Artist: Kinks
Title: Big Black Smoke
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The Kinks had some of the best B sides of the 60s. Case in point: Big Black Smoke, which appeared as the flip of Dead End Street in early 1967. The song deals with a familiar phenomenon of the 20th century: the small town girl that gets a rude awakening after moving to the big city. In this case the city was London, known colloquially as "the Smoke".
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Little Olive
Source: Mono CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): James Lowe
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
Allowing a band to compose its own B side was a fairly common practice in the mid-1960s, as it saved the producer from having to pay for the rights to a composition by professional songwriters and funneled some of the royalty money to the band members. As a result, many B sides were actually a better indication of what a band was really about, since most A sides were picked by the record's producer, rather than the band. Such is the case with Little Olive, a song written by the Electric Prunes' Jim Lowe and released as the B side of their debut single in 1966.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Love You To
Source: British import LP: Revolver
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone/EMI
Year: 1966
Following the release of Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Beatle George Harrison began to make a serious effort to learn to play the Sitar, studying under the master, Ravi Shankar. Along with the instrument itself, Harrison studied Eastern forms of music. His first song written in the modal form favored by Indian composers was Love You To, from the Revolver album. The recording also features Indian percussion instruments and suitably spiritual lyrics.
Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Can't Find My Way Home
Source: CD: Blind Faith
Writer: Steve Winwood
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Blind Faith was the result of some 1969 jam sessions in guitarist Eric Clapton's basement with keyboardist/guitarist Steve Winwood, whose own band, Traffic, had disbanded earlier in the year. Drummer Ginger Baker, who had been Clapton's bandmate in Cream for the previous three years, showed up one day, and Winwood eventually convinced Clapton to form a band with the three of them and bassist Rick Grech. Clapton, however, did not want another Cream, and even before Blind Faith's only album was released was ready to move on to something that felt less like a supergroup. As a result, Winwood took more of a dominant role in Blind Faith, even to the point of including one track, Can't Find My Way Home, that was practically a Winwood solo piece. Blind Faith disbanded shortly after the album was released, with the various band members moving on to other projects. Winwood, who soon reformed Traffic, is still active as one of rock's elder statesmen, and still performs Can't Find My Way Home in his concert appearances.
Artist: Who
Title: Underture
Source: CD: Tommy
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1969
One of the great rock instrumentals was the Underture from Tommy. Some of the musical themes used in the piece had appeared on the previous album, The Who Sell Out, as part of the song Rael. Here those themes are fleshed out considerably (the track runs a full ten minutes).
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: What Is And What Should Never Be
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s): Page/Plant
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
Due to contractual obligations, singer Robert Plant did not received any writing credits for songs on the first Led Zeppelin album. By the time the band's second LP was released, Plant had been able to get out of his previous contract, and his name began appearing as co-writer of songs such as What Is And What Should Never Be. The song itself was based on a true story concerning Plant's attraction to his girlfriend's sister.
Artist: Sly And The Family Stone
Title: I Want To Take You Higher (originally released on LP: Stand)
Source: CD: Greatest Hits
Writer(s): Sylvester Stewart
Label: Epic
Year: 1969
Sylvester Stone was already a fixture in the San Francisco Bay area by the time the rest of the nation began to notice what was going on in Haight-Ashbury. A popular local DJ and producer for Autumn Records, the regions top local label, he was responsible for producing the first recordings by the Warlocks (who would soon be known as the Grateful Dead) among others. He was thus in a position to recruit the best musicians around for his new band, which he called the Family Stone. Interestingly enough, the generational anthem I Want To Take You Higher was originally relegated to being the B side of the song Stand when first released in 1969, but following the band's successful set at Woodstock the single was reissued with the sides reversed.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sitting On Top Of The World
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): Chester Burnett
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Throughout their existence British blues supergroup Cream recorded covers of blues classics. One of the best of these is Sitting On Top Of The World from the album Wheels Of Fire, which in its earliest form was written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon and recorded by the Mississippi Shieks in 1930. Cream's version uses the lyrics from the 1957 rewrite of the song by Chester Burnett, better know as Howlin' Wolf.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Cat Talking To Me
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1967, released 2010
The 1967 recording of Cat Talking To Me sat on the shelf for over thirty years before being released as the B side to the Valleys Of Neptune single in 2010. The song is notable for two reasons. The first is rather obvious in that it features a rare lead vocal by drummer Mitch Mitchell. The second thing that makes the song stand out from other Experience recordings is a bit more subtle. Cat Talking To Me is musically much more consistent with Hendrix's later tracks, especially those heard on various posthumous releases, than anything else he was working on in 1967.
Artist: Boots
Title: Gaby
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in West Germany as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Krabbe/Bresser
Label: Rhino (original label: Telefunken)
Year: 1966
Formed in Berlin in 1965, the Boots were one of the more adventurous bands operating on the European mainland. While most bands in Germany tended to emulate the Beatles, the Boots took a more underground approach, growing their hair out just a bit longer than their contemporaries and appealing to a more Bohemian type of crowd. Lead guitarist Jurg "Jockel" Schulte-Eckle was known for doing strange things to his guitar onstage using screwdrivers, beer bottles and the like to create previously unheard of sounds. On vinyl the band comes off as being just a bit ahead of its time, as can be heard clearly on the original group's final single, Gaby, a song written by singer Werner Krabbe and bassist Bob Bresser. Not long after Gaby's release, Krabbe left the band. Although the Boots continued on with various lineups until 1969, they were never able to recapture the magic generated by the original lineup.
