This week we go deep underground. What's that? Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is already just about as underground as it gets? Well, this week we ramp it up a notch as we manage to avoid even our own top 25 songs from the past two years (with one minor exception). We do have a total of four songs that hit the top 40 on this week's show, but three of those are songs that you would not expect to hear on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era (like the format-breaking Wilson Pickett version of Land Of 1000 Dances). Read on.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Good Times
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released in Australia, Europe and the UK as 45 RPM single. Not released in the US)
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino
Year: 1968
Fans of the movie The Lost Boys and the early days of MTV may recognize Good Times as a hit for INXS in the 1980s. The song was originally recorded by the Easybeats, by far Australia's most popular band of the 60s. The group had relocated to London in late 1966, scoring an international hit with Friday On My Mind, but continued to have their greatest success Down Under, where they continued to hit the top of the charts with songs like Good Times, released in May of 1968. Eventually the songwriting team of Harry Vanda and George Young would go on to form 70s cult favorite Flash And The Pan, with Young being instrumental in helping his brothers Malcolm and Angus get their own band, AC/DC, off the ground later in the decade.
Artist: Stone Poneys
Title: Stoney End
Source: LP: Stoney End (originally released on LP: Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys And Friends)
Writer(s): Laura Nyro
Label: Pickwick (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
Better known as the title track for Barbra Streisand's breakthrough LP in 1970, Laura Nyro's Stoney End was first covered by the Stone Poneys on their 1968 LP, Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys And Friends. As the album title suggests, Ronstadt had come to dominate the group by the release of this, their final LP. After Ronstadt's solo recording career for the Asylum label took off in the early 1970s the Stone Poneys' original label tried to Capitol-ize (ugh) on her success with several compilations, including one called Stoney End, released in 1972 and later re-issued on the low-budget Pickwick label.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Spiritual Fantasy
Source: CD: Steppenwolf The Second
Writer(s): John Kay
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Spiritual Fantasy is a departure from the hard-driving rock that Steppenwolf in known for. The song foregoes the usual rock instrumentation in favor of acoustic guitar and string quartet. Lyrically, Spiritual Fantasy is about as introspective a song as the group's leader and primary songwriter, German-born Joachim Krauledat (better known as John Kay), ever wrote.
Artist: Nilsson
Title: Sister Marie
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): D. Morrow
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1968
Well-known as John Lennon's 1970s drinking buddy, singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson first came to prominence in 1969 with the song Everybody's Talking from the movie Midnight Cowboy (the film that brought stardom to actor Dustin Hoffman as well). Although Nilsson is best known as a songwriter (Lennon once called him America's greatest), his first single, Sister Marie, actually came from an outside source.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Watch Yourself
Source: LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Robert Yeazel
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
Although the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band usually wrote their own material, they occassionally drew from outside sources. One example is Watch Yourself, written by Robert Yeazel, who would go on to join Sugarloaf in time for their second LP, Spaceship Earth, writing much of the material on that album.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Termination
Source: CD: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s): Brann/Dorman
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Although most Iron Butterfly songs were written by keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle, there were a few exceptions. One of those is Termination, from the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album, which was written by guitarist Erik Brann and bassist Lee Dorman.
From a 21st century perspective Termination sounds less dated than most of Ingle's material.
Artist: Santana
Title: Incident At Neshabur
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer(s): Gianguinto/Santana
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Affirmative No
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Unlike many of their fellow L.A. bands, who preferred to stay close to home, the Music Machine toured extensively after scoring their big national hit Talk Talk. While on the road the band worked on new material for a second album, booking studio time wherever they happened to be. One of those places was Muscle Shoals, Alabama, which had emerged as a rival to Memphis's Stax Studios as a hotbed of southern soul music. The Machine recorded two tracks there in early 1967, including Affirmative No, a song that manages to have a southern soul vibe without sacrificing any of the Music Machine's trademark garage/punk sound. Although the original group disbanded shortly after the songs were recorded, both tunes were included on the LP Bonniwell Music Machine, joining a handful of previously released Original Sound singles and several tracks recorded later in the year by a new Music Machine lineup.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The People In Me
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
After Talk Talk soared into the upper reaches of the US charts the Music Machine's management made a tactical error. Instead of promoting the follow-up single, The People In Me, to the largest possible audience, the band's manager gave exclusive air rights to a new station at the far end of the Los Angeles AM radio dial. As local bands like the Music Machine depended on airplay in L.A. as a necessary step to getting national exposure, the move proved disastrous. Without any airplay on influential stations such as KFI, The People In Me was unable to get any higher than the # 66 spot on the national charts. Even worse for the band, the big stations remembered the slight when subsequent singles by the Music Machine were released, and by mid-1967 the original lineup had disbanded.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Original Sound, stereo version: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
The Music Machine was by far the most sophisticated of all the bands playing on L.A.'s Sunset Strip in 1966. Not only did they feature tight sets (so that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other bands. Dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair), and with leader Sean Bonniwell wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell eventually quit the music business altogether in disgust. By the way, this is the minor exception I talked about at the beginning of this post, as The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly was #21 on last year's Stuck in the Psychedelic Era most-played list.
Artist: Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels
Title: Sock It To Me-Baby!
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Crewe/Brown
Label: Dyna Voice
Year: 1967
It's unclear whether this song or Aretha Franklin's recording of "Respect" came out first. Regardless, both of them were being heard on top 40 radio long before Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In made its TV debut. This is the first song on this week's show to hit the top 40, by the way, and not exactly what you would normally hear on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.
Artist: Every Mother's Son
Title: Dolls In The Clock
Source: LP: Every Mother's Son's Back
Writer(s): Dennis and Larry Larden
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
For being the largest city in the world (at the time) New York had relatively few popular local bands. Perhaps this is because of the wealth of entertainment and cultural choices in the Big Apple. In fact, the only notable local music scene was in Greenwich Village, which was more into folk and blues than mainstream rock. There were a few rock bands formed in New York, though. One example was Every Mother's Son, one-hit wonders with Come On Down To My Boat in 1967. The group was successful enough to record a second LP, Every Mother's Son's Back, later the same year. Although the album had no hit singles, it did have some interesting tracks such as Dolls In The Clock.
Artist: Sly And The Family Stone
Title: I Want To Take You Higher
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Stand and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Sly Stone
Label: Priority (original label: Epic)
Year: 1969
Sylvester Stewart was a major presence on the San Francisco music scene for several years, both as a producer for Autumn Records and as a popular local disc jockey. In 1967 he decided to take it to the next level, using his studio connections to put together Sly And The Family Stone. The band featured a solid lineup of musicians, including Larry Graham, whose growling bass line figures prominently in their 1969 recording of I Want To Take You Higher . The song was originally released as a B side, but after the group blew away the crowd at Woodstock the recording was re-released as a single the following year, which makes it this week's second top 40 hit (albeit an unintended one).
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Looking In
Source: CD: Looking In
Writer(s): Simmonds/Peverett
Label: Deram
Year: 1970
In mid-1970 lead vocalist Chris Youlden and the rest of Savoy Brown parted company, leaving Dave Peverett to double up as vocalist and guitarist for the band. The remaining four members (Peverett, bassist Tone Stevens, drummer Roger Earl and guitarist/founder Kim Simmonds) immediately went to work on what would be Savoy Brown's sixth LP. Looking In, when released, ended up being the most successful album in the band's entire run, and the only one to make the British charts (Savoy Brown had always done better with US audiences than in their native UK). Among the many listenable tunes on Looking In is the title track, written by Peverett and Simmonds. Unfortunately, this particular Savoy Brown lineup was not to last, as Simmonds summarily dismissed the rest of the group shortly after Looking In was released, citing musical differences. Simmonds set about putting together a new lineup, while the other three erstwhile members formed their own band, Foghat, a band that would ironically have far more commercial success than Savoy Brown ever achieved.
Artist: Herman's Hermits
Title: Leaning On A Lamp Post (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Greatest Hits
Writer(s): Gay
Label: Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
Before the Beatles popularized British rock, there was something called skiffle music. Echoes of this uniquely British popular musical form can be heard in several of Herman's Hermits tunes such as I'm Henry VIII I Am and Leaning On A Lamp Post. Interestingly enough, neither of these hits was released as a single in the UK itself. Now tell me you actually expected to hear Herman's Hermits on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: A Woman Left Lonely
Source: LP: Pearl
Writer(s): Penn/Oldham
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
During the recording sessions for the album that would come to be called Pearl, producer Paul Rothchild asked Janis Joplin to try occassionally singing like she did in church growing up in Texas. Nowhere is this approach evident than on A Woman Left Lonely, a song that starts quietly and slowly builds up to a soulful climax in the trademark Joplin style. A mono mix of the song was prepared, but a single was never released.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: 8:05
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Miller/Stevenson
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Moby Grape was formed out of the ashes of a band called the Frantics, which featured the songwriting team of guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson. The two continued to write songs together in the new band. One of those was 8:05, one of five songs on the first Moby Grape album to be released simultaneously as singles.
Artist: Love
Title: Old Man
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s): MacLean/Breadcrust
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: Cream
Title: Strange Brew
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Collins/Pappalardi
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.
Artist: Cream
Title: N.S.U.
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
Like most bands in the 60s, Cream released their first single, Wrapping Paper, before the LP Fresh Cream hit the racks. Unlike most bands in the 60s, however, the band sold more copies of the album than of the single (which was not on the album itself). For a follow up single, the band recorded a new tune, I Feel Free, using the LP's opening track, N.S.U., as a B side. This second single did well enough to prompt Atco Records to add it to the US version of the album, deleting the studio version of Spoonful to make room for it.
Artist: Cream
Title: Dance The Night Away
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Polydor
Year: 1967
With Disraeli Gears, Cream established itself as having a psychedelic side as well as their original blues orientation. Most of the more psychedelic material, such as Dance the Night Away, was from the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown.
Artist: Wilson Pickett
Title: Land Of 1000 Dances
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Chris Kenner
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1966
In the early 90s I did a short stint as program director for a slowly-dying full-service AM station in northeastern North Carolina. The station's music format had been Adult Contemporary since the early 70s, but in recent years had been surpassed in the local ratings by their own FM station in the same building. My idea was to get rid of the current stuff and concentrate on the station's fairly extensive library that dated back to the early 60s. One song that I wanted to put into rotation was Wilson Pickett's version of Chris Kenner's Land Of 1000 Dances, which had gotten extensive airplay on both top 40 and R&B stations in 1966. The station's owner and general manager, whose own musical tastes ran to what it known as "beach music" (a kind of soft R&B music that gave rise to a dance called the Shag), objected to my wanting to play the song, saying "That's not soul, it's hard rock." As he was the guy signing my paycheck I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter, but to this day whenever I hear "1,2,3" followed by the blaring horns of the Bar-Kays and the following buildup by the MGs to Pickett's James Brown-styled vocals I can't help but think of that former boss and his condemnation of the record as "hard rock".
