Artist: Yardbirds
Title: For Your Love
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
The last Yardbirds song to feature guitarist Eric Clapton, For Your Love was the group's fist US hit, peaking at the # 6 slot. The song did even better in the UK, peaking at # 3. Following its release, Clapton left the Yardbirds, citing the band's move toward a more commercial sound and this song in particular as reasons for his departure (ironic when you consider songs like his mid-90s hit Change the World or his slowed down lounge lizard version of Layla). For Your Love was written by Graham Gouldman, who would end up as a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and later 10cc with Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds of Silence)
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, and were deleted at Simon's request.
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: Rolling Stones
Title: You Can't Always Get What You Want
Source: CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1969
When the Rolling Stones called for singers to back them up on their recording of You Can't Always Get What You Want, they expected maybe 30 to show up. Instead they got twice that many, and ended up using them all on the record. The song, which also features Al Kooper on organ, was orginally released as the B side of Honky Tonk Women in 1969. In the mid-1970s, after the Stones had established their own record label, Allen Klein, who had bought the rights to the band's pre-1970 recordings, reissued the single, this time promoting You Can't Always Get What You Want as the A side. Klein's strategy worked and the song ended up making the top 40.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Dear Doctor
Source: CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1968
In late 1968 four new albums by four different bands were competing for space on the record racks: The Beatles (white album), Cream's Wheels Of Fire, the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Electric Ladyland and the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet. I can't imagine four albums that influential (or even that good) ever being released at the same time again. Just to further illustrate the point we have the song Dear Doctor. Compared to most of the songs on these four albums, the country-styled Dear Doctor is, at best, a novelty number. Yet taken on its own merits the song compares favorably with probably 90% of what's been recorded by any rock band (and a lot of country artists as well) in the years since.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Stupid Girl
Source: Simulated stereo CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM B side)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
By 1966 the songwriting team of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had hit its stride, turning out Rolling Stones classics like Mother's Little Helper and Paint It Black as a matter of course. Even B sides such as Stupid Girl were starting to get airplay on top 40 stations, a trend that would continue to grow over the next year or so.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Psychedelic Trip
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Loomis/Flores/Tolby/Aguilar/Andrijasevich
Label: Tower/Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2012
Psychedelic Trip is essentially an early instrumental version of what would eventually become the title track for the Chocolate Watchband's debut album, No Way Out. Although Psychedelic Trip is credited to the entire band, producer/manager Ed Cobb (the Ed Wood of psychedelic music) took sole credit for the song No Way Out.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Milk Cow Blues
Source: Mono CD: No Way Out (bonus track)
Writer(s): Kokomo Arnold
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1994
The members of the Chocolate Watchband had a clear set of priorities, and spending time in a recording studio was not at the top of the list. Nonetheless, once they were signed to Tower Records they were obligated to at least make an effort at recording an album, even though they would much rather have been upstaging the various big name acts that they opened for. The result was that their producer, Ed Cobb, found it easier just to hire studio musicians to record tracks that were then included on the first two Chocolate Watchband albums. Even when the band itself did record the songs, Cobb would, on occasion, bring in studio vocalist Don Bennett to record his own lead vocals, replacing those of Dave Aguilar, whom Cobb felt sounded like a Mick Jagger impersonator (he was right, but Aguilar was damn good at it). There are a few recordings, however, that capture the true sound of the Watchband. Among those is their cover of Kokomo Arnold's Milk Cow Blues, using an arrangement similar to that of the Kinks on their Kink Kontroversy album. The song remained unreleased until the 1994 CD reissue of the band's first album, No Way Out.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: In The Midnight Hour
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Pickett/Cropper
Label: Tower
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2012
Among the many Chocolate Watchband recordings that were subjected to major changes by producer Ed Cobb was a cover of Wilson Pickett's R&B classic In The Midnight Hour, a song that was also covered by the Young Rascals. The biggest change Cobb made to the recording was to replace Dave Aguilar's original lead vocals with those of studio vocalist Don Bennett. Once Sundazed got the rights to the Watchband's recordings they included both versions on their CD version of the No Way Out album and in 2012 issued the mono mix of the Aguilar version for the first time as a single.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Come Together
Source: CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1969
After the Beatles released their 1968 double LP (the so-called White Album), they went to work on their final film project, a documentary about the band making an album. Unfortunately, what the cameras captured was a group on the verge of disintegration, and both the album and the film itself were shelved indefinitely. Instead, the band went to work recording an entirely new group of compositions. Somehow, despite the internal difficulties the band was going through, they managed to turn out a masterpiece: Abbey Road. Before the album itself came out, a single was released. The official A side was George Harrison's Something, the first Harrison song ever to be released as a Beatle A side. The other side was the song that opened the album itself, John Lennon's Come Together. In later years Come Together came to be Lennon's signature song and was a staple of his live performances.
Artist: Beatles
Title: When I'm Sixty-Four
Source: LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
Year: 1967
Paul McCartney's 64th birthday was in 2006, which leads me to ask one question: how did he get that old without me noticing?
Artist: Beatles
Title: Because
Source: CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1969
Take Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Turn a few notes around, add some variations and write some lyrics. Add the Beatles' trademark multi-part harmonies and you have John Lennon's Because, from the Abbey Road album. A simply beautiful recording.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Guinevere
Source: Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Sundazed
Year: 1966
Donovan's Sunshine Superman marked the beginning of a transition for the Scottish singer/songwriter from folk singer with a primarily British fan base to an international star at the forefront of the psychedelic era. One track on the album that shows a bit of both is Guinevere. The basic song is very much in the traditional British vein, with lyrics that deliberately hearken back to Arthurian times. Yet the entire track is colored by the presence of a sitar, a decidedly non-British instrument that was becoming popular among the psychedelic crowd in 1966.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M (original 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: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit. Although progressive FM stations often played the longer LP version, it was the mono single edit heard here that was most familiar to listeners of top 40 radio.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: The Birdman Of Alkatrash
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Mark Weitz
Label: Uni
Year: 1967
The Birdman of Alkatrash was originally intended to be an A side. For some reason stations instead began playing the other side of the record and it became one of the biggest hits of 1967. That song? Incense and Peppermints.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Source: CD: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s): Doug Ingle
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Do I really need to say anything about Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida? I didn't think so.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Gypsy Eyes
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
Among the many ways that Jimi Hendrix was an innovator was in his approach to studio recordings. Whereas previous artists had concentrated on their mono mixes, with the stereo versions often done almost as an afterthought, Hendrix instead saw stereo mixing as fertile ground for creative experimentation. By the time of Electric Ladyland he was doing only stereo mixes; the mono mix heard here is a simple recombining of the two channels rather than a seperate dedicated mix.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Porpoise Song
Source: CD: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Head soundtrack)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1968
In 1968 the Monkees, trying desperately to shed a teeny-bopper image, enlisted Jack Nicholson to co-write a feature film that was a 180-degree departure from their recently-cancelled TV show. This made sense, since the original fans of the show were by then already outgrowing the group. Unfortunately, by 1968 the Monkees brand was irrevocably tainted by the fact that the Monkees had not been allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums. The movie Head itself was the type of film that was best suited to being shown in theaters that specialized in "art" films, but that audience was among the most hostile to the Monkees and the movie bombed. It is now considered a cult classic.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Down On The Corner
Source: LP: Willy and the Poor Boys
Writer(s): John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1969
By mid-1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival was one of the hottest acts in the country. Their three most recent singles had all just barely missed hitting the top of the charts, each peaking at the # 2 spot and the just about everyone was looking forward to hearing their next record. That record was the Willy And The Poor Boys album, which included the band's first double A sided single, Down On The Corner and Fortunate Son. Both songs ended up near the top of the charts, peaking at...you guessed it: number two.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: The Pusher
Source: CD: Easy Rider Soundtrack (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s): Hoyt Axton
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
While AM radio was all over Born To Be Wild in 1968 (taking the song all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts), the edgier FM stations were playing heavier tunes from the debut Steppenwolf album. The most controversial (and thus most popular) of these heavier tunes was Hoyt Axton's The Pusher, with it's repeated use of the line "God damn the Pusher." Axton himself did not record the song until 1971, at which point the song was already burned indelibly in the public consciousness as a Steppenwolf tune.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer: Grace Slick
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.
Artist: Starfires
Title: I Never Loved Her
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Freddie Fields
Label: BFD (original label: G.I.)
Year: 1965
The name Starfires has long been associated with rock 'n' roll, albeit with a number of different bands over the years. The name was probably first used in the late 1950s by a band from Long Beach, California, and was also the original name of the Cleveland, Ohio, band that became famous as the Outsiders. But the most revered of the various Starfires may well be the mid-60s Los Angeles garage band released three singles before disbanding. One of these, I Never Loved Her, has long been sought after by collectors, and copies of the record have been known to sell for over a thousand dollars apiece. Luckily, the song has been included on various collections over the years, including both the LP and CD versions of Pebbles, Volume 8.
Artist: Sorrows
Title: Take A Heart
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Miki Dallon
Label: Rhino (original label: Picadillo)
Year: 1965
The Sorrows were originally formed in 1963 as one of many British R&B-styled groups (think early Who and Kinks). They signed with Pye records the following year, releasing several singles and one album before disbanding in 1967. The third of these singles was Take A Heart, a tune with a throbbing drum beat that would be used again by lead vocalist Don Maughn in 1970 when he recorded a song called Indian Reservation using the name Don Fardon, taking it to the # 5 spot on the British charts. That song was later covered by the Raiders, becoming their last number one record in the US.
Artist: Fairies
Title: Get Yourself Home
Source: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dee/Danks
Label: Rhino (original label: HMV)
Year: 1965
The Fairies were compadres of the more famous Pretty Things, sharing an occasional song and eventually a drummer. Their second single, Get Yourself Home, was actually supposed to be recorded by the Pretty Things themselves, but after making a demo the PTs decided to pass the song along the Fairies. After a third single failed the chart, the Fairies disbanded, with drummer John "Twink" Alder moving on to The In Crowd, Tomorrow (with guitarist Steve Howe) and eventually the Pretty Things themselves before joining up with former members of the Deviants to form the Pink Fairies in 1970.
