Just a reminder. Mono and fake stereo LP and CD sources are noted as such. All others are stereo. 45s, on the other hand, were nearly all mono, so from now on I'll only be noting when they are in stereo (such as this week's opening track).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in Spring of '66, is a scathing criticism of the abuse of "legal" prescription drugs by the parents of the Stones' fans. Perhaps more than any other song of the time, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Merrell And The Exiles (aka Fapardokly)
Title: Tomorrow's Girl
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and included on LP: Fapardokly)
Writer(s): Merrell Fankhauser
Label: Rhino (original label: Glenn; LP issued on UIP)
Year: 1967
Merrell Fankhauser was a fixture on the L.A. music scene, fronting several bands throughout the 60s ranging in styles from surf to psychedelic, depending on what was in vogue at the time. For most of 1966 and 67 he led a group called Merrell and the Exiles (or Xiles), while holding down a somewhat more mundane day job between gigs. The last single by the Exiles was Tomorrow's Girl, originally released in 1967 on the tiny Glenn label and included on Fankhauser's Fapardokly album on UIP records later that same year.
Artist: Harumi
Title: Talk About It
Source: Mono LP: Harumi
Writer(s): Harumi
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1968
When it comes to obscurity, the album Harumi scores on multiple fronts. Virtually nothing is known about this Japanese-born artist other than the fact that sometime in the mid-60s he relocated to New York and managed to get a contract with Verve Forecast records, where he recorded this self-titled double LP with producer Tom Wilson. As to the music itself, it is perhaps best described by reviewer Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com: "there is nothing at all like this record in the known universe." Possibly the most conventional-sounding track on the album is Talk About It, which opens side one.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Section 43
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on EP: Rag Baby #2)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
Rag Baby was an underground journal published by Country Joe McDonald in mid-60s Berkeley, California. In 1965 McDonald decided to do a "talking issue" of the paper with an extended play (EP) record containing two songs by McDonald's band, Country Joe and the Fish and two by singer Peter Krug. In 1966 McDonald published a second Rag Baby EP, this time featuring four songs by Country Joe and the Fish. Among those was the original version of Section 43, a psychedelic instrumental that would appear in a re-recorded (and slightly changed) stereo form on the band's first LP, Electric Music For The Mind And Body, in early 1967.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunny South Kensington
Source: Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
Donovan followed up his 1966 hit single Sunshine Superman with an album of the same name. He then repeated himself with the song and album Mellow Yellow. Although there were no other singles released from either album, the song Sunny South Kensington, which was done in much the same style as Superman, was a highlight of the Mellow Yellow album. Due to a contractual dispute in the UK between Donovan and Pye Records, neither LP was issued in its original form in Britain.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a song originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work by Michael Monarch.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Come Up The Years
Source: Mono LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
One of the most overused motifs in pop music is the "You're too young for me" song. This probably reflects, to a certain degree, a lifestyle that goes back to the beginnings of rock and roll (Chuck Berry did jail time for transporting a minor across state lines, Jerry Lee Lewis saw his career get derailed by his marraige to his 13-year-old cousin, etc.). The Marty Balin/Paul Kantner tune Come Up The Years takes a more sophisticated look at the subject, although it still comes to the same conclusion (I can't do this because you're jailbait). In fact, the only rock songwriter I know of that came to any other conclusion on the matter was Bob Markley, and that's what ultimately got him in trouble with the law.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: A Song For All Seasons
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer(s): Spencer Dryden
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1969
When it comes to Jefferson Airplane rarities, there is nothing more rare than a Spencer Dryden composition. In fact, to my knowledge, A Song For All Seasons is the only one that he is given sole credit for. The song itself is a bit of a novelty, sounding like it would be more at home on a Rolling Stones (Let It Bleed era) album than an Airplane one, which is even odder when one considers Dryden's jazz background.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Run Around
Source: Mono LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
The first Jefferson Airplane album was dominated by the songwriting of the band's founder, Marty Balin, both as a solo writer and as a collaborator with other band members. Run Around, from Balin and rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner is fairly typical of the early Jefferson Airplane sound.
Artist: Doors
Title: Take It As It Comes
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's hottest bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening in early August Jack Holzman, president of Elektra Records, and producer Paul Rothchild were among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band on the Elektra label (although the Butterfield Blues Band is considered by some to be the first, predating Love by several months). By the end of the month the Doors were in the studio recording songs like Take It As It Comes for their debut LP, which was released in January of 1967.
Artist: Teddy And His Patches
Title: Suzy Creamcheese
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dave Conway
Label: Rhino (original label: Chance)
Year: 1967
Teddy And His Patches were a group of high school students who heard the phrase "Suzy Creamcheese, what's got into you" from a fellow San Jose, California resident and decided to make a song out of it. Reportedly none of the band members had ever heard the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out, where the phrase had originated. Nonetheless, they managed to turn out a piece of inspired madness worthy of Frank Zappa himself.
Artist: Chambers Brothers
Title: Time Has Come Today
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s): Joe and Willie Chambers
Label: Priority (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: Pink Floyd
Title: See Emily Play
Source: Fake stereo CD: Works (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Following up on their first single, Arnold Layne, Pink Floyd found even greater chart success (at least in their native England) with See Emily Play. Released in June of 1967, the song went all the way to the #6 spot on the British charts. In the US the song failed to chart as a single, although it was included on Pink Floyd's first US LP. The "Emily" in question is reportedly the sculptor Emily Young, who in those days was nicknamed the "psychedelic schoolgirl" at London's famed UFO club.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict
Source: CD: Works (originally released on LP: Ummagumma)
Writer(s): Roger Waters
Label: Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year: 1969
In 1971 I was in a band called Sunn that played mostly in theaters in western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle . To get the crowd in the right mood for our performance we would play a tape loop of Pink Floyd's Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict through the band's PA system while people were getting seated. We figured most everyone in the audience had not yet heard of Pink Floyd, since there were no progressive rock FM stations in that part of the country (and damned few AM stations playing anything but country for that matter). Composer Roger Waters later said of the piece: "It's not actually anything, it's a bit of concrete poetry. Those were sounds that I made, the voice and the hand slapping were all human generated - no musical instruments."
Artist: Beatles
Title: Drive My Car
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1965
Capitol Records repeatedly got the ire of the Beatles by omitting, adding and rearranging songs on the US versions of their albums, especially in 1966, when the band was starting to put considerable time and effort into presenting the songs as a coherent package. At the root of the problem were two facts: albums in the UK had longer running times than US albums, and thus more songs, and UK singles stayed in print longer than their US counterparts and were generally not included on albums at all. This resulted in albums like Yesterday and Today that didn't even have a British counterpart. Drive My Car, for example, was released in the US in 1966 on the Yesterday...And Today LP. It had appeared six months earlier in the UK as the opening track of the Rubber Soul album. Oddly enough, despite being one of the group's most recognizable songs, Drive My Car was never issued as a single.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Fly Away
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
The Blues Project has a permanent place in rock history, both for pioneering the idea of touring coast to coast playing college venues and as the first jam band. Still, they were never able to break into top 40 radio at a time when a top 40 hit was considered essential to a band's commercial success. Keyboardist Al Kooper, on the other hand, was no stranger to hit records, having co-written This Diamond Ring, a song that became the first number one hit for Gary Lewis and the Playboys (although Kooper himself hated their arrangement of the song) in 1965. One of Kooper's attempts at writing a hit song for the Blues Project was Fly Away, included on their second LP, Projections.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Little Rain
Source: CD: Anthology (originally released on LP: Blues Project)
Writer(s): Reed/Abner
Label: Polydor (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1972
In 1971 former Blues Project guitarist Danny Kalb and Roy Blumenfeld, along with bassist Don Kretmar recorded an album called Lazarus, credited to the Blues Project. The following year the three added David Cohen (of Country Joe and the Fish) on piano and Bill Lussenden on second guitar to record a self-titled final Blues Project LP. Original lead vocalist Tommy Flanders was also a member of this version of the band, although Danny Kalb handled the lead vocals on a couple of tracks, including the old Jimmy Reed tune Little Rain.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was the Blues Project. Formed in 1965 in Greenwich Village, the band worked its way from coast to coast playing mostly college campuses, in the process blazing a path that continues to be followed by underground/progressive/alternative artists. As if founding the whole college circuit wasn't enough, they were arguably the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running shows. Among those drawing their inspiration from the Blues Project were the Warlocks, a group of young musicians who were traveling with Ken Kesey on the Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test tour bus. The Warlocks would soon change their name to the Grateful Dead and take the jam band concept to a whole new level.
Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: We're Only In It For The Money-side one
Source: CD: We're Only In It For The Money
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1968
The first Mothers album, Freak Out, had one side (of four) dedicated to a single concept. The second album, Absolutely Free, was essentially two concept sides, each with its own subtitle. The process was taken to its inevitable conclusion with the third album, in which both sides tie into the same concept. The album itself satirizes both the hippy movement (or more precisely what it had become by 1968) and the mainstream culture of the time. Following a short audio collage (Are You Hung Up?) tht includes recording engineer Gary Kellgren whispering messages to composer/bandleader Frank Zappa, the album segues into Who Needs The Peace Corps, a scathing indictment of "phony hippies" who looked and acted the part without having any real understanding of the actual socia-political stance of the hippy movement. This leads to Concentration Moon, sung from the point of view of a young person interned in a concentration camp for hippies. The next track, Mom & Dad, tells the story of kids being killed by police while demonstrating in the park, with a punch line that reminds the older generation that all those kids that "looked to weird" were in fact their own children. Bow Tie Daddy pokes fun at the stereotype of the American male, while Harry, You're A Beast takes a shot an American womanhood and American sexuality in general. This in turn leads to the question: What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body ("I think it's your mind). Absolutely Free takes the drug culture head-on, while Hey Punk sends up the entire San Francisco scene. The first side of the album ends with the voice of recording engineer Gary Kellgren once again whispering messages to Zappa followed by a backwards tape of a verse that the record company insisted be cut out of one of the songs on side two of the album. As to which song, I'll save that for whenever I play side two of the album again.