Artist: Mothers of Invention
Title: Who Are The Brain Police
Source: CD: Freak Out
Writer: Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1966
In 1966, Los Angeles, with its variety of all-ages clubs along Sunset Strip, had one of the most active underground music scenes in rock history. One of the most underground of these bands was the Mothers of Invention, led by musical genius Frank Zappa. In 1966 Tom Wilson, who was already well known for producing Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Blues Project, brought the Mothers into the studio to record the landmark Freak Out album. To his credit he allowed the band total artistic freedom, jeopardizing his own job in the process (the album cost somewhere between $20,000-30,000 to produce). The second song the band recorded was Who Are The Brain Police, which reportedly prompted Wilson to get on the phone to M-G-M headquarters in New York, presumably to ask for more money.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Lady Jane
Source: CD: Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (London)
Year: 1966
One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated seperately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8). Both tunes were also included on the 1967 LP Flowers, a US-only collection of then-recent singles and songs that had been left off the American versions of earlier Stones LPs.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Gimme Some Lovin'
Source: Mono CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1967 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label: Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1966
One of many British bands to have far more success at home than abroad, the Spencer Davis Group nonetheless scored big in the US in early 1967 with two songs co-written and sung by 17-year-old Steve Winwood, who would soon leave the band to form Traffic. The first of these, Gimme Some Lovin' would gain renewed popularity in the 80s when it was prominently featured in The Big Chill, one of the first films to use a 60s nostalgia soundtrack.
Artist: Premiers
Title: Get On This Plane
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Delgado/Uballez
Label: Rhino (original label: Faro)
Year: 1966
The Premiers were a band from East L.A. best known for their 1964 hit Farmer John. After that national success, the group continued to record, cranking out a series of local hits for local latino label Faro, run by Max Uballez. The last of these was Get On This Plane, a song that Uballez co-wrote for the band in 1966.
Artist: Sugarloaf
Title: Spaceship Earth
Source: LP: Spaceship Earth
Writer(s): Robert Yeazel
Label: Liberty
Year: 1971
Although Denver's Sugarloaf (named for a nearby mountain and ski resort) was more of a blues-rock band than a psychedelic one, they did move into pretty interesting territory with the title track of their second album, Spaceship Earth. The tune, written by the band's newest member, guitarist Robert Yeazel, moves from a decidedly spacey opening through a slow buildup to a smooth jazz-rock instrumental showcasing the band's dual lead guitars from Yeazel and Bob Webber, as well as Jerry Corbetta's strong keyboards.
Artist: Zoser
Title: Dark Of The Morning
Source: CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Daniel Sleen
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Hexagon)
Year: 1970
Zoser was a project band with a lot of talent but not a whole lot of cash. Warren Kendrick was a producer and studio owner who needed some renovations done on his Audio City Recording Studio in Minneapolis. So, in exchange for the labor needed to get the renovations done within budget Kendrick recorded Zoser's only single, Together, backed with Dark Of The Morning, and pressed 500 copies of the record. In stereo.
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: Iron Butterfly
Title: Gentle As It May Seem
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Heavy)
Writer(s): DeLoach/Weis
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
Personnel changes were pretty much a regular occurrence with Iron Butterfly. After the first album, Heavy, everyone except keyboardist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy left the band. This was accompanied by a drastic change in style as well, as Ingle, who had already been carrying the lion's share of lead vocals, became the group's primary songwriter as well. Gentle As It Seems, written by DeLoach and lead guitarist Danny Weis, is a good example of the band's original sound, back when they were scrounging for gigs in a rapidly shrinking L.A. all-ages club scene.
Artist: Aquarian Age
Title: 10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Alder/Wood
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1968
Following the breakup of the influential British psychedelic band Tomorrow, the various members went their separate ways, with vocalist Keith West embarking on a solo career and guitarist Steve Howe doing studio work before becoming a member of Yes. The remaining two members, Junior Wood (bass) and Twink Alder (drums), continued to work with Abbey Road studios staff producer Mark Wirtz on a single, 10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box, credited to the Aquarian Age. Probably the nearest American equivalent to the project was Sagittarius from Los Angeles producer Gary Usher. Both projects came from respected staff producers at major recording studios utilizing top studio talent, not to mention they both took their names from Zodiac signs.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Let Me In
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Marty Balin deserves recognition for his outstanding abilities as a leader. Most people don't even realize he was the founder of Jefferson Airplane, yet it was Balin who brought together the diverse talents of what would become San Francisco's most successful band of the 60s and managed to keep the band together through more than its share of controversies. One indication of his leadership abilities is that he encouraged Paul Kantner to sing lead on Let Me In, a song that the two of them had written together for the band's debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, despite the fact that Balin himself had no other onstage role than to sing lead vocals.
Artist: Rising Sons
Title: Take A Giant Step
Source: CD: The Rising Sons featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1992
Popular Los Angeles club band The Rising Sons were blessed with the talents of not one, but three musicians that would go on to become highly respected in the music business: vocalist Taj Mahal, guitarist Ry Cooder, and singer/songwriter Jesse Lee Kincaid. At the time, however, Columbia Records had no clue how to market an interracial country-blues/rock band. After an early single bombed the band attempted a more commercial sounding tune, the Gerry Goffin/ Carole King penned Take A Giant Step, but Columbia sat on it, as well as over an album's worth of other material. The song itself became well known when the Monkees released it as the B side of their debut single, Last Train To Clarksville. Taj Mahal, who liked the lyrics but not the fast tempo of the original version, re-recorded the song at a slower pace for his 1969 album Giant Step, making it one of his signature songs in the process.
