Little was Stone's greatest success as a producer prior to forming his own band, the Family Stone, in 1967.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: A Hazy Shade Of Winter
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Originally released as a single in 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs written for the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used in the film was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Everybody's Wrong
Source: LP: Buffalo Springfield
Writer: Stephen Stills
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
We finish out the first hour this week with a seldom-heard Stephen Stills track from the first Buffalo Springfield album. Like much of Stills's early work, the song has a harder edge than the material he became famous for in the 1970s.
Artist: Bob Weir
Title: Mexicali Blues
Source: CD: Skeletons From the Closet (originally released on LP: Ace)
Writer: Weir/Barlow
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1972
In 1972 Warner Brothers gave all the members of the Grateful Dead an opportunity to record solo albums. Three of them, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart and Bob Weir, took the label up on their offer. Unlike Garcia, who played many of the instruments on his album himself, Weir chose to use the other members of the Dead (with the sole exception of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan) on his LP, entitled Ace.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Caress Me Baby
Source: LP: Projections
Writer: Jimmy Reed
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
After deliberately truncating their extended jams for their first LP, Live At The Cafe Au-Go-Go, the Blues Project recorded a second album that was a much more accurate representation of what the band was all about. Mixed in with the group's original material was this outstanding cover of an old Jimmy Reed tune, sung by lead guitarist and Blues Project founder Danny Kalb, running over seven minutes long. Andy Kuhlberg's memorable walking bass line would be lifted a few year later by Blood, Sweat and Tears bassist Jim Fielder for the track Blues, Part II.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Try A Little Tenderness
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer: Woods/Campbell/Connelly
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the most electrifying performances at the legendary Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 happened on Saturday night during a rainstorm. Otis Redding (backed by Booker T. and the MGs, with Wayne Jackson on trumpet and Andrew Love on sax) was scheduled for the closing slot, but due to technical problems earlier in the day found himself with only enough time for five songs before the festival had to shut down for the night. At the end of his closing song, Try A Little Tenderness, Redding can be heard saying "I've got to go now. I don't want to go" as the festival's organizers, mindful of the terms of their permit, were rushing him off the stage.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Gonna Have A Good Time
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
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 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). One of the Easybeats' biggest hits in Australia was Good Times from the album Vigil. I can't verify whether Gonna Have A Good Time is actually Good Times or not, but what little information I have (such as the fact that Good Times was covered by INXS for the film The Lost Boys and my own memory of hearing a remake of this song sometime in the late 80s) leads me to believe that the two are one and the same. Young and Vanda later 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.
Artist: Leigh Stephens
Title: Drifting
Source: LP: Red Weather
Writer: Leigh Stephens
Label: Philips
Year: 1969
After two albums lead guitarist Leigh Stephens left Blue Cheer to work on solo projects. The resulting album, Red Weather, was recorded in England and included some of the UK's top session players such as Nicky Hopkins. Drifting, a semi-acoustic instrumental piece, is stylistically worlds away from the proto-metal sound of Blue Cheer. To my knowledge Red Weather has never been issued on CD (at least not in the US).
Artist: G.T.O.s
Title: Do Me In Once And I'll Be Sad, Do Me In Twice And I'll Know Better (Circular Circulation)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: George/Rowe
Label: Straight
Year: 1969
The G.T.O.s were the infamous "groupie" group that made a few memorable appearances in the L.A area, usually on the same bill with the Mothers of Invention. All the members used stage names staring with "Miss", such as Miss Cynderella, Miss Mercy and Miss Sandra, who was in reality Sandra Rowe, who wrote the lyrics to Do Me In Once And I'll Be Sad, Do Me In Twice And I'll Know Better (Circular Circulation). The song, which was co-written and produced by Lowell George, appeared on the group's only LP, recorded by Frank Zappa for his Straight records label. Interestingly enough, the single release of the song gave the title as Circular Circulation, no doubt to improve the record's chance of getting played on the radio (like that was gonna happen).
Artist: Serpent Power
Title: Up And Down
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Serpent Power)
Writer: David Meltzer
Label: Rhino (original label: Vanguard)
Year: 1967
David Meltzer was a beat poet who by the late 60s had already spent several years in the San Francisco Bay area, recording a spoken word album in 1959. For reasons having something to do with yoga, Meltzer and his wife Tina decided to form a band in 1967, calling it the Serpent Power. The group cut one LP for Vanguard. Up and Down is one of the shorter tracks from that album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Writer In The Sun
Source: CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
In 1966-67 Donovan's career was almost derailed by a contractual dispute with his UK label, Pye Records. This resulted in two of his albums, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, not being issued in the UK. At the time he felt that there was a real chance that he would be forced into retirement by the dispute, and with that weighing heavily on his mind he wrote the song Writer In The Sun. Ironically his career was moving in the opposite direction in the US due to him switching from the relatively small Hickory label to Epic Records (a subsidiary of Columbia, at the time the second-largest record company in the US) and scoring top 10 singles with the title tracks from both albums. His success with those records in the US may have been a factor in Pye settling with the singer-songwriter and issuing a British album that combined tracks from the two albums in late 1967.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Take Up Thy Stethescope And Walk
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer: Roger Waters
Label: Capitol
Year: 1967 (original label: Tower)
Contrary to popular belief, Syd Barrett did not write all the material on Pink Floyd's first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. One of the non-Barrett tracks is Take Up Thy Stethescope And Walk, an early composition by Roger Waters, who would take over as de facto leader of the band when Barrett's mental health issues forced him into retirement.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
In late 1966 five guys from San Jose California managed to sound more like the Yardbirds that the Yardbirds themselves, especially considering that Jeff Beck was no longer a Yardbird in late 1966. One interesting note about this record is that as late as the mid-1980s the 45 RPM single on the original label was still available in record stores, complete with the original B side. Normally songs more than a year or two old were only available on anthology LPs or on reissue singles with "back-to-back hits" on them. The complete takeover of the record racks by CDs in the late 1980s changed all that.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source: LP: The Seeds
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. market in early 1966 was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, predating the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Writer: 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: Jefferson Airplane
Title: And I Like It
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer: Balin/Kaukonen
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Jorma Kaukonen was giving guitar lessons when approached by Marty Balin to join a new band he was forming. Kaukonen said yes and became a founding member of Jefferson Airplane. The two seldom collaborated on songwriting, though. One of the few examples of a Balin/Kaukonen composition is And I Like It from the band's first album. The song sounds to me like what Hot Tuna would sound like but with Balin's vocals instead of Kaukonen's.
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