Artist: Donovan
Title: Bert's Blues
Source: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
In 1966 Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch got into a contractual dispute with his record label, Pye Records UK. Up to that point his records had appeared in the US on the independent Hickory label. Now, however, he was about to make his US major label debut (on Epic), and the dispute with Pye led to his newest album, Sunshine Superman, being released only in North America. Like Bob Dylan, Donovan was beginning to expand beyond his folk roots, but in addition to the usual rock instruments (guitar, bass, drums, organ) Donovan used older acoustic instruments such as strings and harpsichord as well as experimenting with modern jazz arrangements and instrumentation. Somehow he managed to combine all of these elements in one track, Bert's Blues. Surprisingly, it worked.
Artist: Byrds
Title: I Know My Rider (I Know You Rider)
Source: CD: Fifth Dimension
Writer(s): arr. McGuinn/Clark/Crosby
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
Throughout their existence the Byrds recorded more material than they actually released. This has proven a boon to the folks at BMG/Sony, who have been able to include several bonus tracks on every remastered Byrds CD on their Legacy label. This week we have a classic Byrds reworking of an old folk tune, I Know My Rider (I Know You Rider), recorded in 1966, around the same time as their sessions for the Fifth Dimension album.
Artist: Groupies
Title: Primitive
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Cortez/Derosiers/Hendleman/McLaren/Peters/Venet
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
You know, with a name like the Groupies you would expect an all-female band or at least something like the Mothers of Invention. Instead we get a band that billed themselves as "abstract rock." I guess that is using the term abstract in the same sense that scientific journals use it: to distill something complicated down to its basic essence, because these guys were musically exactly what the title of their only single implied: primitive.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: Sparrow
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Wednesday Morning 3AM)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1964
Sparrow is one of Paul Simon's most memorable tunes from the first Simon And Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. The 1964 album failed to make the charts and was soon deleted from the Columbia catalog. The LP was re-issued in 1966 after producer Tom Wilson added electric instruments to another track from the album, The Sound Of Silence, turning Simon And Garfunkel into household names.
Artist: Kinks
Title: It's All Right
Source: LP: Kinkdom
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1964
It's All Right, the original B side of the Kinks first hit, You Really Got Me, was not available on an LP until the 1965 album Kinkdom, which was a US-only album made up mostly of tracks that had previously been issued only in the UK. The song shows how strong an influence early US rock and roll had on Ray Davies's songwriting.
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: Heroin
Source: CD: The Velvet Underground And Nico
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
A true underground classic in every sense of the word, Heroin, from The Velvet Underground And Nico, is undistilled Lou Reed, supplemented by John Cale's droning viola and Maureen Tucker's unique stand-up style of drumming.
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(s): 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.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1216 (starts 4/19/12)
This week we are once again giving away copies of a new CD featuring Janis Joplin, but not the same one as a few weeks ago. What we have this time is a brand new (released April 14th) double CD of The Pearl Sessions, an expanded look at the making of Janis's final album. The first disc includes the entire original album plus half a dozen mono single mixes (including one that was never released), while the second disc is a 20-track collection of early takes and bits of studio banter between Joplin, producer Paul Rothchild and the members of the Full Tilt Boogie Band. First, though, we have a couple of short progressions through the years to get things started.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Norwegian Wood
Source: LP: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
Year: 1965
The first Beatle song to feature a sitar, Norwegian Wood, perhaps more than any other song, has come to typify the new direction songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney began to take with the release of the Rubber Soul album in December of 1965. Whereas their earlier material was written to be performed as well as recorded, songs like Norwegian Wood were first and foremost studio creations. The song itself was reportedly based on a true story and was no doubt a contributing factor to the disintegration of Lennon's marraige.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Light Bulb Blues
Source: CD: Dark Sides (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. The officer declined.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Piece Of My Heart
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Ragovoy/Berns
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
I didn't know I would be giving away copies of the new Pearl Sessions CD until after I had recorded the first segment of this week's show. As a result we have an extra Janis Joplin vocal track this week. Not just any track, either; the Big Brother And The Holding Company version of Piece Of My Heart is the song that made Joplin famous (and vice versa).
Artist: Kinks
Title: Dandy
Source: LP: Face To Face
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
Ray Davies was well into his satirical phase when he wrote and recorded Dandy for the Kinks' 1966 album Face To Face. Later that year the song was covered by Herman's Hermits, becoming a hit on the US top 40 charts.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: CD: Flowers (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
The Rolling Stones second LP of 1967 was Flowers, one of a series of US-only albums made up of songs that had been released in various forms in the UK but not in the US. In the case of Flowers, though, there were a couple songs that had already been released in the US-but not in true stereo. One of those was Let's Spend The Night Together, a song intended to be the A side of a single, but that was soon banned on a majority of US radio stations because of its suggestive lyrics. Those stations instead flipped the record over and began playing the B side, Ruby Tuesday (apparently not realizing it was about a rock groupie). Ruby Tuesday ended up in the top 5, while Let's Spend The Night Together barely cracked the top 40. The Stones did get to perform the tune on the Ed Sullivan Show, but only after promising to change the lyrics to "let's spend some time together." Later on the same year the Doors made a similar promise to the Sullivan show to modify the lyrics of Light My Fire, but when it came time to actually perform the song Jim Morrison defiantly sang the lyrics as written. The Doors were subsequently banned from making any more appearances on the Sullivan show. Ironically, the Rolling Stones never appeared again on the show, either, so apparently their compromise was for naught.
Artist: Them
Title: I Happen To Love You
Source: LP: Now And Them
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
I Happen To Love You was first recorded by the Electric Prunes for their 1967 album Underground. The band wanted to release the Gerry Goffin/Carole King tune as a single, but producer David Hassinger instead chose to issue a novelty track, To The Highest Bidder. Unlike the Prunes version, which emphasized the King melody line, Them's version was done in much the same style as their earlier recordings with Van Morrison. Kenny McDowell provided the lead vocal.
Artist: Chambers Brothers
Title: Time Has Come Today
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come. Edited version released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joe and Willie Chambers
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: LP released 1967, single edit released 1968
Time Has Come Today has one of the most complex histories of any song of the psychedelic era. First recorded in 1966 and released as a two-and-a-half minute single the song flopped. The following year an entirely new eleven minute version of the song was recorded for the album The Time Has Come, featuring an extended pyschedelic section filled with various studio effects. In late 1967 a three minute edited version of the song was released that left out virtually the entire psychedelic section of the recording. Soon after that, the single was pulled from the shelf and replaced by a longer edited version that included part of the psychedelic section. That version became a hit record in 1968, peaking just outside the top 10. This is actually a stereo recreation of that mono second edited version.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Pearl
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions
Writer(s): Full Tilt Boogie Band
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1970
A few days after the sudden death of Janis Joplin in October of 1970 the members of the Full Tilt Boogie Band, along with producer Paul Rothchild, returned to L.A.'s Sunset Studios to finish the album they had spent the last few months working on. The mood around the place was somber, and in between the overdubs and remixes the band broke into a slow instrumental jam that ended up lasting over ten minutes. The piece was edited down to about four and a half minutes and assigned a matrix number, indicating that it was considered finished and ready for commercial release. The band members decided to call the piece Pearl, after the nickname they had given Janis herself (although some say it was actually self-given). For reasons unknown the recording was not included on the album (also named Pearl), and sat on the shelf until the early 21st century, when it was included as a bonus track on the CD issue of Pearl.
Artist: Beau Brummels
Title: Just A Little
Source: CD: Something's Burning-Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame-Vol. 1 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Elliott/Durand
Label: Legacy (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 Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone) for the song's success. Conversely, Just A Little was Stewart's greatest success as a producer prior to forming his own band, the Family Stone, in 1967.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Walk Away Renee
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Brown/Calilli/Sansune
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: Electric Prunes
Title: Hideaway (originally released on LP: Underground and as 45 RPM single B side)
Source: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
Producer David Hassinger did not have a whole lot of faith in the songwriting abilities of the members of the Electric Prunes, limiting them to only two originals on their debut LP (compared to four by professional songwriter Annette Tucker). One of the songs rejected by Hassinger was Hideaway, which he deemed "too weird." After the moderate success of the band's debut LP, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), Hassinger relented and let them record Hideaway for their follow-up LP, Underground. The mono mix of the song was also issued as the B side of the band's first single from Underground.
Artist: Sagittarius
Title: Glass
Source: CD: Present Tense
Writer(s): Marks/Sheldon
Label: Sundazed (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
Sagittarius started as a spare time project by Columbia Records staff producer Gary Usher, who had established himself as the king of surf music during the genre's heyday, working with people like Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher, as well as the Wrecking Crew (the unofficial name given to the L.A. studio musicians that played on the records he produced). Usher had been in complete creative control of his projects during the surf years and was finding out that working with people like the Byrds and Simon And Garfunkel, while financially lucrative, was creatively stifling for him, as those artists had their own creative visions and he did not want to force his own ideas on them. In early 1967, inspired by his friend Brian Wilson's Good Vibrations, Usher began working on what would become Sagittarius over the weekends and late at night when the Columbia studios were not in use. Access to the studios were not an issue (he had his own keys), nor was access to L.A.'s top studio musicians such as drummer Hal Blaine and bassist Carol Kane, who were more than happy to help out the man who had provided them so much employment over the years. The first production to be released under the Sagittarius name was a single called My World Fell Down, a piece featuring Glen Campbell on vocals that rivaled Good Vibrations itself in complexity. Usher soon took on a partner in the project, producer Curt Boettcher, who had made a huge impression on both Usher and Wilson in early 1966 when he was a producer for Our Productions, working in the same building as Wilson and Usher. Boettcher brought considerable energy and a wealth of material to Sagittarius, and in one case even a lead vocalist. Craig Brewer, a friend of Boettcher's, reportedly just happened to wander in during the recording of Glass and was drafted to provide lead vocals to the song, which had previously been recorded by the Sandpipers, a middle-of-the-road vocal combo.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Season Of The Witch
Source: LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Sundazed
Year: 1966
Starting off a 1966 set we have Season Of The Witch, an album track from Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records UK, the album was not released in Donovan's home country until 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.
Artist: Animals
Title: Don't Bring Me Down
Source: CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is rreportedly one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): 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: Who
Title: Pictures Of Lily
Source: CD: Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
Pictures of Lily was the first single released by the Who in 1967. It hit the #4 spot on the British charts, but only made it to #51 in the US. This was nothing new for the Who, as several of their early singles, including Substitute, I Can't Explain and even My Generation hit the British top 10 without getting any US airplay (or chart action) at all.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: I'm The Kind Of Man That Baby You Can Trust
Source: LP: 20 Granite Creek
Writer(s): Jerry Miller
Label: Reprise
Year: 1971
The original five members of Moby Grape reunited in 1971 for their only album to appear on the Reprise label, 20 Granite Creek. All but one of the tracks on the LP came from individual members writing solo. I'm The Kind Of Man That Baby You Can Trust is one of two songs written by guitarist/vocalist Jerry Miller.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Just Seventeen
Source: CD: The Legend Of Paul Revere (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mark Lindsay
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
During the mid-1960s Paul Revere And The Raiders was quite possibly the most successful homegrown band in America. Hitting their stride at the height of the British Invasion, the band cranked out some of the most memorable hits of the decade, including Just Like Me, Good Thing and the iconic Kicks, as well as being the house band for one Dick Clark produced show (Where The Action Is) and starring in another (It's Happening). By 1970, however, the hits had become hard to come by and the TV shows were only a memory. The band, however, continued to soldier on, despite severing ties with their producer, Terry Melcher, in 1967 (a move that may well have hastened the decline of their fortunes). The Raiders (the band having shortened their name in an attempt to shed their campy image) continued to produce records, including Just Seventeen, one of the earliest songs to talk about the teenage rock groupies that were becoming a staple of the rock star lifestyle. The following year the Raiders would return one final time to the top 10 with their recording of Indian Reservation, hitting the number one spot in July of 1971.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Writer(s): Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Kenny Rogers has, on more than one occassion, tried to put as much distance between himself and the 1968 First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) as possible. I feel it's my civic duty to remind everyone that he was the lead vocalist on the recording, and that this song was the one that launched his career. So there.