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.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1338 (starts 9/18/13)
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Think
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
The 1966 album Aftermath marked a turning point for the Rolling Stones, as it was the first Stones album to be entirely made up of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Although, as with all the early Stones releases, there were differences between the US and UK versions of the album, both releases included Think, a song that is fairly representative of the mid-60s Rolling Stones sound.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the Standells' follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.
Artist: John Mayall with Eric Clapton
Title: Ramblin' On My Mind
Source: Mono LP: Blues Breakers
Writer(s): Robert Johnson
Label: London/Sundazed
Year: 1966
After leaving the Yardbirds, guitarist Eric Clapton joined up with the dean of the British blues scene, John Mayall. Mayall was known for giving the members of his band, the Bluesbreakers, room to strut their stuff, even if they themselves were a bit shy about being in the spotlight. The first Mayall album to feature Clapton did just that: the LP itself was billed as John Mayall with Eric Clapton, and Mayall even convinced a reluctant Clapton to sing on their cover of Robert Johnson's classic Ramblin' On My Mind. Although Clapton had contributed vocally to some Yardbirds recordings, this was his first recorded solo vocal performance.
Artist: Others
Title: Revenge
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Myer/Gotcher
Label: Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1966
Garage bands were by no means limited to the big cities. In fact, the great majority of them were out in the suburbs like Palmdale, Ca., which gave us the Revenge of the Others.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single (simulated stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Section 43 (EP version)
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 (original label: Rag Baby)
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: Moby Grape
Title: Sitting By The Window
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer: Peter Lewis
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Moby Grape's powerful 1967 debut managed to achieve what few bands have been able to: a coherent sound despite having wildly different writing styles from the individual members. One of Peter Lewis's contributions to the album was Sitting By The Window, one of those rare songs that sounds better every time you hear it.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Star Track
Source: CD: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1968
Jorma Kaukonen was already starting to develop his unique "psychedelic blues" style that would characterize his band Hot Tuna as early as 1968, with the Jefferson Airplane recording of Star Track from the Crown Of Creation album. As well as playing lead guitar, Kaukonen provides the lead vocals on the track.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Manic Depression
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
After miraculously surviving being shot point blank in the head (and then bayoneted in the back for good measure) in the Korean War (and receiving a Silver Star), my dad became somewhat of a minor celebrity in the early 50s, appearing on a handful of TV and radio game shows as a kind of poster boy for the Air Force. One result of this series of events was that he was able to indulge his fascination with a new technology that had been developed by the Germans during WWII: magnetic recording tape. He used his prize winnings to buy a Webcor tape recorder, which in turn led to me becoming interested in recording technology at an early age (I distinctly remember being punished for playing with "Daddy's tape recorder" without permission on more than one occasion). He did not receive another overseas assignment until 1967, when he was transferred to Weisbaden, Germany. As was the usual practice at the time, he went there a month or so before the rest of the family, and during his alone time he (on a whim, apparently) went in on a Lotto ticket with a co-worker and won enough to buy an Akai X-355 stereo tape recorder from a fellow serviceman who was being transferred out and did not want to (or couldn't afford to) pay the shipping costs of the rather heavy machine.The Akai was pretty much the state of the art in home audio technology at the time. The problem was that we did not have a stereo system to hook it into, so he bought a set of Koss headphones to go with it. Of course all of his old tapes were in storage (along with the old Webcor) back in Denver, so I decided that this would be a good time to start spending my allowance money on pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, the first of which was Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Akai had an auto-reverse system and I would lie on the couch with the headphones on to go to sleep every night listening to songs like Manic Depression. Is it any wonder I turned out like I did?
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Little Wing
Source: LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Although it didn't have any hit singles on it, Axis: Bold As Love, the second album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was full of memorable tunes, including one of Hendrix's most covered songs, Little Wing. The album itself is a showcase for Hendrix's rapidly developing skills, both as a songwriter and in the studio. The actual production of the album was a true collaborative effort, combining Hendrix's creativity, engineer Eddie Kramer's expertise and producer Chas Chandler's strong sense of how a record should sound, acquired through years of recording experience as a member of the Animals.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Hey Joe
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Tell Me Why
Source: Mono CD: A Hard Days Night
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1964
In 1964 it was common practice for the big movie studios such as United Artists to issue soundtrack albums on their own record label, even if the musicians heard on the album were under contract to another label. This led to the unusual situation of the Beatles, who were at the time to top selling recording act in the world, releasing an album of new material on a label other than Capitol (their earlier recordings had appeared on Vee Jay records). Even more unusual is the fact that the album came out in the UK on the band's regular label, Parlophone, albeit with a different track listing. Both the US and UK versions included songs from the movie itself, including Tell Me Why.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. market in 1965 was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, predating the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.
Artist: Animals
Title: Don't Bring Me Down
Source: Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.
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: Them
Title: Black Widow Spider
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them for a solo career, the band headed back to Belfast, where they recruited vocalist Kenny McDowell. Them soon relocated permanently to the US west coast, where they landed a contract with Tower Records. After a first album that featured songs from a variety of sources, they hooked up with Sharon Pulley and Tom Lane, who wrote an album's worth of material for the band. That album was Time Out! Time In! For Them, an album that has stayed under the radar for over 40 years. I hope through this show to give this album the recognition it deserves as an undiscovered classic of the psychedelic era.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Taxman
Source: CD: Turn On The Music Machine
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Collector's Choice (original label: Original Artists)
Year: 1966
Sean Bonniwell's original conception for his band, the Music Machine's first album was a continuous collage of original songs connected by short orchestral pieces. The band's record label, Original Sound, however, had other ideas. The group had recorded a handful of cover songs for use on a local Los Angeles TV dance show that were never intended to be released on vinyl. When Turn On The Music Machine was released, Bonniwell was livid when he discovered that the album had included these covers in additional to his original songs, diluting the impact of Bonniwell's songs considerably. One of the better of these covers was Taxman, a George Harrison composition that had only a short time before been released by the Beatles as the opening track for their Revolver album.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sweet Wine
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Baker/Godfrey
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
When Cream was formed, both bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had new music for the band to record (guitarist Eric Clapton having chosen to shut up and play his guitar for the most part). Most of these new songs, however, did not yet have words to go with the music. To remedy the situation, both musicians brought in outside lyricists. Baker chose poet Pete Brown, while Bruce chose to bring in his wife, Janet Godfrey. After a short time it became apparent that Bruce and Brown had a natural affinity for each other's material, and formed a partnership that would last years. Baker, meanwhile, tried working with Godfrey, but the two only came up with one song together, Sweet Wine, which was included on the band's debut LP, Fresh Cream.
Artist: Cream
Title: Strange Brew
Source: British import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Pappalardi/Collins
Label: RSO (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood Movie of the same name.
Artist: Cream
Title: The Coffee Song
Source: CD: Fresh Cream (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Smith/Colton
Label: Polydor
Year: 1966
Cream's debut single, Wrapping Paper, appeared in England in 1966. The B side of that single was something called The Coffee Song. The record did not chart and was soon forgotten. Cream's next single, I Feel Free, was a huge hit in the UK and the band soon got to work on their first LP. The practice in the UK at the time was to not include any songs on an album that had previously been released as singles; Fresh Cream partially broke with this tradition by using I Feel Free's B side, N.S.U., as the opening track. The other three single sides were not included on the original UK lineup of the album. When a US version of Fresh Cream was released in early 1967, I Feel Free was added to the lineup (replacing the original studio version of Spoonful). Neither side of the band's first single, was included on the album...with one notable exception. The German pressing of Fresh Cream used the same track listing as the original UK version, but a Swedish version, manufactured in Germany, had two extra tracks: Wrapping Paper and The Coffee Song. Neither song was released anywhere else until the late 1980s, when the first US CD version of Fresh Cream included all the tracks from the various LP pressings of the album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Hear Me Now (originally released on LP: Catch The Wind)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Janus (original label: Hickory)
Year: 1965
Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan's two 1965 albums originally came out in the US on the Hickory label, a second-tier label with somewhat spotty distribution. After Donovan became a major star his early material started surfacing in the US on other labels such as Janus, generally reordered with no regard for the artist's original intentions. Like his counterparts in New York's Greenwich Village, Donovan sometimes combined elements of folk and acoustic blues in his original compositions. A good example of this is You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond, a song that originally appeared on the Catch The Wind album.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Jelly Jelly Blues
Source: Mono LP: Live At The Café Au Go Go
Writer(s): Eckstine/Hines
Label: Verve Folkways
Year: 1966
The Blues Project always had greater success on the stage than in the recording studio. After their first sessions for Columbia failed to win them a contract (although it did net them keyboardist Al Kooper), the band continued to play to capacity crowds at New York's Café Au Go Go. Eventually the band was able to secure a contract with Verve Records in late 1965. It was decided that rather than go back into the studio, the band would make a recording of the live show and use the best material on their debut album. Once the actually recordings were done, Verve's parent company, M-G-M, invited the band out to Los Angeles for an official unveiling as America's answer to the Rolling Stones. While at the L.A. Hilton, however, lead vocalist Tommy Flanders's girlfriend announced that the singer, being the real star of the band, was leaving the band to strike out as a solo artist. The album was reworked before being released, with several tracks with Flanders's vocals being deleted in favor of tunes sung by the various other band members. Among those other tracks was Jelly Jelly Blues, an old Billy Eckstine/Earl "Fatha" Hines composition that featured lead guitarist Danny Kalb on vocals. As it turned out, the loss of Flanders ended up being a plus for the band; rather than being an over-hyped second-rate Rolling Stones clone, they developed into the world's first jam band, touring the country and inspiring other groups such as the Grateful Dead to follow in their footsteps.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: If You Want This Love
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer: Baker Knight
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The first West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album, Volume One, had a limited print run on, Fifa, a small independent label in L.A. After landing a contract with Reprise, the band recut many of the songs (most of which were cover tunes) from Volume One and called the new album Part One. If You Want This Love, a song written and originally recorded by L.A. local legend Baker Knight, is one of those recut tracks.
