Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: Piece Of My Heart
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer: Ragovoy/Burns
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
By 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company, with their charismatic vocalist from Texas, Janis Joplin, had become as popular as fellow San Francisco bands Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Somehow, though, they were still without a major label record deal. That all changed with the release of Cheap Thrills, with cover art by the legendary underground comix artist R. Crumb. The album itself was a curious mixture of live performances and studio tracks, the latter being led by the band's powerful cover of the 1966 Barbara Lynn tune Piece Of My Heart. The song propelled the band, and Joplin, to stardom. That stardom would be short-lived for most of the band members, however, as well-meaning but ultimately wrong-headed advice-givers convinced Joplin that Big Brother was holding her back. The reality was that the band was uniquely suited to support her better than anyone she would ever work with again.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: Down On Me
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Joplin In Concert)
Writer: Trad. Arr. Joplin
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
Big Brother And The Holding Company's first album, featuring the single Down On Me, was recorded in 1967 at the studios of Mainstream Records, a medium-sized Chicago label known for its jazz recordings. At the time, Mainstream's engineers had no experience with a rock band, particularly a loud one like Big Brother, and vainly attempted to clean up the band's sound as best they could. The result was an album full of bland recordings sucked dry of the energy that made Big Brother and the Holding Company one of the top live attractions of its time. Luckily we have this live recording made in early 1968 and released in 1972 that captures the band at their peak, before powerful people with questionable motives convinced singer Janis Joplin that the rest of the group was holding her back.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Ball And Chain
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Willie Mae Thornton
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Big Brother And The Holding Company electrified the crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 with their performance of Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball And Chain. The rest of the world, however, would have to wait until the following year to hear Janis Joplin's version of the old blues tune, when a live performance recorded at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium was included on the LP Cheap Thrills.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Nature's Way/Animal Zoo/Love Has Found A Way/Why Can't I Be Free
Source: LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Writer(s): California/Ferguson/Locke
Label: Epic
Year: 1970
Spirit was one of those bands that consistently scored well with the critics, yet was never truly able to connect with a large segment of the record buying audience at any given time. Perhaps their best album was Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, released in 1970 to glowing reviews. Despite this, the album actually charted lower than any of their three previous efforts, and would be the last to feature the band's original lineup. In the long haul, however, Twelve Dreams has become the group's top selling album, thanks to steady catalog sales over a period of years. Unlike many more popular records of the time, Twelve Dreams sounds as fresh and original today as when it first appeared, as can be easily heard on the four-song medley that makes up the bulk of the LP's first side. Indeed, despite never having charted as a single, Nature's Way, a Randy California tune which starts the sequence, is one of the best-known songs in the entire Spirit catalog. Additionally, its ecological theme segues naturally into Animal Zoo, a Jay Ferguson tune with a more satirical point of view. Love Has Found A Way, written by vocalist Ferguson and keyboardist John Locke, can best described as psychedelic space jazz, while Why Can't I Be Free is a simple, yet lovely, short coda from guitarist California. Although Spirit, in various incarnations, would continue to record for many years, they would never put out another album as listenable as Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Tomorrow Never Knows
Source: British import LP: Revolver
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
Several years ago I started to compile an (admittedly subjective) list of the top psychedelic songs ever recorded. Although I never finished ranking the songs, one of the top contenders for the number one spot was the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows, from the Revolver album. The track is one of the first to use studio techniques such as backwards masking and tape loops and has often been hailed as the beginning of the psychedelic era in the UK.
Artist: Mojo Men
Title: She's My Baby
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stewart/Alaimo/Curcio
Label: Rhino (original label: Autumn)
Year: 1966
Although generally considered to be one of the early San Francisco bands, the Mojo Men actually originated in Rochester, NY. After spending most of the early 60s in Florida playing to fraternities, the band moved out the West Coast in 1965, soon falling in with Autumn Records producer Slyvester Stewart (Sly Stone), for a time becoming his backup band. Stewart produced several singles for the Mojo Men, including She's My Baby, a song that had originally been recorded in 1962 as a song to do the mashed potato (an early 60s dance) to by Steve Alaimo, brother of Mojo Men bassist/lead vocalist Jim Alaimo and co-host (with Paul Revere and the Raiders) of the nationally distributed dance show Where The Action Is. The Mojo Men version of She's My Baby has more of a blues/garage-rock sound than the Steve Alaimo original, prompting its inclusion on several compilation albums over the past forty years.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Kicks
Source: CD: Greatest Hits
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
It may not have been the first pop song with a strong anti-drug message, but Kicks, as recorded by Paul Revere And The Raiders, was the first to be a certified hit, making it to the number four spot on the US charts and hitting number one in Canada. The song, written by Brill building husband and wife team Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, was also the biggest hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders until Indian Reservation made it all the way to the top five years later.
Artist: Rumors
Title: Without Her
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 4-Pop part two (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Norm Prinsky
Label: Rhino (original label: Gemcor)
Year: 1965
The story of Los Angeles's Rumors is typical of many bands of the time. The band played a variety of venues, slowly building up a small following playing covers of current hits mixed with one popular original tune, the Louie Louie-like Hold Me Now. After a successful showing at a local Battle of the Rock Bands at the Hollywood Palladium the band came to the attention of Bill Bell, owner of Gemcor Records, who quickly booked the band to record a single for the label. Drummer Norm Prinsky realized that the band only had one original song (Hold Me Now), and quickly composed and arranged Without Her, teaching it to the band in time to use it for the record's B side. Although Hold Me Now got some minor airplay on local stations (and was even used in a McDonald's commercial), it was the more melodic (and somewhat more psychedelic) Without Her that appealed to disc jockeys outside of the L.A. area.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Little Miss Queen Of Darkness
Source: Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
Although the Kinks were putting out some of their most classic recordings in 1966 (A Well Respected Man, Sunny Afternoon), the band was beset with problems not entirely of their own making, such as being denied visas to perform in the US and having issues with their UK label, Pye Records. Among those issues was the cover of their LP Face To Face, which bandleader Ray Davies reportedly hated, as the flower power theme was not at all representative of the band's music. There were internal problems as well, with bassist Peter Quaife even quitting the band for about a month during the recording of Face To Face. Although a replacement for Quaife, John Dalton, was brought in, the only track he is confirmed to have played on was a Ray Davies tune called Little Miss Queen Of Darkness.
Artist: Doors
Title: Take It As It Comes
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's hottest bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening in early August Jack Holzman, president of Elektra Records, and producer Paul Rothchild were among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band on the Elektra label (although the Butterfield Blues Band is considered by some to be the first, predating Love by several months). By the end of the month the Doors were in the studio recording songs like Take It As It Comes for their debut LP, which was released in January of 1967.
Artist: Cream
Title: Those Were The Days
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): Baker/Taylor
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Drummer Ginger Baker only contributed a handful of songs to the Cream repertoire, but each was, in its own way, quite memorable. Those Are The Days, with its sudden changes of time and key, presages the progressive rock that would flourish in the mid-1970s. As was often the case with Baker-penned songs, bassist Jack Bruce provides the vocals from this Wheels Of Fire track.
Artist: Mammoth
Title: Mammoth
Source: Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Denney/Paul
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: United World)
Year: 1970
Although they are believed to be from San Antonio, Texas, Mammoth's only known record was actually recorded in Los Angeles and released on the United World label in 1970. Other than that, not much is known about the group that named their record after themselves (or possibly the other way around).
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: White Lightnin'
Title: William Tell Overture
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): arr. Jimmie Haskell
Label: ABC
Year: 1971
In the summer of '71 a few of us went to a drive-in movie to see what was billed as the "First Electric Western". The movie was called "Zachariah" and it featured Country Joe and the Fish as a gang of outlaw musicians. Instead of gun battles we saw dueling drum solos, one of which featured jazz great Elvin Jones. The film's opening sequence was a shot of the James Gang rocking out in the middle of the desert (which caused us to start arguing over where they were plugging their amps in), literally bigger than life on the huge drive-in movie screen. What I didn't know at the time was that the screenplay was written by Philip Proctor and Peter Bergman, themselves half of the Firesign Theater, else I probably would have paid closer attention to the film. According to my sources, this track (apparently used in the movie sometime after I had consumed my first six-pack and thus not remembered) is performed by a band called White Lightnin'. The record label, however, gives credit to arranger/conducter Jimmy Haskell, who also composed the bulk of the movie's soundtrack.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Similated stereo CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic, although it took the better part of two years to catch on. Originally released in 1965 as Your Pushin' Too Hard, the song was virtually ignored by local Los Angeles radio stations until a second single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine, started getting some attention. After being included on the Seeds' debut LP in 1966, Pushin' Too Hard was rereleased and soon was being heard all over the L.A. airwaves. By the end of the year stations in other markets were starting to spin the record, and the song hit its peak of popularity in early 1967.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
The Music Machine was by far the most advanced of all the bands playing on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. Not only did they feature tight sets (so that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other bands. With all the band members dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair) and wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell eventually quit the music business altogether in disgust.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s): Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of violence. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack of its time.
Artist: Waters
Title: Mother Samwell
Source: Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Barrickman/Burgard
Label: Arf! Arf! (original labels: Delcrest & Hip)
Year: 1969
Formed in Louisville, Kentucky in 1967, the Waters released two singles on three labels before disbanding in 1969. The second of these, the Hendrix-inspired Mother Samwell, was first released on the Delcrest label in January of 1969 and then re-released by Hip in April of the same year.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: …And The Gods Made Love/Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
Like its predecessor, the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Electric Ladyland, starts off with a track that is pure special effects. Unlike EXP (from Axis: Bold As Love), which was essentially made up of controlled guitar feedback, …And The Gods Made Love is a more subtle piece employing tape and echo effects to simulate, well, the title says it all. This leads directly in to what was for many Experience fans was new territory, but for Hendrix himself a hearkening back to his days as a backup musician for various soul artists. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) is, in fact, a tribute to guitarist/vocalist Curtis Mayfield, leader of the Impressions, whom Hendrix had cited as an influence on his own guitar style.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Flowers And Beads
Source: LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer: Doug Ingle
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Sometimes it takes a while for a song (or album) to catch on. A good example is the second Iron Butterfly album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, which was basically ignored for the better part of a year before the title track started getting airplay on some progressive FM radio stations. Once it did, however, the album became a best-seller, and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida became a houshold word. As was the case with many albums of the time, people who bought In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida tended to play only that side of the album. As a result, the songs on side one of the LP are far less familiar to most people. Among those songs is Flowers And Beads, a song that gently condemns the flower power movement of a couple years earlier, yet still comes off as dated.
Artist: Turtles
Title: The Story Of Rock And Roll
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Harry Nilsson
Label: White Whale
Year: 1968
Harry Nilsson was still an up and coming, but not yet arrived, young singer/songwriter when he penned The Story Of Rock And Roll. The Turtles, always in a struggle with their record label, White Whale, over whether to record their own material or rely on professional songwriters, were the first to record the tune, releasing it as a single in 1968. Although it was not a major hit, the song did set the stage for Nilsson's later successes.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Connection
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Often dismissed as the beginning of a departure from their blues roots, the Rolling Stones first LP of 1967, Between The Buttons, actually has a lot of good tunes on it, such as Connection, a song with multiple meanings. Most studios at that time only had four tracks available and would use two tape machines to mix the first tracks recorded on one machine (usually the instrumental tracks) down to a single track on the other machine, freeing up the remaining tracks for overdubs. This process, known as "bouncing", sometimes happened two or three times on a single recording if extra overdubs were needed. Unfortunately each pass resulted in a loss of quality on the bounced tracks, especially if the equipment was not properly maintained. This is particularly noticeable on Connection, as the final mix seems to have lost most of its high and low frequencies, resulting in an unintentionally "lo-fi" recording.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Ruby Tuesday
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
One of the most durable songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Ruby Tuesday was originally intended to be the B side of their 1967 single Let's Spend The Night Together. Many stations, however, balked at the subject matter of the A side and began playing Ruby Tuesday instead, which is somewhat ironic considering the subject matter of the song (a groupie of the band's acquaintance).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
I seem to recall some TV show (Ed Sullivan, maybe?) making Mick Jagger change the words to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now. Nor can I imagine the band agreeing to it.