Artist: Bonzo Dog Band
Title: I'm The Urban Spaceman
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): 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: Spirit
Title: Straight Arrow
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
The first Spirit album was a curious mix of progressive rock and jazz, thanks in large part to the presence of Ted Casady, stepfather of guitarist Randy California. Lead vocalist Jay Ferguson, who wrote most of the songs on the album, took advantage of Casady's and California's skills, as well as those of keyboardist John Locke and bassist Mark Andes on songs like Straight Arrow, which takes a sudden turn from an semi-calypso main section into a hard bop coda that sounds like Wes Montgomery using a Disraeli Gears-era Clapton fuzz tone.
Artist: Al Kooper/Michael Bloomfield
Title: Blues For Nothing
Source: CD: Super Session
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
Wrapping up our 1968 set we have a song left off the original Super Session LP, presumably due to lack of space. Basically it's a blues instrumental played by four outstanding musicians.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Mexico
Source: LP: Early Flight
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Grunt
Year: 1970
The last Jefferson Airplane single to include founding member (and original leader) Marty Balin was Mexico, a scathing response by Grace Slick to President Richard Nixon's attempts to eradicate the marijuana trade between the US and Mexico. The song was slated to be included on the next Airplane album, Long John Silver, but Balin's departure necessitated a change in plans, and Mexico did not appear on an LP until Early Flight was released in 1974.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: It's No Secret
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1966
Released in March of 1966, It's No Secret was an instant hit on San Francisco Bay area radio stations. This version differs from the album version released six months later in that it has a fade out ending and is thus a few seconds shorter. The song was featured on a 1966 Bell Telephone Hour special on Haight Ashbury that introduced a national TV audience to what was happening out on the coast and may have just touched off the exodus to San Francisco the following year.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Have You Seen The Saucers
Source: LP: Early Flight
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: Grunt
Year: 1970
Have You Seen The Saucers, a Paul Kantner composition, was first released as the B side to Mexico, the last single to include Airplane founder Marty Balin. Unlike Mexico, which is basically a Grace Slick vehicle, Saucers features Balin, Kantner and Slick sharing vocal duties equally. After the single failed to chart, Have You Seen The Saucers was unavailable until 1974, when it was included on the LP Early Flight, a collection of tracks that had never been released on LP vinyl.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Move Over (take 13)
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions
Writer(s): Janis Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1970
The new Pearl Sessions CD features many early takes of songs included on Janis Joplin's final album, Pearl. Among those are three takes of Move Over, arranged back to back on the CD as a way of documenting the evolution of the Full Tilt Boogie Band's arrangement of the Joplin-penned tune. The middle of these three takes includes hand clapping over the intro and an extended fade out section at the end of the song that features Joplin improvising vocals lines for almost a full minute.
Artist: Castaways
Title: Liar Liar
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): James Donna
Label: Eric (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: Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title: Eventually
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Spreading From The Ashes)
Writer(s): Alan Brackett
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2005
The PBC was one of the more psychedelic of the local L.A. bands playing the various clubs along L.A.'s Sunset Strip during its golden years of 1965-68. As was the case with so many bands of that time and place, they never really got the opportunity to strut their stuff, although they did leave some decent tapes behind, such as Eventually, recorded (but not released) in 1966.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: 3rd Stone From The Sun
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
One of the great rock instrumentals, 3rd Stone From The Sun (from the Jimi Hendrix Experience album Are You Experienced?) is one of the first tracks to use a recording technique known as backwards masking (where the tape is deliberately put on the machine backwards and new material is added to the reversed recording). In this particular case the masked material (Hendrix speaking) was added at a faster speed than the original recording, with a lot of reverb added, creating an almost otherworldly effect when played forward at normal speed.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Norwegian Wood
Source: LP: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
Year: 1965
The first Beatle song to feature a sitar, Norwegian Wood, perhaps more than any other song, has come to typify the new direction songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney began to take with the release of the Rubber Soul album in December of 1965. Whereas their earlier material was written to be performed as well as recorded, songs like Norwegian Wood were first and foremost studio creations. The song itself was reportedly based on a true story and was no doubt a contributing factor to the disintegration of Lennon's marraige.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Light Bulb Blues
Source: CD: Dark Sides (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. The officer declined.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Piece Of My Heart
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Ragovoy/Berns
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
I didn't know I would be giving away copies of the new Pearl Sessions CD until after I had recorded the first segment of this week's show. As a result we have an extra Janis Joplin vocal track this week. Not just any track, either; the Big Brother And The Holding Company version of Piece Of My Heart is the song that made Joplin famous (and vice versa).
Artist: Kinks
Title: Dandy
Source: LP: Face To Face
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
Ray Davies was well into his satirical phase when he wrote and recorded Dandy for the Kinks' 1966 album Face To Face. Later that year the song was covered by Herman's Hermits, becoming a hit on the US top 40 charts.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: CD: Flowers (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
The Rolling Stones second LP of 1967 was Flowers, one of a series of US-only albums made up of songs that had been released in various forms in the UK but not in the US. In the case of Flowers, though, there were a couple songs that had already been released in the US-but not in true stereo. One of those was Let's Spend The Night Together, a song intended to be the A side of a single, but that was soon banned on a majority of US radio stations because of its suggestive lyrics. Those stations instead flipped the record over and began playing the B side, Ruby Tuesday (apparently not realizing it was about a rock groupie). Ruby Tuesday ended up in the top 5, while Let's Spend The Night Together barely cracked the top 40. The Stones did get to perform the tune on the Ed Sullivan Show, but only after promising to change the lyrics to "let's spend some time together." Later on the same year the Doors made a similar promise to the Sullivan show to modify the lyrics of Light My Fire, but when it came time to actually perform the song Jim Morrison defiantly sang the lyrics as written. The Doors were subsequently banned from making any more appearances on the Sullivan show. Ironically, the Rolling Stones never appeared again on the show, either, so apparently their compromise was for naught.
Artist: Them
Title: I Happen To Love You
Source: LP: Now And Them
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
I Happen To Love You was first recorded by the Electric Prunes for their 1967 album Underground. The band wanted to release the Gerry Goffin/Carole King tune as a single, but producer David Hassinger instead chose to issue a novelty track, To The Highest Bidder. Unlike the Prunes version, which emphasized the King melody line, Them's version was done in much the same style as their earlier recordings with Van Morrison. Kenny McDowell provided the lead vocal.
Artist: Chambers Brothers
Title: Time Has Come Today
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come. Edited version released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joe and Willie Chambers
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: LP released 1967, single edit released 1968
Time Has Come Today has one of the most complex histories of any song of the psychedelic era. First recorded in 1966 and released as a two-and-a-half minute single the song flopped. The following year an entirely new eleven minute version of the song was recorded for the album The Time Has Come, featuring an extended pyschedelic section filled with various studio effects. In late 1967 a three minute edited version of the song was released that left out virtually the entire psychedelic section of the recording. Soon after that, the single was pulled from the shelf and replaced by a longer edited version that included part of the psychedelic section. That version became a hit record in 1968, peaking just outside the top 10. This is actually a stereo recreation of that mono second edited version.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Pearl
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions
Writer(s): Full Tilt Boogie Band
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1970
A few days after the sudden death of Janis Joplin in October of 1970 the members of the Full Tilt Boogie Band, along with producer Paul Rothchild, returned to L.A.'s Sunset Studios to finish the album they had spent the last few months working on. The mood around the place was somber, and in between the overdubs and remixes the band broke into a slow instrumental jam that ended up lasting over ten minutes. The piece was edited down to about four and a half minutes and assigned a matrix number, indicating that it was considered finished and ready for commercial release. The band members decided to call the piece Pearl, after the nickname they had given Janis herself (although some say it was actually self-given). For reasons unknown the recording was not included on the album (also named Pearl), and sat on the shelf until the early 21st century, when it was included as a bonus track on the CD issue of Pearl.
Artist: Beau Brummels
Title: Just A Little
Source: CD: Something's Burning-Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame-Vol. 1 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Elliott/Durand
Label: Legacy (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 Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone) for the song's success. Conversely, Just A Little was Stewart's greatest success as a producer prior to forming his own band, the Family Stone, in 1967.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Walk Away Renee
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Brown/Calilli/Sansune
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: Electric Prunes
Title: Hideaway (originally released on LP: Underground and as 45 RPM single B side)
Source: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
Producer David Hassinger did not have a whole lot of faith in the songwriting abilities of the members of the Electric Prunes, limiting them to only two originals on their debut LP (compared to four by professional songwriter Annette Tucker). One of the songs rejected by Hassinger was Hideaway, which he deemed "too weird." After the moderate success of the band's debut LP, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), Hassinger relented and let them record Hideaway for their follow-up LP, Underground. The mono mix of the song was also issued as the B side of the band's first single from Underground.
Artist: Sagittarius
Title: Glass
Source: CD: Present Tense
Writer(s): Marks/Sheldon
Label: Sundazed (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
Sagittarius started as a spare time project by Columbia Records staff producer Gary Usher, who had established himself as the king of surf music during the genre's heyday, working with people like Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher, as well as the Wrecking Crew (the unofficial name given to the L.A. studio musicians that played on the records he produced). Usher had been in complete creative control of his projects during the surf years and was finding out that working with people like the Byrds and Simon And Garfunkel, while financially lucrative, was creatively stifling for him, as those artists had their own creative visions and he did not want to force his own ideas on them. In early 1967, inspired by his friend Brian Wilson's Good Vibrations, Usher began working on what would become Sagittarius over the weekends and late at night when the Columbia studios were not in use. Access to the studios were not an issue (he had his own keys), nor was access to L.A.'s top studio musicians such as drummer Hal Blaine and bassist Carol Kane, who were more than happy to help out the man who had provided them so much employment over the years. The first production to be released under the Sagittarius name was a single called My World Fell Down, a piece featuring Glen Campbell on vocals that rivaled Good Vibrations itself in complexity. Usher soon took on a partner in the project, producer Curt Boettcher, who had made a huge impression on both Usher and Wilson in early 1966 when he was a producer for Our Productions, working in the same building as Wilson and Usher. Boettcher brought considerable energy and a wealth of material to Sagittarius, and in one case even a lead vocalist. Craig Brewer, a friend of Boettcher's, reportedly just happened to wander in during the recording of Glass and was drafted to provide lead vocals to the song, which had previously been recorded by the Sandpipers, a middle-of-the-road vocal combo.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Season Of The Witch
Source: LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Sundazed
Year: 1966
Starting off a 1966 set we have Season Of The Witch, an album track from Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records UK, the album was not released in Donovan's home country until 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.