Artist: Second Helping
Title: On Friday
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kenny Loggins
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1968
Although the band Second Helping did not get much airplay with either of their singles for Snuff Garrett's Viva, the songs themselves, such as On Friday, are notable as being early songwriting efforts from a teenaged Kenny Loggins, who would go on to greater fame as half of Loggins and Messina and later as a successful solo artist.
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.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day
Source: LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s): Tommy Boyce
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Tommy Boyce actually had a songwriting career separate from his many collaborations with Bobby Hart. One of his early songs was Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day, which was first recorded as a single by the Colorado-based Astronauts (which gave producer Steve Venet co-writing credit) before getting included on the first Monkees album. Along the way the song got recorded by a handful of garage bands, including Chicago's Shadows Of Knight, whose version closely parallels the Astronauts' original.
Artist: Doors
Title: My Eyes Have Seen You
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
It's strange. Some reviewers seem to think that the album Strange Days is inferior to the first Doors album. They justify this view by citing the fact that almost all the songs on both albums were already in the band's repertoire when they signed their record contract with Elektra. The implication is that the band naturally selected the best material for the first album, making Strange Days a collection of sloppy seconds. There is one small problem with this theory however. Pick a song at random from Strange Days and listen to it and in all likelihood it will sound every bit as good as a song randomly picked from the first album (and probably better than one picked from either of the Doors' next two LPs). In fact, I'll pick one for you: My Eyes Have Seen You. See what I mean?
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: Priority (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.
Artist: Renaissance
Title: Wanderer
Source: LP: Renaissance
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Hawken/Cennamo
Label: Elektra
Year: 1969
Renaissance is best known as an art-rock band of the mid to late 70s that featured the vocal talents of Annie Haslem. The group was actually formed, however, by two of the core members of the Yardbirds: vocalist/guitarist Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty. The original lineup included John Hawken on keyboards and Louis Cennamo on bass, with Relf's sister Jane as an additional vocalist. This incarnation of the band released just one (self-titled) album (produced by former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith) before Relf and McCarty decided to retire from touring, although both stayed associated with the band long enough to complete a second LP, Illusion, that was originally released only in Germany. Even though none of the late 70s members were around for the first Renaissance LP, the album itself, with tracks such as Wanderer, is remarkably similar in style to albums like Novella and Scherezade And Other Stories.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Romanoff
Source: CD: Looking In
Writer(s): Kim Simmonds
Label: Deram (original US label: Parrot)
Year: 1970
The last Savoy Brown to feature members who would become Foghat was Looking In, released in 1970. The first and last tracks on the album were nearly identical one-minute guitar solos from founder Kim Simmonds, the one member who was not a future member of Foghat. The second of these pieces was titled Romanoff.
Artist: Pink Fairies
Title: War Girl
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Neverneverland)
Writer(s): Twink aka John Charles Edward Alder
Label: Polydor
Year: 1971
The Pink Fairies were formed when three members of the Deviants (Paul Rudolph, Duncan Sanderson, and Russell Hunter), who had fired their own band leader during a disastrous North American tour, decided to hook up with Twink (John Charles Edward Alder), the former drummer of Tomorrow and the Pretty Things. Twink had done a one-shot gig with an ad hoc group of musicians under the name Pink Fairies in 1969, and the new group decided that they liked the name and appropriated it for themselves. The band gained immediate notoriety for putting on free concerts, often just outside the gates of places that were charging premium prices for tickets to see more well-known bands. By the end of 1970 the Fairies had secured a contract with Polydor and releasing their first single late in the year. This was followed by a 1971 album called Neverneverland that featured several tracks written by Twink, such as War Girl. Although the Pink Fairies split up in 1976, they still get together from time to time to put on a show.
Artist: Edgar Winter Group
Title: Rock 'N' Roll Boogie Woogie Blues
Source: LP: They Only Come Out At Night
Writer(s): Winter/Winter/Montrose
Label: Epic
Year: 1972
After gaining fame as keyboardist for his brother Johnny's band, appearing on the album Second Winter, Edgar Winter embarked on a solo career, recording one solo album and a pair with his band Edgar Winter's White Trash. In 1972 he formed a new band, the Edgar Winter Group, with guitarist Ronnie Montrose, bassist Dan Hartman and drummer Chuck Ruff. The group's first album included two songs that have become rock standards, Free Ride and Frankenstein, as well as several lesser-known tracks such as Rock 'N' Roll Boogie Woogie Blues, which ends with a blistering guitar solo by Montrose.
Title: Think
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
The 1966 album Aftermath marked a turning point for the Rolling Stones, as it was the first Stones album to be entirely made up of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Although, as with all the early Stones releases, there were differences between the US and UK versions of the album, both releases included Think, a song that is fairly representative of the mid-60s Rolling Stones sound.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the Standells' follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.
Artist: John Mayall with Eric Clapton
Title: Ramblin' On My Mind
Source: Mono LP: Blues Breakers
Writer(s): Robert Johnson
Label: London/Sundazed
Year: 1966
After leaving the Yardbirds, guitarist Eric Clapton joined up with the dean of the British blues scene, John Mayall. Mayall was known for giving the members of his band, the Bluesbreakers, room to strut their stuff, even if they themselves were a bit shy about being in the spotlight. The first Mayall album to feature Clapton did just that: the LP itself was billed as John Mayall with Eric Clapton, and Mayall even convinced a reluctant Clapton to sing on their cover of Robert Johnson's classic Ramblin' On My Mind. Although Clapton had contributed vocally to some Yardbirds recordings, this was his first recorded solo vocal performance.
Artist: Others
Title: Revenge
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Myer/Gotcher
Label: Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1966
Garage bands were by no means limited to the big cities. In fact, the great majority of them were out in the suburbs like Palmdale, Ca., which gave us the Revenge of the Others.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single (simulated stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Section 43 (EP version)
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 (original label: Rag Baby)
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: Moby Grape
Title: Sitting By The Window
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer: Peter Lewis
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Moby Grape's powerful 1967 debut managed to achieve what few bands have been able to: a coherent sound despite having wildly different writing styles from the individual members. One of Peter Lewis's contributions to the album was Sitting By The Window, one of those rare songs that sounds better every time you hear it.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Star Track
Source: CD: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1968
Jorma Kaukonen was already starting to develop his unique "psychedelic blues" style that would characterize his band Hot Tuna as early as 1968, with the Jefferson Airplane recording of Star Track from the Crown Of Creation album. As well as playing lead guitar, Kaukonen provides the lead vocals on the track.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Manic Depression
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
After miraculously surviving being shot point blank in the head (and then bayoneted in the back for good measure) in the Korean War (and receiving a Silver Star), my dad became somewhat of a minor celebrity in the early 50s, appearing on a handful of TV and radio game shows as a kind of poster boy for the Air Force. One result of this series of events was that he was able to indulge his fascination with a new technology that had been developed by the Germans during WWII: magnetic recording tape. He used his prize winnings to buy a Webcor tape recorder, which in turn led to me becoming interested in recording technology at an early age (I distinctly remember being punished for playing with "Daddy's tape recorder" without permission on more than one occasion). He did not receive another overseas assignment until 1967, when he was transferred to Weisbaden, Germany. As was the usual practice at the time, he went there a month or so before the rest of the family, and during his alone time he (on a whim, apparently) went in on a Lotto ticket with a co-worker and won enough to buy an Akai X-355 stereo tape recorder from a fellow serviceman who was being transferred out and did not want to (or couldn't afford to) pay the shipping costs of the rather heavy machine.The Akai was pretty much the state of the art in home audio technology at the time. The problem was that we did not have a stereo system to hook it into, so he bought a set of Koss headphones to go with it. Of course all of his old tapes were in storage (along with the old Webcor) back in Denver, so I decided that this would be a good time to start spending my allowance money on pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, the first of which was Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Akai had an auto-reverse system and I would lie on the couch with the headphones on to go to sleep every night listening to songs like Manic Depression. Is it any wonder I turned out like I did?
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Little Wing
Source: LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Although it didn't have any hit singles on it, Axis: Bold As Love, the second album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was full of memorable tunes, including one of Hendrix's most covered songs, Little Wing. The album itself is a showcase for Hendrix's rapidly developing skills, both as a songwriter and in the studio. The actual production of the album was a true collaborative effort, combining Hendrix's creativity, engineer Eddie Kramer's expertise and producer Chas Chandler's strong sense of how a record should sound, acquired through years of recording experience as a member of the Animals.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Hey Joe
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Tell Me Why
Source: Mono CD: A Hard Days Night
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1964
In 1964 it was common practice for the big movie studios such as United Artists to issue soundtrack albums on their own record label, even if the musicians heard on the album were under contract to another label. This led to the unusual situation of the Beatles, who were at the time to top selling recording act in the world, releasing an album of new material on a label other than Capitol (their earlier recordings had appeared on Vee Jay records). Even more unusual is the fact that the album came out in the UK on the band's regular label, Parlophone, albeit with a different track listing. Both the US and UK versions included songs from the movie itself, including Tell Me Why.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. market in 1965 was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, predating the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.
Artist: Animals
Title: Don't Bring Me Down
Source: Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.