Artist: Donovan
Title: House Of Jansch
Source: Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
One of the most respected names in British folk music during the 1960s was Bert Jansch. House Of Jansch, from the Mellow Yellow album, was Donovan's way of acknowledging Jansch's influence on his own music.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Mr. Blues
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Bob Mosley
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Bassist Bob Mosley wrote and sang on Mr. Blues, one of ten songs released on 45 RPM vinyl from the first Moby Grape album. It was a marketing disaster that forever tainted a talented band.
Artist: Ballroom
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joe Williams
Label: Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
This rather unusual arrangement of Joe Williams classic Baby, Please Don't Go was the creation of producer/vocalist Curt Boettcher. Boettcher had previously worked with the Association, co-writing their first hit Along Comes Mary. While working on the Ballroom project for Our Productions in 1966 he came to the attention of Brian Wilson and Gary Usher. Usher was so impressed with Boettcher's creativity in the studio that he convinced his own bosses at Columbia Records to buy out Boettcher's contract from Our Productions. As a result, much of Boettcher's Ballroom project became part of Usher's own Sagittarius project, with only Baby, Please Don't Go (and its B side) released under the Ballroom name. Boettcher turned out to be so prolific that it was sometimes said that the giant "CBS" logo on the side of the building stood for Curt Boettcher's Studios.
Artist: Love
Title: Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hillsdale
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
I've always had more of an ear for musical structure and tone than I do for language (in fact I learned to read music before I learned to read and write English), so perhaps I'll be forgiven when I say it was not until I had heard Love's Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hillsdale a dozen (or more) times that I noticed the clever lyrical trick Arthur Lee built into the song from the Forever Changes album. Lee sings all but the last word of each line during the verses of the song, starting the next line with the word that would have finished the previous one. This creates an effect of stop/start anticipation that is only accented by the music on this song about life on L.A.'s Sunset Strip, particularly at the Whisky a Go Go, which is located between Clark and Hillsdale on the famous boulevard.
Artist: Pretty Things
Title: Walking Through My Dreams
Source: Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): May/Taylor/Waller
Label: EMI (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
Like the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Things were a product of London's somewhat rough and tumble blue collar neighborhoods, and in their early years played a similar mix of early rock 'n' roll and R&B cover tunes. By 1967, however, the band had embraced psychedelia far more than the Stones, even to the point of rivalling Pink Floyd for the unofficial title of Britain's leading psychedelic band. A case in point is Walking Though My Dreams, released in 1967 as the B side to the equally psychedelic Talkin' About The Good Times. For some reason, however, the Pretty Things never had the success in the US that the Stones (or even Pink Floyd) enjoyed.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Living In The Past
Source: LP: Living In The Past
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1969
By the end of the 1960s most UK labels had abandoned the British tradition of not including singles on LPs. One notable exception was Island Records, who continued to issue mutually exclusive Jethro Tull albums, singles and EPs into the early 1970s (the band's US label, Reprise, only released the LPs, foregoing 45 RPM vinyl altogether). Among those non-LP tracks was the 1969 single Living In The Past, which would not be included on an LP until 1972, when the song became the title track of a double LP Jethro Tull retrospective. The song then became a hit all over again, including in the US, where the original single had not been issued at all. Living In The Past was also the first single and LP released in the US on the Chrysalis label, although the earliest pressings of the LPs have both Chrysalis and Reprise catalog numbers.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1412 (starts 3/19/14)
Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: Absolutely Free (1st in a series of underground oratorios)
Source: LP: Absolutely Free
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Verve
Year: 1967
In the liner notes of the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out, Frank Zappa included a long list of influences, both musical and conceptual. For the 1967 follow-up LP, Absolutely Free, Zappa seemingly drew on every one of those influences to create a complex musical tapestry that amazed, and often baffled, everyone who heard it. Zappa would continue to amaze and baffle critics and fans alike until his untimely death from cancer at age 47 in the early 1990s, leaving behind the most unique and varied body of work in musical history.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Dream Within A Dream
Source: LP: The Family That Plays Together
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic (original label: Ode)
Year: 1968
Rock bands who work their way up from humble beginnings (as opposed to supergroups made up of established stars) tend to establish relationships within the group that parallel those found in a typical family. One of the best examples of this is Spirit. Not only did they all live in the same house, the oldest member, drummer Ed Cassidy, was the stepfather of lead guitarist Randy California. So it should come as no surprise that the band decided to call its second album The Family That Plays Together. Like Spirit's debut LP, The Family That Plays Together was a synthesis of rock, folk and jazz, although it did place more emphasis on rock elements in songs such as Dream Within A Dream than on the previous effort.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Maple Fudge
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer(s): Bachman/Cummings/Matheson
Label: Iconoclassic (original labels: Nimbus [Canada] RCA Victor [US])
Year: 1968 (Canada), 1969 (US)
Although they had only been writing songs together for about a year, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings of the Guess Who had already come up with more than enough material to fill an entire album by late summer, 1968. Earlier in the year the band, which also included bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson, had recorded a pair of tunes that had been released with moderate success in their native Canada; now they had an opportunity to record at Phil Ramone's A&R Studios in New York City. With the help of producer Jack Richardson, who had taken out a second mortgage on his house to finance the band's trip, the Guess Who managed to record and mix Wheatfield Soul in four days. The album was then released in Canada on the Nimbus label in late 1968. Meanwhile, Richardson began shopping the master tapes to US labels in hopes of getting the Guess Who an American record deal. Sure enough, when RCA A&R man Don Burkheimer heard the tapes he signed the band on the spot, noting that "nothing [about Wheatfield Soul] needed to be changed or altered in any way." Oddly enough, the harshest critics of the album were Bachman and Cummings, who felt that some of the songs they wrote, such as Maple Fudge, were ill-conceived. Personally I find it one of the more creative tracks on the album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: As I Recall It
Source: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI
Year: 1968
In addition to being one of the first artists identified with the psychedelic era, Donovan Leitch was a fan of both traditional and modern jazz and incorporated elements of both on his late 60s recordings. One example is As I Recall It, from his 1968 LP The Hurdy Gurdy Man, which has a bit of a traditional jazz feel, yet remains firmly within the realm of British psychedelia. One oddity about As I Recall It is that the mix switches from mono to stereo and back again several times during the song, making for an unusual sonic experience.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Red House
Source: Mono LP: Are You Experienced (UK version)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original UK label: Track)
Year: 1967
One of the first songs recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Red House was omitted from the US version of Are You Experienced because, in the words of one recording company executive: "America does not like blues". At the time the song was recorded, Noel Redding was not yet comfortable using a bass guitar, and would work out his bass parts on a slightly-detuned hollow body six-string guitar with the tone controls on their muddiest setting (I learned to play bass the same way myself). The original recording of Red House that was included on the UK version of Are You Experienced features Redding doing exactly that. A second take of the song, with overdubs, was included on the 1969 Smash Hits album, but the original mono version heard here was not available in the US until the release of the Blues CD in 1994.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Man
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Setting any work of art in the relatively near future is always risky business (remember 1984?), but then again 33 years seems like forever when you yourself are still in your twenties. I mean who, including the Rolling Stones themselves, could have imagined that Mick, Keith, Charlie and company would still be performing well into the 21st century when they recorded 2000 Man for their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request? It's actually kind of interesting to listen to the lyrics now and see just how much of the song turned out to be an accurate prediction of what was to come.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Lazy Old Sun
Source: CD: Something Else By The Kinks
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although the Kinks had major hits on both sides of the ocean from 1964-66, by 1967 their success was limited to the UK, despite fine singles such as Dead End Street and Waterloo Sunset. Their 1967 LP, Something Else By The Kinks, continued the band's expansion into slightly satirical explorations of sociopolitical issues. At the same time, the album also shows a more experimental side musically, as Lazy Old Sun, with its staggered tempo and unusual chord progression, demonstrates. The song also shows a willingness to experiment with studio effects, as Something Else was the first Kinks album to be mixed in stereo.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Help, I'm A Rock (single mix)
Source: Mono CD: Part One (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Ya gotta hand it to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It takes cojones to record a cover of a Frank Zappa tune, especially within a year of the original Mothers of Invention version coming out. To top it off, the W.C.P.A.E.B. even released Help, I'm A Rock as a single.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: Your Head Is Reeling
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
Ultimate Spinach was one of a group of bands signed by M-G-M in 1967 and marketed as being representative of the "Boss-town sound". Unfortunately for all involved, there really was no such thing as a "Boss-town sound" (for that matter there was no such thing as a "San Francisco sound" either, but that's another story). All the hype aside, Ultimate Spinach itself was the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Ian Bruce-Palmer, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. The opening track of side two of the band's debut album is a piece called Your Head Is Reeling, which, despite the somewhat cheesy spoken intro, is as good or better than any other raga styled song of the time.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
After releasing a fairly well produced debut solo album utilizing the talents of several well-known studio musicians in late 1968, Neil Young surprised everyone by recruiting an unknown L.A. bar band and rechristening them Crazy Horse for his second effort, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. The album was raw and unpolished, with Young's lead vocals recorded using a talkback microphone normally used by engineers to communicate with people in the studio from the control room. In spite of, or more likely because of, these limitations, the resulting album has come to be regarded as one of the greatest in the history of rock, with Young sounding far more comfortable, both as a vocalist and guitarist, than on the previous effort. Although the album is best known for three songs he wrote while running a fever (Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl In The Sand, and Down By The River), there are plenty of good other songs on the LP, including the title track heard here.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: As The Sun Still Burns Away
Source: CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
Generally considered to be Ten Years After's best album, Cricklewood Green featured such FM radio staples as Me And My Baby, 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain and Love Like A Man. Another song to get airplay was As The Sun Still Burns Away, the final track on the album. Like Love Like A Man and other popular TYA tunes, As The Sun Still Burns Away is built on a repeating bass riff that is paralleled and sometimes embellished by Lee's guitar and Chick Churchill's keyboards.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Upsetter
Source: Canadian import CD: Heavy Hitters (originally released on LP: E Pluribus Funk and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1971
Grand Funk Railroad was something of an enigma. Due to universally negative reviews in the rock press, progressive FM stations avoided them like the plague. At the same time, top 40 radio was in the process of being supplanted as the voice of the mainstream by the Adult Contemporary (A/C) format, which tended to ignore hard rock. Nonetheless Grand Funk Railroad had a following. In fact, GFR was the first band to book (and sellout) entire sports arenas, setting attendance records wherever they played. This translated into major record sales, as they became the first band to have three LPs hit the million-seller mark in the same year (1970). That year they also had their first mainstream hit with I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home). From that point on the band would continue to release singles, although most, such as Upsetter, were still ignored by A/C radio (although they did get a fair amount of airplay from the remaining "true" top 40 stations). As the group's album sales were beginning to drop off, the singles became increasingly important to the band's continued success, and from 1973 on (starting with We're An American Band) Grand Funk became pretty much a singles-oriented group, cranking out tunes like Bad Time and Some Kind Of Wonderful.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Lazy Day
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.
Artist: Love
Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Da Capo)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of an enigma. His band, Love, was generally accepted as the top band on the Strip in L.A., yet Lee himself was a bit of a recluse living up on the hill overlooking the scene. With one notable exception, his songs were not hits, yet he was critically acknowledged (especially in the UK) as a musical genius on a par with his friend Jimi Hendrix. Stylistically, his songs varied from intensely hard rock (Stephanie Knows Who, 7&7 Is), to softer, almost jazzy tunes such as She Comes In Colors.
Artist: Lemon Pipers
Title: Green Tambourine
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Green Tambourine)
Writer(s): Leka/Pinz
Label: Priority (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1967
Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label. Unfortunately for the band, it was their only hit. Making it even worse is the fact that, although the Lemon Pipers themselves were a real band, they ended up being grouped in with several "bands" who were in fact studio creations by the Kazenetz/Katz production team that supplied Buddah with a steady stream of bubble-gum hits throughout 1968.