Artist: Animals
Title: Don't Bring Me Down
Source: CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is rreportedly one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): 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: Who
Title: Pictures Of Lily
Source: CD: Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
Pictures of Lily was the first single released by the Who in 1967. It hit the #4 spot on the British charts, but only made it to #51 in the US. This was nothing new for the Who, as several of their early singles, including Substitute, I Can't Explain and even My Generation hit the British top 10 without getting any US airplay (or chart action) at all.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: I'm The Kind Of Man That Baby You Can Trust
Source: LP: 20 Granite Creek
Writer(s): Jerry Miller
Label: Reprise
Year: 1971
The original five members of Moby Grape reunited in 1971 for their only album to appear on the Reprise label, 20 Granite Creek. All but one of the tracks on the LP came from individual members writing solo. I'm The Kind Of Man That Baby You Can Trust is one of two songs written by guitarist/vocalist Jerry Miller.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Just Seventeen
Source: CD: The Legend Of Paul Revere (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mark Lindsay
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
During the mid-1960s Paul Revere And The Raiders was quite possibly the most successful homegrown band in America. Hitting their stride at the height of the British Invasion, the band cranked out some of the most memorable hits of the decade, including Just Like Me, Good Thing and the iconic Kicks, as well as being the house band for one Dick Clark produced show (Where The Action Is) and starring in another (It's Happening). By 1970, however, the hits had become hard to come by and the TV shows were only a memory. The band, however, continued to soldier on, despite severing ties with their producer, Terry Melcher, in 1967 (a move that may well have hastened the decline of their fortunes). The Raiders (the band having shortened their name in an attempt to shed their campy image) continued to produce records, including Just Seventeen, one of the earliest songs to talk about the teenage rock groupies that were becoming a staple of the rock star lifestyle. The following year the Raiders would return one final time to the top 10 with their recording of Indian Reservation, hitting the number one spot in July of 1971.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Writer(s): Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Kenny Rogers has, on more than one occassion, tried to put as much distance between himself and the 1968 First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) as possible. I feel it's my civic duty to remind everyone that he was the lead vocalist on the recording, and that this song was the one that launched his career. So there.
Artist: Bonzo Dog Band
Title: I'm The Urban Spaceman
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): 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: Spirit
Title: Straight Arrow
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
The first Spirit album was a curious mix of progressive rock and jazz, thanks in large part to the presence of Ted Casady, stepfather of guitarist Randy California. Lead vocalist Jay Ferguson, who wrote most of the songs on the album, took advantage of Casady's and California's skills, as well as those of keyboardist John Locke and bassist Mark Andes on songs like Straight Arrow, which takes a sudden turn from an semi-calypso main section into a hard bop coda that sounds like Wes Montgomery using a Disraeli Gears-era Clapton fuzz tone.
Artist: Al Kooper/Michael Bloomfield
Title: Blues For Nothing
Source: CD: Super Session
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
Wrapping up our 1968 set we have a song left off the original Super Session LP, presumably due to lack of space. Basically it's a blues instrumental played by four outstanding musicians.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Mexico
Source: LP: Early Flight
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Grunt
Year: 1970
The last Jefferson Airplane single to include founding member (and original leader) Marty Balin was Mexico, a scathing response by Grace Slick to President Richard Nixon's attempts to eradicate the marijuana trade between the US and Mexico. The song was slated to be included on the next Airplane album, Long John Silver, but Balin's departure necessitated a change in plans, and Mexico did not appear on an LP until Early Flight was released in 1974.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: It's No Secret
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1966
Released in March of 1966, It's No Secret was an instant hit on San Francisco Bay area radio stations. This version differs from the album version released six months later in that it has a fade out ending and is thus a few seconds shorter. The song was featured on a 1966 Bell Telephone Hour special on Haight Ashbury that introduced a national TV audience to what was happening out on the coast and may have just touched off the exodus to San Francisco the following year.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Have You Seen The Saucers
Source: LP: Early Flight
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: Grunt
Year: 1970
Have You Seen The Saucers, a Paul Kantner composition, was first released as the B side to Mexico, the last single to include Airplane founder Marty Balin. Unlike Mexico, which is basically a Grace Slick vehicle, Saucers features Balin, Kantner and Slick sharing vocal duties equally. After the single failed to chart, Have You Seen The Saucers was unavailable until 1974, when it was included on the LP Early Flight, a collection of tracks that had never been released on LP vinyl.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Move Over (take 13)
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions
Writer(s): Janis Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1970
The new Pearl Sessions CD features many early takes of songs included on Janis Joplin's final album, Pearl. Among those are three takes of Move Over, arranged back to back on the CD as a way of documenting the evolution of the Full Tilt Boogie Band's arrangement of the Joplin-penned tune. The middle of these three takes includes hand clapping over the intro and an extended fade out section at the end of the song that features Joplin improvising vocals lines for almost a full minute.
Artist: Castaways
Title: Liar Liar
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): James Donna
Label: Eric (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: Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title: Eventually
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Spreading From The Ashes)
Writer(s): Alan Brackett
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2005
The PBC was one of the more psychedelic of the local L.A. bands playing the various clubs along L.A.'s Sunset Strip during its golden years of 1965-68. As was the case with so many bands of that time and place, they never really got the opportunity to strut their stuff, although they did leave some decent tapes behind, such as Eventually, recorded (but not released) in 1966.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: 3rd Stone From The Sun
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
One of the great rock instrumentals, 3rd Stone From The Sun (from the Jimi Hendrix Experience album Are You Experienced?) is one of the first tracks to use a recording technique known as backwards masking (where the tape is deliberately put on the machine backwards and new material is added to the reversed recording). In this particular case the masked material (Hendrix speaking) was added at a faster speed than the original recording, with a lot of reverb added, creating an almost otherworldly effect when played forward at normal speed.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1215 (starts 4/12/12)
Artist: Seeds
Title: Rollin' Machine
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
We start off this week's show with a song about a mode of transportation. And if you believe that I have some real estate you might be interested in as well. Rollin' Machine, from the Seeds' second LP, A Web Of Sound, is the only track in the first half hour that has ever been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Train For Tomorrow
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin/Williams/Spagnola/Ritter
Label: Collector's Choice (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Yet another metaphorical mode of transportation, this one from the first Electric Prunes album. Train For Tomorrow is one of the few Prunes songs credited to the entire band. If they had done more songs with instrumental breaks like this (inspired by Wes Montgomery) they might now be known for more than just their big hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).
Artist: Small Faces
Title: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Source: CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane/McLagon/Jones
Label: Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1968
By spring of 1968 the Small Faces, from London' East End, had already established themselves on the UK charts with the kind of catchy pop tunes that were the meat of the mid-60s British music scene. After having a falling out with industry giant Decca Records in 1967, they signed to Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham's newly formed Immediate Records. After a decent, but somewhat hurried first album for the new label the band (whose name came from the fact that they were all short), took their time with a follow-up. The result was Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, generally regarded as one of the few LPs to actually rise to the challenge laid down by the Beatles the previous year with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album opens with an instrumental title track, setting the tone for the rest of the LP.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Cirrus Minor
Source: CD: Relics (originally released on LP: Music From The Film "More")
Writer(s): Roger Waters
Label: Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year: 1969
In the years between the departure of founding member Syd Barrett and their breakthrough album Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd provided music for several independent films such as Zabriskie Point and one called More. One of the tracks from the latter film, Cirrus Minor, foreshadows how the band would sound during its most successful period during the late 70s and early 80s. The song, written by keyboardist Roger Waters, features lead vocals by Barrett's replacement, guitarist David Gilmour.
Artist: Five Americans
Title: I See The Light-'69
Source: LP: Now And Then
Writer(s): Rabon/Ezell/Durrill
Label: Abnak
Year: 1969
The first big regional hit for the Five Americans was the in-your-face rocker I See The Light, released in 1965. They followed it up with their 1966 smash Western Union, which went national in 1967. The group continued to chart hits in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for the next couple of years, but were unable to come up with another Western Union. One notable attempt was this 1969 update of I See The Light, which takes advantage of the better recording technology available to the band at that point in time.
Artist: Ace Of Cups
Title: Glue
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on CD: It's Bad For You But Buy It)
Writer(s): Denise Kaufman
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2003
The Ace Of Cups were a pioneering female rock band from San Francisco led by Denise Kaufman, immortalized by Ken Kesey as Mary Microdot in the book Electric Coolaid Acid Test. As one of the major Merry Pranksters, Kaufman's irreverent attitude is in full evidence on the track Glue, which features a bit of guerilla theater parodying the standard TV commercials of the time.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: It's Been Too Long
Source: CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Writer(s): Nick Gravenites
Label: Rock Beat
Year: 1968
One of the last of the Blues Project-inspired San Francisco jam bands to get a record contract was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Formed in 1966, the group was one of the top local attractions at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and was featured (along with Mother Nature and the Steve Miller Band) in the 1968 film Revolution. Finally getting a contract with Capital in mid-1968, the group, led by Gary Duncan and John Cippolina, went to work on a self-titled LP. Although some of the tracks reflected to band's propensity for improvisation, others songs on the album, such as their cover of Nick Gravenites's It's Been Too Long, feature relatively tight arrangements.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Hey Joe
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. The song itself was copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts and a much faster version by the Leaves had hit the US charts in early 1966.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Gypsy Eyes
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Electric Ladyland)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA
Year: 1968
The last album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was a double LP mixture of studio recordings and live jams in the studio with an array of guest musicians. Gypsy Eyes is a good example of Hendrix's prowess at the mixing board as well as on guitar.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Love Or Confusion
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and all the instruments dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. It's actually kind of fun to listen to with headphones on, as I did when I bought my first copy of the album on reel-to-reel tape (the tape deck was in the same room as the TV).
Artist: Kinks
Title: I'm A Lover Not A Fighter
Source: LP: Kinks-Size
Writer(s): J.D. Miller
Label: Reprise
Year: 1964
From 1964-1966 there were major differences between the US and UK catalogs of British Invasion bands such as the Kinks. This is partly because British albums tended to have longer running times, generally containing two or three more songs than their US counterparts. In addition, many groups released songs on 45 RPM Extended Play records in the UK, a practice that had been discontinued by most US labels in the late 1950s. A final factor was the British policy of not including songs that had been released as singles (or their B sides) on LPs. These extra songs usually ended up being released in the US on LPs that had no direct UK counterpart. One such album was 1965's Kinks-Size, which included I'm A Lover Not A Fighter, a rare Kinks cover song that was on the UK version of their 1964 debut LP.