Artist: McKendree Spring
Title: I Can't Make It Anymore
Source: LP: McKendree Spring
Writer(s): McKendree Spring
Label: Decca
Year: 1969
From Glens Falls, NY, McKendree Spring was one of the last folk-rock groups to begin their recording career, and (to my knowledge) the only one to use synthesizers. The band, consisting of Fran McKendree (vocals and guitar), Fred Holman (bass), Dr. Michael Dreyfuss (electric violin, viola, Moog, Arp), and Martin Slutsky (electric guitar) kept recording steadily through 1976, and reunited for an album of new material in 2007. I Can't Make It Anymore is from their somewhat rare first album, released in 1969.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source: Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1238 (starts 9/20/12)
Artist: Santana
Title: Everybody's Everything
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Santana/Moss/Brown
Label: Columbia
Year: 1971
Santana's third album, released in 1971, was called simply Santana. The problem is, their first album was also called Santana. The guitar solo on Everybody's Everything, by the way, is not by Carlos Santana. Rather it was performed by the then 17-year-old Neal Schon, who, along with keyboardist Greg Rolie would leave the band the following year to form Journey.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Today
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to Today, an early collaboration between rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner and bandleader Marty Balin on Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Utterly Simple
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind (originally released in UK only on LP: Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s): Dave Mason
Label: Island
Year: 1967
Several tracks from Traffic's 1967 debut LP, Mr. Fantasy, were not included on the album's US counterpart, Heaven Is In Your Mind, which was released in early 1968. Among the missing tracks was Utterly Simple, a Dave Mason tune that features the sitar more prominently than any other Traffic recording. In fact, Mason himself was missing from the US album's cover photo, even after the album was retitled Mr. Fantasy with its second printing. Utterly Simple was finally made available in the US when both versions of the album were released on CD.
Artist: Pasternak Progress
Title: Flower Eyes
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pasternak/Branca
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
In 1967 Jeff Pasternak became one of thousands of young people to catch the Doors at L.A.'s famous Whisky-A-Go-Go club on the Sunset Strip. Like many others, Pasternak was inspired to make music himself. Unlike most, Pasternak was son of a famous Hollywood movie producer/director (Joe Pasternak, whose credits included Please Don't Eat The Daisies and Where The Boys Are), and was able to take advantage of his father's connections to get a record made. That record was Flower Eyes, released later the same year on the Original Sound label.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Universal Soldier
Source: CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released in UK as 45 RPM EP and in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Buffy Sainte-Marie
Label: Rhino (original labels: UK: Pye, US: Hickory)
Year: 1965
Before Sunshine Superman became a huge hit in the US, Scottish folk singer Donovan Leitch was making a name for himself in the UK as the "British Dylan." One of his most popular early tunes was Universal Soldier, an antiwar piece that was originally released in the UK on a four-song EP. The EP charted well, but Hickory Records, which had the US rights to Donovan's records, was reluctant to release the song in a format (EP) that had long since run its course in the US and was, by 1965, only used by off-brand labels to crank out soundalike hits performed by anonymous studio musicians. Eventually Hickory decided to release Universal Soldier as a single, but the record failed to make the US charts.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Eight Miles High
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s): Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
After two albums dominated by cover tunes such as Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Byrds surprised everyone with an album consisting of almost all original material. Eight Miles High, co-written by Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark, was to be the first hit single composed by group members, but got derailed when Top 40 radio czar Bill Drake branded it a drug song. Despite the song being banned on several key radio stations, it still managed to crack the top 20.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation and Rhino's first Nuggets LP.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Remember A Day
Source: CD: Relics (originally released on LP: A Saucerful Of Secrets)
Writer(s): Rick Wright
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
Trivia question: Which Pink Floyd album never made the US album charts? The answer, of course, is A Saucerful Of Secrets, the band's second LP. Like the band's debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, A Saucerful Of Secrets was released on Capitol's low-budget Tower subsidiary and received virtually no promotion from the label. By 1968 it was becoming increasingly clear that Syd Barrett was going off the deep end due to ongoing mental health issues exacerbated by heavy use of hallucinogenics and it's reasonable to assume the label expected to band to soon dissolve. After one performance where Barrett did nothing but stand and strum a single chord for the entire set the rest of the band made a decision to bring in Barrett's childhood friend David Gilmour as their new guitarist. In all likelihood this decision saved the band itself, as A Saucerful Of Secrets ended up being the only Pink Floyd album to include both Barrett and Gilmour. Meanwhile, other band members were stepping up their contributions as well, Rick Wright's Remember A Day being a prime example.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
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: Music Machine
Title: The People In Me
Source: Mono 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: 1967
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: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
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. He declined.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: You're Gonna Miss Me
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators)
Writer(s): Roky Erickson
Label: Rhino (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
If anyplace outside of California has a legitimate claim to being the birthplace of the psychedelic era, it's Austin, Texas. That's mainly due to the presence of the 13th Floor Elevators, a local band led by Roky Erickson that had the audacity to use an electric jug (played by Tommy Hall) onstage. Their debut album was the first to use the word psychedelic in the title (predating the Blues Magoos' Psychedelic Lollipop by mere weeks). Musically, their leanings were more toward garage-rock than acid-rock, at least on their first album (they got rather metaphysical on their follow-up album, Easter Everywhere).
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Super Bird
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Country Joe and the Fish, from Berkeley, California, were one of the first rock bands to incorporate political satire into their music. Their I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag is one of the most famous protest songs ever written. Superbird is even heavier on the satire than the Rag. The song, from the band's debut LP, puts president Lyndon Johnson, whose wife was known as "Ladybird", in the role of a comic book superhero.
Artist: Farquahr
Title: Poor Bluebird
Source: LP: The Fabulous Farquahr
Writer(s): Farquahr
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1968
Speaking of birds, we have Farquahr, a hippy band from Branford, Connecticut who were quite popular among the locals in the mid to late 60s. According to the back cover of this album, all four members (Barnswallow, Hummingbird, Flamingo and Condor) were British nobility, the Farquahr family, which somehow had been mysteriously left off the official peerage list. The band's visual image was similar to San Francisco's Charlatans, and indeed, they seemed to have a similar fondness for the jug band style of music as well as quieter songs such as Poor Bluebird. As it turns out, Hummingbird, Flamingo and Condor Farquahr were in reality Bobby, Frank and Dennis McGowan, while leader Barnswallow was actually Doug Lapham. The group also occassionally performed Celtic music as the McGowan Brothers.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Soft Parade
Source: LP: The Soft Parade
Writer(s): Jim Morrison
Label: Elektra
Year: 1969
The Doors caught a lot of flack from their fans for their departure from the style that made them popular when they released their fourth LP, The Soft Parade. Ironically, the track that most resembles their previous efforts was the nearly nine minute title track, which starts with one of Jim Morrison's best-known monologues. You cannot petition the Lord with prayer, indeed!
Artist: It's A Beautiful Day
Title: Hoedown
Source: LP: Marrying Maiden
Writer(s): David LaFlamme
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
In what was probably a case of rampant speculative buying, It's A Beautiful Day's second album sold more copies than the first on the strength of the song White Bird, which was on the first album. Marrying Maiden itself did not have any songs that got significant airplay, despite the presence of Jerry Garcia on a couple of tracks (including Hoedown, on which he plays banjo) and the band's fortunes went downhill from there.
Artist: Tim Buckley
Title: Once Upon A Time
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Buckley/Beckett
Label: Rhino
Year: recorded 1967, released 2009
Tim Buckley was one of those people whose style it is almost impossible to define. His first album, consisting of songs he and his friend Bob Beckett had written while still attending high school, was released in 1966 on Elektra Records, and was considered folk music. Before recording a follow-up, Buckley switched gears, recording Once Upon A Time in an effort to achieve commercial success. Elektra Records declined to released the song, however, and Buckley soon eased into a more eclectic vein, writing songs that incorporated elements of several genres, including folk, rock and even jazz.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Grammophone Man
Source: LP: Spirit
Writer(s): Ferguson/Locke/California/Andes/Cassidy
Label: Epic
Year: 1968
Like most of the tracks on Spirit's 1968 debut LP, Grammophone Man combines rock and jazz in a way that has yet to be duplicated. Rather than create a jazz/rock fusion the group chose to switch gears mid-song. After a couple of minutes of a section that can best described as light rock, the song suddenly shifts into a fast-paced bop instrumental featuring Wes Montgomery style guitar work by Randy California and a short Ed Cassidy drum solo that eventually drops the tempo for a short reprise of the piece's main section.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.
Artist: Fever Tree
Title: San Francisco Girls (Return Of The Native) (originally released on LP: Fever Tree)
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Writer(s): Scott and Vivian Holtzman
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Uni)
Year: 1968
A minor trend in 1968 was for producer/songwriters to find a band to record their material exclusively. A prime example is Houston's Fever Tree, which featured the music of husband and wife team Scott and Vivian Holtzman. San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native) was the single from that album, peaking in the lower reaches of the Hot 100 charts.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: I Can Move A Mountain
Source: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s): Theilhelm/Kelly
Label: Mercury
Year: 1968
After parting with an increasingly bubble-gum oriented management team, the Blues Magoos set out to reinvent themselves as a more progressive rock band in 1968. The resulting LP, Basic Blues Magoos, was self-produced and self-recorded, and showed a side of the band that had not been heard before. The group was unable to shed their baggage in the eyes of the record-buying public, however, and the album sold poorly.
Artist: United States Of America
Title: I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You Sugar
Source: CD: The United States Of America
Writer(s): Byrd/Moskowitz
Label: Sundazed (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
The United States Of America has its origins in early 60s New York, where a young Jospeh Byrd came to study with avant-garde composer John Cage. Somewhere along the line Byrd met up with Dorothy Moskowitz and the two of them left the big apple for the more wide-open spaces of Los Angeles in 1963. After co-founding the New Music Worshop at UCLA the two found themselves at the center of an infant experimental scene in southern California. This led to a series of concerts/events known as the "Steamed Spring Vegetable Pie". The success of this series led Byrd and Moskowitz to form the west coast's first avant-garde rock band, the United States Of America, with Gordon Marron, Craig Woodson and Rand Forbes. The group only recorded one album, and even then was suffering from internal conflicts. One of the highlights of that lone LP was the satirical I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You Sugar, sung by Moskowitz.
