SITPE # 1131 Playlist (starts 8/4/11)

Artist: Rutles
Title: Ouch!
Source: CD: The Rutles (fictional: Ouch! movie soundtrack)
Writer: Neil Innes
Label: Rhino (original labels: fictional: Parlourphone; actual: Warner Brothers)
Year: fictional: 1965; actual:1978
The Rutles were the most popular band in the world in the mid-1960s. Coming from a blue-collar background in the English city of Rutland, the pre-fab four took the world by storm with international hits like Hold My Hand and A Hard Days Rut. One of their biggest hits was the theme to their second movie, Ouch!

Well, OK. Actually the Rutles were a clever Beatle parody first seen in skits on British TV. The skits proved so popular that their creators, Eric Idle of Monty Python and Neil Innes of the Bonzo Dog Band, put together more than an entire album's worth of material, much of which was included in the 1978 telefilm All You Need Is Cash, which documented the rise and fall of the fictional band.

Artist: Premiers
Title: Get On This Plane
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Delgado/Uballez
Label: Rhino (original label: Faro)
Year: 1966
The Premiers were a band from East L.A. best known for their 1964 hit Farmer John. After that national success, the group continued to record, cranking out a series of local hits for local latino label Faro, run by Max Uballez. The last of these was Get On This Plane from 1966.

Artist: Monkees
Title: The Door Into Summer
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer: Douglas/Martin
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
After playing nearly all the instrumental tracks on their third album themselves, the Monkees came to the painful conclusion that they would not be able to repeat the effort and still have time to tape a weekly TV show. As a result, the fourth Monkees LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD., used studio musicians extensively, albeit under the creative supervision of the Monkees themselves. The group also had the final say over what songs ended up on the album, including this tune by Bill Martin, a friend of band leader Michael Nesmith. For reasons that are too complicated to get into here (and probably wouldn't make much sense anyway), co-credit was given to the band's producer, Chip Douglas.

Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Child Of The Moon
Source: CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1968
I was planning on playing this song from the original vinyl, but after a quick preview I realized it was in worse condition that I thought and went with the CD copy instead. Child Of The Moon was originally released as the B side to the Stones' comeback single of 1968, Jumpin' Jack Flash.

Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Well, All Right
Source: LP: Blind Faith
Writer: Petty/Holly/Allison/Mauldin
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Supergroup Blind Faith only recorded one LP, and almost all of the material on that album was written by members of the band. The lone exception was a heavily-modified arrangement of Buddy Holly's Well All Right, making its Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut.

Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Mercedes Benz
Source: CD: Pearl
Writer: Janis Joplin
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
To put it bluntly, Janis recorded this song, then went home and ODed on heroin. End of story (and of Janis).

Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: If Dogs Run Free
Source: LP: Al's Big Deal-Unclaimed Freight (originally released on LP: New Morning)
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Al Kooper's 1975 double LP anthology, Al's Big Deal-Unclaimed Freight, includes several tracks from the first Blood, Sweat and Tears album, some tracks from both Super Session LPs and some tracks from Kooper's solo albums. In addition to these, there are a couple extra songs, including If Dogs Run Free, a song from Bob Dylan's 1970 album New Morning, featuring a Kooper piano solo at the beginning of the track.

Artist: Guess Who
Title: No Time
Source: LP: American Woman
Writer: Bachman/Cummings
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1970
The Guess Who hit their creative and commercial peak with their 1970 album American Woman. The first of three hit singles from the album was No Time, which was already climbing the charts when the LP was released. After American Woman the band's two main songwriters, guitarist Randy Bachman and vocalist Burton Cummings, would move in increasingly divergent directions, with Bachman eventually leaving the band to form the hard-rocking Bachman-Turner Overdrive, while Cummings continued to helm an increasingly light pop flavored Guess Who.

Artist: Donovan
Title: The Observation
Source: LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
Donovan was at first hailed as Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, but by 1967 he was proving that he was much more than that. The Observation is one of many innovative tunes that helped redefine Donovan from folk singer to singer/songwriter, transforming the entire genre in the process.