Artist: Tommy Boyce And Bobby Hart
Title: Words
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1965, released 2009
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were really hoping to be selected for the new band that Screen Gems/Columbia Pictures was putting together to star in a new weekly TV series. It didn't work out for them, but several of the songs they wrote appeared on the Monkees albums, including Words, heard here in its previously unreleased 1965 demo form.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
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: Byrds
Title: So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): McGuinn/Hillman
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
By early 1967 there was a building resentment among musicians and rock press alike concerning the instant (and in some eyes unearned) success of the Monkees. One notable expression of this resentment was the Byrds' So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star, which takes a somewhat sarcastic look at what it takes to succeed in the music business. Unfortunately, much of what they talk about in the song continues to apply today (although the guitar has been somewhat supplanted by the computer as the instrument of choice).
Artist: Traffic
Title: Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush soundtrack)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood/Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
I have to admit in all honesty that before this week I had not known of the existence of a movie called Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush. The Traffic song of the same name, however, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time (I have black and white video footage of the band performing the song on some old British TV show). The song was released as a single in 1967 and was not included on either the US or UK version of the Mr. Fantasy album (originally known in the US as Heaven Is In Your Mind).
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single B side; re-released as A side)
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original label: All-American; reissued nationally on Uni Records)
Year: 1967
Incense and Peppermints started off as an instrumental, mostly because the band simply couldn't come up with any lyrics. Their producer decided to bring in professional songwriters to finish the song, and ended up giving them full credit for it. This did not sit well with the band members. In fact, they hated the lyrics so much that their regular vocalist refused to sing on the record. Undaunted, the producer brought in the lead vocalist from another local L.A. band to sing the song, which was then put on the B side of The Birdman Of Alcatrash. Somewhere along the line a local DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense An Peppermints as the A side.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): 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: Leaves
Title: Too Many People (remake)
Source: CD: Hey Joe
Writer(s): Pons/Rinehart
Label: One Way (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
The Leaves scored their first Los Angeles regional hit with the song Too Many People, released on the Mira label in 1965. When a later single, Hey Joe, became a national hit, the band re-recorded Too Many People for their debut album, released in 1966. Although the newer recording is cleaner (and in stereo), it lacks the raw garage-rock energy of the original.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
Artist: Who
Title: We're Not Gonna Take It
Source: CD: Tommy
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1968
One of the best-known songs from the Who's rock opera Tommy, is We're Not Gonna Take It, with its famous "See Me, Feel Me" section. The track serves as the grand finale for the album and was the only part of the Who's performance of Tommy at Woodstock to be included in D.A. Pennebacker's film of the festival.
Artist: Who
Title: Mary-Anne With The Shaky Hands
Source: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
There are at least three versions of Mary-Anne With The Shaky Hands. A faster, electric version of the song was released only in the US as the B side to I Can See For Miles, while this semi-latin flavored acoustic version was included on The Who Sell Out. Yet another version is featured as a bonus track on the 1993 CD release of Sell Out.
Artist: Who
Title: Sally Simpson
Source: CD: Tommy
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1968
The Who's rock opera Tommy deals with a phenomena that wouldn't actually be named until over a decade later: the cult of personality. In fact, these days the character Tommy might even be referred to as a "rock star" (as the term has come to be used in recent years). This is somewhat ironic, as the members of the Who were themselves rock stars throughout the 70s and 80s.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Work Me Lord
Source: LP: I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s): Nick Gravenites
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
After leaving Big Brother and the Holding Company in late 1968 Janis Joplin formed a new outfit, the Kozmic Blues Band, to back her up, both in concert and on her first solo LP, I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although there was indisputedly a greater amount of raw talent in the new band, they lacked synergy with Joplin's style and ultimately failed to provide a proper vehicle for her talents. One of the few highlights of Joplin's Kozmic Blues period was her recording of Nick Gravenites's (of Electric Flag fame) Work Me Lord.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: New Speedway Boogie
Source: LP: Workingman's Dead
Writer(s): Hunter/Garcia
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
The first three Grateful Dead albums were all attempts to capture the energy and experimentation of the band's live sets. Finally, in 1969, the band decided just to release a double LP of live performances. Once this goal had been reached the band began to move into new territory, concentrating more on songwriting and studio techniques. The result was Workingman's Dead, the first Grateful Dead LP to include songs that would become staples of the emerging album rock radio format.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: The Dangling Conversation
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The first Simon and Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM, originally tanked on the charts, causing Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to temporarily pursue solo careers. Simon went to England, where he wrote and recorded an album's worth of material. Meanwhile, producer Tom Wilson, fresh from producing Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, went into the studio with the original recording of the song Sound of Silence and added electric instruments to it. The result was a surprise hit that led Paul Simon to return to the US, reuniting with Art Garfunkel and re-recording several of the tunes he had recorded as a solo artist for a new album, Sounds of Silence. The success of that album prompted Columbia to re-release Wednesday Morning, 3AM, which in turn became a bestseller. Meanwhile, Simon and Garfunkel returned to the studio to record an album of all new material. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was yet another success that spawned several hit songs, including The Dangling Conversation, a song Simon described as similar to The Sound Of Silence, but more personal. The song was originally released as a single in fall of 1966, before the album itself came out.
Artist: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nagle/Cuff
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster, surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Bad Luck And Trouble
Source: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s): Johnny Winter
Label: United Artists (original label: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year: 1968
Although Johnny Winter had been around since the early 60s, recording in a variety of genres for various regional Texas labels, he really only started getting national attention when he started focusing on the blues exclusively. His first blues album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who gravitated to rock music, Johnny has remained primarily a blues musician throughout his career.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Heaven And Hell
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
Throughout the mid-60s Australia's most popular band was the Easybeats, often called the Australian Beatles. Although their early material sounded like slightly dated British Invasion music (Australia had a reputation for cultural lag, and besides, all but one of the members were British immigrants), by late 1966 guitarist Harry Vanda (the Scandinavian member of the group) had learned enough English to be able to replace vocalist Stevie Wright as George Young's writing partner. The new team was much more adventurous in their compositions than the Wright/Young team had been, and were responsible for the band's first international hit, Friday On My Mind. By then the Easybeats had relocated to England, and continued to produce fine singles such as Heaven And Hell.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.
Title: Rollin' Machine
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
We start off this week's show with a song about a mode of transportation. And if you believe that I have some real estate you might be interested in as well. Rollin' Machine, from the Seeds' second LP, A Web Of Sound, is the only track in the first half hour that has ever been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Train For Tomorrow
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin/Williams/Spagnola/Ritter
Label: Collector's Choice (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Yet another metaphorical mode of transportation, this one from the first Electric Prunes album. Train For Tomorrow is one of the few Prunes songs credited to the entire band. If they had done more songs with instrumental breaks like this (inspired by Wes Montgomery) they might now be known for more than just their big hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).
Artist: Small Faces
Title: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Source: CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane/McLagon/Jones
Label: Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1968
By spring of 1968 the Small Faces, from London' East End, had already established themselves on the UK charts with the kind of catchy pop tunes that were the meat of the mid-60s British music scene. After having a falling out with industry giant Decca Records in 1967, they signed to Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham's newly formed Immediate Records. After a decent, but somewhat hurried first album for the new label the band (whose name came from the fact that they were all short), took their time with a follow-up. The result was Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, generally regarded as one of the few LPs to actually rise to the challenge laid down by the Beatles the previous year with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album opens with an instrumental title track, setting the tone for the rest of the LP.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Cirrus Minor
Source: CD: Relics (originally released on LP: Music From The Film "More")
Writer(s): Roger Waters
Label: Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year: 1969
In the years between the departure of founding member Syd Barrett and their breakthrough album Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd provided music for several independent films such as Zabriskie Point and one called More. One of the tracks from the latter film, Cirrus Minor, foreshadows how the band would sound during its most successful period during the late 70s and early 80s. The song, written by keyboardist Roger Waters, features lead vocals by Barrett's replacement, guitarist David Gilmour.
Artist: Five Americans
Title: I See The Light-'69
Source: LP: Now And Then
Writer(s): Rabon/Ezell/Durrill
Label: Abnak
Year: 1969
The first big regional hit for the Five Americans was the in-your-face rocker I See The Light, released in 1965. They followed it up with their 1966 smash Western Union, which went national in 1967. The group continued to chart hits in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for the next couple of years, but were unable to come up with another Western Union. One notable attempt was this 1969 update of I See The Light, which takes advantage of the better recording technology available to the band at that point in time.
Artist: Ace Of Cups
Title: Glue
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on CD: It's Bad For You But Buy It)
Writer(s): Denise Kaufman
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2003
The Ace Of Cups were a pioneering female rock band from San Francisco led by Denise Kaufman, immortalized by Ken Kesey as Mary Microdot in the book Electric Coolaid Acid Test. As one of the major Merry Pranksters, Kaufman's irreverent attitude is in full evidence on the track Glue, which features a bit of guerilla theater parodying the standard TV commercials of the time.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: It's Been Too Long
Source: CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Writer(s): Nick Gravenites
Label: Rock Beat
Year: 1968
One of the last of the Blues Project-inspired San Francisco jam bands to get a record contract was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Formed in 1966, the group was one of the top local attractions at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and was featured (along with Mother Nature and the Steve Miller Band) in the 1968 film Revolution. Finally getting a contract with Capital in mid-1968, the group, led by Gary Duncan and John Cippolina, went to work on a self-titled LP. Although some of the tracks reflected to band's propensity for improvisation, others songs on the album, such as their cover of Nick Gravenites's It's Been Too Long, feature relatively tight arrangements.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Hey Joe
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. The song itself was copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts and a much faster version by the Leaves had hit the US charts in early 1966.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Gypsy Eyes
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Electric Ladyland)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA
Year: 1968
The last album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was a double LP mixture of studio recordings and live jams in the studio with an array of guest musicians. Gypsy Eyes is a good example of Hendrix's prowess at the mixing board as well as on guitar.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Love Or Confusion
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and all the instruments dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. It's actually kind of fun to listen to with headphones on, as I did when I bought my first copy of the album on reel-to-reel tape (the tape deck was in the same room as the TV).
Artist: Kinks
Title: I'm A Lover Not A Fighter
Source: LP: Kinks-Size
Writer(s): J.D. Miller
Label: Reprise
Year: 1964
From 1964-1966 there were major differences between the US and UK catalogs of British Invasion bands such as the Kinks. This is partly because British albums tended to have longer running times, generally containing two or three more songs than their US counterparts. In addition, many groups released songs on 45 RPM Extended Play records in the UK, a practice that had been discontinued by most US labels in the late 1950s. A final factor was the British policy of not including songs that had been released as singles (or their B sides) on LPs. These extra songs usually ended up being released in the US on LPs that had no direct UK counterpart. One such album was 1965's Kinks-Size, which included I'm A Lover Not A Fighter, a rare Kinks cover song that was on the UK version of their 1964 debut LP.
Artist: Tommy Boyce And Bobby Hart
Title: Words
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1965, released 2009
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were really hoping to be selected for the new band that Screen Gems/Columbia Pictures was putting together to star in a new weekly TV series. It didn't work out for them, but several of the songs they wrote appeared on the Monkees albums, including Words, heard here in its previously unreleased 1965 demo form.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
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: Byrds
Title: So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): McGuinn/Hillman
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
By early 1967 there was a building resentment among musicians and rock press alike concerning the instant (and in some eyes unearned) success of the Monkees. One notable expression of this resentment was the Byrds' So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star, which takes a somewhat sarcastic look at what it takes to succeed in the music business. Unfortunately, much of what they talk about in the song continues to apply today (although the guitar has been somewhat supplanted by the computer as the instrument of choice).