Artist: Tommy James And The Shondells
Title: Bloody Waters
Source: LP: Travelin'
Writer(s): James/King
Label: Roulette
Year: 1970
By any measure Tommy James and the Shondells had a successful run. Starting with Hanky Panky in 1966, James cranked out a string of hits, many of which he wrote himself, including I Think We're Alone Now, Crimson And Clover, Mony Mony and many others. That run finally came to an end in 1970 when the band recorded its final LP, Travelin'. The album itself displays a greater variety of styles than one would expect, starting with the blues-rocking opening track, Bloody Waters.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Positively 4th Street
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
Recorded during the same 1965 sessions that produced the classic Highway 61 Revisited album, Positively 4th Street was deliberately held back for release as a single later that year. It would not appear on an LP until the first Dylan Greatest Hits album.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: From A Buick 6
Source: Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Although there were several unissued recordings made during the Highway 61 Revisited sessions, Dylan and his producer, Tom Wilson, chose to instead use one of the already released album tracks as the B side for Positively 4th Street in September of 1965. The chosen track was From A Buick 6, a song that is vintage Dylan through and through.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Like A Rolling Stone
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Highway 61 Revisited)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
Bob Dylan incurred the wrath of folk purists when he decided to use electric instruments for his 1965 LP Highway 61 Revisited. The opening track on the album is the six-minute Like A Rolling Stone, a song that was also selected to be the first single released from the new album. After the single was pressed, the shirts at Columbia Records decided to cancel the release due to its length. An acetate copy of the record, however, made it to a local New York club, where, by audience request, the record was played over and over until it was worn out (acetate copies not being as durable as their vinyl counterparts). When Columbia started getting calls from local radio stations demanding copies of the song the next morning they decided to release the single after all. Like A Rolling Stone ended up going all the way to the number two spot on the US charts, doing quite well in several other countries as well.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Heart Full Of Soul
Source: Mono CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1965
The Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who had also written For Your Love. Gouldman was then a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and would later become a founding member of 10cc.
Artist: Animals
Title: Inside Looking Out
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s): Lomax/Lomax/Burdon/Chandler
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
One of the last songs recorded by the Animals before their first breakup, Inside Looking Out (a powerful song about life in prison) was covered a few years later by Grand Funk Railroad, who made it one of their concert staples. This has always been one of my all-time favorite rock songs.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: In Another Land
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Bill Wyman
Label: London
Year: 1967
In Another Land was the first Rolling Stones song written and sung by bassist Bill Wyman, and was even released in the UK as a Wyman single. The song originally appeared on the Stones' most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, in late 1967.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Sound Asleep
Source: CD: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): The Turtles
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1968
If the key to success in the real estate business is location location location, then the key to success in top 40 radio is timing timing timing. Even the best of songs can have a difficult time finding an audience if that audience is into something entirely different at the time. Take the Turtles' Sound Asleep. Taken out of context it is a well-crafted pop song with a good beat and a strong melody. Unfortunately it was released in 1968, when top 40 radio was being dominated by mindless bubble gum hits and FM was developing an identity of its own centered on progressive rock. Thus Sound Asleep, despite its obvious quality, went quietly into the cutout bin rather quickly after its release as a single. It wasn't too long after that that the Turtles themselves called it quits.
Title: Everybody's Everything
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Santana/Moss/Brown
Label: Columbia
Year: 1971
Santana's third album, released in 1971, was called simply Santana. The problem is, their first album was also called Santana. The guitar solo on Everybody's Everything, by the way, is not by Carlos Santana. Rather it was performed by the then 17-year-old Neal Schon, who, along with keyboardist Greg Rolie would leave the band the following year to form Journey.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Today
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to Today, an early collaboration between rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner and bandleader Marty Balin on Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Utterly Simple
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind (originally released in UK only on LP: Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s): Dave Mason
Label: Island
Year: 1967
Several tracks from Traffic's 1967 debut LP, Mr. Fantasy, were not included on the album's US counterpart, Heaven Is In Your Mind, which was released in early 1968. Among the missing tracks was Utterly Simple, a Dave Mason tune that features the sitar more prominently than any other Traffic recording. In fact, Mason himself was missing from the US album's cover photo, even after the album was retitled Mr. Fantasy with its second printing. Utterly Simple was finally made available in the US when both versions of the album were released on CD.
Artist: Pasternak Progress
Title: Flower Eyes
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pasternak/Branca
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
In 1967 Jeff Pasternak became one of thousands of young people to catch the Doors at L.A.'s famous Whisky-A-Go-Go club on the Sunset Strip. Like many others, Pasternak was inspired to make music himself. Unlike most, Pasternak was son of a famous Hollywood movie producer/director (Joe Pasternak, whose credits included Please Don't Eat The Daisies and Where The Boys Are), and was able to take advantage of his father's connections to get a record made. That record was Flower Eyes, released later the same year on the Original Sound label.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Universal Soldier
Source: CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released in UK as 45 RPM EP and in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Buffy Sainte-Marie
Label: Rhino (original labels: UK: Pye, US: Hickory)
Year: 1965
Before Sunshine Superman became a huge hit in the US, Scottish folk singer Donovan Leitch was making a name for himself in the UK as the "British Dylan." One of his most popular early tunes was Universal Soldier, an antiwar piece that was originally released in the UK on a four-song EP. The EP charted well, but Hickory Records, which had the US rights to Donovan's records, was reluctant to release the song in a format (EP) that had long since run its course in the US and was, by 1965, only used by off-brand labels to crank out soundalike hits performed by anonymous studio musicians. Eventually Hickory decided to release Universal Soldier as a single, but the record failed to make the US charts.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Eight Miles High
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s): Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
After two albums dominated by cover tunes such as Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Byrds surprised everyone with an album consisting of almost all original material. Eight Miles High, co-written by Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark, was to be the first hit single composed by group members, but got derailed when Top 40 radio czar Bill Drake branded it a drug song. Despite the song being banned on several key radio stations, it still managed to crack the top 20.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation and Rhino's first Nuggets LP.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Remember A Day
Source: CD: Relics (originally released on LP: A Saucerful Of Secrets)
Writer(s): Rick Wright
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
Trivia question: Which Pink Floyd album never made the US album charts? The answer, of course, is A Saucerful Of Secrets, the band's second LP. Like the band's debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, A Saucerful Of Secrets was released on Capitol's low-budget Tower subsidiary and received virtually no promotion from the label. By 1968 it was becoming increasingly clear that Syd Barrett was going off the deep end due to ongoing mental health issues exacerbated by heavy use of hallucinogenics and it's reasonable to assume the label expected to band to soon dissolve. After one performance where Barrett did nothing but stand and strum a single chord for the entire set the rest of the band made a decision to bring in Barrett's childhood friend David Gilmour as their new guitarist. In all likelihood this decision saved the band itself, as A Saucerful Of Secrets ended up being the only Pink Floyd album to include both Barrett and Gilmour. Meanwhile, other band members were stepping up their contributions as well, Rick Wright's Remember A Day being a prime example.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
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: Music Machine
Title: The People In Me
Source: Mono 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: 1967
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: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
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. He declined.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: You're Gonna Miss Me
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators)
Writer(s): Roky Erickson
Label: Rhino (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
If anyplace outside of California has a legitimate claim to being the birthplace of the psychedelic era, it's Austin, Texas. That's mainly due to the presence of the 13th Floor Elevators, a local band led by Roky Erickson that had the audacity to use an electric jug (played by Tommy Hall) onstage. Their debut album was the first to use the word psychedelic in the title (predating the Blues Magoos' Psychedelic Lollipop by mere weeks). Musically, their leanings were more toward garage-rock than acid-rock, at least on their first album (they got rather metaphysical on their follow-up album, Easter Everywhere).
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Super Bird
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Country Joe and the Fish, from Berkeley, California, were one of the first rock bands to incorporate political satire into their music. Their I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag is one of the most famous protest songs ever written. Superbird is even heavier on the satire than the Rag. The song, from the band's debut LP, puts president Lyndon Johnson, whose wife was known as "Ladybird", in the role of a comic book superhero.
Artist: Farquahr
Title: Poor Bluebird
Source: LP: The Fabulous Farquahr
Writer(s): Farquahr
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1968
Speaking of birds, we have Farquahr, a hippy band from Branford, Connecticut who were quite popular among the locals in the mid to late 60s. According to the back cover of this album, all four members (Barnswallow, Hummingbird, Flamingo and Condor) were British nobility, the Farquahr family, which somehow had been mysteriously left off the official peerage list. The band's visual image was similar to San Francisco's Charlatans, and indeed, they seemed to have a similar fondness for the jug band style of music as well as quieter songs such as Poor Bluebird. As it turns out, Hummingbird, Flamingo and Condor Farquahr were in reality Bobby, Frank and Dennis McGowan, while leader Barnswallow was actually Doug Lapham. The group also occassionally performed Celtic music as the McGowan Brothers.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Soft Parade
Source: LP: The Soft Parade
Writer(s): Jim Morrison
Label: Elektra
Year: 1969
The Doors caught a lot of flack from their fans for their departure from the style that made them popular when they released their fourth LP, The Soft Parade. Ironically, the track that most resembles their previous efforts was the nearly nine minute title track, which starts with one of Jim Morrison's best-known monologues. You cannot petition the Lord with prayer, indeed!
Artist: It's A Beautiful Day
Title: Hoedown
Source: LP: Marrying Maiden
Writer(s): David LaFlamme
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
In what was probably a case of rampant speculative buying, It's A Beautiful Day's second album sold more copies than the first on the strength of the song White Bird, which was on the first album. Marrying Maiden itself did not have any songs that got significant airplay, despite the presence of Jerry Garcia on a couple of tracks (including Hoedown, on which he plays banjo) and the band's fortunes went downhill from there.
Artist: Tim Buckley
Title: Once Upon A Time
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Buckley/Beckett
Label: Rhino
Year: recorded 1967, released 2009
Tim Buckley was one of those people whose style it is almost impossible to define. His first album, consisting of songs he and his friend Bob Beckett had written while still attending high school, was released in 1966 on Elektra Records, and was considered folk music. Before recording a follow-up, Buckley switched gears, recording Once Upon A Time in an effort to achieve commercial success. Elektra Records declined to released the song, however, and Buckley soon eased into a more eclectic vein, writing songs that incorporated elements of several genres, including folk, rock and even jazz.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Grammophone Man
Source: LP: Spirit
Writer(s): Ferguson/Locke/California/Andes/Cassidy
Label: Epic
Year: 1968
Like most of the tracks on Spirit's 1968 debut LP, Grammophone Man combines rock and jazz in a way that has yet to be duplicated. Rather than create a jazz/rock fusion the group chose to switch gears mid-song. After a couple of minutes of a section that can best described as light rock, the song suddenly shifts into a fast-paced bop instrumental featuring Wes Montgomery style guitar work by Randy California and a short Ed Cassidy drum solo that eventually drops the tempo for a short reprise of the piece's main section.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.