Artist: Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Title: Equestrian Statue
Source: British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: Gorilla)
Writer(s): Neil Innes
Label: Zonophone (Original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band occupies a unique place in British rock history. In fact, calling them a rock band is a bit of a stretch, as they incorporated a wide variety of elements in their music, including skiffle, dance hall and vaudeville. I personally see them as the 60s version of vaudeville, as can be seen in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film with their performance of a piece called Deathcab For Cutie. The Bonzos even had a tap dancer by the name of "Legs" Larry Larson in the band. Equestrian Statue, from their 1967 LP Gorilla, was the first serious attempt by the band's primary songwriter, Neil Innes, to write a hit record. As it turns out, the group would not get a single in the charts until Urban Spaceman made the British top 40 in 1968. Innes himself would go on to greater fame by working with Monty Python member Eric Idle on a Beatle parody called the Rutles. He also provided the soundtrack for the George Harrison-produced feature film Time Bandits.
Artist: Ventures
Title: The Twilight Zone
Source: LP: The Ventures In Space
Writer(s): Marty Manning
Label: Dolton/Sundazed
Year: 1964
Despite having only three top 10 singles to their credit (two of which were different versions of Walk-Don't Run), the Ventures managed to record over 200 albums, by far the most by an instrumental rock band. Most of these albums were based around a particular theme; indeed, the Ventures are generally acknowledged to have invented the concept album. One of their most unusual albums was The Ventures In Space, from 1964. Joining the band for this effort was noted session man Red Rhodes, who created many of the album's unusual sounds using a pedal steel guitar. In fact, all of the effects heard on tracks like The Twilight Zone were created using just guitars, rather than electronic devices such as a theramin. Quite an achievement for 1964, and one that holds up remarkably well nearly 50 years later.
Artist: Who
Title: It's Not True
Source: Mono Canadian import CD: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
Released in December, 1965, the first Who album (called simply My Generation in the UK) was recorded while the band was in their "maximum R&B" phase. The band members themselves were not happy with the album, feeling that they had been rushed through the entire recording process and did not have much say in how the final product sounded. Still, the album is considered one of the most influential debut albums of all time and has made several critics' top albums lists over the years. It's Not True, a song that critically addresses the ridiculousness of unfounded rumors, is fairly typical of the songs Pete Townshend was writing at the time.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Shapes Of Things
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label: Priority (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Unlike earlier Yardbirds hits, 1966's Shapes Of Things was written by members of the band. The song, featuring one of guitarist Jeff Beck's most distinctive solos, just barely missed the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.
Artist: Winston's Fumbs
Title: Real Crazy Apartment
Source: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969
Writer(s): Jimmy Winston
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
Vocalist/guitarist Jimmy Winston was a child actor turned musician who was one of the original members of the Small Faces, where he played organ. In 1965 he was basically kicked out of the band for unknown reasons, but soon resurfaced with his own band, Winston's Reflection, which released one single on the British Decca label in 1966. By the following year the band had changed its name to Winston's Fumbs and signed with RCA Records, releasing Real Crazy Apartment before disbanding. By then Winston had switched from organ to guitar, and would next surface as a cast member of the London production of Hair. Meanwhile, Winston's Fumbs organist Tony Kaye had become a founding member of some obscure band called Yes.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Tin Can Beach
Source: Mono CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1968
Phasing, a studio effect caused by playing two identical recordings milliseconds apart into a third recorder, hit its peak popularity in 1968. It's most famous use was in Britain, on the Small Faces song Itchycoo Park. Jimi Hendrix also used the effect on his Electric Ladyland album, as did Sean Bonniwell, with the second incarnation of his band the Music Machine on the 1968 B side Tin Can Beach. The song itself, a deliberately light and bouncy piece, is an example of just how far from the psychotic rock of his biggest hit, Talk Talk, Bonniwell was willing and able to stray.
Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Well, All Right
Source: British import LP: Blind Faith
Writer: Petty/Holly/Allison/Mauldin
Label: Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Supergroup Blind Faith only recorded one LP, and almost all of the material on that album was written by members of the band. The lone exception was a heavily-modified arrangement of Buddy Holly's Well All Right.
Artist: Bloodrock
Title: Gotta Find A Way
Source: CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s): Rutledge/Taylor/Pickens/Grundy/Cobb
Label: One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
A friend of mine in Alamogordo, NM, went to El Paso for a Grand Funk Railroad concert in 1970 and was blown away by the opening band, a group from Dallas called Bloodrock. At the time Bloodrock has just released their first LP, and my friend immediately went out and bought a copy, playing it for the members of my own band, Friends, at the first opportunity. It wasn't long before we were learning to play the first track on the album, a song called Gotta Find A Way. We were so enthusiastic about the song we made it the first song on our own demo tape. Soon after that Bloodrock released their second album, which included their most famous track, DOA, and the band soon found itself in a rut. A shame, since that first album showed so much potential.
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: Chocolate Watchband
Title: I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Source: CD: The Inner Mystique
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
The first Chocolate Watchband album, No Way Out, sold well enough to warrant a follow-up LP, The Inner Mystique. The only problem was that by the end of 1967 there was no Chocolate Watchband left to record it, although there were a few unreleased recordings in the vaults. Unfazed, producer Ed Cobb once again turned to studio musicians to fill out the album. One of the few actual Watchband recordings on The Inner Mystique was this cover of the Kinks' I'm Not Like Everybody Else, which had appeared as a B side a couple years earlier. This song, along with their cover of I Ain't No Miracle Worker, almost made the album worth buying. In fact, enough people did indeed buy The Inner Mystique to warrant a third and final Watchband album, but by then the group had reformed with almost entirely different personnel and the resulting album, One Step Beyond, actually sounds less like the original group than all those studio musicians did.
Artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title: The Great Airplane Strike (originally released on LP: Spirit Of '67 and as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Greatest Hits
Writer: Revere/Melcher/Lindsay
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
In 1966 Paul Revere and the Raiders were at the peak of their popularity, scoring major hits that year with Hungry and Kicks. The last single the band released that year was The Great Airplane Strike from the Spirit Of '67 album. Written by band members Revere and Mark Lindsay, along with producer Terry Melcher, The Great Airplane Strike stands out as a classic example of Pacific Northwest rock, a style which would eventually culminate in the grunge movement of the 1990s.
Title: Absolutely Free (1st in a series of underground oratorios)
Source: LP: Absolutely Free
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Verve
Year: 1967
In the liner notes of the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out, Frank Zappa included a long list of influences, both musical and conceptual. For the 1967 follow-up LP, Absolutely Free, Zappa seemingly drew on every one of those influences to create a complex musical tapestry that amazed, and often baffled, everyone who heard it. Zappa would continue to amaze and baffle critics and fans alike until his untimely death from cancer at age 47 in the early 1990s, leaving behind the most unique and varied body of work in musical history.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Dream Within A Dream
Source: LP: The Family That Plays Together
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic (original label: Ode)
Year: 1968
Rock bands who work their way up from humble beginnings (as opposed to supergroups made up of established stars) tend to establish relationships within the group that parallel those found in a typical family. One of the best examples of this is Spirit. Not only did they all live in the same house, the oldest member, drummer Ed Cassidy, was the stepfather of lead guitarist Randy California. So it should come as no surprise that the band decided to call its second album The Family That Plays Together. Like Spirit's debut LP, The Family That Plays Together was a synthesis of rock, folk and jazz, although it did place more emphasis on rock elements in songs such as Dream Within A Dream than on the previous effort.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Maple Fudge
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer(s): Bachman/Cummings/Matheson
Label: Iconoclassic (original labels: Nimbus [Canada] RCA Victor [US])
Year: 1968 (Canada), 1969 (US)
Although they had only been writing songs together for about a year, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings of the Guess Who had already come up with more than enough material to fill an entire album by late summer, 1968. Earlier in the year the band, which also included bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson, had recorded a pair of tunes that had been released with moderate success in their native Canada; now they had an opportunity to record at Phil Ramone's A&R Studios in New York City. With the help of producer Jack Richardson, who had taken out a second mortgage on his house to finance the band's trip, the Guess Who managed to record and mix Wheatfield Soul in four days. The album was then released in Canada on the Nimbus label in late 1968. Meanwhile, Richardson began shopping the master tapes to US labels in hopes of getting the Guess Who an American record deal. Sure enough, when RCA A&R man Don Burkheimer heard the tapes he signed the band on the spot, noting that "nothing [about Wheatfield Soul] needed to be changed or altered in any way." Oddly enough, the harshest critics of the album were Bachman and Cummings, who felt that some of the songs they wrote, such as Maple Fudge, were ill-conceived. Personally I find it one of the more creative tracks on the album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: As I Recall It
Source: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI
Year: 1968
In addition to being one of the first artists identified with the psychedelic era, Donovan Leitch was a fan of both traditional and modern jazz and incorporated elements of both on his late 60s recordings. One example is As I Recall It, from his 1968 LP The Hurdy Gurdy Man, which has a bit of a traditional jazz feel, yet remains firmly within the realm of British psychedelia. One oddity about As I Recall It is that the mix switches from mono to stereo and back again several times during the song, making for an unusual sonic experience.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Red House
Source: Mono LP: Are You Experienced (UK version)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original UK label: Track)
Year: 1967
One of the first songs recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Red House was omitted from the US version of Are You Experienced because, in the words of one recording company executive: "America does not like blues". At the time the song was recorded, Noel Redding was not yet comfortable using a bass guitar, and would work out his bass parts on a slightly-detuned hollow body six-string guitar with the tone controls on their muddiest setting (I learned to play bass the same way myself). The original recording of Red House that was included on the UK version of Are You Experienced features Redding doing exactly that. A second take of the song, with overdubs, was included on the 1969 Smash Hits album, but the original mono version heard here was not available in the US until the release of the Blues CD in 1994.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Man
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Setting any work of art in the relatively near future is always risky business (remember 1984?), but then again 33 years seems like forever when you yourself are still in your twenties. I mean who, including the Rolling Stones themselves, could have imagined that Mick, Keith, Charlie and company would still be performing well into the 21st century when they recorded 2000 Man for their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request? It's actually kind of interesting to listen to the lyrics now and see just how much of the song turned out to be an accurate prediction of what was to come.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Lazy Old Sun
Source: CD: Something Else By The Kinks
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although the Kinks had major hits on both sides of the ocean from 1964-66, by 1967 their success was limited to the UK, despite fine singles such as Dead End Street and Waterloo Sunset. Their 1967 LP, Something Else By The Kinks, continued the band's expansion into slightly satirical explorations of sociopolitical issues. At the same time, the album also shows a more experimental side musically, as Lazy Old Sun, with its staggered tempo and unusual chord progression, demonstrates. The song also shows a willingness to experiment with studio effects, as Something Else was the first Kinks album to be mixed in stereo.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Help, I'm A Rock (single mix)
Source: Mono CD: Part One (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Ya gotta hand it to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It takes cojones to record a cover of a Frank Zappa tune, especially within a year of the original Mothers of Invention version coming out. To top it off, the W.C.P.A.E.B. even released Help, I'm A Rock as a single.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: Your Head Is Reeling
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
Ultimate Spinach was one of a group of bands signed by M-G-M in 1967 and marketed as being representative of the "Boss-town sound". Unfortunately for all involved, there really was no such thing as a "Boss-town sound" (for that matter there was no such thing as a "San Francisco sound" either, but that's another story). All the hype aside, Ultimate Spinach itself was the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Ian Bruce-Palmer, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. The opening track of side two of the band's debut album is a piece called Your Head Is Reeling, which, despite the somewhat cheesy spoken intro, is as good or better than any other raga styled song of the time.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
After releasing a fairly well produced debut solo album utilizing the talents of several well-known studio musicians in late 1968, Neil Young surprised everyone by recruiting an unknown L.A. bar band and rechristening them Crazy Horse for his second effort, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. The album was raw and unpolished, with Young's lead vocals recorded using a talkback microphone normally used by engineers to communicate with people in the studio from the control room. In spite of, or more likely because of, these limitations, the resulting album has come to be regarded as one of the greatest in the history of rock, with Young sounding far more comfortable, both as a vocalist and guitarist, than on the previous effort. Although the album is best known for three songs he wrote while running a fever (Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl In The Sand, and Down By The River), there are plenty of good other songs on the LP, including the title track heard here.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: As The Sun Still Burns Away
Source: CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
Generally considered to be Ten Years After's best album, Cricklewood Green featured such FM radio staples as Me And My Baby, 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain and Love Like A Man. Another song to get airplay was As The Sun Still Burns Away, the final track on the album. Like Love Like A Man and other popular TYA tunes, As The Sun Still Burns Away is built on a repeating bass riff that is paralleled and sometimes embellished by Lee's guitar and Chick Churchill's keyboards.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Upsetter
Source: Canadian import CD: Heavy Hitters (originally released on LP: E Pluribus Funk and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1971
Grand Funk Railroad was something of an enigma. Due to universally negative reviews in the rock press, progressive FM stations avoided them like the plague. At the same time, top 40 radio was in the process of being supplanted as the voice of the mainstream by the Adult Contemporary (A/C) format, which tended to ignore hard rock. Nonetheless Grand Funk Railroad had a following. In fact, GFR was the first band to book (and sellout) entire sports arenas, setting attendance records wherever they played. This translated into major record sales, as they became the first band to have three LPs hit the million-seller mark in the same year (1970). That year they also had their first mainstream hit with I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home). From that point on the band would continue to release singles, although most, such as Upsetter, were still ignored by A/C radio (although they did get a fair amount of airplay from the remaining "true" top 40 stations). As the group's album sales were beginning to drop off, the singles became increasingly important to the band's continued success, and from 1973 on (starting with We're An American Band) Grand Funk became pretty much a singles-oriented group, cranking out tunes like Bad Time and Some Kind Of Wonderful.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Lazy Day
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.