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: Them
Title: Black Widow Spider
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them for a solo career, the band headed back to Belfast, where they recruited vocalist Kenny McDowell. Them soon relocated permanently to the US west coast, where they landed a contract with Tower Records. After a first album that featured songs from a variety of sources, they hooked up with Sharon Pulley and Tom Lane, who wrote an album's worth of material for the band. That album was Time Out! Time In! For Them, an album that has stayed under the radar for over 40 years. I hope through this show to give this album the recognition it deserves as an undiscovered classic of the psychedelic era.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Taxman
Source: CD: Turn On The Music Machine
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Collector's Choice (original label: Original Artists)
Year: 1966
Sean Bonniwell's original conception for his band, the Music Machine's first album was a continuous collage of original songs connected by short orchestral pieces. The band's record label, Original Sound, however, had other ideas. The group had recorded a handful of cover songs for use on a local Los Angeles TV dance show that were never intended to be released on vinyl. When Turn On The Music Machine was released, Bonniwell was livid when he discovered that the album had included these covers in additional to his original songs, diluting the impact of Bonniwell's songs considerably. One of the better of these covers was Taxman, a George Harrison composition that had only a short time before been released by the Beatles as the opening track for their Revolver album.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sweet Wine
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Baker/Godfrey
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
When Cream was formed, both bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had new music for the band to record (guitarist Eric Clapton having chosen to shut up and play his guitar for the most part). Most of these new songs, however, did not yet have words to go with the music. To remedy the situation, both musicians brought in outside lyricists. Baker chose poet Pete Brown, while Bruce chose to bring in his wife, Janet Godfrey. After a short time it became apparent that Bruce and Brown had a natural affinity for each other's material, and formed a partnership that would last years. Baker, meanwhile, tried working with Godfrey, but the two only came up with one song together, Sweet Wine, which was included on the band's debut LP, Fresh Cream.
Artist: Cream
Title: Strange Brew
Source: British import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Pappalardi/Collins
Label: RSO (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood Movie of the same name.
Artist: Cream
Title: The Coffee Song
Source: CD: Fresh Cream (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Smith/Colton
Label: Polydor
Year: 1966
Cream's debut single, Wrapping Paper, appeared in England in 1966. The B side of that single was something called The Coffee Song. The record did not chart and was soon forgotten. Cream's next single, I Feel Free, was a huge hit in the UK and the band soon got to work on their first LP. The practice in the UK at the time was to not include any songs on an album that had previously been released as singles; Fresh Cream partially broke with this tradition by using I Feel Free's B side, N.S.U., as the opening track. The other three single sides were not included on the original UK lineup of the album. When a US version of Fresh Cream was released in early 1967, I Feel Free was added to the lineup (replacing the original studio version of Spoonful). Neither side of the band's first single, was included on the album...with one notable exception. The German pressing of Fresh Cream used the same track listing as the original UK version, but a Swedish version, manufactured in Germany, had two extra tracks: Wrapping Paper and The Coffee Song. Neither song was released anywhere else until the late 1980s, when the first US CD version of Fresh Cream included all the tracks from the various LP pressings of the album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Hear Me Now (originally released on LP: Catch The Wind)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Janus (original label: Hickory)
Year: 1965
Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan's two 1965 albums originally came out in the US on the Hickory label, a second-tier label with somewhat spotty distribution. After Donovan became a major star his early material started surfacing in the US on other labels such as Janus, generally reordered with no regard for the artist's original intentions. Like his counterparts in New York's Greenwich Village, Donovan sometimes combined elements of folk and acoustic blues in his original compositions. A good example of this is You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond, a song that originally appeared on the Catch The Wind album.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Jelly Jelly Blues
Source: Mono LP: Live At The Café Au Go Go
Writer(s): Eckstine/Hines
Label: Verve Folkways
Year: 1966
The Blues Project always had greater success on the stage than in the recording studio. After their first sessions for Columbia failed to win them a contract (although it did net them keyboardist Al Kooper), the band continued to play to capacity crowds at New York's Café Au Go Go. Eventually the band was able to secure a contract with Verve Records in late 1965. It was decided that rather than go back into the studio, the band would make a recording of the live show and use the best material on their debut album. Once the actually recordings were done, Verve's parent company, M-G-M, invited the band out to Los Angeles for an official unveiling as America's answer to the Rolling Stones. While at the L.A. Hilton, however, lead vocalist Tommy Flanders's girlfriend announced that the singer, being the real star of the band, was leaving the band to strike out as a solo artist. The album was reworked before being released, with several tracks with Flanders's vocals being deleted in favor of tunes sung by the various other band members. Among those other tracks was Jelly Jelly Blues, an old Billy Eckstine/Earl "Fatha" Hines composition that featured lead guitarist Danny Kalb on vocals. As it turned out, the loss of Flanders ended up being a plus for the band; rather than being an over-hyped second-rate Rolling Stones clone, they developed into the world's first jam band, touring the country and inspiring other groups such as the Grateful Dead to follow in their footsteps.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: If You Want This Love
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer: Baker Knight
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The first West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album, Volume One, had a limited print run on, Fifa, a small independent label in L.A. After landing a contract with Reprise, the band recut many of the songs (most of which were cover tunes) from Volume One and called the new album Part One. If You Want This Love, a song written and originally recorded by L.A. local legend Baker Knight, is one of those recut tracks.
Artist: Second Helping
Title: On Friday
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kenny Loggins
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1968
Although the band Second Helping did not get much airplay with either of their singles for Snuff Garrett's Viva, the songs themselves, such as On Friday, are notable as being early songwriting efforts from a teenaged Kenny Loggins, who would go on to greater fame as half of Loggins and Messina and later as a successful solo artist.
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.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day
Source: LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s): Tommy Boyce
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Tommy Boyce actually had a songwriting career separate from his many collaborations with Bobby Hart. One of his early songs was Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day, which was first recorded as a single by the Colorado-based Astronauts (which gave producer Steve Venet co-writing credit) before getting included on the first Monkees album. Along the way the song got recorded by a handful of garage bands, including Chicago's Shadows Of Knight, whose version closely parallels the Astronauts' original.
Artist: Doors
Title: My Eyes Have Seen You
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
It's strange. Some reviewers seem to think that the album Strange Days is inferior to the first Doors album. They justify this view by citing the fact that almost all the songs on both albums were already in the band's repertoire when they signed their record contract with Elektra. The implication is that the band naturally selected the best material for the first album, making Strange Days a collection of sloppy seconds. There is one small problem with this theory however. Pick a song at random from Strange Days and listen to it and in all likelihood it will sound every bit as good as a song randomly picked from the first album (and probably better than one picked from either of the Doors' next two LPs). In fact, I'll pick one for you: My Eyes Have Seen You. See what I mean?
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: Priority (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.
Artist: Renaissance
Title: Wanderer
Source: LP: Renaissance
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Hawken/Cennamo
Label: Elektra
Year: 1969
Renaissance is best known as an art-rock band of the mid to late 70s that featured the vocal talents of Annie Haslem. The group was actually formed, however, by two of the core members of the Yardbirds: vocalist/guitarist Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty. The original lineup included John Hawken on keyboards and Louis Cennamo on bass, with Relf's sister Jane as an additional vocalist. This incarnation of the band released just one (self-titled) album (produced by former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith) before Relf and McCarty decided to retire from touring, although both stayed associated with the band long enough to complete a second LP, Illusion, that was originally released only in Germany. Even though none of the late 70s members were around for the first Renaissance LP, the album itself, with tracks such as Wanderer, is remarkably similar in style to albums like Novella and Scherezade And Other Stories.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Romanoff
Source: CD: Looking In
Writer(s): Kim Simmonds
Label: Deram (original US label: Parrot)
Year: 1970
The last Savoy Brown to feature members who would become Foghat was Looking In, released in 1970. The first and last tracks on the album were nearly identical one-minute guitar solos from founder Kim Simmonds, the one member who was not a future member of Foghat. The second of these pieces was titled Romanoff.
Artist: Pink Fairies
Title: War Girl
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Neverneverland)
Writer(s): Twink aka John Charles Edward Alder
Label: Polydor
Year: 1971
The Pink Fairies were formed when three members of the Deviants (Paul Rudolph, Duncan Sanderson, and Russell Hunter), who had fired their own band leader during a disastrous North American tour, decided to hook up with Twink (John Charles Edward Alder), the former drummer of Tomorrow and the Pretty Things. Twink had done a one-shot gig with an ad hoc group of musicians under the name Pink Fairies in 1969, and the new group decided that they liked the name and appropriated it for themselves. The band gained immediate notoriety for putting on free concerts, often just outside the gates of places that were charging premium prices for tickets to see more well-known bands. By the end of 1970 the Fairies had secured a contract with Polydor and releasing their first single late in the year. This was followed by a 1971 album called Neverneverland that featured several tracks written by Twink, such as War Girl. Although the Pink Fairies split up in 1976, they still get together from time to time to put on a show.
Artist: Edgar Winter Group
Title: Rock 'N' Roll Boogie Woogie Blues
Source: LP: They Only Come Out At Night
Writer(s): Winter/Winter/Montrose
Label: Epic
Year: 1972
After gaining fame as keyboardist for his brother Johnny's band, appearing on the album Second Winter, Edgar Winter embarked on a solo career, recording one solo album and a pair with his band Edgar Winter's White Trash. In 1972 he formed a new band, the Edgar Winter Group, with guitarist Ronnie Montrose, bassist Dan Hartman and drummer Chuck Ruff. The group's first album included two songs that have become rock standards, Free Ride and Frankenstein, as well as several lesser-known tracks such as Rock 'N' Roll Boogie Woogie Blues, which ends with a blistering guitar solo by Montrose.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1337 (starts 9/11/13)
Artist: Tomorrow
Title: My White Bicycle
Source: British CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road-1965-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hopkins/Burgess
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1967
Along with Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine, Tomorrow was among the most influential of the British psychedelic bands that popped up in the wake of the Beatles' Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's albums. Evolving out of the In Crowd, a popular British R&B group in the mold of the Spencer Davis Group and the early Who, Tomorrow featured a young Steve Howe (who go on to stardom as a founding member of Yes) on lead guitar and Keith West on vocals. The group was slated to appear in the film Blow-Up, but ultimately lost out to the Yardbirds, who had just recruited Jimmy Page as a second lead guitarist. Unfazed, Tomorrow went into Abbey Road studios and cut My White Bicycle, a song inspired by the practice in Amsterdam of providing free bicycles to anyone who wanted to use one as long as they turned it back in when they were done with it.