Artist: Fever Tree
Title: San Francisco Girls (Return Of The Native) (originally released on LP: Fever Tree)
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Writer(s): Scott and Vivian Holtzman
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Uni)
Year: 1968
A minor trend in 1968 was for producer/songwriters to find a band to record their material exclusively. A prime example is Houston's Fever Tree, which featured the music of husband and wife team Scott and Vivian Holtzman. San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native) was the single from that album, peaking in the lower reaches of the Hot 100 charts.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: I Can Move A Mountain
Source: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s): Theilhelm/Kelly
Label: Mercury
Year: 1968
After parting with an increasingly bubble-gum oriented management team, the Blues Magoos set out to reinvent themselves as a more progressive rock band in 1968. The resulting LP, Basic Blues Magoos, was self-produced and self-recorded, and showed a side of the band that had not been heard before. The group was unable to shed their baggage in the eyes of the record-buying public, however, and the album sold poorly.
Artist: United States Of America
Title: I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You Sugar
Source: CD: The United States Of America
Writer(s): Byrd/Moskowitz
Label: Sundazed (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
The United States Of America has its origins in early 60s New York, where a young Jospeh Byrd came to study with avant-garde composer John Cage. Somewhere along the line Byrd met up with Dorothy Moskowitz and the two of them left the big apple for the more wide-open spaces of Los Angeles in 1963. After co-founding the New Music Worshop at UCLA the two found themselves at the center of an infant experimental scene in southern California. This led to a series of concerts/events known as the "Steamed Spring Vegetable Pie". The success of this series led Byrd and Moskowitz to form the west coast's first avant-garde rock band, the United States Of America, with Gordon Marron, Craig Woodson and Rand Forbes. The group only recorded one album, and even then was suffering from internal conflicts. One of the highlights of that lone LP was the satirical I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You Sugar, sung by Moskowitz.
Artist: Tommy James And The Shondells
Title: Bloody Waters
Source: LP: Travelin'
Writer(s): James/King
Label: Roulette
Year: 1970
By any measure Tommy James and the Shondells had a successful run. Starting with Hanky Panky in 1966, James cranked out a string of hits, many of which he wrote himself, including I Think We're Alone Now, Crimson And Clover, Mony Mony and many others. That run finally came to an end in 1970 when the band recorded its final LP, Travelin'. The album itself displays a greater variety of styles than one would expect, starting with the blues-rocking opening track, Bloody Waters.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Positively 4th Street
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
Recorded during the same 1965 sessions that produced the classic Highway 61 Revisited album, Positively 4th Street was deliberately held back for release as a single later that year. It would not appear on an LP until the first Dylan Greatest Hits album.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: From A Buick 6
Source: Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Although there were several unissued recordings made during the Highway 61 Revisited sessions, Dylan and his producer, Tom Wilson, chose to instead use one of the already released album tracks as the B side for Positively 4th Street in September of 1965. The chosen track was From A Buick 6, a song that is vintage Dylan through and through.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Like A Rolling Stone
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Highway 61 Revisited)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
Bob Dylan incurred the wrath of folk purists when he decided to use electric instruments for his 1965 LP Highway 61 Revisited. The opening track on the album is the six-minute Like A Rolling Stone, a song that was also selected to be the first single released from the new album. After the single was pressed, the shirts at Columbia Records decided to cancel the release due to its length. An acetate copy of the record, however, made it to a local New York club, where, by audience request, the record was played over and over until it was worn out (acetate copies not being as durable as their vinyl counterparts). When Columbia started getting calls from local radio stations demanding copies of the song the next morning they decided to release the single after all. Like A Rolling Stone ended up going all the way to the number two spot on the US charts, doing quite well in several other countries as well.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Heart Full Of Soul
Source: Mono CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1965
The Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who had also written For Your Love. Gouldman was then a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and would later become a founding member of 10cc.
Artist: Animals
Title: Inside Looking Out
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s): Lomax/Lomax/Burdon/Chandler
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
One of the last songs recorded by the Animals before their first breakup, Inside Looking Out (a powerful song about life in prison) was covered a few years later by Grand Funk Railroad, who made it one of their concert staples. This has always been one of my all-time favorite rock songs.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: In Another Land
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Bill Wyman
Label: London
Year: 1967
In Another Land was the first Rolling Stones song written and sung by bassist Bill Wyman, and was even released in the UK as a Wyman single. The song originally appeared on the Stones' most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, in late 1967.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Sound Asleep
Source: CD: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): The Turtles
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1968
If the key to success in the real estate business is location location location, then the key to success in top 40 radio is timing timing timing. Even the best of songs can have a difficult time finding an audience if that audience is into something entirely different at the time. Take the Turtles' Sound Asleep. Taken out of context it is a well-crafted pop song with a good beat and a strong melody. Unfortunately it was released in 1968, when top 40 radio was being dominated by mindless bubble gum hits and FM was developing an identity of its own centered on progressive rock. Thus Sound Asleep, despite its obvious quality, went quietly into the cutout bin rather quickly after its release as a single. It wasn't too long after that that the Turtles themselves called it quits.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
While we wait...
Hi,
Playlist will be a bit late this time around. In the meantime, here's something to think about.
We the people have been complaining a lot lately about undue corporate influence on both the Democratic and Republican parties these days, and yes, I believe those complaints are grounded in fact.
However, we have no one to blame but ourselves for this.
The fact is, we the people are incapable of electing anyone to high political office who does not have backing from major corporations.
You disagree with the above statement? Fine. Prove me wrong. Vote for someone without corporate backing instead of the lesser of two evils. I bet you can't bring yourself to do it. You'll think you're wasting your vote on a candidate who has no chance of winning, so you'll end up voting for either a Democrat or a Republican.
Just something to think about.
Playlist will be a bit late this time around. In the meantime, here's something to think about.
We the people have been complaining a lot lately about undue corporate influence on both the Democratic and Republican parties these days, and yes, I believe those complaints are grounded in fact.
However, we have no one to blame but ourselves for this.
The fact is, we the people are incapable of electing anyone to high political office who does not have backing from major corporations.
You disagree with the above statement? Fine. Prove me wrong. Vote for someone without corporate backing instead of the lesser of two evils. I bet you can't bring yourself to do it. You'll think you're wasting your vote on a candidate who has no chance of winning, so you'll end up voting for either a Democrat or a Republican.
Just something to think about.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1237 (starts 9/13/12)
This week's show comes in two parts. In the first hour each set is from a particular year and contains two songs with something obvious in common, while the other selection tends to stick out like a sore thumb (or some such metaphor). The second hour, on the other hand, is made up of long progressions through the years (although there are some sore thumbs in those as well).
In the first set we have two bands from the UK (I'm pretty sure Belfast qualifies), with a band from Texas thrown in, all from 1965.
Artist: Them
Title: Here Comes The Night
Source: Mono LP: Them
Writer(s): Bert Berns
Label: Parrot
Year: 1965
Them's first album was originally released in the UK as The Angry Young Them, and did not include their first US hit single, Here Comes The Night. Originally recorded by Lulu (of To Sir With Love"fame) and the Luvvers, this track was not only added to the US version of the LP (entitled simply Them), it was given the coveted opening slot. The guitar leads on Here Comes The Night were provided by a young studio guitarist named Jimmy Page.
Artist: Zombies
Title: Tell Her No
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Rod Argent
Label: London (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1965
Rod Argent was responsible for writing four well-known hit songs, which were spread out over a period of eight years (and two bands). The second of these was Tell Her No, released in 1965. The song got mixed reviews from critics, all of which measured the tune against Beatle songs of the same period.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: A Public Execution
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1965
It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousins down in Tyler. Mouse and the Traps, in fact, got quite a bit of airplay in that part of the state with a series of singles issued in the mid-60s. A Public Execution is unique among those singles in that the artist on the label was listed simply as Mouse.
Our 1966 set includes two New York City-based acts mixed with one from Massachusettes (don't let any Red Sox fans know).
Artist: Teddy And His Pandas
Title: We Can't Go On This Way
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 4-Pop part one (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stone
Label: Rhino (original label: Musicor)
Year: 1966
Not to be confused with San Jose's Teddy And His Patches, Teddy And His Pandas were a band originally from Beverly, Mass. who managed to record several singles over a period of about three years, including We Can't Go On This Way, a Beatle-inspired tune recorded in Cleveland in 1966.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: Collected Works
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Special Disc Jockey Record (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
My first two years as a student at the University of New Mexico were spent living off-campus in a large house shared by five other people (a varying number of which were also students). One day while rummaging through the basement I ran across a couple boxes full of reel-to-reel tapes. As I was the only person living there with a reel-to-reel machine and nobody seemed to know where the tapes had come from, I appropriated them for my own use. Unfortunately, many of the tapes were unlabeled, so all I could do was make a guess as to artists and titles of the music on them. One of those unknown tracks was this 1966 recording by the Blues Project. A few years later I ran across a nearly pristine cut-out copy of the album Projections at a thrift shop. As I had remembered being intrigued by the cover back when I couldn't afford albums I immediately snapped it up and took it home for a listen. I still have that copy of Projections, as well as a promo sampler I got from the WEOS archives in 2009 that I used for tonight's show.
The next set's contrast is a bit more subtle, as all three songs are from the same band, Love. One of them, however, is written by Bryan MacLean and appears on their third album, Forever Changes, as opposed to the other two being Arthur Lee songs from their second LP, Da Capo.
Artist: Love
Title: Stephanie Knows Who
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Following up on a strong, if not spectacular debut LP followed by a national hit record (7&7 Is), Love went into the studio with two new members to record their second album, Da Capo. By this point the band had established themselves as the most popular band on the Sunset Strip, and the music on Da Capo is a fair representation of what the group was doing onstage (including the 17 minute Revelation, which takes up the entire second side of the LP). The opening track, Stephanie Knows Who, is hard proto-punk, showcasing the band's tightness with abrupt changes in tempo throughout the song. The tune also features the harpsichord playing of "Snoopy" Pfisterer, who switched over from drums to keyboards for the LP, making way for Michael Stewart, who stayed with the band for their next LP, Forever Changes.
Artist: Love
Title: Alone Again Or
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Bryan MacLean
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either.
Artist: Love
Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of an enigma. His band, Love, was generally accepted as the top band on the Strip in L.A., yet Lee himself was a bit of a recluse living up on the hill overlooking the scene. With one notable exception, his songs were not hits, yet he was critically acknowledged (especially in the UK) as a musical genius on a par with his friend Jimi Hendrix. Stylistically, his songs varied from intensely hard rock (Stephanie Knows Who, 7&7 Is), to softer, almost jazzy tunes such as She Comes In Colors.