Artist: Sonics
Title: Strychnine
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: Here Are The Sonics)
Writer(s): Gerald Roslie
Label: Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year: 1965
From 1965 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered one of the foundation stones of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals, such as Strychnine from their debut LP, are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics, along with their labelmates the Wailers, are often cited as the first true punk rock bands.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunny South Kensington
Source: Mono British import CD: Mellow Yellow (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch followed up his 1966 hit single Sunshine Superman with an album of the same name. He then repeated himself with the song and album Mellow Yellow. Although there were no other singles released from either album, the song Sunny South Kensington, which was done in much the same style as Superman, was a highlight of the Mellow Yellow album. Due to a contractual dispute in the UK between Donovan and Pye Records, neither LP was issued in its original form in Britain.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Crystal Ship
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Ever feel like you've discovered something really special that nobody else (among your circle of friends at any rate) knows about? At first you kind of want to keep it to yourself, but soon you find yourself compelled to share it with everyone you know. Such was the case when, in the early summer of 1967, I used my weekly allowance to buy copies of a couple of songs I had heard on the American Forces Network (AFN). As usual, it wasn't long before I was flipping the records over to hear what was on the B sides. I liked the first one well enough (a song by Buffalo Springfield called Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, the B side of For What It's Worth), but it was the second one, the B side of the Doors' Light My Fire, that really got to me. To this day I consider The Crystal Ship to be one of the finest slow rock songs ever recorded.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Boogie Music
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Living The Blues and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): L.T.Tatman III
Label: United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of Bay Area blues purists. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout their existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. An edited version of Boogie Music, also from Living the Blues, was issued as the B side of that single. This is a stereo mix of that version, featured on a United Artists anthology album released in 1969.
Artist: Mongrels
Title: Good Good Man
Source: CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released in Canada as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Randy Bachman
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Franklin)
Year: 1969
Not much is known about the Mongrels. Reportedly from Winnipeg, Manitoba, the band released their first single Death Of A Salesman, on the Franklin label (distributed by London Records of Canada) in 1968. Apparently the record did not go anywhere, as they re-recorded the song in Minneapolis the following year under the title Good Good Man and issued it as the B side of their third single.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Leland Mississippi Blues
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s): Johnny Winter
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2009
Johnny Winter had just released his first album for Columbia in 1969 when he was invited to play the Woodstock festival. Along with his band, which at that time included his brother Edgar on keyboards, future Double Trouble member Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums, Winter played a set that included Leland Mississippi Blues, one of the three original compositions on his Columbia debut LP.
Artist: Glass Sun
Title: Silence Of The Morning
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Rick Roll
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Sound Patterns)
Year: 1968
Westland, Michigan, was home to Glass Sun, who rocked out as hard as any Michagan band of the time. They released a pair of singles for Detroit's Sound Patterns label in 1968, the first (and best) of which was Silence Of The Morning.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1425 (starts 6/18/14)
Artist: Kinks
Title: Dead End Street
Source: Mono British import CD: Face To Face (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
The last big US hit for the Kinks in the 60s was Sunny Afternoon in late 1966. The follow-up, Deadend Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success (although it was a hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola in 1970.
Artist: John Mayall
Title: Cancelling Out
Source: LP: The Blues Alone
Writer(s): John Mayall
Label: London
Year: 1967
After three consecutive top 10 albums in the UK with his band the Bluesbreakers, John Mayall decided to experiment with multi-track technology for The Blues Alone, released in late 1967. Unlike the previous albums, which tended to put the emphasis on the outstanding guitarists (first Eric Clapton, then Peter Green) in the Bluesbreakers, The Blues Alone was (with the exception of Keef Hartley's drumming) a true solo effort, with Mayall playing all the instruments and providing all the vocals. Although there were a few cover songs on the album, the best tracks were Mayall originals such as Cancelling Out.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: To The Light
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
Sean Bonniwell and his band the Music Machine hit the big time with their hit single Talk Talk in late 1966. Unfortunately, due in large part to circumstances beyond the band's control, they were never able to duplicate that success. Eventually, the band's grueling touring schedule took its toll, and all of the original members, save Bonniwell himself, were gone by the middle of 1967. Bonniwell was not quite ready to give up, however, and soon had a new Music Machine in place, recording a handful of new tunes and releasing them (along with several previously released singles by the original lineup) on an album called The Bonniwell Music Machine in late 1967. The new group's recording career did not stop there, however. Whenever possible, using whatever facilities were available, the band would book studio time for new tunes such as To The Light, which was released on 45 RPM vinyl in 1968. Bonniwell himself described the song as "Clip-Clop brevity and a vocal rendering almost too coy for platonic love nurturing a tormented libido", adding that the end result is a question: "Can friends become lovers and remain friendly?"
Artist: Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck
Title: One Ring Jane
Source: British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on Canadian LP: Home Grown Stuff)
Writer(s): McDougall/Ivanuck
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1969
Sometimes called Canada's most psychedelic band, Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck was formed in British Columbia in 1967. After recording one unsuccessful single for London, the Duck switched to Capitol Records' Canadian division and scored nationally with the album Home Grown Stuff. After a couple more years spent opening for big name bands such as Alice Cooper and Deep Purple and a couple more albums (on the Capitol-owned Duck Records) the group disbanded, with vocalist/guitarist Donny McDougall joining the Guess Who in 1972.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Mexico
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1970
The last Jefferson Airplane single to include founding member (and original leader) Marty Balin was Mexico, a scathing response by Grace Slick to President Richard Nixon's attempts to eradicate the marijuana trade between the US and Mexico. The song was slated to be included on the next Airplane album, Long John Silver, but Balin's departure necessitated a change in plans, and Mexico did not appear on an LP until Early Flight was released in 1974.
Artist: Stephen Stills
Title: Love the One You're With
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo promo pressing)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1971
Depending on your point of view Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) have either split up several times over the years or have never actually split up at all. It was during one of these maybe split-ups that Stills recorded Love the One You're With, one of his most popular tunes. Presumably he and singer Judy Collins were no longer an item at that point.