Artist: Love
Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Da Capo)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of an enigma. His band, Love, was generally accepted as the top band on the Strip in L.A., yet Lee himself was a bit of a recluse living up on the hill overlooking the scene. With one notable exception, his songs were not hits, yet he was critically acknowledged (especially in the UK) as a musical genius on a par with his friend Jimi Hendrix. Stylistically, his songs varied from intensely hard rock (Stephanie Knows Who, 7&7 Is), to softer, almost jazzy tunes such as She Comes In Colors.
Artist: Lemon Pipers
Title: Green Tambourine
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Green Tambourine)
Writer(s): Leka/Pinz
Label: Priority (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1967
Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label. Unfortunately for the band, it was their only hit. Making it even worse is the fact that, although the Lemon Pipers themselves were a real band, they ended up being grouped in with several "bands" who were in fact studio creations by the Kazenetz/Katz production team that supplied Buddah with a steady stream of bubble-gum hits throughout 1968.
Artist: Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Title: Equestrian Statue
Source: British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: Gorilla)
Writer(s): Neil Innes
Label: Zonophone (Original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band occupies a unique place in British rock history. In fact, calling them a rock band is a bit of a stretch, as they incorporated a wide variety of elements in their music, including skiffle, dance hall and vaudeville. I personally see them as the 60s version of vaudeville, as can be seen in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film with their performance of a piece called Deathcab For Cutie. The Bonzos even had a tap dancer by the name of "Legs" Larry Larson in the band. Equestrian Statue, from their 1967 LP Gorilla, was the first serious attempt by the band's primary songwriter, Neil Innes, to write a hit record. As it turns out, the group would not get a single in the charts until Urban Spaceman made the British top 40 in 1968. Innes himself would go on to greater fame by working with Monty Python member Eric Idle on a Beatle parody called the Rutles. He also provided the soundtrack for the George Harrison-produced feature film Time Bandits.
Artist: Ventures
Title: The Twilight Zone
Source: LP: The Ventures In Space
Writer(s): Marty Manning
Label: Dolton/Sundazed
Year: 1964
Despite having only three top 10 singles to their credit (two of which were different versions of Walk-Don't Run), the Ventures managed to record over 200 albums, by far the most by an instrumental rock band. Most of these albums were based around a particular theme; indeed, the Ventures are generally acknowledged to have invented the concept album. One of their most unusual albums was The Ventures In Space, from 1964. Joining the band for this effort was noted session man Red Rhodes, who created many of the album's unusual sounds using a pedal steel guitar. In fact, all of the effects heard on tracks like The Twilight Zone were created using just guitars, rather than electronic devices such as a theramin. Quite an achievement for 1964, and one that holds up remarkably well nearly 50 years later.
Artist: Who
Title: It's Not True
Source: Mono Canadian import CD: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
Released in December, 1965, the first Who album (called simply My Generation in the UK) was recorded while the band was in their "maximum R&B" phase. The band members themselves were not happy with the album, feeling that they had been rushed through the entire recording process and did not have much say in how the final product sounded. Still, the album is considered one of the most influential debut albums of all time and has made several critics' top albums lists over the years. It's Not True, a song that critically addresses the ridiculousness of unfounded rumors, is fairly typical of the songs Pete Townshend was writing at the time.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Shapes Of Things
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label: Priority (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Unlike earlier Yardbirds hits, 1966's Shapes Of Things was written by members of the band. The song, featuring one of guitarist Jeff Beck's most distinctive solos, just barely missed the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.
Artist: Winston's Fumbs
Title: Real Crazy Apartment
Source: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969
Writer(s): Jimmy Winston
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
Vocalist/guitarist Jimmy Winston was a child actor turned musician who was one of the original members of the Small Faces, where he played organ. In 1965 he was basically kicked out of the band for unknown reasons, but soon resurfaced with his own band, Winston's Reflection, which released one single on the British Decca label in 1966. By the following year the band had changed its name to Winston's Fumbs and signed with RCA Records, releasing Real Crazy Apartment before disbanding. By then Winston had switched from organ to guitar, and would next surface as a cast member of the London production of Hair. Meanwhile, Winston's Fumbs organist Tony Kaye had become a founding member of some obscure band called Yes.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Tin Can Beach
Source: Mono CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1968
Phasing, a studio effect caused by playing two identical recordings milliseconds apart into a third recorder, hit its peak popularity in 1968. It's most famous use was in Britain, on the Small Faces song Itchycoo Park. Jimi Hendrix also used the effect on his Electric Ladyland album, as did Sean Bonniwell, with the second incarnation of his band the Music Machine on the 1968 B side Tin Can Beach. The song itself, a deliberately light and bouncy piece, is an example of just how far from the psychotic rock of his biggest hit, Talk Talk, Bonniwell was willing and able to stray.
Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Well, All Right
Source: British import LP: Blind Faith
Writer: Petty/Holly/Allison/Mauldin
Label: Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Supergroup Blind Faith only recorded one LP, and almost all of the material on that album was written by members of the band. The lone exception was a heavily-modified arrangement of Buddy Holly's Well All Right.
Artist: Bloodrock
Title: Gotta Find A Way
Source: CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s): Rutledge/Taylor/Pickens/Grundy/Cobb
Label: One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
A friend of mine in Alamogordo, NM, went to El Paso for a Grand Funk Railroad concert in 1970 and was blown away by the opening band, a group from Dallas called Bloodrock. At the time Bloodrock has just released their first LP, and my friend immediately went out and bought a copy, playing it for the members of my own band, Friends, at the first opportunity. It wasn't long before we were learning to play the first track on the album, a song called Gotta Find A Way. We were so enthusiastic about the song we made it the first song on our own demo tape. Soon after that Bloodrock released their second album, which included their most famous track, DOA, and the band soon found itself in a rut. A shame, since that first album showed so much potential.
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: Chocolate Watchband
Title: I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Source: CD: The Inner Mystique
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
The first Chocolate Watchband album, No Way Out, sold well enough to warrant a follow-up LP, The Inner Mystique. The only problem was that by the end of 1967 there was no Chocolate Watchband left to record it, although there were a few unreleased recordings in the vaults. Unfazed, producer Ed Cobb once again turned to studio musicians to fill out the album. One of the few actual Watchband recordings on The Inner Mystique was this cover of the Kinks' I'm Not Like Everybody Else, which had appeared as a B side a couple years earlier. This song, along with their cover of I Ain't No Miracle Worker, almost made the album worth buying. In fact, enough people did indeed buy The Inner Mystique to warrant a third and final Watchband album, but by then the group had reformed with almost entirely different personnel and the resulting album, One Step Beyond, actually sounds less like the original group than all those studio musicians did.
Artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title: The Great Airplane Strike (originally released on LP: Spirit Of '67 and as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Greatest Hits
Writer: Revere/Melcher/Lindsay
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
In 1966 Paul Revere and the Raiders were at the peak of their popularity, scoring major hits that year with Hungry and Kicks. The last single the band released that year was The Great Airplane Strike from the Spirit Of '67 album. Written by band members Revere and Mark Lindsay, along with producer Terry Melcher, The Great Airplane Strike stands out as a classic example of Pacific Northwest rock, a style which would eventually culminate in the grunge movement of the 1990s.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1411 (starts 3/12/14)
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them have become better known than the original Dylan versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Are You Experienced?
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Before the release of Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience the emphasis in rock music (then called pop) was on the 45 RPM single, with albums seen as a luxury item that supplemented an artist's career rather than defined it. Are You Experience helped change all that. The album was not only highly influential, it was a major seller, despite getting virtually no airplay on US top 40 radio. The grand finale of the LP was the title track, which features an array of studio effects, including backwards masked guitar and tape loops. Interestingly enough, the album was originally issued only in a mono version in the UK, with European pressings using a simulated stereo mix. After Reprise bought the rights to release the LP in the US it hired its own engineers to create stereo mixes of the songs from the four-track master tapes.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Still Raining, Still Dreaming
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Still Raining, Still Dreaming, from the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland, is the second half of a live studio recording featuring guest drummer Buddy Miles, who would later join Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox to form Band Of Gypsys. The recording also features Mike Finnegan on organ, Freddie Smith on tenor sax and Larry Faucett on congas, as well as Experience member Noel Redding on bass.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
Source: LP: Atom Heart Mother
Writer(s): Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label: Harvest
Year: 1970
Side two of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother LP featured four tracks, one from each member of the band. Since drummer Nick Mason was not generally considered a songwriter, his track, Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast, was credited to the entire band. The title refers to Pink Floyd roadie Alan Styles, and features a series of sound recordings of Styles making and eating (and occasionally talking about) breakfast insterspersed with a series of musical interludes. The recording starts and ends with the sound of a faucet dripping, and includes things like bacon frying, rice cereal snap crackle and popping, and plates being shuffled around. The group actually performed the piece live two or three times in 1970.
Artist: Crow
Title: Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Wagner/Weigand/Weigand
Label: Amaret
Year: 1969
Minneapolis has always had a more active local music scene than one might expect from a medium-sized city in the heart of the snow belt. Many of the city's artists have risen to national prominence, including a band called Crow, who's 1969 single Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me), hit close to the top of the charts in early 1970. The band had been formed in 1967 as South 40, changing its name to Crow right around the same time they signed to Amaret Records in 1969.
Artist: Matadors
Title: Get Down From The Tree
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Czechoslovakia on LP: Matadors)
Writer(s): Hladik/Sodoma
Label: Rhino (original label: Supraphon)
Year: 1968
When the words "Czechoslovakia" and "1968" come up in the same sentence it is usually in reference to an invasion by the Soviet Union to crack down on dissident elements in the Eastern Bloc satellite nation. No doubt the Matadors, formed in Prague in 1965 as the Fontanas, were among those elements, thanks to self-penned tracks such as Get Down From The Tree, a song that was originally released on an EP in 1967 and re-recorded for their self-titled debut LP. What happened to the Matadors following the Soviet invasion is unknown.