For our 1968 set we have a pair of B sides from west coast bands with an album track from a group of Canadians thrown in.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Lightfoot
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer(s): Bachman/Cummings/Matheson
Label: Iconoclassic (original labels: Nimbus (Canada) and RCA Victor (US))
Year: 1968 (US release: 1969)
The Guess Who had a long run as one of Canada's most successful bands before hitting it big in the US in 1969 with the release of their Wheatfield Soul album and its hit single These Eyes. The LP had originally been released on Toronto's Nimbus 9 label in 1968 and showcased the band's versatility with songs ranging from pop to blues to pure psychedelia. Among the tracks on the album is a tribute to a fellow Canadian, Gordon Lightfoot, who was still a struggling artist at the time.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Boogie Music
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Living The Blues and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): L.T.Tatman III
Label: United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of Bay Area blues purists. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout their existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. An edited version of Boogie Music, also from Living the Blues, was issued as the B side of that single. This is a stereo mix of that version, featured on a United Artists anthology album released in 1969.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: You Never Had It Better
Source: Mono CD: Underground (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Snagster/Schwartz/Poncher
Label: Collector's Choice
Year: 1968
Following the lack of a hit single from their second album, Underground, the Electric Prunes took one last shot at top 40 airplay with a song called Everybody Knows Your Not In Love. The band might have had better luck if they had pushed the flip side of the record, You Never Had It Better, which is a much stronger song. As it is, the record stiffed, and producer David Hassinger reacted by stripping the band of any creative freedom they might have had and made an album called Mass in F Minor using mostly studio musicians. The band, having signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes to Hassinger when they first started working with him, could do nothing but watch helplessly as Hassinger created an album that had little in common with the original band other than their name. Because of this, the original members soon left, and Hassinger brought in a whole new group for two more albums before retiring the Prunes name for good. In recent years several members of the original band have reformed the Electric Prunes. Whether they had to get permission to use the name is unknown.
To wrap up the hour we have a 1967 set featuring another pair of British bands, this time mixed with a Los Angeles group.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Why
Source: Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
The closing track for the Byrds' fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday, was originally recorded in late 1965 at RCA studios and was released as the B side of Eight Miles High in 1966. The Younger Than Yesterday version of Why is actually a re-recording of the song.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Citadel
Source: CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
One of the most underrated songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Citadel is the second track on Their Satanic Majesties Request, an album often dismissed as being an ill-fated attempt to keep up with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. As the song is preceeded on the album by the overture-like Sing This All Together with no break between the two, Citadel was almost impossible to play as a separate track from the original vinyl. It's a little easier to play from the CD, but due to sloppiness on the part of whoever mastered the 80s Abkco discs, the start of the song does not quite match up with the start of the CD track. Maybe one of these days I'll get a copy of the remastered version that came out more recently and see if they did a better job with it. In the meantime sit back and enjoy this hard-rockin' piece of psychedelia.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sun
Source: LP: A Gift From A Flower To A Garden
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
One of the first box sets ever released, Donovan's 1967 A Gift From A Flower To A Garden is actually two albums, each with its own focus. One was specifically targeted to children, and features the kinds of songs that parents used to pass down to their children in the days before recorded music was omnipresent practically from the cradle onward. The other album was more of a continuation of the direction the singer/songwriter had been moving in since signing a contract with major US label Epic the previous year and featured his current hit, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, as well as album tracks such as Sun. The set included a book of lyrics and a wealth of interior artwork.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were not from Boston. Their manager/producer Ed Cobb, who wrote Dirty Water, was. The rest is history.
Following our opening track from the Standells this hour we have a long progression through the years that takes us from Chicago to New York to the west coast and finally ends up in the deep south.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Gloria)
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Wind
Source: CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Bob Bruno
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Circus Maximus was formed out of the chance meeting of multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in Greenwich Village in 1967. From the start the band was moving in different directions, with Bruno incorporating jazz elements into the band while Walker favored country-rock. Eventually the two would go their separate ways, but for the short time the band was together they made some of the best, if not best-known, psychedelic music on the East Coast. The band's most popular track was Wind, a Bruno tune from their debut album. The song got a considerable amount of airplay on the new "underground" radio stations that were popping up across the country at the time.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: In Time
Source: LP: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1968
1968 was one of the most strife-ridden years in modern history. First civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, then presidential candidate Robert Kennedy were struck down by assassins' bullets. Riots rocked the streets of several US cities. The youth of America had seemingly declared war on its elders and the nation was becoming increasingly polarized over the Vietnam War. It was against this backdrop that Jefferson Airplane released their fourth LP, Crown Of Creation. The cover itself showed distorted images of the band members superimposed on a photograph of a mushroom cloud. The songs, such as the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin collaboration In Time, were darker than those on the band's preceding albums, yet not quite as confrontational as those on their next LP, Volunteers. It was perhaps the perfect album for its time.
Artist: Glad
Title: Shape Of Things To Come
Source: Feelin' Glad
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: ABC
Year: 1969
The band Glad is significant not for anything they released on their two albums, but for what happened to the band afterwards. One member, Timothy B. Schmidt, went on to replace bassist Randy Meisner in Poco the following year (and the Eagles a few years after that), while the rest of the band eventually changed their name to Redbone and had a hit with Witch Queen of New Orleans. One of the better Glad tracks is a cover of the Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil song Shape Of Things To Come, a song that was originally written for the soundtrack of the teensploitation flick Wild In The Streets. Glad's 1969 version, from the album Feelin' Glad, is nearly a minute longer than the 1968 original credited to Max Frost And The Troopers, and as a result sounds much more fleshed out (without sounding padded).
Artist: B.B. King
Title: You're Mean
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): King/Jemmott/McCracken/Harris/Lovelle
Label: Bluesway
Year: 1970
I can't imagine that anyone reading this has not heard of B.B. King, so all I'll say is that this instrumental jam was included as the B side of King's biggest hit, The Thrill Is Gone, in 1970.
Our final segment of the week kicks off with another long progression through the years that moves from the garage into territory never before explored on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era (with a visit to the most-played song in UK radio history along the way).
Artist: Lyrics
Title: So What!!
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Chris Gaylord
Label: Rhino (original label: Era)
Year: 1965
In some ways the story of the Lyrics is fairly typical for the mid-1960s. The Carlsbad, California group had already established itself as a competent if somewhat bland cover band when in 1964 they recruited the local cool kid, Chris Gaylord (who was so cool that had his own beat up old limo, plastered on the inside with Rolling Stones memorabilia, of course), to be their frontman. Gaylord provided the band with a healthy dose of attitude, as demonstrated by their 1965 single So What!! The song was written by Gaylord after he had a brief fling with a local rich girl. Gaylord's tenure lasted until mid-1966. Although the band continued without him, they never again saw the inside of a recording studio.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: LP: The Seeds
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The Seeds' 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: Procol Harum
Title: Fake stereo LP: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Source: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Deram
Year: 1967
Often credited as the first progressive rock band, Procol Harum drew heavily from classical music sources, such as the Bach inspired theme used by organist Matthew Fisher as the signature rift for A Whiter Shade of Pale. The song itself hold the distinction of being the most-played song on the British airwaves of the past 70 years.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: The Beauty Of Time Is That It's Snowing
Source: CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: Children Of The Future)
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
When the name Steve Miller comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is Fly Like An Eagle, or maybe The Joker or even Living In The USA. In the beginning, though, the Miller band was a bit more eclectic, performing original tunes (by both Miller and fellow band member Boz Scaggs) ranging in style from straight blues to pure psychedelia, such as The Beauty Of Time Is That It's Snowing from their debut LP, Children Of The Future. Although born in Milwaukee, Wisconson, Miller was raised in Texas, where he played in several local bands before relocating to Chicago, where he took an interest in electric blues. After a short return to Texas, Miller moved to San Francisco in 1966, where he met Boz Scaggs and formed the Steve Miller Band. Like fellow San Francisco bands Quicksilver Messenger Service and Mother Earth, Miller's group provided songs for the soundtrack of the documentary film Revolution, but did not sign a contract with a major label until 1968. Oddly enough, their first LP, Children Of The Future, was recorded in England rather than in San Francisco.
Artist: Aerovons
Title: World Of You
Source: CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hartman
Label: Zonophone (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1969
Originally from St. Louis, Mo., the Aerovons were such big fans of the Beatles that they moved to England in hopes of meeting their idols. They had enough talent in their own right to get a contract with EMI, recording an album's worth of material at Abbey Road in 1969. Although only two singles from those sessions were originally released (on Parlophone, the same label that the Beatles' records were on), the Aerovons finally got some recognition many years later when an acetate of their unreleased album was discovered and remastered for release on the RPM label. Perhaps more important for the band members, they got to meet the Beatles while recording at Abbey Road.
Artist: Peter Green
Title: Hidden Depth
Source: LP: The End Of The Game
Writer(s): Peter Green
Label: Reprise
Year: 1970
After leaving the band he founded, Fleetwood Mac, in 1970, guitarist Peter Green recorded what can only be described as an album full of free-form guitar work, accompanied by various backup musicians. The album is divided into six tracks. Hidden Depth is one of those tracks.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Casey Jones
Source: CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: Workingman's Dead)
Writer(s): Hunter/Garcia
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
After three albums worth of studio material that the band was not entirely happy with, the Grateful Dead finally achieved their goal with the 1969 release of the double-LP Live Dead. So where do you go when you've finally accomplished your original mission? For the Dead the answer was to concentrate on their songwriting skills. The results of this new direction were heard on their next two studio LP's, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both released in 1970. One of the highlights of Workingman's Dead was Casey Jones, a song based on an old folk tale (albeit updated a bit for a 1970 audience). Casey Jones was just one of many classic songs written by the team of guitarist Jerry Garcia and poet/lyricist Robert Hunter. Oddly enough, this is the first time this song is being heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.
In the first set we have two bands from the UK (I'm pretty sure Belfast qualifies), with a band from Texas thrown in, all from 1965.
Artist: Them
Title: Here Comes The Night
Source: Mono LP: Them
Writer(s): Bert Berns
Label: Parrot
Year: 1965
Them's first album was originally released in the UK as The Angry Young Them, and did not include their first US hit single, Here Comes The Night. Originally recorded by Lulu (of To Sir With Love"fame) and the Luvvers, this track was not only added to the US version of the LP (entitled simply Them), it was given the coveted opening slot. The guitar leads on Here Comes The Night were provided by a young studio guitarist named Jimmy Page.