Artist: Traffic
Title: Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush soundtrack)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood/Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
I have to admit in all honesty that before this week I had not known of the existence of a movie called Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush. The Traffic song of the same name, however, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time (I have black and white video footage of the band performing the song on some old British TV show). The song was released as a single in 1967 and was not included on either the US or UK version of the Mr. Fantasy album (originally known in the US as Heaven Is In Your Mind).
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single B side; re-released as A side)
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original label: All-American; reissued nationally on Uni Records)
Year: 1967
Incense and Peppermints started off as an instrumental, mostly because the band simply couldn't come up with any lyrics. Their producer decided to bring in professional songwriters to finish the song, and ended up giving them full credit for it. This did not sit well with the band members. In fact, they hated the lyrics so much that their regular vocalist refused to sing on the record. Undaunted, the producer brought in the lead vocalist from another local L.A. band to sing the song, which was then put on the B side of The Birdman Of Alcatrash. Somewhere along the line a local DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense An Peppermints as the A side.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): 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: Leaves
Title: Too Many People (remake)
Source: CD: Hey Joe
Writer(s): Pons/Rinehart
Label: One Way (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
The Leaves scored their first Los Angeles regional hit with the song Too Many People, released on the Mira label in 1965. When a later single, Hey Joe, became a national hit, the band re-recorded Too Many People for their debut album, released in 1966. Although the newer recording is cleaner (and in stereo), it lacks the raw garage-rock energy of the original.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
Artist: Who
Title: We're Not Gonna Take It
Source: CD: Tommy
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1968
One of the best-known songs from the Who's rock opera Tommy, is We're Not Gonna Take It, with its famous "See Me, Feel Me" section. The track serves as the grand finale for the album and was the only part of the Who's performance of Tommy at Woodstock to be included in D.A. Pennebacker's film of the festival.
Artist: Who
Title: Mary-Anne With The Shaky Hands
Source: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
There are at least three versions of Mary-Anne With The Shaky Hands. A faster, electric version of the song was released only in the US as the B side to I Can See For Miles, while this semi-latin flavored acoustic version was included on The Who Sell Out. Yet another version is featured as a bonus track on the 1993 CD release of Sell Out.
Artist: Who
Title: Sally Simpson
Source: CD: Tommy
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1968
The Who's rock opera Tommy deals with a phenomena that wouldn't actually be named until over a decade later: the cult of personality. In fact, these days the character Tommy might even be referred to as a "rock star" (as the term has come to be used in recent years). This is somewhat ironic, as the members of the Who were themselves rock stars throughout the 70s and 80s.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Work Me Lord
Source: LP: I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s): Nick Gravenites
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
After leaving Big Brother and the Holding Company in late 1968 Janis Joplin formed a new outfit, the Kozmic Blues Band, to back her up, both in concert and on her first solo LP, I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although there was indisputedly a greater amount of raw talent in the new band, they lacked synergy with Joplin's style and ultimately failed to provide a proper vehicle for her talents. One of the few highlights of Joplin's Kozmic Blues period was her recording of Nick Gravenites's (of Electric Flag fame) Work Me Lord.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: New Speedway Boogie
Source: LP: Workingman's Dead
Writer(s): Hunter/Garcia
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
The first three Grateful Dead albums were all attempts to capture the energy and experimentation of the band's live sets. Finally, in 1969, the band decided just to release a double LP of live performances. Once this goal had been reached the band began to move into new territory, concentrating more on songwriting and studio techniques. The result was Workingman's Dead, the first Grateful Dead LP to include songs that would become staples of the emerging album rock radio format.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: The Dangling Conversation
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The first Simon and Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM, originally tanked on the charts, causing Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to temporarily pursue solo careers. Simon went to England, where he wrote and recorded an album's worth of material. Meanwhile, producer Tom Wilson, fresh from producing Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, went into the studio with the original recording of the song Sound of Silence and added electric instruments to it. The result was a surprise hit that led Paul Simon to return to the US, reuniting with Art Garfunkel and re-recording several of the tunes he had recorded as a solo artist for a new album, Sounds of Silence. The success of that album prompted Columbia to re-release Wednesday Morning, 3AM, which in turn became a bestseller. Meanwhile, Simon and Garfunkel returned to the studio to record an album of all new material. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was yet another success that spawned several hit songs, including The Dangling Conversation, a song Simon described as similar to The Sound Of Silence, but more personal. The song was originally released as a single in fall of 1966, before the album itself came out.
Artist: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nagle/Cuff
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster, surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Bad Luck And Trouble
Source: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s): Johnny Winter
Label: United Artists (original label: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year: 1968
Although Johnny Winter had been around since the early 60s, recording in a variety of genres for various regional Texas labels, he really only started getting national attention when he started focusing on the blues exclusively. His first blues album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who gravitated to rock music, Johnny has remained primarily a blues musician throughout his career.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Heaven And Hell
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
Throughout the mid-60s Australia's most popular band was the Easybeats, often called the Australian Beatles. Although their early material sounded like slightly dated British Invasion music (Australia had a reputation for cultural lag, and besides, all but one of the members were British immigrants), by late 1966 guitarist Harry Vanda (the Scandinavian member of the group) had learned enough English to be able to replace vocalist Stevie Wright as George Young's writing partner. The new team was much more adventurous in their compositions than the Wright/Young team had been, and were responsible for the band's first international hit, Friday On My Mind. By then the Easybeats had relocated to England, and continued to produce fine singles such as Heaven And Hell.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1214 (starts 4/5/12)
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: She's Coming Home
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Atkins/Miller
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
Generally speaking, cheatin' songs in 1966 were considered the province of country music. The few exceptions, such as Paul Revere and the Raiders' Steppin' Out, were all told from the victim's point of view. The Blues Magoos, however, turned the entire thing upside down with She's Coming Home, a song about having to break up with one's new girlfriend in the face of the old one returning from...(prison? military duty? the hospital? The lyrics never make that clear). The unusual nature of the song is in keeping with the cutting edge image of a band that was among the first to use the word psychedelic in an album title and had to have been the first to wear electric suits onstage.
Artist: Cream
Title: World Of Pain
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Pappalardi/Collins
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Whereas the first Cream LP was made up of mostly blues-oriented material, Disraeli Gears took a much more psychedelic turn, due in large part to the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. The Bruce/Brown team was not, however, the only source of material for the band. Both Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker made contributions, as did Cream's unofficial fourth member, keyboardist/producer Felix Pappalardi, who provided World Of Pain.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Gentle As It May Seem
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Heavy)
Writer(s): DeLoach/Weis
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
Personnel changes were pretty much a regular occurrence with Iron Butterfly. After the first album, Heavy, everyone except keyboardist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy, left the band. This was accompanied by a drastic change in style as well, as Ingle took over lead vocals from Darryl DeLoach and became the group's primary songwriter. Gentle As It Seems, written by DeLoach and lead guitarist Danny Weis, is a good example of the band's original sound, back when they were scrounging for gigs in a rapidly shrinking L.A. all-ages club scene.
Artist: 1910 Fruitgum Co.
Title: Beggar's Epitaph
Source: LP: Hard Ride
Writer(s): R&T Gutkowski
Label: Buddah
Year: 1969
Throughout 1968 the top 40 charts were cominated by a series of lyrically lightweight, highly danceable tunes that came to be collectively known as "bubble-gum" music. Most of these came from Kazenetz-Katz Productions and were released on the Buddah label. Perhaps the most infamous of the 'bubble-gum" bands was the 1910 Fruitgum Co., who tried to break out of the mold and go for a more progressive sound with their 1969 album Hard Ride. Beggar's Epitaph is actually quite a departure from songs like 1,2,3 Red Light. By 1969, however, their core following had moved on to heavier things and the Fruitgum Co. became a victim of their own success.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Dolly Dagger
Source: CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
At the time of his death in 1970, Jimi Hendrix had already finalized a number of tracks for a new double album, with several more in various states of completion. Most of the completed tracks (and those that could be easily finished) were released on a pair of LPs in 1971: The Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge (the latter being the soundtrack to a hastily constructed rockumentary film). In the mid-1990s the Hendrix family, working with engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell, attempted to reconstruct the actual album Hendrix had been working on. The result was First Rays Of The New Rising Sun. One song that had already been premiered in 1970 to a select audience by Hendrix himself was Dolly Dagger, which was made into a video at around the same time as the release of First Rays.
Artist: Five Man Electrical Band
Title: Signs
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Les Emerson
Label: Lionel
Year: 1971
Everybody has at least one song they have fond memories of hearing on the radio while riding around in a friend's car on a hot summer evening. Signs, from Canada's Five Man Electrical Band, is one of mine.
Artist: Doors
Title: You're Lost Little Girl
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors second LP, Strange Days, was stylistically similar to the first, and served notice to the world that this band was going to be around for awhile. Songwriting credit for You're Lost Little Girl (a personal favorite of mine) was given to the entire band, a practice that would continue until the release of The Soft Parade in 1969.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
After the success of Talk Talk, the Music Machine issued a series of unsuccessful singles on the Original Sound label. Band leader Sean Bonniwell attributed this lack of success to mismanagement by record company people and the band's own manager. Eventually those singles would be re-issued on Warner Brothers under the name Bonniwell Music Machine, along with a handful of new songs using a different lineup. One of the best of these singles was Double Yellow Line, which Bonniwell says he wrote while driving to a gig.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
The Music Machine was by far the most advanced of all the bands playing on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. Not only did they feature tight sets (so that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other bands. Dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair), and with leader Sean Bonniwell wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell eventually quit the music business altogether in disgust.
Artist: New Colony Six
Title: At The River's Edge
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Walter Kemp
Label: Rhino (original label: Centaur)
Year: 1966
The New Colony Six are best known for their soft pop-rock song Things I Like To Say, released on the Mercury label in 1969. In their earlier years, however, the Six were a prime example of the blues-tinged garage rock coming out of the Chicago area in the mid-1960s. At The River's Edge, released in 1966 on the band's own Centaur (later Sentar) label, is a classic example of the Six's early sound.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: You Me, We Love
Source: Friday On My Mind
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
The Easybeats were Australia's number one band throughout the mid-60s. In fact, it would not be inaccurate to say they were as popular Down Under as the Beatles were in England. Interestingly enough, none of the members were native Australians (most were from the British Isles). In late 1966 the Easybeats decided to relocate to London. Their first single recorded in the Smoke was Friday On My Mind, a song that became their first British hit. In early 1967 the song was released in the US, becoming their only American hit. An album was recorded to support the song and included several songs (such as You Me, We Love) by the group's star songwriting team, Harry Vanda (the Scandanavian member of the band) and George Young, whose younger brothers Malcolm and Angus would form perhaps the most successful Australian band ever: AC/DC.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Love You To
Source: CD: Revolver
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
Following the release of Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Beatle George Harrison began to make a serious effort to learn to play the Sitar, studying under the master, Ravi Shankar. Along with the instrument itself, Harrison studied Eastern forms of music. His first song written in the modal form favored by Indian composers was Love You To, from the Revolver album. The recording also features Indian percussion instruments and suitably spiritual lyrics.