Artist: Warlocks
Title: Can't Come Down
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: Garcia/Kreutzmann/Lesh/McKernan/Weir
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1965
In 1965 Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters were travelling around conducting the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, basically an excuse to turn on people to LSD. Part of Kesey's entourage was a group of young musicians calling themselves the Warlocks, who had formed earlier that year. Around the time of the first acid test in November of 1965 group made their first visit to a recording studio, cutting a set of demos for Autumn Records. After hearing that there was already a band named the Warlocks making records, they booked studio time under the name Emergency Crew. The songs themselves, which were produced by Autumn Records' owners Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue and Bobby Mitchell, did not get released until 1999, when the Warlocks (who began calling themselves the Grateful Dead just days after the recording sessions) decided to include them on an anthology album. The lead vocals on Can't Come Down are by guitarist Jerry Garcia, although they don't sound much like his later Grateful Dead recordings.
Artist: Chants R&B
Title: I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in New Zealand as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Mayall
Label: Rhino (original label: Action)
Year: 1966
The Chants R&B were formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1964 and were heavily influenced by such punkish UK bands as the Pretty Things and Them. Shortly after the released of their first single in mid-1966, the group got a new guitarist, Max Kelly, whose efforts helped make their second single, a wild cover of John Mayall's I'm Your Witch Doctor, a national hit. Before they could return to the studio however, it was discovered that Kelly, whose real name was Matt Croke, was actually a deserter from the Australian Air Force, and was soon deported. The rest of the band followed him to Sydney, but things didn't work out and the band split up in early 1967.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Love
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer: McDonald/Melton/Cohen/Barthol/Gunning/Hirsch
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
In the mid 60s the primary performance venues for rock bands were dances, and the audiences (mostly middle-class baby boomers) demanded a healthy dose of both rock and soul. Rather than to record covers of Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding songs, Country Joe McDonald chose to write his own brand of rock and soul music. Love, from the Fish's first album, is a good example of this.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Foxy Lady
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The first track on the original UK release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was buried toward the end of side 2 (and misspelled "Foxey Lady").
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Remember
Source: Mono LP: Are You Experienced? (European version)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original UK label: Track)
Year: 1967
It was common in the 1960s for artists to include "filler" material on their albums, with their best stuff being saved for single releases. Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience made making the best albums a priority, there was still material on their first LP that Hendrix himself considered filler. One of these was Remember, which was also one of three tracks deleted from the US version of the LP to make room for three UK singles that were not on the UK version of Are You Experienced. Still, filler for Jimi Hendrix is as good as or better than 99% of many other artists' best material, as can be heard here.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Love Or Confusion
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and the rhythm section dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. It's actually kind of fun to listen to with headphones on, as I did when I bought my first copy of the album on reel-to-reel tape (the tape deck was in the same room as the TV).
Artist: Standells
Title: All Fall Down
Source: CD: The Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Try It)
Writer(s): Dodd/Fleck
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Possibly the most overtly psychedelic tune in the Standells catalog, All Fall Down appeared on the band's third LP for Tower, Try It. Coincidentally, the album came out around the same time as Pink Floyd's debut LP on the same label, prompting some critics to make comparisons between All Fall Down and Floyd's Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year: 1967
Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Winds Of Change
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
The new Animals first album was Winds of Change, an ambitious effort that gave writing credit to all five band members for all the tracks on the album (with the exception of a cover version of the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black). The opening track is basically Eric Burdon paying tribute to all his musical heroes, and it's quite an impressive list, including jazz and blues greats as well as some of the most important names in the annals of rock and roll.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Omaha
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Bleeker Street
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Wednesday Morning, 3AM)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1964
One of the first of many "slice of life" songs from songwriter Paul Simon, Bleeker Street (a real street in New York's Greenwich Village) appeared on the first Simon And Garfunkel LP, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, in late 1964. The album did not initially sell well, and the duo actually split up shortly after it was deleted from the Columbia catalog. Following the success of an electrified remix of another song from the album, The Sound Of Silence, the pair reunited and Columbia reissued Wednesday Morning, 3AM in 1966.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Louie Louie
Source: Mono LP: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Richard Berry
Label: Columbia (original label: Sande)
Year: 1963
The greatest party song of all time came from the pen of Richard Berry, a west coast singer/bandleader who released his original "soft" version of the song in 1957. In 1963 two west coast bands, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere And The Raiders, recorded competing versions of the song within days of each other. The Kingsmen version, with its raw sound and unintelligible lyrics, became popular on the east coast, while the better-produced (and more professionally performed) Raiders version quickly went to the top of the charts on the west coast and Hawaii. Columbia Records picked up the band's contract and re-released the single nationally. Columbia's top A&R man, Mitch Miller, however, was a notorius rock and roll hater (as a listen to one of his old Sing Along With Mitch TV shows proves) and refused to promote the record. Eventually the Kingsmen version of Louie Louie went gold while the Raiders version has become little more than a footnote (although the band itself has always championed their recording of the song).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: The Last Time
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
Released in late winter of 1965, The Last Time was the first single to hit the top 10 in both the US and the UK (being their third consecutive #1 hit in England) and the first one written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Despite that, it would be overshadowed by their next release: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, which went to the top of the charts everywhere and ended up being the #1 song of 1965.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: She's A Rainbow
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
The only song from the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request album to get significant airplay in the US was She's A Rainbow, released as a single in the fall of '67. Oddly enough it was the single's B side, 2,000 Light Years From Home, that charted in Germany, while yet another song from the album, In Another Land, was released only in the UK and touted as the first Bill Wyman solo song (although still a Rolling Stones record). This perhaps is a reflection of the uncertainty surrounding the Rolling Stones' role in the world of rock at the time. That uncertainty would soon be dispelled when the band hired a new producer, Jimmy Miller, the following year and released Jumpin' Jack Flash, an undisputed classic that helped define the band for years to come.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Play With Fire
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1965
Generally when one thinks of the Rolling Stones the first thing that comes to mind is down to earth rock and roll songs such as Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women. The band has always had a more mellow side, however. In fact, the first Mick Jagger/Keith Richards compositions were of the slower variety, including Heart Of Stone and As Tears Go By. Even after the duo started cranking out faster-paced hits like 19th Nervous Breakdown and The Last Time, they continued to write softer songs such as Play With Fire, which made the charts as a B side in 1965. The lyrics of Play With Fire, with their sneering warning to not mess with the protagonist of the song, helped cement the Stones' image as the bad boys of rock and roll.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Sweet Young Thing
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Uptown)
Year: 1967
There is actually very little on vinyl that captures the flavor of how the Chocolate Watchband actually sounded when left to their own devices, as most of their recorded work was heavily influenced by producer Ed Cobb. One of the few recordings that does accurately represent the Watchband sound is Sweet Young Thing, the first single released under the band's real name (Blues Theme, an instrumental Watchband recording credited to the Hoggs, had been released in 1966 by Hanna-Barbera records).