Artist: Zombies
Title: Tell Her No
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Rod Argent
Label: London (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1965
Rod Argent was responsible for writing four well-known hit songs, which were spread out over a period of eight years (and two bands). The second of these was Tell Her No, released in 1965. The song got mixed reviews from critics, all of which measured the tune against Beatle songs of the same period.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: A Public Execution
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1965
It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousins down in Tyler. Mouse and the Traps, in fact, got quite a bit of airplay in that part of the state with a series of singles issued in the mid-60s. A Public Execution is unique among those singles in that the artist on the label was listed simply as Mouse.
Our 1966 set includes two New York City-based acts mixed with one from Massachusettes (don't let any Red Sox fans know).
Artist: Teddy And His Pandas
Title: We Can't Go On This Way
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 4-Pop part one (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stone
Label: Rhino (original label: Musicor)
Year: 1966
Not to be confused with San Jose's Teddy And His Patches, Teddy And His Pandas were a band originally from Beverly, Mass. who managed to record several singles over a period of about three years, including We Can't Go On This Way, a Beatle-inspired tune recorded in Cleveland in 1966.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: Collected Works
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Special Disc Jockey Record (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
My first two years as a student at the University of New Mexico were spent living off-campus in a large house shared by five other people (a varying number of which were also students). One day while rummaging through the basement I ran across a couple boxes full of reel-to-reel tapes. As I was the only person living there with a reel-to-reel machine and nobody seemed to know where the tapes had come from, I appropriated them for my own use. Unfortunately, many of the tapes were unlabeled, so all I could do was make a guess as to artists and titles of the music on them. One of those unknown tracks was this 1966 recording by the Blues Project. A few years later I ran across a nearly pristine cut-out copy of the album Projections at a thrift shop. As I had remembered being intrigued by the cover back when I couldn't afford albums I immediately snapped it up and took it home for a listen. I still have that copy of Projections, as well as a promo sampler I got from the WEOS archives in 2009 that I used for tonight's show.
The next set's contrast is a bit more subtle, as all three songs are from the same band, Love. One of them, however, is written by Bryan MacLean and appears on their third album, Forever Changes, as opposed to the other two being Arthur Lee songs from their second LP, Da Capo.
Artist: Love
Title: Stephanie Knows Who
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Following up on a strong, if not spectacular debut LP followed by a national hit record (7&7 Is), Love went into the studio with two new members to record their second album, Da Capo. By this point the band had established themselves as the most popular band on the Sunset Strip, and the music on Da Capo is a fair representation of what the group was doing onstage (including the 17 minute Revelation, which takes up the entire second side of the LP). The opening track, Stephanie Knows Who, is hard proto-punk, showcasing the band's tightness with abrupt changes in tempo throughout the song. The tune also features the harpsichord playing of "Snoopy" Pfisterer, who switched over from drums to keyboards for the LP, making way for Michael Stewart, who stayed with the band for their next LP, Forever Changes.
Artist: Love
Title: Alone Again Or
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Bryan MacLean
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either.
Artist: Love
Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of an enigma. His band, Love, was generally accepted as the top band on the Strip in L.A., yet Lee himself was a bit of a recluse living up on the hill overlooking the scene. With one notable exception, his songs were not hits, yet he was critically acknowledged (especially in the UK) as a musical genius on a par with his friend Jimi Hendrix. Stylistically, his songs varied from intensely hard rock (Stephanie Knows Who, 7&7 Is), to softer, almost jazzy tunes such as She Comes In Colors.
For our 1968 set we have a pair of B sides from west coast bands with an album track from a group of Canadians thrown in.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Lightfoot
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer(s): Bachman/Cummings/Matheson
Label: Iconoclassic (original labels: Nimbus (Canada) and RCA Victor (US))
Year: 1968 (US release: 1969)
The Guess Who had a long run as one of Canada's most successful bands before hitting it big in the US in 1969 with the release of their Wheatfield Soul album and its hit single These Eyes. The LP had originally been released on Toronto's Nimbus 9 label in 1968 and showcased the band's versatility with songs ranging from pop to blues to pure psychedelia. Among the tracks on the album is a tribute to a fellow Canadian, Gordon Lightfoot, who was still a struggling artist at the time.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Boogie Music
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Living The Blues and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): L.T.Tatman III
Label: United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of Bay Area blues purists. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout their existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. An edited version of Boogie Music, also from Living the Blues, was issued as the B side of that single. This is a stereo mix of that version, featured on a United Artists anthology album released in 1969.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: You Never Had It Better
Source: Mono CD: Underground (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Snagster/Schwartz/Poncher
Label: Collector's Choice
Year: 1968
Following the lack of a hit single from their second album, Underground, the Electric Prunes took one last shot at top 40 airplay with a song called Everybody Knows Your Not In Love. The band might have had better luck if they had pushed the flip side of the record, You Never Had It Better, which is a much stronger song. As it is, the record stiffed, and producer David Hassinger reacted by stripping the band of any creative freedom they might have had and made an album called Mass in F Minor using mostly studio musicians. The band, having signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes to Hassinger when they first started working with him, could do nothing but watch helplessly as Hassinger created an album that had little in common with the original band other than their name. Because of this, the original members soon left, and Hassinger brought in a whole new group for two more albums before retiring the Prunes name for good. In recent years several members of the original band have reformed the Electric Prunes. Whether they had to get permission to use the name is unknown.
To wrap up the hour we have a 1967 set featuring another pair of British bands, this time mixed with a Los Angeles group.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Why
Source: Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
The closing track for the Byrds' fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday, was originally recorded in late 1965 at RCA studios and was released as the B side of Eight Miles High in 1966. The Younger Than Yesterday version of Why is actually a re-recording of the song.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Citadel
Source: CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
One of the most underrated songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Citadel is the second track on Their Satanic Majesties Request, an album often dismissed as being an ill-fated attempt to keep up with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. As the song is preceeded on the album by the overture-like Sing This All Together with no break between the two, Citadel was almost impossible to play as a separate track from the original vinyl. It's a little easier to play from the CD, but due to sloppiness on the part of whoever mastered the 80s Abkco discs, the start of the song does not quite match up with the start of the CD track. Maybe one of these days I'll get a copy of the remastered version that came out more recently and see if they did a better job with it. In the meantime sit back and enjoy this hard-rockin' piece of psychedelia.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sun
Source: LP: A Gift From A Flower To A Garden
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
One of the first box sets ever released, Donovan's 1967 A Gift From A Flower To A Garden is actually two albums, each with its own focus. One was specifically targeted to children, and features the kinds of songs that parents used to pass down to their children in the days before recorded music was omnipresent practically from the cradle onward. The other album was more of a continuation of the direction the singer/songwriter had been moving in since signing a contract with major US label Epic the previous year and featured his current hit, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, as well as album tracks such as Sun. The set included a book of lyrics and a wealth of interior artwork.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were not from Boston. Their manager/producer Ed Cobb, who wrote Dirty Water, was. The rest is history.
Following our opening track from the Standells this hour we have a long progression through the years that takes us from Chicago to New York to the west coast and finally ends up in the deep south.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Gloria)
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Wind
Source: CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Bob Bruno
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Circus Maximus was formed out of the chance meeting of multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in Greenwich Village in 1967. From the start the band was moving in different directions, with Bruno incorporating jazz elements into the band while Walker favored country-rock. Eventually the two would go their separate ways, but for the short time the band was together they made some of the best, if not best-known, psychedelic music on the East Coast. The band's most popular track was Wind, a Bruno tune from their debut album. The song got a considerable amount of airplay on the new "underground" radio stations that were popping up across the country at the time.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: In Time
Source: LP: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1968
1968 was one of the most strife-ridden years in modern history. First civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, then presidential candidate Robert Kennedy were struck down by assassins' bullets. Riots rocked the streets of several US cities. The youth of America had seemingly declared war on its elders and the nation was becoming increasingly polarized over the Vietnam War. It was against this backdrop that Jefferson Airplane released their fourth LP, Crown Of Creation. The cover itself showed distorted images of the band members superimposed on a photograph of a mushroom cloud. The songs, such as the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin collaboration In Time, were darker than those on the band's preceding albums, yet not quite as confrontational as those on their next LP, Volunteers. It was perhaps the perfect album for its time.
Artist: Glad
Title: Shape Of Things To Come
Source: Feelin' Glad
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: ABC
Year: 1969
The band Glad is significant not for anything they released on their two albums, but for what happened to the band afterwards. One member, Timothy B. Schmidt, went on to replace bassist Randy Meisner in Poco the following year (and the Eagles a few years after that), while the rest of the band eventually changed their name to Redbone and had a hit with Witch Queen of New Orleans. One of the better Glad tracks is a cover of the Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil song Shape Of Things To Come, a song that was originally written for the soundtrack of the teensploitation flick Wild In The Streets. Glad's 1969 version, from the album Feelin' Glad, is nearly a minute longer than the 1968 original credited to Max Frost And The Troopers, and as a result sounds much more fleshed out (without sounding padded).
Artist: B.B. King
Title: You're Mean
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): King/Jemmott/McCracken/Harris/Lovelle
Label: Bluesway
Year: 1970
I can't imagine that anyone reading this has not heard of B.B. King, so all I'll say is that this instrumental jam was included as the B side of King's biggest hit, The Thrill Is Gone, in 1970.
Our final segment of the week kicks off with another long progression through the years that moves from the garage into territory never before explored on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era (with a visit to the most-played song in UK radio history along the way).
Artist: Lyrics
Title: So What!!