Artist: Vagrants
Title: Beside The Sea
Source: Mono LP: I Can't Make A Friend 1965-1968 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Collins/Pappalardi/Sommer
Label: Light In The Attic (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Although they did not achieve the same degree of national fame as their Long Island contemporaries the Young Rascals and Vanilla Fudge, the Vagrants were quite popular along the eastern seaboard, and ended up releasing several singles on the Atco label before guitarist Leslie Weinstein decided to change his name to West and embark on a solo career. The band had a sound midway between the two aforementioned bands, although, by some accounts, the Vagrants leaned more toward the latter when performing live. Indeed, there are some who claim that Vanilla Fudge actually lifted their sound directly from the Vagrants. In the studio, however, the Vagrants strove for a more commercial sound, as Beside The Sea (co-written by future Mountain member Felix Pappalardi and his wife Janet Collins along with future Woodstock performer Bert Sommer) demonstrates.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice
Source: Mono British import CD: The Fraternity Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Big Beat (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1966
Mouse (Ronnie Weiss) was, for a time, the most popular guy in Tyler, Texas, at least among the local youth. His band, Mouse and the traps, had a series of regional hits that garnered airplay at stations all across the state (and a rather large state at that). Although Mouse's first big hit, A Public Execution, had a strong Dylan feel to it, the band's 1966 followup single Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice, has come to be considered a garage-rock classic.
rtist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released as a single in 1965 (under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard), but did not make an immediate impression. The following year the tune started getting some local airplay on Los Angeles area stations. This in turn led to the band recording their first album, The Seeds, which was released in spring of 1966. A second Seeds LP, A Web Of Sound, hit L.A. record stores in the fall of the same year. Meanwhile, Pushin' Too Hard started to get national airplay, hitting its peak position on the Billboard charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Hole In My Shoe
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Dave Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Since the 1970s Traffic has been known as Steve Winwood's (and to a lesser degree, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood's) band, but in the early days some of the group's most popular songs were written and sung by co-founder Dave Mason. Hole In My Shoe was a single that received considerable airplay in the UK, despite being disliked by the rest of the band members. As was common practice in the UK at the time, the song was not included on the band's debut album. In the US, however, both Hole In My Shoe and the other then-current Traffic single, Paper Sun, were added to the album, replacing (ironically) a couple of Mason's other tunes.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Empty Pages
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Silver Spotlight (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1970
Traffic was formed in 1967 by Steve Winwood, after ending his association with the Spencer Davis Group. The original group, also featuring Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood, put out two and a half albums before disbanding in early 1969. Shortly thereafter, following a successful live reunion album, Welcome to the Canteen, Winwood got to work on what was intended to be his first solo LP. For support Winwood called in Capaldi and Wood to back him up on the project. It soon became apparent, however, that what they were working on was actually a new Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. Although Empty Pages was released as a single (with a mono mix heard here), it got most of its airplay on progressive FM stations, and as those stations were replaced by (or became) album rock stations, the song continued to get extensive airplay for many years.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Heaven Is In Your Mind was, for a short time, the title track of the first Traffic album released in the US. Although the album title was soon changed to Mr. Fantasy to match the European version, the song Heaven Is In Your Mind remained one of the band's most popular early tracks, and has been included on virtually every Traffic compilation ever released. The mono and stereo mixes are noticably different from each other, and even feature entirely different guitar breaks.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: 969 (The Oldest Man)
Source: CD: American Woman
Writer(s): Randy Bachman
Label: Buddha/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1970
Although Burton Cummings was known primarily for his role as the Guess Who's lead vocalist, he got a chance to strut his stuff instrumentally as a flautist on 969 (The Oldest Man), an instrumental by Randy Bachman. Bachman himself showed a glimpse of the guitar prowess that he would become known for with his next band, Bachman Turner Overdrive, in the mid-1970s on the track.
Artist: John D. Loudermilk
Title: Goin' To Hell On A Sled
Source: LP: The Open Mind Of John D. Loudermilk
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1969
John D. Loudermilk was one of the most respected songwriters of the 1960s, best known for Tobacco Road, a hit for the Nashville Teens in 1964. In 1969 Loudermilk recorded an album for RCA Victor entitled The Open Mind Of John D. Loudermilk. The album featured songs in a variety of styles. Goin' To Hell On A Sled is a kind of ironic country song that paved the way for later artists such as Jerry Reed or David Allen Coe.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer: McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Free Spirit
Source: CD: Spirit (bonus track)
Writer: John Locke
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1967
When Spirit entered the recording studio to work on their first album they recorded more music than they could fit on an LP. One of the tracks that got cut from the final lineup was Free Spirit, an instrumental piece written by keyboardist John Locke. Like most of Spirit's early material, Free Spirit incorporates jazz into the band's sound to a much greater degree than on later recordings.
Artist: Spirit
Title: 1984
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Randy California
Label: Epic
Year: 1969
One of Spirit's best known songs is 1984, a non-album single released in 1969 in between the band's second and third LPs. Unlike the Rolling Stones' 2000 Man, 1984 was not so much a predictive piece as an interpretation of concepts first expressed in George Orwell's book of the same name. Of course, by the time the actual year 1984 arrived it had become obvious that politics had moved in an entirely different direction than predicted, although some of the mind control techniques described in both the book and song were already being used, while others had to wait until the 21st century to come to pass.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Mechanical World
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Andes/Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
In 1967 the members of Spirit all lived in a large house in Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there, bassist Mark Andes came down with a bad case of the flu and was confined to his room for several weeks. During this time Andes was, according to guitarist Randy California, feeling "very depressed and mechanical". Toward the end of Andes's forced isolation, vocalist Jay Ferguson visited him often, and the two of them collaborated on what would become Mechanical World, one of the most sophisticated and complex tracks on Spirit's 1968 debut LP. The song was also included on the band's first "best of" collection a few years later.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Smell of Incense
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Morgan
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, although England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley took it to the # 56 spot on the charts while still in high school in 1968 with their band Southwest F.O.B.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: I Won't Hurt You
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer: Harris/Lloyd/Markley
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Unlike more famous L.A. groups like Love and the Doors, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was not a Sunset Strip club band. In fact, the WCPAEB really didn't play that many live performances in their career, although those they did play tended to be at high profile venues such as the Hollywood Bowl. The band was formed when the Harris brothers, sons of an accomplished classical musician, decided to record their own album and release it on the small Fifa label. Only a few copies of that album, Volume One, were made and finding one now is next to impossible. That might have been the end of the story except for the fact that they were acquaintances of Kim Fowley, the Zelig-like record producer and all-around Hollywood hustler. Fowley invited them to a party where the Yardbirds were playing; a party also attended by one Bob Markley. Markley, who was nearly ten years older than the Harris brothers, was a former TV show host from the midwest who had moved out to the coast to try his luck. Impressed by the flock of young girls surrounding the Yardbirds, Markley expressed to Fowley his desire to be a rock and roll star and have the girls flock around him, too. Fowley, ever the deal-maker, responded by introducing Markley to the Harris Brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born. With the addition of guitarist Michael Lloyd and the influence of Markley's not-inconsiderable family money, the group soon landed a contract with Reprise Records, where they proceeded to record the album Part One, which includes the turn I Won't Hurt You, which uses a simulated heartbeat to keep the...umm, beat.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Buddha
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although Bob Markley's lyrics will never win any literary achievement awards, they are memorable in a campy sort of way. A perfect example is Buddha, a track from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album Volume II, which comes across as a childlike impression of a statue of a Buddha, with some adolescent innuendo thrown in.
Artist: Who
Title: I Can't Reach You
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
One day during my freshman year of high school my friend Bill invited a bunch of us over to his place to listen to the new console stereo his family had bought recently. Like most console stereos, this one had a wooden top that could be lifted up to operate the turntable and radio, then closed to make it look more like a piece of furniture. When we arrived there was already music playing on the stereo, and Bill soon had us convinced that this new stereo was somehow picking up the British pirate radio station Radio London. This was pretty amazing since we were in Weisbaden, Germany, several hundred miles from England or its coastal waters that Radio London broadcast from. Even more amazing was the fact that the broadcast itself seemed to be in stereo, and Radio London was an AM station. Yet there it was, coming in more clearly than the much closer Radio Luxembourg, the powerhouse station that we listened to every evening, when they broadcast in a British top 40 format. Although a couple of us were a bit suspicious about what was going on, even we skeptics were convinced when we heard jingles, stingers, and even commercials for stuff like the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course interspersed with songs we had never heard, such as I Can't Reach You, that were every bit as good as any song being played on Radio Luxembourg. Well, as it turned out, we were indeed being hoaxed by Bill and his older brother, who had put on his brand new copy of The Who Sell Out when he saw us approaching the apartment building they lived in. I eventually picked up a copy of the album for myself, and still consider it one of the best Who albums ever made.
Artist: Firesign Theatre
Title: I Was A Cock Teaser For Roosterama
Source: LP: Dear Friends
Writer(s): Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
When it comes to counterculture humor, nobody takes a back seat to the Firesign Theatre, who, in addition to recording several albums for the Columbia label, hosted their own radio show, Dear Friends, in 1970. A couple of years later Columbia put out a double-LP album collecting some of the best bits from the show, including I Was A Cock Teaser For Roosterama. Fun stuff.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Elenore
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): The Turtles
Label: White Whale
Year: 1968
In 1968 White Whale Records was not particularly happy with the recent activities of their primary money makers, the Turtles. The band had been asserting its independence, even going so far as to self-produce a set of recordings that the label in turn rejected as having no commercial potential. The label wanted another Happy Together. The band responded by creating a facetious new song called Elenore. The song had deliberately silly lyrics such as "Elenore gee I think you're swell" and "you're my pride and joy etcetera" and gave production credit to former Turtles bassist Chip Douglas for the "Douglas F. Hatelid Foundation", which was in itself an in-joke referring to the pseudonym Douglas was forced to use as producer for the Monkees in 1967. Then a strange thing happened: the record became a hit. I suspect this was the event that began Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman's eventually metamorphosis into rock parody act Flo and Eddie.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Black Sabbath
Source: German import CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Creative Sounds (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1970
This track has to hold some kind of record for "firsts". Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath, from the album Black Sabbath is, after all, the first song from the first album by the first true heavy metal band. The track starts off by immediately setting the mood with the sound of church bells in a rainstorm leading into the song's famous tri-tone (often referred to as the "devil's chord") intro, deliberately constructed to evoke the mood of classic Hollywood horror movies. Ozzy Osborne's vocals only add to the effect. Even the faster-paced final portion of the song has a certain dissonance that had never been heard in rock music before, in part thanks to Black Sabbath's deliberate use of a lower pitch in their basic tuning. The result is something that has sometimes been compared to a bad acid trip, but is unquestionably the foundation of what came to be called heavy metal.
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them have become better known than the original Dylan versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Are You Experienced?
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Before the release of Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience the emphasis in rock music (then called pop) was on the 45 RPM single, with albums seen as a luxury item that supplemented an artist's career rather than defined it. Are You Experience helped change all that. The album was not only highly influential, it was a major seller, despite getting virtually no airplay on US top 40 radio. The grand finale of the LP was the title track, which features an array of studio effects, including backwards masked guitar and tape loops. Interestingly enough, the album was originally issued only in a mono version in the UK, with European pressings using a simulated stereo mix. After Reprise bought the rights to release the LP in the US it hired its own engineers to create stereo mixes of the songs from the four-track master tapes.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Still Raining, Still Dreaming
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Still Raining, Still Dreaming, from the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland, is the second half of a live studio recording featuring guest drummer Buddy Miles, who would later join Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox to form Band Of Gypsys. The recording also features Mike Finnegan on organ, Freddie Smith on tenor sax and Larry Faucett on congas, as well as Experience member Noel Redding on bass.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
Source: LP: Atom Heart Mother
Writer(s): Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label: Harvest
Year: 1970
Side two of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother LP featured four tracks, one from each member of the band. Since drummer Nick Mason was not generally considered a songwriter, his track, Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast, was credited to the entire band. The title refers to Pink Floyd roadie Alan Styles, and features a series of sound recordings of Styles making and eating (and occasionally talking about) breakfast insterspersed with a series of musical interludes. The recording starts and ends with the sound of a faucet dripping, and includes things like bacon frying, rice cereal snap crackle and popping, and plates being shuffled around. The group actually performed the piece live two or three times in 1970.
Artist: Crow
Title: Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Wagner/Weigand/Weigand
Label: Amaret
Year: 1969
Minneapolis has always had a more active local music scene than one might expect from a medium-sized city in the heart of the snow belt. Many of the city's artists have risen to national prominence, including a band called Crow, who's 1969 single Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me), hit close to the top of the charts in early 1970. The band had been formed in 1967 as South 40, changing its name to Crow right around the same time they signed to Amaret Records in 1969.
Artist: Matadors
Title: Get Down From The Tree
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Czechoslovakia on LP: Matadors)
Writer(s): Hladik/Sodoma
Label: Rhino (original label: Supraphon)
Year: 1968
When the words "Czechoslovakia" and "1968" come up in the same sentence it is usually in reference to an invasion by the Soviet Union to crack down on dissident elements in the Eastern Bloc satellite nation. No doubt the Matadors, formed in Prague in 1965 as the Fontanas, were among those elements, thanks to self-penned tracks such as Get Down From The Tree, a song that was originally released on an EP in 1967 and re-recorded for their self-titled debut LP. What happened to the Matadors following the Soviet invasion is unknown.