Artist: Animals
Title: She'll Return It
Source: LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Jenkins/Rowberry/Burdon/Chandler/Valentine
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
As a general rule the Animals, in their original incarnation, recorded two kinds of songs: hit singles from professional songwriters such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and covers of blues and R&B tunes, the more obscure the better. What they did not record a lot of was original tunes from the band members themselves. This began to change in 1966 when the band began to experience a series of personnel changes that would ultimately lead to what amounted to an entirely new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, in 1967. One of the earliest songs to be credited to the entire band was She'll Return It, from the Animalization album. In retrospect, it is one of the strongest tracks on one of their strongest LPs.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Every Hungry Woman
Source: CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: The Allman Brothers Band)
Writer(s): Gregg Allman
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Once upon a time there was a band called the Hourglass, featuring vocalist Gregg Allman. The group moved out to L.A from their native Georgia and established a solid reputation as talented blues-rockers among the local musician crowd. Unfortunately, they were unable to capture their sound in the recording studio. This is mainly due to their record label's insistence on treating them as a blue-eyed soul band (probably due to a myopic view of Allman's vocal style). After the group's first album bombed, the label loosened up a bit, but even with the addition of Allman's brother Duane on guitar, the Hourglass was unable to get the sound they wanted and soon disbanded. Eventually Gregg and Duane moved back to Georgia and formed the Allman Brothers Band. Reportedly Gregg had several songs written for the Hourglass that Duane rejected as unsuitable for the Allman Brother Band. One that did make the cut was Every Hungry Woman, which found a home on the band's debut LP.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Title: Any Way You Want It
Source: CD: 5 By Five
Writer(s): Dave Clark
Label: Hollywood
Year: 1964
The Dave Clark Five were one of the first bands to follow in the footsteps of the Beatles, for a while even eclipsing the fab four in popularity among English fans. The band was originally formed as a way to make money to support Clark's football (soccer) team, but soon became his ticket to fame. Among the many top 10 hits for the band in 1964 was Any Way You Want It. Like all of the early DC5 records, the recording uses maximum compression to hit the listener with a continuous wall of sound, a technique that has been used for the past 50 years by TV commercials.
Artist: Fraternity Of Man
Title: Just Doin' Our Job
Source: LP: Fraternity Of Man
Writer(s): Fraternity Of Man
Label: ABC
Year: 1968
The Fraternity Of Man was an L.A. band with connections to the Mothers Of Invention. Their deliberately controversial songs included Don't Bogart That Joint, which was used in the film Easy Rider, and Just Doin' Our Job, a song that compares the LAPD to Hitler's Gestapo.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Faster Than The Speed Of Life
Source: LP: Steppenwolf The Second
Writer(s): Mars Bonfire
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1968
Like Steppenwolf's huge hit from their debut album, Born To Be Wild, Faster Than The Speed Of Life was written by Dennis Edmonton, brother of Steppenwolf drummer Jerry Edmonton, using the pseudonym Mars Bonfire. As for the lead vocals on this track, which opens Steppenwolf The Second, your guess is as good as mine. It certainly doesn't sound like John Kay to me.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: United Artists (original label: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year: 1968
Johnny Winter's first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was originally released in 1968 on the Texas-based Sonobeat label. A ctitical success, it was picked up and reissued on the Imperial label a year later. Most of the songs on the album are covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1966
Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: She May Call You Up Tonight
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
Unlike their first two singles, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina, this song failed to chart, possibly due to the release two months earlier of a song called Ivy Ivy, written by keyboardist Michael Brown and shown on the label as being by the Left Banke. The song was in reality performed entirely by session musicians, including lead vocals by Bert Sommer, who would be one of the acoustic acts on the opening afternoon of the Woodstock festival a couple years later. The resulting fued between Brown and the rest of the band left a large number of radio stations gun shy when came to any record with the name Left Banke on the label, and She May Call You Up Tonight tanked.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Uni)
Year: 1967
Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Star Collector
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The Monkees were one of the first bands to utilize the Moog synthesizer on a rock record. One of the two tracks that uses the device extensively is Star Collector, a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and sung by the late Davy Jones. Usually Jones was picked to sing the band's love ballads. Star Collector, on the other hand, is a wild, almost humorous look at rock groupies; the type of song that on earlier Monkees albums would have been given to Peter Tork to sing. The synthesizer in Star Collector is used more for sound effects than anything else, including the repeating "bye bye" sound at the end of the track.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Puzzles
Source: CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Page/McCarty/Relf
Label: Raven
Year: 1967
Toward the end of their run, producer Mickie Most had the Yardbirds sounding like a hipper version of Herman's Hermits (whom he also produced) on the A sides of their singles. Their B sides, such as 1967's Puzzles, on the other hand, were more in line with the way the band sounded live, which in turn sounded like a direct precursor to what would be guitarist Jimmy Page's next project: Led Zeppelin.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Whole Lotta Love
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones/Dixon
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
If any one song can be considered the bridge between psychedelic rock and heavy metal, it would have to be Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. Released in 1969 as the lead track to their second LP, the song became their biggest hit single. Whole Lotta Love was originally credited to the four band members. In recent years, however, co-credit has been given to Willie Dixon, whose lyrics to the 50s song You Need Love are almost identical to Robert Plant's.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: CD: Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s): 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: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Upsetter
Source: 45 RPM single (also released on LP: E Pluribus Funk)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1972
Grand Funk Railroad was something of an enigma. Due to universally negative reviews in the rock press, progressive FM stations avoided them like the plague. At the same time, top 40 radio was in the process of being supplanted as the voice of the mainstream by the Adult Contemporary (A/C) format, which tended to ignore hard rock. Nonetheless Grand Funk Railroad had a following. In fact, GFR was the first band to book (and sellout) entire sports arenas, setting attendance records wherever they played. This translated into major record sales, as they became the first band to have three LPs hit the million-seller mark in the same year (1970). That year they also had their first mainstream hit with I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home). From that point on the band would continue to release singles, although most, such as Upsetter, were still ignored by A/C radio (although they did get a fair amount of airplay from the remaining "true" top 40 stations). As the group's album sales were beginning to drop off, the singles became increasingly important to the band's continued success, and from 1973 on (starting with We're An American Band ) Grand Funk became pretty much a singles-oriented group, cranking out tunes like Bad Time and Some Kind Of Wonderful.
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: Red The Sign Post
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Cauldron)
Writer(s): Roswicki/Blossom
Label: Rhino (original label: Limelight)
Year: 1968
Although most of the more avant-garde bands of the psychedelic era were headquarted in New York, there were some exceptions, such as San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose. The core members of the band were founder and bassist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist David Blossom, and his wife, vocalist Nancy Blossom. The group used a lot of unusual instruments, such as theramin, Moog synthesizer and prepared guitar and piano. Probably their most commercial song was Red The Sign Post from the LP Cauldron. After that album the group called it quits, with most of the members joining the cast of Hair. In fact, Nancy Blossom played lead character Sheila in the San Francisco production of the musical.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Combination Of The Two
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Sam Andrew
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Everything about Big Brother And The Holding Company can be summed up by the title of the opening track for their Cheap Thrills album (and their usual show opener as well): Combination Of The 2. A classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, Big Brother, with Janis Joplin on lead vocals, had an energy that neither Joplin nor the rest of the band was able to duplicate once they parted company. On the song itself, the actual lead vocals for the verses are the work of Combination Of The 2's writer, bassist Sam Houston Andrew III, but those vocals are eclipsed by the layered non-verbal chorus that starts with Joplin then repeats itself with Houston providing a harmony line which leads to Joplin's promise to "knock ya, rock ya, gonna sock it to you now". It was a promise that the group seldom failed to deliver on.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Goin' Back
Source: CD: The Notorius Byrd Brothers
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
The Notorius Byrd Brothers, released in 1968, is considered by some to be the finest album in the group's catalog, despite the firing of core member David Crosby midway through the album. In fact, it was in part a disagreement between Crosby, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman over whether to include Crosby's Triad or the Gerry Goffin/ Carole King song Goin' Back on the album that led to Crosby's departure. With Crosby gone, Goin' Back ended up making the cut, but to me it sounds like it's missing something...)
Title: She's Coming Home
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Atkins/Miller
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
Generally speaking, cheatin' songs in 1966 were considered the province of country music. The few exceptions, such as Paul Revere and the Raiders' Steppin' Out, were all told from the victim's point of view. The Blues Magoos, however, turned the entire thing upside down with She's Coming Home, a song about having to break up with one's new girlfriend in the face of the old one returning from...(prison? military duty? the hospital? The lyrics never make that clear). The unusual nature of the song is in keeping with the cutting edge image of a band that was among the first to use the word psychedelic in an album title and had to have been the first to wear electric suits onstage.
Artist: Cream
Title: World Of Pain
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Pappalardi/Collins
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Whereas the first Cream LP was made up of mostly blues-oriented material, Disraeli Gears took a much more psychedelic turn, due in large part to the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. The Bruce/Brown team was not, however, the only source of material for the band. Both Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker made contributions, as did Cream's unofficial fourth member, keyboardist/producer Felix Pappalardi, who provided World Of Pain.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Gentle As It May Seem
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Heavy)
Writer(s): DeLoach/Weis
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
Personnel changes were pretty much a regular occurrence with Iron Butterfly. After the first album, Heavy, everyone except keyboardist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy, left the band. This was accompanied by a drastic change in style as well, as Ingle took over lead vocals from Darryl DeLoach and became the group's primary songwriter. Gentle As It Seems, written by DeLoach and lead guitarist Danny Weis, is a good example of the band's original sound, back when they were scrounging for gigs in a rapidly shrinking L.A. all-ages club scene.
Artist: 1910 Fruitgum Co.
Title: Beggar's Epitaph
Source: LP: Hard Ride
Writer(s): R&T Gutkowski
Label: Buddah
Year: 1969
Throughout 1968 the top 40 charts were cominated by a series of lyrically lightweight, highly danceable tunes that came to be collectively known as "bubble-gum" music. Most of these came from Kazenetz-Katz Productions and were released on the Buddah label. Perhaps the most infamous of the 'bubble-gum" bands was the 1910 Fruitgum Co., who tried to break out of the mold and go for a more progressive sound with their 1969 album Hard Ride. Beggar's Epitaph is actually quite a departure from songs like 1,2,3 Red Light. By 1969, however, their core following had moved on to heavier things and the Fruitgum Co. became a victim of their own success.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Dolly Dagger
Source: CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
At the time of his death in 1970, Jimi Hendrix had already finalized a number of tracks for a new double album, with several more in various states of completion. Most of the completed tracks (and those that could be easily finished) were released on a pair of LPs in 1971: The Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge (the latter being the soundtrack to a hastily constructed rockumentary film). In the mid-1990s the Hendrix family, working with engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell, attempted to reconstruct the actual album Hendrix had been working on. The result was First Rays Of The New Rising Sun. One song that had already been premiered in 1970 to a select audience by Hendrix himself was Dolly Dagger, which was made into a video at around the same time as the release of First Rays.