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Chris Gaylord
Label: Rhino (original label: Era)
Year: 1965
In some ways the story of the Lyrics is fairly typical for the mid-1960s. The Carlsbad, California group had already established itself as a competent if somewhat bland cover band when in 1964 they recruited the local cool kid, Chris Gaylord (who was so cool that had his own beat up old limo, plastered on the inside with Rolling Stones memorabilia, of course), to be their frontman. Gaylord provided the band with a healthy dose of attitude, as demonstrated by their 1965 single So What!! The song was written by Gaylord after he had a brief fling with a local rich girl. Gaylord's tenure lasted until mid-1966. Although the band continued without him, they never again saw the inside of a recording studio.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: LP: The Seeds
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The Seeds' 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: Procol Harum
Title: Fake stereo LP: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Source: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Deram
Year: 1967
Often credited as the first progressive rock band, Procol Harum drew heavily from classical music sources, such as the Bach inspired theme used by organist Matthew Fisher as the signature rift for A Whiter Shade of Pale. The song itself hold the distinction of being the most-played song on the British airwaves of the past 70 years.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: The Beauty Of Time Is That It's Snowing
Source: CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: Children Of The Future)
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
When the name Steve Miller comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is Fly Like An Eagle, or maybe The Joker or even Living In The USA. In the beginning, though, the Miller band was a bit more eclectic, performing original tunes (by both Miller and fellow band member Boz Scaggs) ranging in style from straight blues to pure psychedelia, such as The Beauty Of Time Is That It's Snowing from their debut LP, Children Of The Future. Although born in Milwaukee, Wisconson, Miller was raised in Texas, where he played in several local bands before relocating to Chicago, where he took an interest in electric blues. After a short return to Texas, Miller moved to San Francisco in 1966, where he met Boz Scaggs and formed the Steve Miller Band. Like fellow San Francisco bands Quicksilver Messenger Service and Mother Earth, Miller's group provided songs for the soundtrack of the documentary film Revolution, but did not sign a contract with a major label until 1968. Oddly enough, their first LP, Children Of The Future, was recorded in England rather than in San Francisco.
Artist: Aerovons
Title: World Of You
Source: CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hartman
Label: Zonophone (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1969
Originally from St. Louis, Mo., the Aerovons were such big fans of the Beatles that they moved to England in hopes of meeting their idols. They had enough talent in their own right to get a contract with EMI, recording an album's worth of material at Abbey Road in 1969. Although only two singles from those sessions were originally released (on Parlophone, the same label that the Beatles' records were on), the Aerovons finally got some recognition many years later when an acetate of their unreleased album was discovered and remastered for release on the RPM label. Perhaps more important for the band members, they got to meet the Beatles while recording at Abbey Road.
Artist: Peter Green
Title: Hidden Depth
Source: LP: The End Of The Game
Writer(s): Peter Green
Label: Reprise
Year: 1970
After leaving the band he founded, Fleetwood Mac, in 1970, guitarist Peter Green recorded what can only be described as an album full of free-form guitar work, accompanied by various backup musicians. The album is divided into six tracks. Hidden Depth is one of those tracks.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Casey Jones
Source: CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: Workingman's Dead)
Writer(s): Hunter/Garcia
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
After three albums worth of studio material that the band was not entirely happy with, the Grateful Dead finally achieved their goal with the 1969 release of the double-LP Live Dead. So where do you go when you've finally accomplished your original mission? For the Dead the answer was to concentrate on their songwriting skills. The results of this new direction were heard on their next two studio LP's, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both released in 1970. One of the highlights of Workingman's Dead was Casey Jones, a song based on an old folk tale (albeit updated a bit for a 1970 audience). Casey Jones was just one of many classic songs written by the team of guitarist Jerry Garcia and poet/lyricist Robert Hunter. Oddly enough, this is the first time this song is being heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1236 (starts 9/6/12)
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Let's Get Together
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Dino Valenti
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Although Dino Valenti recorded a demo version of his song Let's Get Together in 1964, it wasn't until two years later that the song made its first appearance on vinyl as a track on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The Airplane version of the song is unique in that the lead vocals alternate between Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin, with each one taking a verse and all of them singing on the chorus.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Martha
Source: Mono CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1967
Jefferson Airplane made no secret of their residence at 2400 Fulton Street in San Francisco. In fact, the place was a known hangout for various freaks, acid-heads and hippy types. One of the hangers-on, a young heiress, was the inspiration for the song Martha, released as the B side to Watch Her Ride (both songs being featured on the Ariplane's third LP, After Bathing At Baxter's).
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Come Up The Years
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
One of the most overused motifs in pop music is the "You're too young for me" song. This probably reflects, to a certain degree, a lifestyle that goes back to the beginnings of rock and roll (Chuck Berry did jail time for transporting a minor across state lines, Jerry Lee Lewis saw his career get derailed by his marraige to his 13-year-old cousin, etc.). The Marty Balin/Paul Kantner tune Come Up The Years takes a more sophisticated look at the subject, although it still comes to the same conclusion (I can't do this because you're jailbait). In fact, the only rock songwriter I know of that came to any other conclusion on the matter was Bob Markley of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and that's what ultimately got him in trouble with the law.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
While not as commercially successful as the Jefferson Airplane or as long-lived as the Grateful Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about, despite the fact that they were actually across the bay in Berkeley. Of all the tracks on their first album, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine probably got the most airplay.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Get Me To The World On Time
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Probably the most psychedelic song with a Bo Diddly beat ever recorded, Get Me To The World On Time was the second single released from the I Had To Much To Dream album. Both were co-written by Annette Tucker, although for World her partner was Jill Jones rather than Nancie Mantz. This is another one of those songs that was on the KLZ-FM top 100 that didn't get any local AM airplay.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Hampstead Incident
Source: Mono CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
The Beatles started a trend (one of many) when they used a harpsichord on the Rubber Soul album, released in December of 1965. By early 1967 it seemed that just about everyone had a song or two with the antique instrument featured on it. Unlike some of the recordings of the time, Hampstead Incident manages to use the harpsichord effectively without overdoing it.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
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: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Reverberation
Source: CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s): Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label: Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
From the original liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators: "Reverberation is the root of all inability to cope with environment. Doubt causes negative emotions which reverberate and hamper all constructive thought. If a person learns and organizes his knowledge in the right way---with perfect cross-reference---he need not experience doubt or hesitation." Pretty heady stuff for the year that brought us the Monkees and the track that finishes out this week's show (scroll down for that one).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: High And Dry
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
High And Dry, from the Rolling Stones' 1966 LP Aftermath, is an early attempt at the sort of twisted country that would reach its peak with the Let It Bleed album in the early 70s.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Dark Side
Source: Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Rogers/Sohns
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
Dark Side, written by guitarist Warren Rogers and singer Jim Sohns, is probably the quintessential Shadows of Knight song. It has all the classic elements of a garage rock song: three chords, a blues beat and lots of attitude. Oh, and the lyrics "I love you baby more than birds love the sky". What more can you ask for?
Artist: Love Sculpture
Title: Wang Dang Doodle
Source: CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1968
During my first year of college I moved into a house shared by five other people (not all of which were students) near the University of New Mexico. Shortly after moving in I bought an old Philips reel-to-reel machine and began taping various albums from my roommates' collections. Not long after that I discovered a gold mine in the basement. A former resident of the house had left a box of reel-to-reel tapes, some of which were only vaguely labeled, if at all. One of the tapes was labeled simply "Love Sculpture". It turned out that some of the songs on that tape were actually from the Blues Project's Projections album, but others, such as this rather tasty version of Koko Taylor's Wang Dang Doodle, were indeed by a band called Love Sculpture. I was not aware at the time, however, that the song was from an album called Blues Helping, or that Love Sculpture's lead guitarist and vocalist was none other than Dave Edmunds, who I had only known as the guy who did the remake of I Hear You Knockin' in the early 1970s.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: It's Breaking Me Up
Source: LP: This Was
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Jethro Tull originally was part of the British blues scene, but even in the early days the band's principal songwriter Ian Anderson wanted to expand beyond the confines of that particular style. Ironically It's Breaking Me Up, from Jethro Tull's first LP, is an Anderson composition that is rooted solidly in the British blues style.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Think About It
Source: Mono CD: Insane Times
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Page
Label: Zonophone (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
The last Yardbirds single, Good Night Josephine, was slated for March of 1968, but ended up being released only in the US, where it barely cracked the top 100. More notable was the song's B side, Think About It, which shows a side of guitarist Jimmy Page that would soon come to be identified with one of the most influential bands of the 1970s, Led Zeppelin.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
Detroit was one of the major centers of pop music in the late 60s. In addition to the myriad Motown acts, the area boasted the popular retro-rock&roll band Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the harder rocking Bob Seger System, the non-Motown R&B band the Capitols, and Ted Nugent's outfit, the Amboy Dukes, who scored big in 1968 with Journey To The Center Of The Mind.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Crosstown Traffic
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
By 1968 it didn't matter one bit whether the Jimi Hendrix Experience had any hit singles; their albums were guaranteed to be successful. Nonetheless the Electric Ladyland album had no less that three singles on it (although one was a new stereo mix of a 1967 single). The last of these was Crosstown Traffic, a song that has been included on several anthologies over the years.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Sunny Afternoon
Source: Mono CD: Face To Face
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
My family got its first real stereo (a GE AM/FM console with a reel-to-reel recorder instead a turntable that is still sitting in the living room at my mother's house) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off).
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Lazy Day
Source: LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash/Sundazed
Year: 1967
Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.
Artist: Love
Title: You Set The Scene
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
During the production of Forever Changes, vocalist/guitarist Arthur Lee became convinced that he was destined to die soon after the release of the album. Accordingly, he crafted lyrics that were meant to be his final words to the world. As the final track on the LP, You Set The Scene in particular reflected this viewpoint. As it turned out, Forever Changes was not Lee's swan song. It was, however, the last album to feature the lineup that had been the most popular band on Sunset Strip for the past two years. Subsequent Love albums would feature a whole new lineup backing Lee, and would have an entirely different sound as well. Ironically, Lee was still around at the dawn of the 21st century over 30 years later (dying of acute myeloid leukemia in 2006), outliving several of his old bandmates.
Artist: Doors
Title: The End
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Prior to recording their first album the Doors' honed their craft at various Sunset Strip clubs, working up live versions of the songs they would soon record, including their show-stopper, The End. Originally written as a breakup song by singer/lyricist Jim Morrison, The End runs nearly twelve minutes and includes a controversial spoken "Oedipus section". My own take on the famous "blue bus" line is that Morrison, being a military brat, was probably familiar with the blue shuttle buses used on military bases for a variety of purposes, including taking kids to school, and simply incorporated his experiences with them into his lyrics. The End got its greatest exposure in 1979, when Oliver Stone used it in his film Apocalypse Now.