Artist: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Title: Oh, Pretty Woman
Source: LP: Crusade
Writer(s): Williams/King
Label: London
Year: 1967
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers were, in one sense, a training ground some for Britain's most talented blues musicians, including Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Mick Taylor and Keef Hartley, all of which went on to greater fame as either members of popular bands (Cream, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones) or as leaders of their own groups. Following the departure of Clapton, the band recruited Taylor to take over lead guitar duties for the 1967 album Crusade, which also featured McVie on bass and Hartley on drums. This lineup would only last for one album, as the next incarnation of the band would feature Fleetwood on drums and Green on guitar.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Slide Machine
Source: British import CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s): R. P. St. John
Label: Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1967
Following a successful tour of Southern California in late 1966, the 13th Floor Elevators returned to their native Austin, Texas to begin work on a second LP. Unlike the first album, which (like most debut efforts of the time) was recorded in a matter of days, Easter Anywhere took several months to complete. During that time the band underwent personnel changes and a continuously deteriorating relationship with Internation Artists Records, which kept setting up inappropriate gigs instate when the band would have been better served building up a national following. In addition, some of the band members were exhibiting increasingly bizarre behavior due to excessive drug use, which slowed work on the album down considerably. One more factor contributing to the tardiness of the LP was the band's desire to make an album that would be thematically consistent throughout rather than a random collection of songs like their debut LP had been. The fact that the theme itself was pretty cosmic made it that much harder to capture in the recording studio. Although nearly all the material on the album was written by the band members themselves, one track, Slide Machine, was credited to the mysterious R.P. St. John.
Artist: Who
Title: I Can See For Miles
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
I Can See For Miles continued a string of top 10 singles in the UK and was the Who's biggest US hit ever. Pete Townshend, however, was disappointed with the song's performance on the UK charts. He said that the song was the ultimate Who song and as such it should have charted even higher than it did. It certainly was one of the heaviest songs of its time and there is some evidence that it prompted Paul McCartney to come up with Helter Skelter in an effort to take the heaviest song ever title back for the Beatles. What makes the story even more bizarre is that at the time McCartney reportedly had never actually heard I Can See For Miles and was going purely by what he read in a record review. I Can See For Miles was also used as the closing track of side one of The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. Some of the commercials and jingles heard at the beginning of the track were recorded by the band itself. Others were lifted (without permission) from Radio London, a pirate radio station operating off the English coast.
Artist: 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 a deliberate effort to achieve commercial success. Elektra Records chose not to release 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: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Smell of Incense
Source: Mono CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released on LP: Volume 2)
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
One of the commercially strongest songs on the second West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album for Reprise was Smell of Incense. The length of the track, however (over five minutes), meant it would never get airplay on AM radio. England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley, however, took a shorter version of the tune to the # 56 spot on the charts while still in high school in 1968 with their band Southwest F.O.B.
Artist: Penny Peeps
Title: Model Village
Source: Mono import CD: Insane Times (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Alexander
Label: Zonophone (UK) (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
Although the British psychedelic era was considerably shorter (only about two years long) than its American counterpart, there are a surprisingly large number of British psych-pop singles that were never issued in the US. Among those was a somewhat forgettable song called Little Man With A Stick, released in 1967 by a band called the Penny Peeps. The band took its name from the risque coin-fed viewers at Brighton Beach (apparently London's version of Coney Island). Emulating his American counterparts, producer Les Reed (who wrote Little Man), allowed the band itself to come up with its own B side. The result was Model Village, a track that manages to convey a classic garage-rock energy while remaining uniquely British.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Tribal Gathering
Source: The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer(s): Crosby/Hillman
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
In January of 1967 David Crosby attended something called "The Gathering of the Tribes: The Human Be-In" at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Crosby was so impressed by the event and those attending it that he wrote a song about the experience. Tribal Gathering was recorded by the Byrds on August 16, 1967. Within two months Crosby would be kicked out of the band by Chris Hillman and Jim (Roger) McGuinn. Despite this, Tribal Gathering was included on the Byrds' next LP, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, which was released in January of 1968.
Artist: Byrds
Title: I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better
Source: LP: Mr. Tambourine Man
Writer: Gene Clark
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
A solid example of Gene Clark's songwriting, I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better was the first Byrds song not written by Bob Dylan to get played on the radio.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Universal Mind Decoder
Source: CD: The Notorious Byrd Brothers (bonus track)
Writer(s): McGuinn/Hillman
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
On July 31, 1967, the Byrds recorded the basic tracks for what would become their next single, Change Is Now. They did not yet have lyrics or even a title for the piece, and picked the somewhat whimsical working title Universal Mind Decoder for the session. Jim (Roger) McGuinn added a guitar track to the piece that would later be replaced by fills from Clarence White, who would end up replacing David Crosby in the band by the time the single was released.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Easy Blues
Source: LP: People, Hell And Angels
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2013
Jimi Hendrix did not record with other guitarists very often, making this 1969 jazzy blues jam somewhat of a novelty. In addition to second guitarist Larry Lee (who would join Hendrix onstage at Woodstock), Easy Blues features Hendrix's old army buddy and former bandmate Billy Cox on bass and the Experience's Mitch Mitchell on drums.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Commotion
Source: CD: Chronicles (originally released as 45 RPM B side and included on LP: Green River)
Writer(s): John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1969
Yes, I know Creedence Clearwater Revival is not what you would call a psychedelic band. Nonetheless, they made some of the best rock records of 1969, including Commotion, which was released as the B side of Green River. Personally I think it sounds pretty psychedelic. So there.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: For What It's Worth (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Retrospective
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth. And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in January of 1967. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was turning into a major hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth, making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Mr. Pitiful
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Redding/Cropper
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1965
Otis Redding got his first big break when he recorded These Arms Of Mine in late 1962. The song took off on the R&B charts the following year, eventually selling over 800,000 copies. Redding followed the song up with a series of R&B hits in the same slow soulful style, leading one music critic to dub him Mr. Pitiful. Redding, always one to recognize an opportunity, took the title and, along with co-writer Steve Cropper, came up with his first up-tempo hit in 1965. By the time of his death in late 1967 Redding had established himself as one of the top R&B acts in the country, and, thanks to a electrifying set at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967, was well on the way to becoming a major star on top 40 radio as well.
Artist: Beatles
Title: It Won't Be Long
Source: Mono CD: With The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1963
The second Beatles LP, With The Beatles, starts off in powerful fashion with the Lennon/McCartney track It Won't Be Long. The song was also included on the band's first record for Capitol in the US, Meet the Beatles, and was an important piece of the Beatlemania phenomenon.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source: CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
The top album of 1967 was the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was also the first US Beatle album to have a song lineup that was identical to the original UK LP. As such, it was also the first Beatle album released in the US to not include any songs that were also released as singles. Nonetheless, several tracks from the LP found their way onto the playlists of both top 40 AM and "underground" FM stations from coast to coast. Among the most popular of these tracks was John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which shows up on just about everyone's list of classic psychedelic tunes.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Birthday/Yer Blues
Source: LP: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1968
One of the great ironies of rock history was that the album entitled simply The Beatles was the one that had the fewest songs with all four of the band members playing on them. By 1968 the Beatles were experiencing internal conflicts, and nearly all of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songs were played by just the two of them, while George Harrison's songs (and Ringo Starr's single contribution as a songwriter) featured an array of some of the UK's top musicians (including guitarist Eric Clapton). The opening tracks of side three of the album are typical of this approach, as Birthday is essentially a McCartney solo piece. Yer Blues, on the other hand, has Lennon singing and playing guitar, with probably McCartney on bass and drums. The first performance of Yer Blues in front of a live audience was in December of 1968 as part of the Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus. It was not the Beatles however, that performed the tune. Instead, Yer Blues was played by the Dirty Mac, a jam band consisting of Lennon, Clapton, drummer Mitch Mitchell (of the Jimi Hendrix Experience), and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. That performance was never seen, other than by the studio audience, until the entire Circus was released on DVD a few years ago (Mick Jagger reportedly had the entire project shelved due to his dissatisfaction with the Stones' performance).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
Source: Mono CD: Flowers
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
By mid-1966 there was a population explosion of teenage rock bands popping up in garages and basements all across the US, the majority of which were doing their best to emulate the grungy sound of their heroes, the Rolling Stones. The Stones themselves responded by ramping up the grunge factor to a previously unheard of degree with their last single of the year, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? It was the most feedback-laden record ever to make the top 40 at that point in time, and it inspired America's garage bands to buy even more powerful amps and crank up the volume (driving their parents to drink in the process).
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
Although San Jose, Ca. is a rather large city in its own right (the 10th-largest city in the US in fact), it has always had a kind of suburban status, thanks to being within the same media market as San Francisco. Nonetheless, San Jose had its own very active music scene in the mid-60s, and Count Five was, for a time in late 1966, at the top of the heap, thanks in large part to Psychotic Reaction tearing up the national charts.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
For years I've been trying to find a DVD copy of a video I saw on YouTube. It was the Blues Magoos, complete with electric suits and smoke generators, performing Tobacco Road on a Bob Hope TV special. The performance itself was a vintage piece of psychedelia, but the true appeal of the video is in Hope's reaction to the band immediately following the song. You can practically hear him thinking "Well, that's one act I'm not taking with me on my next USO tour."
Artist: David Axelrod
Title: Urizen
Source: British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: Song Of Innocence)
Writer(s): David Axelrod
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
One of the more unique talents of the psychedelic era was a man named David Axelrod. Originally known as a jazz producer, working with such artists as Lou Reed and Cannonball Adderly, Axelrod came to the attention of the rock world when he scored an entire Catholic Mass for a rock band, the Electric Prunes' Mass In F Minor, in 1968. The piece was sung entirely in Latin and featured mostly studio musicians playing the complicated score. The same year, Axelrod released Song Of Innocence, setting the words of poet William Blake to modern music. The opening track of Song Of Innocence is Urizen, named for one of Blake's key characters.