Artist: Young Rascals
Title: What Is The Reason
Source: LP: Collections
Writer: Cavaliere/Brigati
Label: Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1967
My first high school dance was a Sadie Hawkins Day dance held at the General H. H. Arnold High School gym in Weisbaden, Germany. Onstage was a band of military brats calling themselves the Collections, so called because they covered every tune on the second Young Rascals album. That night (probably the best night of my entire freshman year, thanks to a sophomore whose name I've long since forgotten but who looked a lot like Cindy Williams in American Graffiti) inspired me to A): talk my parents into buying a cheap guitar and amp so I could join up with other guys who lived in our housing area to form "The Abundance Of Love", aka "The Haze And Shades Of Yesterday", aka "The Shades", and B) find and buy a copy of the Collections album (which ended up taking over 40 years to do).
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: CD: Steppenwolf the Second
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Volt
Year: 1966
Some may have questioned the appearance of a "soul" band like Sly and the Family Stone at what was essentially a rock festival at Woodstock, but there was precedent: Otis Redding had stolen the show at the first of the great rock festivals at Monterey two years earlier. One of the songs he electrified the crowd with was a hard-driving version of the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, heard here in its 1966 studio version, featuring the MGs and the Bar-Kays backing up the "big O".
Artist: Fugs
Title: I Couldn't Get High
Source: CD: The Fugs First Album (originally titled The Village Fugs)
Writer(s): Ken Weaver
Label: Fantasy (original labels: Broadside & ESP)
Year: 1965
Formed in 1964, the Fugs were the first (in their own words) "anarcho-socialist" street band of the rock era. Most of their songs contained language that was forbidden on the radio. Those that did not contain forbidden language had drug references, which essentially had the same result as far as getting top 40 airplay went. Not that anything by the Fugs would have ever been played on top 40 radio anyway. It was too raw, too sloppy, and too, well, uncommercial to ever get heard by the masses. Nonetheless, the Fugs managed to achieve legendary status over the years, serving as inspiration to groups like David Peel and the Lower East Side, the Ramones and the Patti Smith Group, among others. A fairly representative track that can be played without incurring any FCC sanctions is I Couldn't Get High, from the Fugs First Album. The album itself originally appeared in 1965 as The Village Fugs on the independent Broadside label. The following year the album was remixed and re-released on the ESP label as the Fugs First Album, and was digitally remastered and committed to CD by Fantasy Records in 1994.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Reverberation
Source: CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s): Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label: Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
From the original liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators: "Reverberation is the root of all inability to cope with environment. Doubt causes negative emotions which reverberate and hamper all constructive thought. If a person learns and organizes his knowledge in the right way---with perfect cross-reference---he need not experience doubt or hesitation." Pretty heady stuff for the year that brought us the Monkees.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Matilda Mother
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Listening to tracks like Matilda Mother, I can't help but wonder where Pink Floyd might have gone if Syd Barrett had not succumbed to mental illness following the release of the band's first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in 1967. Unlike the rest of the band members, Barrett had the ability to write songs that were not only adventurous, but commercially viable as singles as well. After Barrett's departure, it took the group several years to become commercially successful on their own terms (although they obviously did). We'll never know what they may have done in the intervening years were Barrett still at the helm.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Unknown Soldier
Source: LP: 13 (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1968
One of the oddest recordings to get played on top 40 radio was the Door's 1968 single The Unknown Soldier. The song is notable for having it's own promotional film made by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had been a film major at UCLA when the Doors were formed. It's not known whether the song was written with the film in mind (or vice versa), but the two have a much greater synergy than your average music video.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Mellow Yellow
Source: Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1966
Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to his ongoing contract dispute with Pye Records.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Season Of The Witch
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Season Of The Witch has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring tracks on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the album was not released in the UK until late 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Like all tracks from both Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, Season Of The Witch was only available in a mono mix until 1969, when a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track masters for the singer/songwriter's first greatest hits compilation. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.
Artist: Donovan
Title: The Observation
Source: Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
Donovan was at first hailed as Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, but by 1967 he was proving that he was much more than that. The Observation, with its distinctive use of an acoustic double-bass, is one of many innovative tunes that helped redefine Donovan from folk singer to singer/songwriter, transforming the entire genre in the process.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Love Seems Doomed
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala/Esposito
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
Unlike most of the tracks on the Blues Magoos' 1966 Debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, Love Seems Doomed is a slow, moody piece with a message. Along with the Paul Revere and the Raiders hit Kicks from earlier that year, Love Seems Doomed is one of the first songs by a rock band to carry a decidedly anti-drug message. While Kicks warned of the addictive qualities of drugs (particularly the phenomenon of the need larger doses of a drug to achieve the same effect over time), Love Seems Doomed focused more on how addiction affects the user's relationships, particularly those of a romantic nature. Love Seems Doomed is also a more subtle song than Kicks, which tends to hit the listener over the head with its message.
Title: Dead End Street
Source: Mono British import CD: Face To Face (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
The last big US hit for the Kinks in the 60s was Sunny Afternoon in late 1966. The follow-up, Deadend Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success (although it was a hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola in 1970.