Artist: Vagrants
Title: Beside The Sea
Source: Mono LP: I Can't Make A Friend 1965-1968 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Collins/Pappalardi/Sommer
Label: Light In The Attic (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Although they did not achieve the same degree of national fame as their Long Island contemporaries the Young Rascals and Vanilla Fudge, the Vagrants were quite popular along the eastern seaboard, and ended up releasing several singles on the Atco label before guitarist Leslie Weinstein decided to change his name to West and embark on a solo career. The band had a sound midway between the two aforementioned bands, although, by some accounts, the Vagrants leaned more toward the latter when performing live. Indeed, there are some who claim that Vanilla Fudge actually lifted their sound directly from the Vagrants. In the studio, however, the Vagrants strove for a more commercial sound, as Beside The Sea (co-written by future Mountain member Felix Pappalardi and his wife Janet Collins along with future Woodstock performer Bert Sommer) demonstrates.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice
Source: Mono British import CD: The Fraternity Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Big Beat (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1966
Mouse (Ronnie Weiss) was, for a time, the most popular guy in Tyler, Texas, at least among the local youth. His band, Mouse and the traps, had a series of regional hits that garnered airplay at stations all across the state (and a rather large state at that). Although Mouse's first big hit, A Public Execution, had a strong Dylan feel to it, the band's 1966 followup single Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice, has come to be considered a garage-rock classic.
rtist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released as a single in 1965 (under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard), but did not make an immediate impression. The following year the tune started getting some local airplay on Los Angeles area stations. This in turn led to the band recording their first album, The Seeds, which was released in spring of 1966. A second Seeds LP, A Web Of Sound, hit L.A. record stores in the fall of the same year. Meanwhile, Pushin' Too Hard started to get national airplay, hitting its peak position on the Billboard charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Hole In My Shoe
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Dave Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Since the 1970s Traffic has been known as Steve Winwood's (and to a lesser degree, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood's) band, but in the early days some of the group's most popular songs were written and sung by co-founder Dave Mason. Hole In My Shoe was a single that received considerable airplay in the UK, despite being disliked by the rest of the band members. As was common practice in the UK at the time, the song was not included on the band's debut album. In the US, however, both Hole In My Shoe and the other then-current Traffic single, Paper Sun, were added to the album, replacing (ironically) a couple of Mason's other tunes.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Empty Pages
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Silver Spotlight (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1970
Traffic was formed in 1967 by Steve Winwood, after ending his association with the Spencer Davis Group. The original group, also featuring Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood, put out two and a half albums before disbanding in early 1969. Shortly thereafter, following a successful live reunion album, Welcome to the Canteen, Winwood got to work on what was intended to be his first solo LP. For support Winwood called in Capaldi and Wood to back him up on the project. It soon became apparent, however, that what they were working on was actually a new Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. Although Empty Pages was released as a single (with a mono mix heard here), it got most of its airplay on progressive FM stations, and as those stations were replaced by (or became) album rock stations, the song continued to get extensive airplay for many years.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Heaven Is In Your Mind was, for a short time, the title track of the first Traffic album released in the US. Although the album title was soon changed to Mr. Fantasy to match the European version, the song Heaven Is In Your Mind remained one of the band's most popular early tracks, and has been included on virtually every Traffic compilation ever released. The mono and stereo mixes are noticably different from each other, and even feature entirely different guitar breaks.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: 969 (The Oldest Man)
Source: CD: American Woman
Writer(s): Randy Bachman
Label: Buddha/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1970
Although Burton Cummings was known primarily for his role as the Guess Who's lead vocalist, he got a chance to strut his stuff instrumentally as a flautist on 969 (The Oldest Man), an instrumental by Randy Bachman. Bachman himself showed a glimpse of the guitar prowess that he would become known for with his next band, Bachman Turner Overdrive, in the mid-1970s on the track.
Artist: John D. Loudermilk
Title: Goin' To Hell On A Sled
Source: LP: The Open Mind Of John D. Loudermilk
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1969
John D. Loudermilk was one of the most respected songwriters of the 1960s, best known for Tobacco Road, a hit for the Nashville Teens in 1964. In 1969 Loudermilk recorded an album for RCA Victor entitled The Open Mind Of John D. Loudermilk. The album featured songs in a variety of styles. Goin' To Hell On A Sled is a kind of ironic country song that paved the way for later artists such as Jerry Reed or David Allen Coe.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer: McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Free Spirit
Source: CD: Spirit (bonus track)
Writer: John Locke
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1967
When Spirit entered the recording studio to work on their first album they recorded more music than they could fit on an LP. One of the tracks that got cut from the final lineup was Free Spirit, an instrumental piece written by keyboardist John Locke. Like most of Spirit's early material, Free Spirit incorporates jazz into the band's sound to a much greater degree than on later recordings.
Artist: Spirit
Title: 1984
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Randy California
Label: Epic
Year: 1969
One of Spirit's best known songs is 1984, a non-album single released in 1969 in between the band's second and third LPs. Unlike the Rolling Stones' 2000 Man, 1984 was not so much a predictive piece as an interpretation of concepts first expressed in George Orwell's book of the same name. Of course, by the time the actual year 1984 arrived it had become obvious that politics had moved in an entirely different direction than predicted, although some of the mind control techniques described in both the book and song were already being used, while others had to wait until the 21st century to come to pass.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Mechanical World
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Andes/Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
In 1967 the members of Spirit all lived in a large house in Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there, bassist Mark Andes came down with a bad case of the flu and was confined to his room for several weeks. During this time Andes was, according to guitarist Randy California, feeling "very depressed and mechanical". Toward the end of Andes's forced isolation, vocalist Jay Ferguson visited him often, and the two of them collaborated on what would become Mechanical World, one of the most sophisticated and complex tracks on Spirit's 1968 debut LP. The song was also included on the band's first "best of" collection a few years later.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Smell of Incense
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Morgan
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, although England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley took it to the # 56 spot on the charts while still in high school in 1968 with their band Southwest F.O.B.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: I Won't Hurt You
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer: Harris/Lloyd/Markley
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Unlike more famous L.A. groups like Love and the Doors, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was not a Sunset Strip club band. In fact, the WCPAEB really didn't play that many live performances in their career, although those they did play tended to be at high profile venues such as the Hollywood Bowl. The band was formed when the Harris brothers, sons of an accomplished classical musician, decided to record their own album and release it on the small Fifa label. Only a few copies of that album, Volume One, were made and finding one now is next to impossible. That might have been the end of the story except for the fact that they were acquaintances of Kim Fowley, the Zelig-like record producer and all-around Hollywood hustler. Fowley invited them to a party where the Yardbirds were playing; a party also attended by one Bob Markley. Markley, who was nearly ten years older than the Harris brothers, was a former TV show host from the midwest who had moved out to the coast to try his luck. Impressed by the flock of young girls surrounding the Yardbirds, Markley expressed to Fowley his desire to be a rock and roll star and have the girls flock around him, too. Fowley, ever the deal-maker, responded by introducing Markley to the Harris Brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born. With the addition of guitarist Michael Lloyd and the influence of Markley's not-inconsiderable family money, the group soon landed a contract with Reprise Records, where they proceeded to record the album Part One, which includes the turn I Won't Hurt You, which uses a simulated heartbeat to keep the...umm, beat.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Buddha
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although Bob Markley's lyrics will never win any literary achievement awards, they are memorable in a campy sort of way. A perfect example is Buddha, a track from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album Volume II, which comes across as a childlike impression of a statue of a Buddha, with some adolescent innuendo thrown in.
Artist: Who
Title: I Can't Reach You
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
One day during my freshman year of high school my friend Bill invited a bunch of us over to his place to listen to the new console stereo his family had bought recently. Like most console stereos, this one had a wooden top that could be lifted up to operate the turntable and radio, then closed to make it look more like a piece of furniture. When we arrived there was already music playing on the stereo, and Bill soon had us convinced that this new stereo was somehow picking up the British pirate radio station Radio London. This was pretty amazing since we were in Weisbaden, Germany, several hundred miles from England or its coastal waters that Radio London broadcast from. Even more amazing was the fact that the broadcast itself seemed to be in stereo, and Radio London was an AM station. Yet there it was, coming in more clearly than the much closer Radio Luxembourg, the powerhouse station that we listened to every evening, when they broadcast in a British top 40 format. Although a couple of us were a bit suspicious about what was going on, even we skeptics were convinced when we heard jingles, stingers, and even commercials for stuff like the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course interspersed with songs we had never heard, such as I Can't Reach You, that were every bit as good as any song being played on Radio Luxembourg. Well, as it turned out, we were indeed being hoaxed by Bill and his older brother, who had put on his brand new copy of The Who Sell Out when he saw us approaching the apartment building they lived in. I eventually picked up a copy of the album for myself, and still consider it one of the best Who albums ever made.
Artist: Firesign Theatre
Title: I Was A Cock Teaser For Roosterama
Source: LP: Dear Friends
Writer(s): Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
When it comes to counterculture humor, nobody takes a back seat to the Firesign Theatre, who, in addition to recording several albums for the Columbia label, hosted their own radio show, Dear Friends, in 1970. A couple of years later Columbia put out a double-LP album collecting some of the best bits from the show, including I Was A Cock Teaser For Roosterama. Fun stuff.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Elenore
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): The Turtles
Label: White Whale
Year: 1968
In 1968 White Whale Records was not particularly happy with the recent activities of their primary money makers, the Turtles. The band had been asserting its independence, even going so far as to self-produce a set of recordings that the label in turn rejected as having no commercial potential. The label wanted another Happy Together. The band responded by creating a facetious new song called Elenore. The song had deliberately silly lyrics such as "Elenore gee I think you're swell" and "you're my pride and joy etcetera" and gave production credit to former Turtles bassist Chip Douglas for the "Douglas F. Hatelid Foundation", which was in itself an in-joke referring to the pseudonym Douglas was forced to use as producer for the Monkees in 1967. Then a strange thing happened: the record became a hit. I suspect this was the event that began Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman's eventually metamorphosis into rock parody act Flo and Eddie.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Black Sabbath
Source: German import CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Creative Sounds (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1970
This track has to hold some kind of record for "firsts". Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath, from the album Black Sabbath is, after all, the first song from the first album by the first true heavy metal band. The track starts off by immediately setting the mood with the sound of church bells in a rainstorm leading into the song's famous tri-tone (often referred to as the "devil's chord") intro, deliberately constructed to evoke the mood of classic Hollywood horror movies. Ozzy Osborne's vocals only add to the effect. Even the faster-paced final portion of the song has a certain dissonance that had never been heard in rock music before, in part thanks to Black Sabbath's deliberate use of a lower pitch in their basic tuning. The result is something that has sometimes been compared to a bad acid trip, but is unquestionably the foundation of what came to be called heavy metal.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1410 (starts 3/5/14)
I managed to get this one posted on time!
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Think About It
Source: Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Page
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
The final Yardbirds record was a single released in early 1968. Although the group made TV appearances in Europe to promote the A side, Good Night Josephine, it is the B side of that record, Think About It, that deserves to be considered the last Yardbirds song. Instrumentally the song sounds a lot like something off of Led Zeppelin's first couple of albums. Once Keith Relf's vocals come in, however, there is no doubt that this is vintage Yardbirds, and quite possibly the best track of the entire Jimmy Page era.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Page/McCarty
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from their blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. The band had recently picked up a new producer, Mickey Most, known mostly for his work with Herman's Hermits and the original Animals. Most had a tendency to concentrate solely on the band's single A sides, leaving Page an opportunity to develop his own songwriting and production skills on songs such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, a track that also shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style that would help define 70s rock.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Puzzles
Source: Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Page/McCarty/Relf
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
The 1967 single Little Games/Puzzles was typical of the late period Yardbirds releases in that the A side, produced by Mickey Most, was a somewhat poppish tune from outside songwriters, with the B side featuring a song composed by the band, and, in fact if not in name, produced by guitarist Jimmy Page. As such, Puzzles featured an almost Led Zeppelin sounding guitar break that does not entirely mesh with the rest of the song. By the 1969 debut of Zeppelin, Page had solved that by making the songs themselves heavier and more in tune with his guitar style.