Artist: Cream
Title: SWLABR
Source: Mono European import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, SWLABR (the title being an anagram for She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow) was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and poet Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Conquistador (1971 stereo mix)
Source: CD: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo
Year: 1967
For reasons that are lost to history, the first Procol Harum album was released five months earlier in the US than it was in the UK. It also was released with a slightly different song lineup, a practice that was fairly common earlier in the decade but that had been pretty much abandoned by mid-1967. One notable difference is the inclusion of A Whiter Shade Of Pale on the US version (the British practice being to not include songs on LPs that had been already issued on 45 RPM records). The opening track of the UK version was Conquistador, a song that would not become well-known until 1972, when a live version with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra backing up the band became a hit single. The original 1967 album was mixed entirely in monoraul (single channel), although in 1971 Malcolm Jones created new stereo mixes of three songs from the LP, including Conquistador.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer: Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
For years album (now called classic) rock radio stations have been playing Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker and letting the album play through to the next song, Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman). Back when Stuck in the Psychedelic Era was a local show being played live I occassionally made it a point to play Heartbreaker and follow it with something else entirely. Since people now expect this of me I decided to pull a fast one and let the two songs play back to back, just like the big guys do (just don't expect me to do it again).
Artist: Love
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono LP: Love
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
There are contradictory stories of the origins of the song Hey Joe. Some say it's a traditional folk song, while others have attributed it to various songwriters, including Tim Rose and Dino Valenti (under his birth name Chet Powers). As near as I've been able to determine the song was actually written by an obscure California folk singer named Billy Roberts, who reportedly was performing the song as early as 1958. The song circulated among West Coast musicians over the years and eventually caught the attention of the Byrds' David Crosby. Crosby was unable to convince his bandmates to record the song, although they did include it in their live sets at Ciro's on L.A.'s Sunset Strip. One of the Byrds' roadies, Bryan Maclean, joined up with Arthur Lee's new band, Love, and brought Crosby's version of the song (which had slightly different lyrics than other, more popular versions) with him. In 1966 Love included Hey Joe on their debut album, with Maclean doing the vocals. Meanwhile another L.A. band, the Leaves, recorded their own version of Hey Joe (reportedly using misremembered lyrics acquired from Love's Johnny Echols) in 1965, but had little success with it. In 1966 they recorded a new version of the song, adding screaming fuzz-drenched lead guitar parts by Bobby Arlin, and Hey Joe finally became a national hit. With two other L.A. bands (and Chicago's Shadows Of Knight) having recorded a song that David Crosby had come to regard as his own, the Byrds finally committed their own version of Hey Joe to vinyl in late 1966 on the Fifth Dimension album, but even Crosby eventually admitted that recording the song was a mistake. Up to this point the song had always been recorded at a fast tempo, but two L.A. songwriters, Sean Bonniwell (of the Music Machine) and folk singer Tim Rose, came up with the idea of slowing the song down. Both the Music Machine and Tim Rose versions of the songs were released on albums in 1966. Jimi Hendrix heard the Rose recording and used it as the basis for his own embellished version of the song, which was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 (although it did not come out in the US until the release of the Are You Experienced album in 1967).
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: Signed D.C.
Source: Mono LP: Love
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
The only acoustic track on the first Love album was Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Dark White
Source: CD: Ignition
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2003
One of the final recordings by Sean Bonniwell using the name Music Machine, Dark White is also one of the most sophisticated, both lyrically and musically. And since Bonniwell's music was by far the most sophisticated to get labeled "garage rock", that is really saying a lot. The song is best described as a cat and mouse love dance (but that really falls short of the mark as well). Best just to take a listen and decide for yourself.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1336 (starts 9/5/13)
This week it's the First Great Stuck in the Psychedelic Era T-Shirt Giveaway! The catch is, you'll have to actually listen to the show itself to find out how to win one.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Nanker Phelge
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
The Rolling Stones embraced the Los Angeles music scene probably more than any other British invasion band. They attended the clubs on Sunset Strip when they were in town, recorded a lot of their classic recordings at RCA's Burbank studios, and generally did a lot of schmoozing with people in the record industry. This latter was the inspiration for their 1965 track The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man. The song is credited to the entire band, using the pseudonym Nanker Phelge.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Cry To Me
Source: Mono LP: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Bert Berns
Label: London
Year: 1965
The Rolling Stones included several cover songs on their first few albums, most of which were from either early rock & roll artists or more contemporary rhythm and blues artists such as Solomon Burke. One Burke song, Cry To Me, was written by Bert Burns, using the name Bert Russell (Russell being his middle name). Berns himself was, in the words of Burke, a "roly-poly white guy" who he didn't particularly trust at first. Over time, however, as the two of them worked together on several recordings Burke became one of Bern's most ardent supporters. Berns, who died in his 30s, also co-wrote Twist and Shout, Hang On Sloopy, and Piece Of My Heart, among others.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: The Spider And The Fly
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco
Year: 1965
There were often differences in the track lineup between the US and UK versions of albums in the 1960s. There were two main reasons for this difference. The first was that British albums generally had a longer running time than their American counterparts. The second was that the British tradititionally did not include songs on albums that had been already issued on singles. Such was the case with The Spider And The Fly, which was first released as the B side of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Both songs were included on the US version of Out Of Our Heads in July of 1965, but when the British version of the album was released two months later neither song was included.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Blues From An Airplane
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Spence
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Blues From An Airplane was the opening song on the first Jefferson Airplane album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. Although never released as a single, it was picked by the group to open their first anthology album, The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane, as well.
Artist: Chimps
Title: Fifth Class Mail
Source: CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lite Psych (originally released on LP: Monkey A-Go-Go)
Writer(s): unknown
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Wyncote)
Year: 1967
In the 1960s there were literally hundreds of record labels, many of which served targeted audiences to the exclusion of all else. Among these were labels that specialized in exploiting current trends with cheap knockoffs, usually played by studio musicians using made up band names. Once in a while, a real band would record for these labels, but not under their actual name. One such case is the Chimps, who were in reality the Thomas A. Edison Electric Band, a Philadelphia band formed in 1966 that released one album (as the Edison Electric Band) on the Cotillion label in 1970, as well as a single for Cameo Records in 1967 shortly before that label's demise. As the Chimps, they released two albums for the Philadelphia based Wyncote label that were meant to capitalize on the popularity of the Monkees. The albums, Monkey Business and Monkey A-Go-Go, both included a mix of Monkees cover songs and originals such as Fifth Class Mail, possibly the most psychedelic track the group ever recorded.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Beggar's Farm
Source: CD: This Was
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Parallels can be drawn between the early recordings of Jethro Tull and the American band Spirit. Both showed jazz influences that would for the most part disappear from later albums, but that helped both bands stand out from the pack on their respective debut albums. An example of this can be heard on the track Beggar's Farm, an Ian Anderson tune from the first Jethro Tull album This Was.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Source: LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1969
With the exception of John Lennon's 1968 audio collage Revolution 9, the longest Beatle track ever recorded was I Want You (She's So Heavy), from the Abbey Road album. The track alternates between two distinct sections: the jazz-like I Want You, which contains most of the song's lyrical content, and the primal-scream based She's So Heavy, which repeats the same phrase endlessly in 6/8 time while an increasingly loud wall of white noise eventually leads to an abrupt cut-off at 7:47.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Mercedes Benz
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Pearl)
Writer(s): Janis Joplin
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1971
To put it bluntly, Janis recorded Mercedes Benz then went home and ODed on herion. End of story (and of Janis).
Artist: Joni Mitchell
Title: The Last Time I Saw Richard
Source: LP: Blue
Writer(s): Joni Mitchell
Label: Reprise
Year: 1971
The last track on Joni Mitchell's 1971 LP Blue, The Last Time I Saw Richard, was rumored to be about her first husband, whose name was not Richard. Figure that one out.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Hey Mr. President
Source: CD: Mass In F Minor (bonus track)
Writer(s): Barkan/Adams
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
The CD reissue of the third Electric Prunes album, includes two sides of a 1969 single credited to the band. As the original group has disbanded in 1968, I'm not sure who actually played on the record (although I have a CD on order that may provide an answer). What I do know is that, due to the band members not reading the fine print before signing their contract, producer Dave Hassinger actually owned the name Electric Prunes, and continued to release albums under that name using a continuously changing lineup until 1970.
Artist: Gun
Title: Race With The Devil
Source: British import CD: Gun
Writer(s): Adrian Gurvitz
Label: Repertoire
Year: 1968
One of the most popular songs on the jukebox at the teen club on Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany in 1969 was a song called Race With The Devil by a band called Gun. The song was so popular, in fact, that at least two local bands covered it (including the one I was in at the time). Nobody seemed to know much about the band at the time, but it turns out that the group was fronted by the Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul (who at the time used the last name Curtis); the two would later be members of the Baker-Gurvitz Army with drummer Ginger Baker. I've also learned recently that Gun spent much of its time touring in Europe, particularly in Germany, where Race With The Devil hit its peak in January of 1969 (it had made the top 10 in the UK in 1968, the year it was released).
Artist: Cream
Title: Take It Back
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The very first album I recorded on my dad's new Akai X-355 reel-to-reel tape recorder was Cream's 1967 LP Disraeli Gears. It was also the very first CD I ever bought (along with Axis: Bold As Love). I currently own three copies of the LP in addition to the CD. Does that tell you anything about my opinion of this album?