Artist: John Mayall
Title: Cancelling Out
Source: LP: The Blues Alone
Writer(s): John Mayall
Label: London
Year: 1967
After three consecutive top 10 albums in the UK with his band the Bluesbreakers, John Mayall decided to experiment with multi-track technology for The Blues Alone, released in late 1967. Unlike the previous albums, which tended to put the emphasis on the outstanding guitarists (first Eric Clapton, then Peter Green) in the Bluesbreakers, The Blues Alone was (with the exception of Keef Hartley's drumming) a true solo effort, with Mayall playing all the instruments and providing all the vocals. Although there were a few cover songs on the album, the best tracks were Mayall originals such as Cancelling Out.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: To The Light
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
Sean Bonniwell and his band the Music Machine hit the big time with their hit single Talk Talk in late 1966. Unfortunately, due in large part to circumstances beyond the band's control, they were never able to duplicate that success. Eventually, the band's grueling touring schedule took its toll, and all of the original members, save Bonniwell himself, were gone by the middle of 1967. Bonniwell was not quite ready to give up, however, and soon had a new Music Machine in place, recording a handful of new tunes and releasing them (along with several previously released singles by the original lineup) on an album called The Bonniwell Music Machine in late 1967. The new group's recording career did not stop there, however. Whenever possible, using whatever facilities were available, the band would book studio time for new tunes such as To The Light, which was released on 45 RPM vinyl in 1968. Bonniwell himself described the song as "Clip-Clop brevity and a vocal rendering almost too coy for platonic love nurturing a tormented libido", adding that the end result is a question: "Can friends become lovers and remain friendly?"
Artist: Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck
Title: One Ring Jane
Source: British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on Canadian LP: Home Grown Stuff)
Writer(s): McDougall/Ivanuck
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1969
Sometimes called Canada's most psychedelic band, Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck was formed in British Columbia in 1967. After recording one unsuccessful single for London, the Duck switched to Capitol Records' Canadian division and scored nationally with the album Home Grown Stuff. After a couple more years spent opening for big name bands such as Alice Cooper and Deep Purple and a couple more albums (on the Capitol-owned Duck Records) the group disbanded, with vocalist/guitarist Donny McDougall joining the Guess Who in 1972.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Mexico
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1970
The last Jefferson Airplane single to include founding member (and original leader) Marty Balin was Mexico, a scathing response by Grace Slick to President Richard Nixon's attempts to eradicate the marijuana trade between the US and Mexico. The song was slated to be included on the next Airplane album, Long John Silver, but Balin's departure necessitated a change in plans, and Mexico did not appear on an LP until Early Flight was released in 1974.
Artist: Stephen Stills
Title: Love the One You're With
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo promo pressing)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1971
Depending on your point of view Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) have either split up several times over the years or have never actually split up at all. It was during one of these maybe split-ups that Stills recorded Love the One You're With, one of his most popular tunes. Presumably he and singer Judy Collins were no longer an item at that point.
Artist: Warlocks
Title: Can't Come Down
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: Garcia/Kreutzmann/Lesh/McKernan/Weir
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1965
In 1965 Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters were travelling around conducting the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, basically an excuse to turn on people to LSD. Part of Kesey's entourage was a group of young musicians calling themselves the Warlocks, who had formed earlier that year. Around the time of the first acid test in November of 1965 group made their first visit to a recording studio, cutting a set of demos for Autumn Records. After hearing that there was already a band named the Warlocks making records, they booked studio time under the name Emergency Crew. The songs themselves, which were produced by Autumn Records' owners Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue and Bobby Mitchell, did not get released until 1999, when the Warlocks (who began calling themselves the Grateful Dead just days after the recording sessions) decided to include them on an anthology album. The lead vocals on Can't Come Down are by guitarist Jerry Garcia, although they don't sound much like his later Grateful Dead recordings.
Artist: Chants R&B
Title: I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in New Zealand as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Mayall
Label: Rhino (original label: Action)
Year: 1966
The Chants R&B were formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1964 and were heavily influenced by such punkish UK bands as the Pretty Things and Them. Shortly after the released of their first single in mid-1966, the group got a new guitarist, Max Kelly, whose efforts helped make their second single, a wild cover of John Mayall's I'm Your Witch Doctor, a national hit. Before they could return to the studio however, it was discovered that Kelly, whose real name was Matt Croke, was actually a deserter from the Australian Air Force, and was soon deported. The rest of the band followed him to Sydney, but things didn't work out and the band split up in early 1967.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Love
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer: McDonald/Melton/Cohen/Barthol/Gunning/Hirsch
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
In the mid 60s the primary performance venues for rock bands were dances, and the audiences (mostly middle-class baby boomers) demanded a healthy dose of both rock and soul. Rather than to record covers of Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding songs, Country Joe McDonald chose to write his own brand of rock and soul music. Love, from the Fish's first album, is a good example of this.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Foxy Lady
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The first track on the original UK release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was buried toward the end of side 2 (and misspelled "Foxey Lady").
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Remember
Source: Mono LP: Are You Experienced? (European version)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original UK label: Track)
Year: 1967
It was common in the 1960s for artists to include "filler" material on their albums, with their best stuff being saved for single releases. Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience made making the best albums a priority, there was still material on their first LP that Hendrix himself considered filler. One of these was Remember, which was also one of three tracks deleted from the US version of the LP to make room for three UK singles that were not on the UK version of Are You Experienced. Still, filler for Jimi Hendrix is as good as or better than 99% of many other artists' best material, as can be heard here.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Love Or Confusion
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and the rhythm section dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. It's actually kind of fun to listen to with headphones on, as I did when I bought my first copy of the album on reel-to-reel tape (the tape deck was in the same room as the TV).