Artist: Five Man Electrical Band
Title: Signs
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Les Emerson
Label: Lionel
Year: 1971
Everybody has at least one song they have fond memories of hearing on the radio while riding around in a friend's car on a hot summer evening. Signs, from Canada's Five Man Electrical Band, is one of mine.
Artist: Doors
Title: You're Lost Little Girl
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors second LP, Strange Days, was stylistically similar to the first, and served notice to the world that this band was going to be around for awhile. Songwriting credit for You're Lost Little Girl (a personal favorite of mine) was given to the entire band, a practice that would continue until the release of The Soft Parade in 1969.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
After the success of Talk Talk, the Music Machine issued a series of unsuccessful singles on the Original Sound label. Band leader Sean Bonniwell attributed this lack of success to mismanagement by record company people and the band's own manager. Eventually those singles would be re-issued on Warner Brothers under the name Bonniwell Music Machine, along with a handful of new songs using a different lineup. One of the best of these singles was Double Yellow Line, which Bonniwell says he wrote while driving to a gig.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
The Music Machine was by far the most advanced of all the bands playing on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. Not only did they feature tight sets (so that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other bands. Dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair), and with leader Sean Bonniwell wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell eventually quit the music business altogether in disgust.
Artist: New Colony Six
Title: At The River's Edge
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Walter Kemp
Label: Rhino (original label: Centaur)
Year: 1966
The New Colony Six are best known for their soft pop-rock song Things I Like To Say, released on the Mercury label in 1969. In their earlier years, however, the Six were a prime example of the blues-tinged garage rock coming out of the Chicago area in the mid-1960s. At The River's Edge, released in 1966 on the band's own Centaur (later Sentar) label, is a classic example of the Six's early sound.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: You Me, We Love
Source: Friday On My Mind
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
The Easybeats were Australia's number one band throughout the mid-60s. In fact, it would not be inaccurate to say they were as popular Down Under as the Beatles were in England. Interestingly enough, none of the members were native Australians (most were from the British Isles). In late 1966 the Easybeats decided to relocate to London. Their first single recorded in the Smoke was Friday On My Mind, a song that became their first British hit. In early 1967 the song was released in the US, becoming their only American hit. An album was recorded to support the song and included several songs (such as You Me, We Love) by the group's star songwriting team, Harry Vanda (the Scandanavian member of the band) and George Young, whose younger brothers Malcolm and Angus would form perhaps the most successful Australian band ever: AC/DC.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Love You To
Source: CD: Revolver
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
Following the release of Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Beatle George Harrison began to make a serious effort to learn to play the Sitar, studying under the master, Ravi Shankar. Along with the instrument itself, Harrison studied Eastern forms of music. His first song written in the modal form favored by Indian composers was Love You To, from the Revolver album. The recording also features Indian percussion instruments and suitably spiritual lyrics.
Artist: Animals
Title: She'll Return It
Source: LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Jenkins/Rowberry/Burdon/Chandler/Valentine
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
As a general rule the Animals, in their original incarnation, recorded two kinds of songs: hit singles from professional songwriters such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and covers of blues and R&B tunes, the more obscure the better. What they did not record a lot of was original tunes from the band members themselves. This began to change in 1966 when the band began to experience a series of personnel changes that would ultimately lead to what amounted to an entirely new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, in 1967. One of the earliest songs to be credited to the entire band was She'll Return It, from the Animalization album. In retrospect, it is one of the strongest tracks on one of their strongest LPs.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Every Hungry Woman
Source: CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: The Allman Brothers Band)
Writer(s): Gregg Allman
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Once upon a time there was a band called the Hourglass, featuring vocalist Gregg Allman. The group moved out to L.A from their native Georgia and established a solid reputation as talented blues-rockers among the local musician crowd. Unfortunately, they were unable to capture their sound in the recording studio. This is mainly due to their record label's insistence on treating them as a blue-eyed soul band (probably due to a myopic view of Allman's vocal style). After the group's first album bombed, the label loosened up a bit, but even with the addition of Allman's brother Duane on guitar, the Hourglass was unable to get the sound they wanted and soon disbanded. Eventually Gregg and Duane moved back to Georgia and formed the Allman Brothers Band. Reportedly Gregg had several songs written for the Hourglass that Duane rejected as unsuitable for the Allman Brother Band. One that did make the cut was Every Hungry Woman, which found a home on the band's debut LP.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Title: Any Way You Want It
Source: CD: 5 By Five
Writer(s): Dave Clark
Label: Hollywood
Year: 1964
The Dave Clark Five were one of the first bands to follow in the footsteps of the Beatles, for a while even eclipsing the fab four in popularity among English fans. The band was originally formed as a way to make money to support Clark's football (soccer) team, but soon became his ticket to fame. Among the many top 10 hits for the band in 1964 was Any Way You Want It. Like all of the early DC5 records, the recording uses maximum compression to hit the listener with a continuous wall of sound, a technique that has been used for the past 50 years by TV commercials.
Artist: Fraternity Of Man
Title: Just Doin' Our Job
Source: LP: Fraternity Of Man
Writer(s): Fraternity Of Man
Label: ABC
Year: 1968
The Fraternity Of Man was an L.A. band with connections to the Mothers Of Invention. Their deliberately controversial songs included Don't Bogart That Joint, which was used in the film Easy Rider, and Just Doin' Our Job, a song that compares the LAPD to Hitler's Gestapo.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Faster Than The Speed Of Life
Source: LP: Steppenwolf The Second
Writer(s): Mars Bonfire
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1968
Like Steppenwolf's huge hit from their debut album, Born To Be Wild, Faster Than The Speed Of Life was written by Dennis Edmonton, brother of Steppenwolf drummer Jerry Edmonton, using the pseudonym Mars Bonfire. As for the lead vocals on this track, which opens Steppenwolf The Second, your guess is as good as mine. It certainly doesn't sound like John Kay to me.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: United Artists (original label: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year: 1968
Johnny Winter's first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was originally released in 1968 on the Texas-based Sonobeat label. A ctitical success, it was picked up and reissued on the Imperial label a year later. Most of the songs on the album are covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1966
Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: She May Call You Up Tonight
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
Unlike their first two singles, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina, this song failed to chart, possibly due to the release two months earlier of a song called Ivy Ivy, written by keyboardist Michael Brown and shown on the label as being by the Left Banke. The song was in reality performed entirely by session musicians, including lead vocals by Bert Sommer, who would be one of the acoustic acts on the opening afternoon of the Woodstock festival a couple years later. The resulting fued between Brown and the rest of the band left a large number of radio stations gun shy when came to any record with the name Left Banke on the label, and She May Call You Up Tonight tanked.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Uni)
Year: 1967
Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Star Collector
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The Monkees were one of the first bands to utilize the Moog synthesizer on a rock record. One of the two tracks that uses the device extensively is Star Collector, a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and sung by the late Davy Jones. Usually Jones was picked to sing the band's love ballads. Star Collector, on the other hand, is a wild, almost humorous look at rock groupies; the type of song that on earlier Monkees albums would have been given to Peter Tork to sing. The synthesizer in Star Collector is used more for sound effects than anything else, including the repeating "bye bye" sound at the end of the track.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Puzzles
Source: CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Page/McCarty/Relf
Label: Raven
Year: 1967
Toward the end of their run, producer Mickie Most had the Yardbirds sounding like a hipper version of Herman's Hermits (whom he also produced) on the A sides of their singles. Their B sides, such as 1967's Puzzles, on the other hand, were more in line with the way the band sounded live, which in turn sounded like a direct precursor to what would be guitarist Jimmy Page's next project: Led Zeppelin.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Whole Lotta Love
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones/Dixon
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
If any one song can be considered the bridge between psychedelic rock and heavy metal, it would have to be Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. Released in 1969 as the lead track to their second LP, the song became their biggest hit single. Whole Lotta Love was originally credited to the four band members. In recent years, however, co-credit has been given to Willie Dixon, whose lyrics to the 50s song You Need Love are almost identical to Robert Plant's.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: CD: Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s): 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: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Upsetter
Source: 45 RPM single (also released on LP: E Pluribus Funk)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1972
Grand Funk Railroad was something of an enigma. Due to universally negative reviews in the rock press, progressive FM stations avoided them like the plague. At the same time, top 40 radio was in the process of being supplanted as the voice of the mainstream by the Adult Contemporary (A/C) format, which tended to ignore hard rock. Nonetheless Grand Funk Railroad had a following. In fact, GFR was the first band to book (and sellout) entire sports arenas, setting attendance records wherever they played. This translated into major record sales, as they became the first band to have three LPs hit the million-seller mark in the same year (1970). That year they also had their first mainstream hit with I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home). From that point on the band would continue to release singles, although most, such as Upsetter, were still ignored by A/C radio (although they did get a fair amount of airplay from the remaining "true" top 40 stations). As the group's album sales were beginning to drop off, the singles became increasingly important to the band's continued success, and from 1973 on (starting with We're An American Band ) Grand Funk became pretty much a singles-oriented group, cranking out tunes like Bad Time and Some Kind Of Wonderful.
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: Red The Sign Post
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Cauldron)
Writer(s): Roswicki/Blossom
Label: Rhino (original label: Limelight)
Year: 1968
Although most of the more avant-garde bands of the psychedelic era were headquarted in New York, there were some exceptions, such as San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose. The core members of the band were founder and bassist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist David Blossom, and his wife, vocalist Nancy Blossom. The group used a lot of unusual instruments, such as theramin, Moog synthesizer and prepared guitar and piano. Probably their most commercial song was Red The Sign Post from the LP Cauldron. After that album the group called it quits, with most of the members joining the cast of Hair. In fact, Nancy Blossom played lead character Sheila in the San Francisco production of the musical.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Combination Of The Two
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Sam Andrew
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Everything about Big Brother And The Holding Company can be summed up by the title of the opening track for their Cheap Thrills album (and their usual show opener as well): Combination Of The 2. A classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, Big Brother, with Janis Joplin on lead vocals, had an energy that neither Joplin nor the rest of the band was able to duplicate once they parted company. On the song itself, the actual lead vocals for the verses are the work of Combination Of The 2's writer, bassist Sam Houston Andrew III, but those vocals are eclipsed by the layered non-verbal chorus that starts with Joplin then repeats itself with Houston providing a harmony line which leads to Joplin's promise to "knock ya, rock ya, gonna sock it to you now". It was a promise that the group seldom failed to deliver on.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Goin' Back
Source: CD: The Notorius Byrd Brothers
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
The Notorius Byrd Brothers, released in 1968, is considered by some to be the finest album in the group's catalog, despite the firing of core member David Crosby midway through the album. In fact, it was in part a disagreement between Crosby, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman over whether to include Crosby's Triad or the Gerry Goffin/ Carole King song Goin' Back on the album that led to Crosby's departure. With Crosby gone, Goin' Back ended up making the cut, but to me it sounds like it's missing something...)
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