Artist: Velvet Illusions
Title: Acid Head
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Weed/Radford
Label: Rhino (original label: Metromedia, also released on Tell Records)
Year: 1967
Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a surbaban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle scene as one of their own) the Illusions backtracked the Prunes steps, leaving their native Yakima and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut this lone single before calling it quits.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Interstellar Overdrive/The Gnome
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Barrett/Waters/Wright/Mason
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Syd Barrett was still very much at the helm for Pink Floyd's first LP, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, released in 1967. The group had already released a pair of Barrett-penned singles, Arnold Layne (which was banned by the BBC) and See Emily Play. Piper, though, was the first full album for the group, and some tracks, notably the nine-minute psychedelic masterpiece Interstellar Overdrive, were entirely group efforts. On the original UK version of the LP Overdrive tracks directly into a Barrett piece, the Gnome. The US version, issued on Tower records, truncated Overdrive and re-arranged the song order. The only CD version of Piper currently available, heard here, follows the original UK ordering of the tracks.
Artist: Lemon Pipers
Title: Green Tambourine
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Green Tambourine)
Writer(s): Leka/Pinz
Label: Priority (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1967
Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label. Unfortunately for the band, it was their only hit. Making it even worse is the fact that, although the Lemon Pipers themselves were a real band, they ended up being grouped in with several "bands" who were in fact studio creations by the Kazenetz/Katz production team that supplied Buddah with a steady stream of bubble-gum hits throughout 1968.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound (mono), Warner Brothers (stereo))
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: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (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: Music Explosion
Title: Little Bit O' Soul
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1967 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Carter/Lewis
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1967
Mansfield, Ohio, was home to the Music Explosion who made their mark as one-hit wonders in early 1967 with Little Bit O' Soul. The song was an early forerunner of the bubble-gum movement that would dominate the top 40 charts over a year later.
Artist: Napoleon XIV
Title: They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Ha!
Source: Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Napoleon XIV
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1966
The less said about this, the better.
Title: Let's Get Together
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Dino Valenti
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Although Dino Valenti recorded a demo version of his song Let's Get Together in 1964, it wasn't until two years later that the song made its first appearance on vinyl as a track on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The Airplane version of the song is unique in that the lead vocals alternate between Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin, with each one taking a verse and all of them singing on the chorus.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Martha
Source: Mono CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1967
Jefferson Airplane made no secret of their residence at 2400 Fulton Street in San Francisco. In fact, the place was a known hangout for various freaks, acid-heads and hippy types. One of the hangers-on, a young heiress, was the inspiration for the song Martha, released as the B side to Watch Her Ride (both songs being featured on the Ariplane's third LP, After Bathing At Baxter's).
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Come Up The Years
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
One of the most overused motifs in pop music is the "You're too young for me" song. This probably reflects, to a certain degree, a lifestyle that goes back to the beginnings of rock and roll (Chuck Berry did jail time for transporting a minor across state lines, Jerry Lee Lewis saw his career get derailed by his marraige to his 13-year-old cousin, etc.). The Marty Balin/Paul Kantner tune Come Up The Years takes a more sophisticated look at the subject, although it still comes to the same conclusion (I can't do this because you're jailbait). In fact, the only rock songwriter I know of that came to any other conclusion on the matter was Bob Markley of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and that's what ultimately got him in trouble with the law.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
While not as commercially successful as the Jefferson Airplane or as long-lived as the Grateful Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about, despite the fact that they were actually across the bay in Berkeley. Of all the tracks on their first album, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine probably got the most airplay.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Get Me To The World On Time
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Probably the most psychedelic song with a Bo Diddly beat ever recorded, Get Me To The World On Time was the second single released from the I Had To Much To Dream album. Both were co-written by Annette Tucker, although for World her partner was Jill Jones rather than Nancie Mantz. This is another one of those songs that was on the KLZ-FM top 100 that didn't get any local AM airplay.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Hampstead Incident
Source: Mono CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
The Beatles started a trend (one of many) when they used a harpsichord on the Rubber Soul album, released in December of 1965. By early 1967 it seemed that just about everyone had a song or two with the antique instrument featured on it. Unlike some of the recordings of the time, Hampstead Incident manages to use the harpsichord effectively without overdoing it.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
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: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Reverberation
Source: CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s): Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label: Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
From the original liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators: "Reverberation is the root of all inability to cope with environment. Doubt causes negative emotions which reverberate and hamper all constructive thought. If a person learns and organizes his knowledge in the right way---with perfect cross-reference---he need not experience doubt or hesitation." Pretty heady stuff for the year that brought us the Monkees and the track that finishes out this week's show (scroll down for that one).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: High And Dry
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
High And Dry, from the Rolling Stones' 1966 LP Aftermath, is an early attempt at the sort of twisted country that would reach its peak with the Let It Bleed album in the early 70s.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Dark Side
Source: Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Rogers/Sohns
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
Dark Side, written by guitarist Warren Rogers and singer Jim Sohns, is probably the quintessential Shadows of Knight song. It has all the classic elements of a garage rock song: three chords, a blues beat and lots of attitude. Oh, and the lyrics "I love you baby more than birds love the sky". What more can you ask for?
Artist: Love Sculpture
Title: Wang Dang Doodle
Source: CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1968
During my first year of college I moved into a house shared by five other people (not all of which were students) near the University of New Mexico. Shortly after moving in I bought an old Philips reel-to-reel machine and began taping various albums from my roommates' collections. Not long after that I discovered a gold mine in the basement. A former resident of the house had left a box of reel-to-reel tapes, some of which were only vaguely labeled, if at all. One of the tapes was labeled simply "Love Sculpture". It turned out that some of the songs on that tape were actually from the Blues Project's Projections album, but others, such as this rather tasty version of Koko Taylor's Wang Dang Doodle, were indeed by a band called Love Sculpture. I was not aware at the time, however, that the song was from an album called Blues Helping, or that Love Sculpture's lead guitarist and vocalist was none other than Dave Edmunds, who I had only known as the guy who did the remake of I Hear You Knockin' in the early 1970s.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: It's Breaking Me Up
Source: LP: This Was
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Jethro Tull originally was part of the British blues scene, but even in the early days the band's principal songwriter Ian Anderson wanted to expand beyond the confines of that particular style. Ironically It's Breaking Me Up, from Jethro Tull's first LP, is an Anderson composition that is rooted solidly in the British blues style.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Think About It
Source: Mono CD: Insane Times
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Page
Label: Zonophone (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
The last Yardbirds single, Good Night Josephine, was slated for March of 1968, but ended up being released only in the US, where it barely cracked the top 100. More notable was the song's B side, Think About It, which shows a side of guitarist Jimmy Page that would soon come to be identified with one of the most influential bands of the 1970s, Led Zeppelin.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
Detroit was one of the major centers of pop music in the late 60s. In addition to the myriad Motown acts, the area boasted the popular retro-rock&roll band Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the harder rocking Bob Seger System, the non-Motown R&B band the Capitols, and Ted Nugent's outfit, the Amboy Dukes, who scored big in 1968 with Journey To The Center Of The Mind.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Crosstown Traffic
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
By 1968 it didn't matter one bit whether the Jimi Hendrix Experience had any hit singles; their albums were guaranteed to be successful. Nonetheless the Electric Ladyland album had no less that three singles on it (although one was a new stereo mix of a 1967 single). The last of these was Crosstown Traffic, a song that has been included on several anthologies over the years.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Sunny Afternoon
Source: Mono CD: Face To Face
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
My family got its first real stereo (a GE AM/FM console with a reel-to-reel recorder instead a turntable that is still sitting in the living room at my mother's house) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off).
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Lazy Day
Source: LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash/Sundazed
Year: 1967
Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.
Artist: Love
Title: You Set The Scene
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
During the production of Forever Changes, vocalist/guitarist Arthur Lee became convinced that he was destined to die soon after the release of the album. Accordingly, he crafted lyrics that were meant to be his final words to the world. As the final track on the LP, You Set The Scene in particular reflected this viewpoint. As it turned out, Forever Changes was not Lee's swan song. It was, however, the last album to feature the lineup that had been the most popular band on Sunset Strip for the past two years. Subsequent Love albums would feature a whole new lineup backing Lee, and would have an entirely different sound as well. Ironically, Lee was still around at the dawn of the 21st century over 30 years later (dying of acute myeloid leukemia in 2006), outliving several of his old bandmates.
Artist: Doors
Title: The End
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Prior to recording their first album the Doors' honed their craft at various Sunset Strip clubs, working up live versions of the songs they would soon record, including their show-stopper, The End. Originally written as a breakup song by singer/lyricist Jim Morrison, The End runs nearly twelve minutes and includes a controversial spoken "Oedipus section". My own take on the famous "blue bus" line is that Morrison, being a military brat, was probably familiar with the blue shuttle buses used on military bases for a variety of purposes, including taking kids to school, and simply incorporated his experiences with them into his lyrics. The End got its greatest exposure in 1979, when Oliver Stone used it in his film Apocalypse Now.
Artist: Velvet Illusions
Title: Acid Head
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Weed/Radford
Label: Rhino (original label: Metromedia, also released on Tell Records)
Year: 1967
Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a surbaban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle scene as one of their own) the Illusions backtracked the Prunes steps, leaving their native Yakima and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut this lone single before calling it quits.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Interstellar Overdrive/The Gnome
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Barrett/Waters/Wright/Mason
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Syd Barrett was still very much at the helm for Pink Floyd's first LP, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, released in 1967. The group had already released a pair of Barrett-penned singles, Arnold Layne (which was banned by the BBC) and See Emily Play. Piper, though, was the first full album for the group, and some tracks, notably the nine-minute psychedelic masterpiece Interstellar Overdrive, were entirely group efforts. On the original UK version of the LP Overdrive tracks directly into a Barrett piece, the Gnome. The US version, issued on Tower records, truncated Overdrive and re-arranged the song order. The only CD version of Piper currently available, heard here, follows the original UK ordering of the tracks.
Artist: Lemon Pipers
Title: Green Tambourine
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Green Tambourine)
Writer(s): Leka/Pinz
Label: Priority (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1967
Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label. Unfortunately for the band, it was their only hit. Making it even worse is the fact that, although the Lemon Pipers themselves were a real band, they ended up being grouped in with several "bands" who were in fact studio creations by the Kazenetz/Katz production team that supplied Buddah with a steady stream of bubble-gum hits throughout 1968.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound (mono), Warner Brothers (stereo))
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: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (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: Music Explosion
Title: Little Bit O' Soul
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1967 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Carter/Lewis
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1967
Mansfield, Ohio, was home to the Music Explosion who made their mark as one-hit wonders in early 1967 with Little Bit O' Soul. The song was an early forerunner of the bubble-gum movement that would dominate the top 40 charts over a year later.
Artist: Napoleon XIV
Title: They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Ha!
Source: Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Napoleon XIV
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1966
The less said about this, the better.
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