Artist: Standells
Title: All Fall Down
Source: CD: The Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Try It)
Writer(s): Dodd/Fleck
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Possibly the most overtly psychedelic tune in the Standells catalog, All Fall Down appeared on the band's third LP for Tower, Try It. Coincidentally, the album came out around the same time as Pink Floyd's debut LP on the same label, prompting some critics to make comparisons between All Fall Down and Floyd's Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year: 1967
Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Winds Of Change
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
The new Animals first album was Winds of Change, an ambitious effort that gave writing credit to all five band members for all the tracks on the album (with the exception of a cover version of the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black). The opening track is basically Eric Burdon paying tribute to all his musical heroes, and it's quite an impressive list, including jazz and blues greats as well as some of the most important names in the annals of rock and roll.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Omaha
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Bleeker Street
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Wednesday Morning, 3AM)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1964
One of the first of many "slice of life" songs from songwriter Paul Simon, Bleeker Street (a real street in New York's Greenwich Village) appeared on the first Simon And Garfunkel LP, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, in late 1964. The album did not initially sell well, and the duo actually split up shortly after it was deleted from the Columbia catalog. Following the success of an electrified remix of another song from the album, The Sound Of Silence, the pair reunited and Columbia reissued Wednesday Morning, 3AM in 1966.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Louie Louie
Source: Mono LP: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Richard Berry
Label: Columbia (original label: Sande)
Year: 1963
The greatest party song of all time came from the pen of Richard Berry, a west coast singer/bandleader who released his original "soft" version of the song in 1957. In 1963 two west coast bands, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere And The Raiders, recorded competing versions of the song within days of each other. The Kingsmen version, with its raw sound and unintelligible lyrics, became popular on the east coast, while the better-produced (and more professionally performed) Raiders version quickly went to the top of the charts on the west coast and Hawaii. Columbia Records picked up the band's contract and re-released the single nationally. Columbia's top A&R man, Mitch Miller, however, was a notorius rock and roll hater (as a listen to one of his old Sing Along With Mitch TV shows proves) and refused to promote the record. Eventually the Kingsmen version of Louie Louie went gold while the Raiders version has become little more than a footnote (although the band itself has always championed their recording of the song).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: The Last Time
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
Released in late winter of 1965, The Last Time was the first single to hit the top 10 in both the US and the UK (being their third consecutive #1 hit in England) and the first one written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Despite that, it would be overshadowed by their next release: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, which went to the top of the charts everywhere and ended up being the #1 song of 1965.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: She's A Rainbow
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
The only song from the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request album to get significant airplay in the US was She's A Rainbow, released as a single in the fall of '67. Oddly enough it was the single's B side, 2,000 Light Years From Home, that charted in Germany, while yet another song from the album, In Another Land, was released only in the UK and touted as the first Bill Wyman solo song (although still a Rolling Stones record). This perhaps is a reflection of the uncertainty surrounding the Rolling Stones' role in the world of rock at the time. That uncertainty would soon be dispelled when the band hired a new producer, Jimmy Miller, the following year and released Jumpin' Jack Flash, an undisputed classic that helped define the band for years to come.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Play With Fire
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1965
Generally when one thinks of the Rolling Stones the first thing that comes to mind is down to earth rock and roll songs such as Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women. The band has always had a more mellow side, however. In fact, the first Mick Jagger/Keith Richards compositions were of the slower variety, including Heart Of Stone and As Tears Go By. Even after the duo started cranking out faster-paced hits like 19th Nervous Breakdown and The Last Time, they continued to write softer songs such as Play With Fire, which made the charts as a B side in 1965. The lyrics of Play With Fire, with their sneering warning to not mess with the protagonist of the song, helped cement the Stones' image as the bad boys of rock and roll.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Sweet Young Thing
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Uptown)
Year: 1967
There is actually very little on vinyl that captures the flavor of how the Chocolate Watchband actually sounded when left to their own devices, as most of their recorded work was heavily influenced by producer Ed Cobb. One of the few recordings that does accurately represent the Watchband sound is Sweet Young Thing, the first single released under the band's real name (Blues Theme, an instrumental Watchband recording credited to the Hoggs, had been released in 1966 by Hanna-Barbera records).
Artist: Young Rascals
Title: What Is The Reason
Source: LP: Collections
Writer: Cavaliere/Brigati
Label: Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1967
My first high school dance was a Sadie Hawkins Day dance held at the General H. H. Arnold High School gym in Weisbaden, Germany. Onstage was a band of military brats calling themselves the Collections, so called because they covered every tune on the second Young Rascals album. That night (probably the best night of my entire freshman year, thanks to a sophomore whose name I've long since forgotten but who looked a lot like Cindy Williams in American Graffiti) inspired me to A): talk my parents into buying a cheap guitar and amp so I could join up with other guys who lived in our housing area to form "The Abundance Of Love", aka "The Haze And Shades Of Yesterday", aka "The Shades", and B) find and buy a copy of the Collections album (which ended up taking over 40 years to do).
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: CD: Steppenwolf the Second
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Volt
Year: 1966
Some may have questioned the appearance of a "soul" band like Sly and the Family Stone at what was essentially a rock festival at Woodstock, but there was precedent: Otis Redding had stolen the show at the first of the great rock festivals at Monterey two years earlier. One of the songs he electrified the crowd with was a hard-driving version of the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, heard here in its 1966 studio version, featuring the MGs and the Bar-Kays backing up the "big O".