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Gimme Some Lovin'
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label: United Artists
Year: 1966
The movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becoming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear in major markets as well. Ironically, most of those stations are now playing 80s oldies.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Lazy Poker Blues
Source: LP: Vintage Years (originally released in UK on LP: Mr. Wonderful)
Writer(s): Green/Adams
Label: Sire (original label: Blue Horizon)
Year: 1968
The only thing the original Fleetwood Mac and the superstar band of the 80s had in common was the presence of Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass. Stylistically, the two were world's apart. Instead of the slick pop-rock of the later version of the band, the original lineup featured British blues-rock tunes such as Lazy Poker Blues written and sung by guitarist Peter Green. The original lineup recorded two LPs for Blue Horizon that were never issued in the US. Once Fleetwood Mac became a household name, Sire Records issued a double-LP compilation album called Vintage Years that included cuts from both albums as well as several UK-only single tracks.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: The Dangling Conversation
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia/Sundazed
Year: 1966
The first Simon and Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM, originally tanked on the charts, causing Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to temporarily pursue solo careers. Simon went to England, where he wrote and recorded an album's worth of material. Meanwhile, producer Tom Wilson, fresh from producing Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, went into the studio with the original recording of the song Sound of Silence and added electric instruments to it. The result was a surprise hit that led Paul Simon to return to the US, reuniting with Art Garfunkel and re-recording several of the tunes he had recorded as a solo artist for a new album, Sounds of Silence. The success of that album prompted Columbia to re-release Wednesday Morning, 3AM, which in turn became a bestseller. Meanwhile, Simon and Garfunkel returned to the studio to record an album of all new material. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was yet another success that spawned several hit songs, including The Dangling Conversation, a song Simon described as similar to The Sound Of Silence, but more personal. The song was originally released as a single in fall of 1966, before the album itself came out.
Artist: Ballroom
Title: Love's Fatal Way
Source: CD: Present Tense (Sagittarius) (bonus track)
Writer(s): Boettcher/Naylor
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1966
In 1966, having successfully worked with the Association on their debut hit, Along Comes Mary (which he co-wrote), Our Productions staff producer Curt Boettcher started work on his own project, a studio group known as the Ballroom. While working on the Ballroom project, Boettcher reconnected with producer Peter Asher (whom he had met early in 1966), who was starting work on his own studio project, Sagittarius. Asher, a veteran producer and songwriter who had worked with Brian Wilson, Terry Melcher and others and had access to the top studio musicians in Los Angeles (collectively known as the Wrecking Crew), was impressed with Boettcher's talent and enthusiasm. For his part, Boettcher had idolized Asher for years, and the two soon began working together on the Sagittarius project, after Asher negotiated a buyout of Boettcher's contract with Our Productions by Asher's own employer, CBS. Only one single was ever issued by the Ballroom, with several of the remaining Ballroom tracks being reworked and/or included on the Sagittarius album, Present Tense. One Ballroom track that did not make the album was Love's Fatal Way, a ethereal pop number that is now available as a bonus track on the Present Tense CD.
Artist: Nancy Sinatra
Title: These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits-1966 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Lee Hazlewood
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
Nancy Sinatra may not have had a great voice, but it was the right voice with the right song at the right time. To this day These Boots Are Made For Walkin', written by Lee Hazlewood, is one of the most recognizable songs ever recorded. Of course it didn't hurt that Nancy was the daughter of Frank Sinatra, or for that matter that she looked good in a miniskirt and boots.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Like A Rolling Stone
Source: CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
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. Personnel on this historic recording included guitarist Michael Bloomfield, pianist Paul Griffin, drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Joe Madho, guitarist Charlie McCoy and tambourinist Bruce Langhorne. In addition, guitarist Al Kooper, who was on the scene as a guest of producer Tom Wilson, sat in on organ, ad-libbing a part that so impressed Dylan that he insisted it be given a prominent place in the final mixdown. This in turn led to Kooper permanently switching over to keyboards for the remainder of his career.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Dirty Water has long since been adopted by the city of Boston (and especially its sports teams), yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes in the early 60s. Lead vocalist/drummer Dickie Dodd, incidently, was a former Mouseketeer who had played on the surf-rock hit Mr. Moto as a member of the Bel-Airs.
Artist: E-Types
Title: Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The E-Types were originally from Salinas, California, which at the time was known for it's sulfiric smell by travelers along US 101. As many people from Salinas apparently went to "nearby" San Jose (about 60 miles to the north) as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watch Band. The Bonner/Gordon songwriting team were just a couple months away from getting huge royalty checks from the Turtles' Happy Together when Put The Clock Back On The Wall was released in early 1967. The song takes its title from a popular phrase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space) it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer.
Artist: Second Helping
Title: Let Me In
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kenny Loggins
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1968
Before making it big as a member of Loggins And Messina (and later as a solo artist), Kenny Loggins fronted his own band, Second Helping, recording for the Viva label in 1968. Although the single, Hard Times, did not crack the charts, it did feature the punkish Let Me In on the B side. Loggins would serve briefly as a member of the Electric Prunes before hooking up with former Buffalo Springfield member Jim Messina in the early 1970s.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Death Sound Blues
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
I generally use the term "psychedelic" to describe a musical attitude that existed during a particular period of time rather than a specific style of music. On the other hand, the term "acid rock" is better suited for describing music that was composed and/or performed under the influence of certain mind-expanding substances. That said, the first album by Country Joe and the Fish is a classic example of acid rock. I mean, really, is there any other way to describe Death Sound Blues than "the blues on acid"?
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: I'm Waiting For The Man
Source: CD: The Velvet Underground And Nico
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The most celebrated of the avant-garde psychedelic bands from New York City, the Velvet Underground, did not sell a lot of records during their existence, despite being closely affiliated with Andy Warhol, at the time the hottest name in the art world. This is probably because their music was not (and still isn't) easily accessible for the masses. In fact, the VU may well be that band that your parents were talking about when they were yelling at you to "turn down that noise"! A listen to Lou Reed's I'm Waiting For The Man from the group's debut LP provides a basis for that particular theory.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: She May Call You Up Tonight
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
Unlike their first two singles, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina, this song failed to chart, possibly due to the release two months earlier of a song called Ivy Ivy, written by keyboardist Michael Brown and shown on the label as being by the Left Banke. The song was in reality performed entirely by session musicians, including lead vocals by Bert Sommer, who would be one of the acoustic acts on the opening afternoon of the Woodstock festival a couple years later. The resulting fued between Brown and the rest of the band left a large number of radio stations gun shy when came to any record with the name Left Banke on the label, and She May Call You Up Tonight tanked.
Artist: Santana
Title: Incident At Neshabur
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer(s): Gianquito/Santana
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: Idlewild South)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
The second Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South, generally got better reviews than the group's debut LP, mostly because of shorter tracks and tighter arrangements, both of which appealed to the rock press. Their version of Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man, for instance, actually comes in at less than five minutes. The band's next album, Live At The Fillmore East, proved to be the Allman's commercial breakthrough, however; the fact that the album is made up almost entirely of extended versions of the same songs that were on their first two studio LPs only goes to show that sometimes what the public wants is not the same thing as what the critics think they should.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s): Pete Seeger
Label: Cotillion (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1965
After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the band turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Nanker Phelge
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
The Rolling Stones embraced the Los Angeles music scene probably more than any other British invasion band. They attended the clubs on Sunset Strip when they were in town, recorded a lot of their classic recordings at RCA's Burbank studios, and generally did a lot of schmoozing with people in the record industry. This latter was the inspiration for their 1965 track The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man. The song is credited to the entire band, using the pseudonym Nanker Phelge.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Cry To Me
Source: Mono LP: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Bert Berns
Label: London
Year: 1965
The Rolling Stones included several cover songs on their first few albums, most of which were from either early rock & roll artists or more contemporary rhythm and blues artists such as Solomon Burke. One Burke song, Cry To Me, was written by Bert Burns, using the name Bert Russell (Russell being his middle name). Berns himself was, in the words of Burke, a "roly-poly white guy" who he didn't particularly trust at first. Over time, however, as the two of them worked together on several recordings Burke became one of Bern's most ardent supporters. Berns, who died in his 30s, also co-wrote Twist and Shout, Hang On Sloopy, and Piece Of My Heart, among others.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: The Spider And The Fly
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco
Year: 1965
There were often differences in the track lineup between the US and UK versions of albums in the 1960s. There were two main reasons for this difference. The first was that British albums generally had a longer running time than their American counterparts. The second was that the British tradititionally did not include songs on albums that had been already issued on singles. Such was the case with The Spider And The Fly, which was first released as the B side of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Both songs were included on the US version of Out Of Our Heads in July of 1965, but when the British version of the album was released two months later neither song was included.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Blues From An Airplane
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Spence
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Blues From An Airplane was the opening song on the first Jefferson Airplane album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. Although never released as a single, it was picked by the group to open their first anthology album, The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane, as well.
Artist: Chimps
Title: Fifth Class Mail
Source: CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lite Psych (originally released on LP: Monkey A-Go-Go)
Writer(s): unknown
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Wyncote)
Year: 1967
In the 1960s there were literally hundreds of record labels, many of which served targeted audiences to the exclusion of all else. Among these were labels that specialized in exploiting current trends with cheap knockoffs, usually played by studio musicians using made up band names. Once in a while, a real band would record for these labels, but not under their actual name. One such case is the Chimps, who were in reality the Thomas A. Edison Electric Band, a Philadelphia band formed in 1966 that released one album (as the Edison Electric Band) on the Cotillion label in 1970, as well as a single for Cameo Records in 1967 shortly before that label's demise. As the Chimps, they released two albums for the Philadelphia based Wyncote label that were meant to capitalize on the popularity of the Monkees. The albums, Monkey Business and Monkey A-Go-Go, both included a mix of Monkees cover songs and originals such as Fifth Class Mail, possibly the most psychedelic track the group ever recorded.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Beggar's Farm
Source: CD: This Was
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Parallels can be drawn between the early recordings of Jethro Tull and the American band Spirit. Both showed jazz influences that would for the most part disappear from later albums, but that helped both bands stand out from the pack on their respective debut albums. An example of this can be heard on the track Beggar's Farm, an Ian Anderson tune from the first Jethro Tull album This Was.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Source: LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1969
With the exception of John Lennon's 1968 audio collage Revolution 9, the longest Beatle track ever recorded was I Want You (She's So Heavy), from the Abbey Road album. The track alternates between two distinct sections: the jazz-like I Want You, which contains most of the song's lyrical content, and the primal-scream based She's So Heavy, which repeats the same phrase endlessly in 6/8 time while an increasingly loud wall of white noise eventually leads to an abrupt cut-off at 7:47.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Mercedes Benz
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Pearl)
Writer(s): Janis Joplin
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1971
To put it bluntly, Janis recorded Mercedes Benz then went home and ODed on herion. End of story (and of Janis).