Artist: Catfish Knight And The Blue Express
Title: Deathwish
Source: CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): J. Knight
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Verve)
Year: 1968
A fairly common practice in the mid-1960s was for a producer to sign a new band and assign them to record a song of his own choosing. In fact, the producer often already had the song in mind before finding a band to record it. That song would then be issued as a single, with the band itself being allowed to choose and record the B side. Such is the likely case with Deathwish, a truly manic B side form a group called Catfish Knight And The Blue Express. Virtually nothing is known about the band itself, and the A side of the record, from what I have heard, was pretty lame in comparison to Deathwish.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Good Times
Source: LP: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and was a hit there as well.
Artist: Cream
Title: Dreaming
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were relatively few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Let Me Be
Source: CD: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: It Ain't Me Babe and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): P.F. Sloan
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1965
The Turtles were nothing if not able to redefine themselves when the need arose. Originally a surf band known as the Crossfires, the band quickly adopted an "angry young men" stance with their first single, Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, and the subsequent album of the same name. For the follow-up single the band chose a track from their album, Let Me Be, that, although written by a different writer, had the same general message as It Ain't Me Babe. The band would soon switch over to love songs like You Baby and Happy Together before taking their whole chameleon bit to its logical extreme with an album called Battle Of The Bands on which each track was meant to sound like it was done by an entirely different band.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Purple Haze
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK as a single, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise got the rights to release the first Hendrix album, Are You Experienced?, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. The song next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which in Europe was on the Polydor label. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced? with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced? is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that Purple Haze (heard here in its original mono mix) has now been released by all three of the world's major record companies. That's right. There are only three major record companies left in the entire world, Sony (which owns Columbia and RCA, among others), Warner Brothers (which owns Elektra, Atlantic, Reprise and others) and Universal (which started off as MCA and now, as the world's largest record company, owns far too many current and former labels to list here). Don't you just love out of control corporate consolidation?
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: In The Country
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
By 1968, several bands, particularly in southern California, were starting to incorporate elements of country music into what were otherwise rock recordings. Some, like the Byrds and Poco, ended up being recognized as pioneers of what came to be known as country-rock. Others, such as L.A.'s West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, merely flirted with the idea on tracks such as In The Country on their fourth LP, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. By this point, conflicts within the band were starting to take their toll, and combined with a decided lack of commercial success, led to the band losing its contract with Reprise Records and falling into obscurity before finally calling it quits in 1970.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Reasons For Waiting
Source: LP: Stand Up
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
Strictly speaking, Reasons For Waiting, from the Stand Up album, is not a Jethro Tull piece. Rather, it is an Ian Anderson solo work with orchestration. This was quite a departure from the first Tull album, which was (like most debut albums) made up of songs already in the group's live performance repertoire (the exception being Mick Abrahams's Move On Along, which in addition to having Abrahams on lead vocals, added a horn section).
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Oh, Sweet Mary
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
The only song credited to the entire membership of Big Brother And The Holding Company on their Cheap Thrills album was Oh, Sweet Mary (although some copies credit Janis Joplin as sole writer). The tune bears a strong resemblance to Coo Coo, a non-album single the band had released on the Mainstream label before signing to Columbia. Oh, Sweet Mary, however, has new lyrics and a "dreamy" bridge section played at a slower tempo than the rest of the tune.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Today
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to Today, an early collaboration between rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner and bandleader Marty Balin on Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Light Bulb Blues
Source: CD: Gloria (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Byrds
Title: The Times They Are A-Changin' (first version)
Source: Mono CD: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
In their early days the Byrds established themselves as the premier interpreters of Bob Dylan songs, helping to popularize the folk-rock movement in the process. In fact, the band's first two singles were covers of Dylan songs, and the group fully intended on recording and releasing a third Dylan-penned single as late as mid-1965. On June 28th the band recorded two Dylan songs: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue and The Times They Are A-Changin'. Neither recording was issued, although a later recording of The Times They Are A-Changin' appeared on the band's second LP, Turn! Turn! Turn!
Artist: Manfred Mann
Title: Do Wah Diddy Diddy
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Barry/Greenwich
Label: Silver Spotlight
Year: 1964
Manfred Mann started off as the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers and were part of the same London British blues scene as the Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones. In 1964 they took a decidedly commercial turn with one of the silliest, yet memorable hits of the British invasion, Do Wah Diddy Diddy. The song was written by the husband and wife team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who operated out of New York's Brill building under the supervision of Don Kirschner. Do Wah Diddy Diddy, with lead vocals by Paul Jones, topped the charts for several weeks and ended up among the top 10 songs of 1965.
Artist: Fire Birds
Title: No Tomorrows
Source: CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released on LP: Light My Fire)
Writer(s): Firebirds
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Crown)
Year: 1969
Throughout the 50s and 60s there were literally hundreds of budget labels that made their fortunes fooling record buyers into thinking they were getting hit records at a discounted price, when in reality they were getting cheap cover versions by uncredited and underpaid studio musicians. One of the most successful of these budget labels was Crown, a label created in 1953 by the Bahari Brothers which specialized in low-priced LPs spotlighting either a specific genre (polka, blues, gospel, etc.) or a particular artist via a tribute album that did not include any recordings by the actual artist. In 1969 Crown released a pair of hard psychedelic LPs: Hair, by 31 Flavors, and Light My Fire, by the Firebirds. In reality, they were both by the same band, rumored to be a local Los Angeles group that was not actually called either the Firebirds or 31 Flavors. Unlike most Crown releases, however, these two albums featured original material such as No Tomorrow that would not have been out of place beside albums by Blue Cheer or early Grand Funk Railroad.
Artist: Second Helping
Title: Floating Downstream On An Inflatable Rubber Raft
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kenny Loggins
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1968
Among the handful of bands recording for Snuff Garrett's Viva label in 1967-68 was a group called the Second Helping. The band is best remembered as the support group for a teenaged Kenny Loggins, who wrote and sang all of the band's material, including Floating Downstream On An Inflatable Rubber Raft, which was released as a single in 1968.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Heroes And Villains (alternate take)
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Smiley Smile/Wild Honey)
Writer(s): Wilson/Parks
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1995
The last major Beach Boys hit of the 1960s was Heroes And Villains, released as a follow-up to Good Vibrations in early 1967. The song was intended to be part of the Smile album, but ended up being released as a single in an entirely different form than Brian Wilson originally intended. Eventually the entire Smile project was cancelled, and a considerably less sophisticated album called Smiley Smile was released in its place. Nearly 30 years later Smiley Smile and its follow-up album, Wild Honey, were released on compact disc as a set. One of the bonus tracks in that set was this alternate version of Heroes And Villains, which is now believed to be the version that would have been included on Smile had it been completed.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Bass Strings
Source: Simulated stereo LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released as EP included in Rag Baby newspaper # 2)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1966
One of the more original ways to get one's music heard is to publish an underground arts-oriented newspaper and include a pullout flexi-disc in it. Country Joe and the Fish did just that; not once, but twice. The first one was split with another artist and featured the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The second Rag Baby EP, released in 1966, was all Fish, and featured two tracks that would be re-recorded for their debut LP the following year. In addition to the instrumental Section 43, the EP included a four-minute version of Bass Strings, a track with decidedly psychedelic lyrics.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
While not as commercially successful as the Airplane or as long-lived as the Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about, which is itself ironic, since the band operated out of Berkeley on the other side of the bay. Of all the tracks on their first album, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine probably got the most airplay on various underground radio stations that were popping up on the FM dial at the time (some of them even legally).
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Flying High
Source: LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released on LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Any guesses to what a song called Flying High from an album called Electric Music For The Mind And Body by Country Joe And The Fish released in 1967 might be about? I thought not.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was the Blues Project. Formed in 1965 in Greenwich Village, the band worked its way from coast to coast playing mostly college campuses, in the process blazing a path that continues to be followed by underground/progressive/alternative artists. As if founding the whole college circuit wasn't enough, they were arguably the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running shows. Among those drawing their inspiration from the Blues Project were the Warlocks, a group of young musicians who were traveling with Ken Kesey on the Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test tour bus. The Warlocks would soon change their name to the Grateful Dead and take the jam band concept to a whole new level. Still, they may never have moved in that direction at all if it weren't for the Blues Project.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: From Here To There Eventually
Source: LP: Monster
Writer: Kay/McJohn/Edmonton
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1969
The final track of Steppenwolf's fourth LP, Monster, is a perfect example of the band's typical hard-driving beat and John Kay's distinctive vocal style. The album itself is generally considered to be Steppenwolf's most blatantly political.
Artist: Doors
Title: Five To One
Source: CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1968
Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".
Artist: Adrian Pride
Title: Her Name Is Melody
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Schwartz/Slater
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Seriously? You've never heard of Adrian Pride? How about Don Atello? Bernie Ballantine? The Comfortable Chair? No? These are all names used by Bernie Schwartz, either as a solo artist or with a band (you can probably figure out which one that was). After recording a few self-penned singles in the early 60s, Schwartz came to the attention of the Everly Brothers, who in turn got him signed to Warner Brothers Records, at that time a medium-sized label owned by a large Hollywood movie studio. Schwartz recorded a pair of singles, the second of which was Her Name Was Melody, before forming the Comfortable Chair. Interestingly, Schwartz later claimed that, although he received a songwriting credit for the tune, it was actually written by Don Everly and Terry Slater. Schwartz eventually retired from music and became an author of such self-help books as A Guide To Fashionable Psychological Disorders and Are You A Newrotic?
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. All but Try It were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written some of the Chocolate Watch Band's best stuff as well.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Flying On The Ground Is Wrong
Source: CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
It's a fact: the people at Atco Records thought Neil Young's voice was "too weird" to record, and insisted that fellow Buffalo Springfield member Richie Furay sing his songs instead of Young himself. Among the Young tunes sung by Furay on the first Buffalo Springfield album is Flying On The Ground Is Wrong. By the time the band got around to recording a second LP things had changed a bit and Young sang his own material.
Artist: Syn
Title: 14 Hour Technicolour Dream
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Nardelli/Jackman
Label: Rhino (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Once upon a time there was an underground newspaper that got raided by the local police. In response, several local underground bands got together and staged a 14-hour long happening in support of the paper. As much as this sounds like a slice of San Francisco or maybe Los Angeles history, this actually happened in London, with such notable bands as Pink Floyd, the Pretty Things, the Creation, the Soft Machine, the Move, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and others contributing to what came to be called the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at the Alexandria Palace on April 29-30, 1967. Later that year, mod band the Syn (formerly known as the Selfs) recorded a song celebrating the event and released it as the B side of their second single for Deram. The group disbanded in 1968, with members Peter Banks and Chris Squire eventually going on to form Yes in the early 1970s.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Green Destroys The Gold
Source: CD: The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union
Writer: Wayne Ulaky
Label: See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
The Beacon Street Union found itself handicapped by being signed to M-G-M and being promoted as part of the "boss-town sound." The problem was that there was no "boss-town sound", any more than there was a San Francisco sound or an L.A sound (there is a Long Island Sound, but that has nothing to do with music). In fact, the only legitimate "sound" of the time was the "Motown Sound", and that was confined to a single record company that achieved a consistent sound through the use of the same studio musicians on virtually every recording. What made the situation even more ironic for the Beacon Street Union was that by the time their first LP came out they had relocated to New York City anyway. If there is a New York sound, it has more to do with traffic than music. None of which has anything to do specifically with the song Green Destroys The Gold, which was written by the band's bass player, Wayne Ulaky, and included on their debut album The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Think About It
Source: Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Page
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
The final Yardbirds record was a single released in early 1968. Although the group made TV appearances in Europe to promote the A side, Good Night Josephine, it is the B side of that record, Think About It, that deserves to be considered the last Yardbirds song. Instrumentally the song sounds a lot like something off of Led Zeppelin's first couple of albums. Once Keith Relf's vocals come in, however, there is no doubt that this is vintage Yardbirds, and quite possibly the best track of the entire Jimmy Page era.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Page/McCarty
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from their blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. The band had recently picked up a new producer, Mickey Most, known mostly for his work with Herman's Hermits and the original Animals. Most had a tendency to concentrate solely on the band's single A sides, leaving Page an opportunity to develop his own songwriting and production skills on songs such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, a track that also shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style that would help define 70s rock.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Puzzles
Source: Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Page/McCarty/Relf
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
The 1967 single Little Games/Puzzles was typical of the late period Yardbirds releases in that the A side, produced by Mickey Most, was a somewhat poppish tune from outside songwriters, with the B side featuring a song composed by the band, and, in fact if not in name, produced by guitarist Jimmy Page. As such, Puzzles featured an almost Led Zeppelin sounding guitar break that does not entirely mesh with the rest of the song. By the 1969 debut of Zeppelin, Page had solved that by making the songs themselves heavier and more in tune with his guitar style.