Artist: Blues Project
Title: No Time Like The Right Time
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Al Kooper
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1967
The Blues Project were ahead of their time. They were the first jam band. They virtually created the college circuit for touring rock bands. Unfortunately, they also existed at a time when having a hit single was the considered a necessity. The closest the Blues Project ever got to a hit single was No Time Like The Right Time, which peaked at # 97 and stayed on the charts for all of two weeks. Personally, I rate it among the top 5 best songs ever.

Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: No Way Out)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer: McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in truth the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.

Artist: Mystery Trend
Title: Carl Street
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on CD: So Glad I Found You)
Writer: Ron Nagle
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded: 1967; released: 1999)
Production notes for the final recording sessions of the Mystery Trend describe the band as neurotic and up-tight. Indeed, despite the band being one of the first and most talented bands on the San Francisco scene, they always seemed to be their own worst enemy. Still, they recorded some outstanding tracks, the last of which was Carl Street, which sat on a shelf for over 20 years before finally being released in 1999.

Artist: Brogues
Title: I Ain't No Miracle Worker
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year: 1965
Almost two years before the Electric Prunes recorded I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), the songwriting team of Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz got this song recorded by the Merced, California band the Brogues, achieving some regional success.Vocalist/guitarist Gary Grubb (using the name Gary Duncan) and drummer Greg Elmore would resurface a few months later in San Francisco as founding members of Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Artist: Otherside
Title: Streetcar
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Battey/Graham
Label: Rhino (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
Although not as popular as the Chocolate Watchband or Count Five, the Otherside had its share of fans in the San Jose, California area. Enough, in fact, to land a deal with Brent Records. Their single, Streetcar, got some airplay on local radio stations, but failed to match the success of other area bands.

Artist: Bonzo Dog Band
Title: I'm The Urban Spaceman (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Writer: Neil Innes
Label: United Artists
Year: 1968
The Bonzo Dog Dada Band (as they were originally called) was as much theatre (note the British spelling) as music, and were known for such antics as starting out their performances by doing calisthentics (after being introduced as the warm-up band) and having one of the members, "Legs" Larry Smith tapdance on stage (he was actually quite good). In 1967 they became the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's TV show that also featured sketch comedy by future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with David Jason (the future voice of Mr. Toad and Danger Mouse). In 1968 they released their only hit single, I'm The Urban Spaceman, co-produced by Paul McCartney. Neil Innes would go on to hook up with Eric Idle for the Rutles projects, among others, and is often referred to as the Seventh Python.

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

Artist: Love
Title: Old Man
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Writer: Bryan McLean
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the band. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, was actually one of the first tracks recorded for Forever Changes. At the time, the band's rhythm section was more into sex and drugs than rock and roll, and McLean and Lee arranged to have studio musicians play on Old Man, as well as on one of Lee's songs. The rest of the group was so stunned by this development that they were able to temporarily get their act together long enough to complete the album. Nonetheless, the two tunes with studio musicians were left as is, although reportedly Ken Forssi did step in to show Carol Kaye how the bass part should be played (ironic, since Kaye is estimated to have played on over 10,000 recordings in her long career as a studio musician).

Artist: Beatles
Title: Little Child
Source: CD: With The Beatles
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1963
The Beatles second album, With The Beatles, followed pretty much the same formula as their debut album, with a mixture of cover tunes and Lennon/McCartney originals. One of those original songs was Little Child, which also was included on the US version of the album (Meet The Beatles, their first LP on the Capitol label).

Artist: Mothers of Invention
Title: Any Way The Wind Blows
Source: LP: Freak Out
Writer: Frank Zappa
Label: Verve
Year: 1966
The first song ever recorded by Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention was Any Way The Wind Blows from the Freak Out album. In the liner notes to Freak Out! Zappa claims to have written the song when he was contemplating divorce a few years before the album was recorded. Stylistically it is a far more conventional song than Zappa is generally known for.

Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were not from Boston. Their manager/producer Ed Cobb, who wrote Dirty Water, was. The rest is history.

Artist: Seeds
Title: A Faded Picture
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer: Saxon/Hooper
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The Seeds second LP showed a much greater range than the first. "A Faded Picture" has a slower tempo than most of the other songs in the Seeds repertoire and, at over five minutes, a longer running time as well.

Artist: Dillards
Title: Lemon Chimes
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Writer: Bill Martin
Label: Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1965
The Dillards are best known as the bluegrass band that occassionally showed up on TV's Beverly Hillbillies. They moved a bit away from their traditional sound for a pair of singles for Capitol in 1965. The song Lemon Chimes, written by roommate Bill Martin, was the more successful of those singles, although, like Bob Dylan, the Dillards came under fire from bluegrass purists for using electric instruments on the record.

Artist: Trade Winds
Title: Mind Excursion
Source: LP: Excursions
Writer: Anders/Poncia
Label: Kama Sutra
Year: 1966
The Trade Winds were a semi-studio band from New York that first scored in 1965 with the song "New York is a Lonely Town (When You're the Only Surfer Boy Around). A year later, they had their second and last hit, "Mind Excursion," which holds up as one of the best examples of "flower power" pop ever recorded.

Artist: Beau Brummels
Title: Two Days Til' Tomorrow
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: Elliott/Durand
Label: Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
The Beau Brummels scored two huge national hits on San Francisco's Autumn label in 1965: Laugh, Laugh and Just a Little, both of which continue to get strong airplay on various oldies formats. What most people don't realize is that 1) they were one of the first successful rock bands to come from San Francisco, and 2) they continued to make records through the end of the decade. This track is a typical example of what they were doing after Warner Brothers bought out their contract following the demise of Autumn Records.

Artist: Bob Seger System
Title: Death Row
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Bob Seger
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
I like to play this song, written from the perspective of a convicted murderer waiting to be executed, for fans of the Silver Bullet Band who think that Turn the Page is about as intense as it gets. I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across this rare single at a radio station I used to work for. Even better, the station had no desire to keep the record, as the A side, the equally intense anti-war song 2+2=, never charted.

Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Cat's Squirrel
Source: CD: This Was
Writer: trad. Arr. Abrahams
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Probably the Jethro Tull recording with the least Ian Anderson influence, Cat's Squirrel was recorded at the insistence of record company people, who felt the song was most representative of the band's live sound. The traditional tune was arranged by guitarist Mick Abrahams, who left the band due to creative differences with Anderson shortly thereafter. Cat's Squirrel became a live staple of Abrahams's next band, Blodwyn Pig.

Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: Wheels Of Fire
Writer: Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Although Cream was conceived as a British blues super-group (as in cream of the crop), it was psychedelic rock tunes like White Room, written by bassist Jack Bruce and his frequent collaborator Pete Brown, that gave them their greatest commercial successes.

Artist: It's A Beautiful Day
Title: White Bird
Source: CD: It's A Beautiful Day
Writer: David and Linda LaFlamme
Label: San Francisco Sound (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's San Francisco Sound label.

Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Are You Experienced
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
I recently decided to splurge and get the new 180 gram pressings of the first two Jimi Hendrix Experience LPs. Ironically, when the albums first came out I bought copies on pre-recorded reel-to-reel tape, so this is actually the first vinyl copy of Are You Experienced I've ever owned. I have to admit it sounds as good as the tape did in headphones.

Artist: Eire Apparent
Title: The Clown
Source: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Belfast)
Writer: Stewart
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1969
Eire Apparent was a band from Northern Ireland that got the attention of Chas Chandler, former bassist for the Animals in late 1967. Chandler had been managing Jimi Hendrix since he had discovered him playing in a club in New York a year before, bringing him back to England and introducing him to Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, who along with Hendrix would become the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Despite Eire Apparent having almost no recording experience, Chandler put them on the bill as the opening act for the touring Experience. This led to Hendrix producing the band's first and only album, Belfast, in 1968, playing on at least three tracks, including The Clown.