Artist: Joni Mitchell
Title: The Last Time I Saw Richard
Source: LP: Blue
Writer(s): Joni Mitchell
Label: Reprise
Year: 1971
The last track on Joni Mitchell's 1971 LP Blue, The Last Time I Saw Richard, was rumored to be about her first husband, whose name was not Richard. Figure that one out.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Hey Mr. President
Source: CD: Mass In F Minor (bonus track)
Writer(s): Barkan/Adams
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
The CD reissue of the third Electric Prunes album, includes two sides of a 1969 single credited to the band. As the original group has disbanded in 1968, I'm not sure who actually played on the record (although I have a CD on order that may provide an answer). What I do know is that, due to the band members not reading the fine print before signing their contract, producer Dave Hassinger actually owned the name Electric Prunes, and continued to release albums under that name using a continuously changing lineup until 1970.
Artist: Gun
Title: Race With The Devil
Source: British import CD: Gun
Writer(s): Adrian Gurvitz
Label: Repertoire
Year: 1968
One of the most popular songs on the jukebox at the teen club on Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany in 1969 was a song called Race With The Devil by a band called Gun. The song was so popular, in fact, that at least two local bands covered it (including the one I was in at the time). Nobody seemed to know much about the band at the time, but it turns out that the group was fronted by the Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul (who at the time used the last name Curtis); the two would later be members of the Baker-Gurvitz Army with drummer Ginger Baker. I've also learned recently that Gun spent much of its time touring in Europe, particularly in Germany, where Race With The Devil hit its peak in January of 1969 (it had made the top 10 in the UK in 1968, the year it was released).
Artist: Cream
Title: Take It Back
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The very first album I recorded on my dad's new Akai X-355 reel-to-reel tape recorder was Cream's 1967 LP Disraeli Gears. It was also the very first CD I ever bought (along with Axis: Bold As Love). I currently own three copies of the LP in addition to the CD. Does that tell you anything about my opinion of this album?
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Gimme Some Lovin'
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label: United Artists
Year: 1966
The movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becoming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear in major markets as well. Ironically, most of those stations are now playing 80s oldies.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Lazy Poker Blues
Source: LP: Vintage Years (originally released in UK on LP: Mr. Wonderful)
Writer(s): Green/Adams
Label: Sire (original label: Blue Horizon)
Year: 1968
The only thing the original Fleetwood Mac and the superstar band of the 80s had in common was the presence of Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass. Stylistically, the two were world's apart. Instead of the slick pop-rock of the later version of the band, the original lineup featured British blues-rock tunes such as Lazy Poker Blues written and sung by guitarist Peter Green. The original lineup recorded two LPs for Blue Horizon that were never issued in the US. Once Fleetwood Mac became a household name, Sire Records issued a double-LP compilation album called Vintage Years that included cuts from both albums as well as several UK-only single tracks.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: The Dangling Conversation
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia/Sundazed
Year: 1966
The first Simon and Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM, originally tanked on the charts, causing Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to temporarily pursue solo careers. Simon went to England, where he wrote and recorded an album's worth of material. Meanwhile, producer Tom Wilson, fresh from producing Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, went into the studio with the original recording of the song Sound of Silence and added electric instruments to it. The result was a surprise hit that led Paul Simon to return to the US, reuniting with Art Garfunkel and re-recording several of the tunes he had recorded as a solo artist for a new album, Sounds of Silence. The success of that album prompted Columbia to re-release Wednesday Morning, 3AM, which in turn became a bestseller. Meanwhile, Simon and Garfunkel returned to the studio to record an album of all new material. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was yet another success that spawned several hit songs, including The Dangling Conversation, a song Simon described as similar to The Sound Of Silence, but more personal. The song was originally released as a single in fall of 1966, before the album itself came out.
Artist: Ballroom
Title: Love's Fatal Way
Source: CD: Present Tense (Sagittarius) (bonus track)
Writer(s): Boettcher/Naylor
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1966
In 1966, having successfully worked with the Association on their debut hit, Along Comes Mary (which he co-wrote), Our Productions staff producer Curt Boettcher started work on his own project, a studio group known as the Ballroom. While working on the Ballroom project, Boettcher reconnected with producer Peter Asher (whom he had met early in 1966), who was starting work on his own studio project, Sagittarius. Asher, a veteran producer and songwriter who had worked with Brian Wilson, Terry Melcher and others and had access to the top studio musicians in Los Angeles (collectively known as the Wrecking Crew), was impressed with Boettcher's talent and enthusiasm. For his part, Boettcher had idolized Asher for years, and the two soon began working together on the Sagittarius project, after Asher negotiated a buyout of Boettcher's contract with Our Productions by Asher's own employer, CBS. Only one single was ever issued by the Ballroom, with several of the remaining Ballroom tracks being reworked and/or included on the Sagittarius album, Present Tense. One Ballroom track that did not make the album was Love's Fatal Way, a ethereal pop number that is now available as a bonus track on the Present Tense CD.
Artist: Nancy Sinatra
Title: These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits-1966 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Lee Hazlewood
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
Nancy Sinatra may not have had a great voice, but it was the right voice with the right song at the right time. To this day These Boots Are Made For Walkin', written by Lee Hazlewood, is one of the most recognizable songs ever recorded. Of course it didn't hurt that Nancy was the daughter of Frank Sinatra, or for that matter that she looked good in a miniskirt and boots.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Like A Rolling Stone
Source: CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
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. Personnel on this historic recording included guitarist Michael Bloomfield, pianist Paul Griffin, drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Joe Madho, guitarist Charlie McCoy and tambourinist Bruce Langhorne. In addition, guitarist Al Kooper, who was on the scene as a guest of producer Tom Wilson, sat in on organ, ad-libbing a part that so impressed Dylan that he insisted it be given a prominent place in the final mixdown. This in turn led to Kooper permanently switching over to keyboards for the remainder of his career.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Dirty Water has long since been adopted by the city of Boston (and especially its sports teams), yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes in the early 60s. Lead vocalist/drummer Dickie Dodd, incidently, was a former Mouseketeer who had played on the surf-rock hit Mr. Moto as a member of the Bel-Airs.
Artist: E-Types
Title: Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The E-Types were originally from Salinas, California, which at the time was known for it's sulfiric smell by travelers along US 101. As many people from Salinas apparently went to "nearby" San Jose (about 60 miles to the north) as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watch Band. The Bonner/Gordon songwriting team were just a couple months away from getting huge royalty checks from the Turtles' Happy Together when Put The Clock Back On The Wall was released in early 1967. The song takes its title from a popular phrase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space) it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer.
Artist: Second Helping
Title: Let Me In
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kenny Loggins
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1968
Before making it big as a member of Loggins And Messina (and later as a solo artist), Kenny Loggins fronted his own band, Second Helping, recording for the Viva label in 1968. Although the single, Hard Times, did not crack the charts, it did feature the punkish Let Me In on the B side. Loggins would serve briefly as a member of the Electric Prunes before hooking up with former Buffalo Springfield member Jim Messina in the early 1970s.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Death Sound Blues
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
I generally use the term "psychedelic" to describe a musical attitude that existed during a particular period of time rather than a specific style of music. On the other hand, the term "acid rock" is better suited for describing music that was composed and/or performed under the influence of certain mind-expanding substances. That said, the first album by Country Joe and the Fish is a classic example of acid rock. I mean, really, is there any other way to describe Death Sound Blues than "the blues on acid"?
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: I'm Waiting For The Man
Source: CD: The Velvet Underground And Nico
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The most celebrated of the avant-garde psychedelic bands from New York City, the Velvet Underground, did not sell a lot of records during their existence, despite being closely affiliated with Andy Warhol, at the time the hottest name in the art world. This is probably because their music was not (and still isn't) easily accessible for the masses. In fact, the VU may well be that band that your parents were talking about when they were yelling at you to "turn down that noise"! A listen to Lou Reed's I'm Waiting For The Man from the group's debut LP provides a basis for that particular theory.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: She May Call You Up Tonight
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
Unlike their first two singles, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina, this song failed to chart, possibly due to the release two months earlier of a song called Ivy Ivy, written by keyboardist Michael Brown and shown on the label as being by the Left Banke. The song was in reality performed entirely by session musicians, including lead vocals by Bert Sommer, who would be one of the acoustic acts on the opening afternoon of the Woodstock festival a couple years later. The resulting fued between Brown and the rest of the band left a large number of radio stations gun shy when came to any record with the name Left Banke on the label, and She May Call You Up Tonight tanked.
Artist: Santana
Title: Incident At Neshabur
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer(s): Gianquito/Santana
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: Idlewild South)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
The second Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South, generally got better reviews than the group's debut LP, mostly because of shorter tracks and tighter arrangements, both of which appealed to the rock press. Their version of Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man, for instance, actually comes in at less than five minutes. The band's next album, Live At The Fillmore East, proved to be the Allman's commercial breakthrough, however; the fact that the album is made up almost entirely of extended versions of the same songs that were on their first two studio LPs only goes to show that sometimes what the public wants is not the same thing as what the critics think they should.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s): Pete Seeger
Label: Cotillion (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1965
After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the band turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
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