Artist: Catfish Knight And The Blue Express
Title: Deathwish
Source: CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): J. Knight
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Verve)
Year: 1968
A fairly common practice in the mid-1960s was for a producer to sign a new band and assign them to record a song of his own choosing. In fact, the producer often already had the song in mind before finding a band to record it. That song would then be issued as a single, with the band itself being allowed to choose and record the B side. Such is the likely case with Deathwish, a truly manic B side form a group called Catfish Knight And The Blue Express. Virtually nothing is known about the band itself, and the A side of the record, from what I have heard, was pretty lame in comparison to Deathwish.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Good Times
Source: LP: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and was a hit there as well.
Artist: Cream
Title: Dreaming
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were relatively few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Let Me Be
Source: CD: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: It Ain't Me Babe and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): P.F. Sloan
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1965
The Turtles were nothing if not able to redefine themselves when the need arose. Originally a surf band known as the Crossfires, the band quickly adopted an "angry young men" stance with their first single, Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, and the subsequent album of the same name. For the follow-up single the band chose a track from their album, Let Me Be, that, although written by a different writer, had the same general message as It Ain't Me Babe. The band would soon switch over to love songs like You Baby and Happy Together before taking their whole chameleon bit to its logical extreme with an album called Battle Of The Bands on which each track was meant to sound like it was done by an entirely different band.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Purple Haze
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK as a single, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise got the rights to release the first Hendrix album, Are You Experienced?, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. The song next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which in Europe was on the Polydor label. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced? with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced? is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that Purple Haze (heard here in its original mono mix) has now been released by all three of the world's major record companies. That's right. There are only three major record companies left in the entire world, Sony (which owns Columbia and RCA, among others), Warner Brothers (which owns Elektra, Atlantic, Reprise and others) and Universal (which started off as MCA and now, as the world's largest record company, owns far too many current and former labels to list here). Don't you just love out of control corporate consolidation?
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: In The Country
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
By 1968, several bands, particularly in southern California, were starting to incorporate elements of country music into what were otherwise rock recordings. Some, like the Byrds and Poco, ended up being recognized as pioneers of what came to be known as country-rock. Others, such as L.A.'s West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, merely flirted with the idea on tracks such as In The Country on their fourth LP, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. By this point, conflicts within the band were starting to take their toll, and combined with a decided lack of commercial success, led to the band losing its contract with Reprise Records and falling into obscurity before finally calling it quits in 1970.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Reasons For Waiting
Source: LP: Stand Up
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
Strictly speaking, Reasons For Waiting, from the Stand Up album, is not a Jethro Tull piece. Rather, it is an Ian Anderson solo work with orchestration. This was quite a departure from the first Tull album, which was (like most debut albums) made up of songs already in the group's live performance repertoire (the exception being Mick Abrahams's Move On Along, which in addition to having Abrahams on lead vocals, added a horn section).
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Oh, Sweet Mary
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
The only song credited to the entire membership of Big Brother And The Holding Company on their Cheap Thrills album was Oh, Sweet Mary (although some copies credit Janis Joplin as sole writer). The tune bears a strong resemblance to Coo Coo, a non-album single the band had released on the Mainstream label before signing to Columbia. Oh, Sweet Mary, however, has new lyrics and a "dreamy" bridge section played at a slower tempo than the rest of the tune.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Today
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to Today, an early collaboration between rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner and bandleader Marty Balin on Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Light Bulb Blues
Source: CD: Gloria (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Byrds
Title: The Times They Are A-Changin' (first version)
Source: Mono CD: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
In their early days the Byrds established themselves as the premier interpreters of Bob Dylan songs, helping to popularize the folk-rock movement in the process. In fact, the band's first two singles were covers of Dylan songs, and the group fully intended on recording and releasing a third Dylan-penned single as late as mid-1965. On June 28th the band recorded two Dylan songs: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue and The Times They Are A-Changin'. Neither recording was issued, although a later recording of The Times They Are A-Changin' appeared on the band's second LP, Turn! Turn! Turn!
Artist: Manfred Mann
Title: Do Wah Diddy Diddy
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Barry/Greenwich
Label: Silver Spotlight
Year: 1964
Manfred Mann started off as the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers and were part of the same London British blues scene as the Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones. In 1964 they took a decidedly commercial turn with one of the silliest, yet memorable hits of the British invasion, Do Wah Diddy Diddy. The song was written by the husband and wife team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who operated out of New York's Brill building under the supervision of Don Kirschner. Do Wah Diddy Diddy, with lead vocals by Paul Jones, topped the charts for several weeks and ended up among the top 10 songs of 1965.
Artist: Fire Birds
Title: No Tomorrows
Source: CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released on LP: Light My Fire)
Writer(s): Firebirds
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Crown)
Year: 1969
Throughout the 50s and 60s there were literally hundreds of budget labels that made their fortunes fooling record buyers into thinking they were getting hit records at a discounted price, when in reality they were getting cheap cover versions by uncredited and underpaid studio musicians. One of the most successful of these budget labels was Crown, a label created in 1953 by the Bahari Brothers which specialized in low-priced LPs spotlighting either a specific genre (polka, blues, gospel, etc.) or a particular artist via a tribute album that did not include any recordings by the actual artist. In 1969 Crown released a pair of hard psychedelic LPs: Hair, by 31 Flavors, and Light My Fire, by the Firebirds. In reality, they were both by the same band, rumored to be a local Los Angeles group that was not actually called either the Firebirds or 31 Flavors. Unlike most Crown releases, however, these two albums featured original material such as No Tomorrow that would not have been out of place beside albums by Blue Cheer or early Grand Funk Railroad.
Artist: Second Helping
Title: Floating Downstream On An Inflatable Rubber Raft
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kenny Loggins
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1968
Among the handful of bands recording for Snuff Garrett's Viva label in 1967-68 was a group called the Second Helping. The band is best remembered as the support group for a teenaged Kenny Loggins, who wrote and sang all of the band's material, including Floating Downstream On An Inflatable Rubber Raft, which was released as a single in 1968.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Heroes And Villains (alternate take)
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Smiley Smile/Wild Honey)
Writer(s): Wilson/Parks
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1995
The last major Beach Boys hit of the 1960s was Heroes And Villains, released as a follow-up to Good Vibrations in early 1967. The song was intended to be part of the Smile album, but ended up being released as a single in an entirely different form than Brian Wilson originally intended. Eventually the entire Smile project was cancelled, and a considerably less sophisticated album called Smiley Smile was released in its place. Nearly 30 years later Smiley Smile and its follow-up album, Wild Honey, were released on compact disc as a set. One of the bonus tracks in that set was this alternate version of Heroes And Villains, which is now believed to be the version that would have been included on Smile had it been completed.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Bass Strings
Source: Simulated stereo LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released as EP included in Rag Baby newspaper # 2)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1966
One of the more original ways to get one's music heard is to publish an underground arts-oriented newspaper and include a pullout flexi-disc in it. Country Joe and the Fish did just that; not once, but twice. The first one was split with another artist and featured the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The second Rag Baby EP, released in 1966, was all Fish, and featured two tracks that would be re-recorded for their debut LP the following year. In addition to the instrumental Section 43, the EP included a four-minute version of Bass Strings, a track with decidedly psychedelic lyrics.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
While not as commercially successful as the Airplane or as long-lived as the Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about, which is itself ironic, since the band operated out of Berkeley on the other side of the bay. Of all the tracks on their first album, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine probably got the most airplay on various underground radio stations that were popping up on the FM dial at the time (some of them even legally).
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Flying High
Source: LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released on LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Any guesses to what a song called Flying High from an album called Electric Music For The Mind And Body by Country Joe And The Fish released in 1967 might be about? I thought not.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was the Blues Project. Formed in 1965 in Greenwich Village, the band worked its way from coast to coast playing mostly college campuses, in the process blazing a path that continues to be followed by underground/progressive/alternative artists. As if founding the whole college circuit wasn't enough, they were arguably the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running shows. Among those drawing their inspiration from the Blues Project were the Warlocks, a group of young musicians who were traveling with Ken Kesey on the Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test tour bus. The Warlocks would soon change their name to the Grateful Dead and take the jam band concept to a whole new level. Still, they may never have moved in that direction at all if it weren't for the Blues Project.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: From Here To There Eventually
Source: LP: Monster
Writer: Kay/McJohn/Edmonton
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1969
The final track of Steppenwolf's fourth LP, Monster, is a perfect example of the band's typical hard-driving beat and John Kay's distinctive vocal style. The album itself is generally considered to be Steppenwolf's most blatantly political.
Artist: Doors
Title: Five To One
Source: CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1968
Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".
Artist: Adrian Pride
Title: Her Name Is Melody
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Schwartz/Slater
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Seriously? You've never heard of Adrian Pride? How about Don Atello? Bernie Ballantine? The Comfortable Chair? No? These are all names used by Bernie Schwartz, either as a solo artist or with a band (you can probably figure out which one that was). After recording a few self-penned singles in the early 60s, Schwartz came to the attention of the Everly Brothers, who in turn got him signed to Warner Brothers Records, at that time a medium-sized label owned by a large Hollywood movie studio. Schwartz recorded a pair of singles, the second of which was Her Name Was Melody, before forming the Comfortable Chair. Interestingly, Schwartz later claimed that, although he received a songwriting credit for the tune, it was actually written by Don Everly and Terry Slater. Schwartz eventually retired from music and became an author of such self-help books as A Guide To Fashionable Psychological Disorders and Are You A Newrotic?
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. All but Try It were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written some of the Chocolate Watch Band's best stuff as well.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Flying On The Ground Is Wrong
Source: CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
It's a fact: the people at Atco Records thought Neil Young's voice was "too weird" to record, and insisted that fellow Buffalo Springfield member Richie Furay sing his songs instead of Young himself. Among the Young tunes sung by Furay on the first Buffalo Springfield album is Flying On The Ground Is Wrong. By the time the band got around to recording a second LP things had changed a bit and Young sang his own material.
Artist: Syn
Title: 14 Hour Technicolour Dream
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Nardelli/Jackman
Label: Rhino (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Once upon a time there was an underground newspaper that got raided by the local police. In response, several local underground bands got together and staged a 14-hour long happening in support of the paper. As much as this sounds like a slice of San Francisco or maybe Los Angeles history, this actually happened in London, with such notable bands as Pink Floyd, the Pretty Things, the Creation, the Soft Machine, the Move, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and others contributing to what came to be called the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at the Alexandria Palace on April 29-30, 1967. Later that year, mod band the Syn (formerly known as the Selfs) recorded a song celebrating the event and released it as the B side of their second single for Deram. The group disbanded in 1968, with members Peter Banks and Chris Squire eventually going on to form Yes in the early 1970s.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Green Destroys The Gold
Source: CD: The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union
Writer: Wayne Ulaky
Label: See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
The Beacon Street Union found itself handicapped by being signed to M-G-M and being promoted as part of the "boss-town sound." The problem was that there was no "boss-town sound", any more than there was a San Francisco sound or an L.A sound (there is a Long Island Sound, but that has nothing to do with music). In fact, the only legitimate "sound" of the time was the "Motown Sound", and that was confined to a single record company that achieved a consistent sound through the use of the same studio musicians on virtually every recording. What made the situation even more ironic for the Beacon Street Union was that by the time their first LP came out they had relocated to New York City anyway. If there is a New York sound, it has more to do with traffic than music. None of which has anything to do specifically with the song Green Destroys The Gold, which was written by the band's bass player, Wayne Ulaky, and included on their debut album The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union.
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