Artist: Fugs
Title: I Couldn't Get High
Source: CD: The Fugs First Album (originally titled The Village Fugs)
Writer(s): Ken Weaver
Label: Fantasy (original labels: Broadside & ESP)
Year: 1965
Formed in 1964, the Fugs were the first (in their own words) "anarcho-socialist" street band of the rock era. Most of their songs contained language that was forbidden on the radio. Those that did not contain forbidden language had drug references, which essentially had the same result as far as getting top 40 airplay went. Not that anything by the Fugs would have ever been played on top 40 radio anyway. It was too raw, too sloppy, and too, well, uncommercial to ever get heard by the masses. Nonetheless, the Fugs managed to achieve legendary status over the years, serving as inspiration to groups like David Peel and the Lower East Side, the Ramones and the Patti Smith Group, among others. A fairly representative track that can be played without incurring any FCC sanctions is I Couldn't Get High, from the Fugs First Album. The album itself originally appeared in 1965 as The Village Fugs on the independent Broadside label. The following year the album was remixed and re-released on the ESP label as the Fugs First Album, and was digitally remastered and committed to CD by Fantasy Records in 1994.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Reverberation
Source: CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s): Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label: Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
From the original liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators: "Reverberation is the root of all inability to cope with environment. Doubt causes negative emotions which reverberate and hamper all constructive thought. If a person learns and organizes his knowledge in the right way---with perfect cross-reference---he need not experience doubt or hesitation." Pretty heady stuff for the year that brought us the Monkees.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Matilda Mother
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Listening to tracks like Matilda Mother, I can't help but wonder where Pink Floyd might have gone if Syd Barrett had not succumbed to mental illness following the release of the band's first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in 1967. Unlike the rest of the band members, Barrett had the ability to write songs that were not only adventurous, but commercially viable as singles as well. After Barrett's departure, it took the group several years to become commercially successful on their own terms (although they obviously did). We'll never know what they may have done in the intervening years were Barrett still at the helm.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Unknown Soldier
Source: LP: 13 (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1968
One of the oddest recordings to get played on top 40 radio was the Door's 1968 single The Unknown Soldier. The song is notable for having it's own promotional film made by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had been a film major at UCLA when the Doors were formed. It's not known whether the song was written with the film in mind (or vice versa), but the two have a much greater synergy than your average music video.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Mellow Yellow
Source: Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1966
Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to his ongoing contract dispute with Pye Records.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Season Of The Witch
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Season Of The Witch has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring tracks on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the album was not released in the UK until late 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Like all tracks from both Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, Season Of The Witch was only available in a mono mix until 1969, when a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track masters for the singer/songwriter's first greatest hits compilation. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.
Artist: Donovan
Title: The Observation
Source: Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
Donovan was at first hailed as Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, but by 1967 he was proving that he was much more than that. The Observation, with its distinctive use of an acoustic double-bass, is one of many innovative tunes that helped redefine Donovan from folk singer to singer/songwriter, transforming the entire genre in the process.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Love Seems Doomed
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala/Esposito
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
Unlike most of the tracks on the Blues Magoos' 1966 Debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, Love Seems Doomed is a slow, moody piece with a message. Along with the Paul Revere and the Raiders hit Kicks from earlier that year, Love Seems Doomed is one of the first songs by a rock band to carry a decidedly anti-drug message. While Kicks warned of the addictive qualities of drugs (particularly the phenomenon of the need larger doses of a drug to achieve the same effect over time), Love Seems Doomed focused more on how addiction affects the user's relationships, particularly those of a romantic nature. Love Seems Doomed is also a more subtle song than Kicks, which tends to hit the listener over the head with its message.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1424 (starts 6/11/14)
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1965
San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small (at the time) city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities were considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page).
Artist: Brigands
Title: (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kris/Arthur Resnick
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Virtually nothing is known about the Brigands, other than the fact that they recorded in New York City. Their only single was a forgettable piece of imitation British pop, but the B side, (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man, holds up surprising well. The song itself was written by the husband and wife team of Kris and Artie Resnick, who would end up writing a series of bubble gum hits issued under various band names on the Buddah label in 1968.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Slip Inside This House
Source: CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s): Hall/Erickson
Label: Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1967
The 13th Floor Elevators returned from their only California tour in time to celebrate Christmas of 1966 in their native Texas. Not long after that things began to fall apart for the band. Much of this can be attributed to bad management, but at least some of the problems were internal in nature. Lead guitarist Stacy Southerland was caught with marijuana in the trunk of his car, thus causing his probation to be revoked, which in turn meant he was not allowed to leave the Lone Star state. This in turn caused the entire rhythm section to head off for San Francisco, leaving Southerland, along with Tommy Hall and Roky Erickson, to find replacement members in time to start work on the band's second album, Easter Everywhere. Despite this, the album itself came out remarkably well, and is now considered a high point of the psychedelic era. Unlike the first 13th Floor Elevators album, Easter Everywhere was designed to be a primarily spiritual work. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's opening track, the eight-minute epic Slip Inside This House. Written primarily by Hall, Slip Inside This House was intended to "establish the syncretic concepts behind Western and Eastern religions, science and mysticism, and consolidate them into one body of work that would help redefine the divine essence". Whether he succeeded or not is a matter of opinion; the track itself is certainly worth hearing for yourself. Enjoy.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: A Public Execution
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1965
It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousins down in Tyler. Mouse and the Traps, in fact, got quite a bit of airplay in that part of the state with a series of singles issued in the mid-60s. A Public Execution is unique among those singles in that the artist on the label was listed simply as Mouse.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Priority (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released to the L.A. market as a single in 1965 and included on side one of the first Seeds album the following year. After being re-released as a single the song did well enough to go national in early 1967, hitting its peak in February of that year.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Kozmic Blues
Source: LP: I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s): Joplin/Mekler
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
After she parted company with Big Brother and the Holding Company following the Cheap Thrills album, Janis Joplin got to work forming a new band that would come to be known as the Kozmic Blues Band. Unlike Big Brother, this new band included a horn section, and leaned more toward R&B than the earlier band's hard rocking sound. Joplin released only one studio album with the Kozmic Blues Band, 1969's I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although the album sold well, it was savaged by the rock press. Still, there were some standout tracks on the album, including the title tune of sorts, Kozmic Blues. Joplin made several live appearances with this group, including the Woodstock performing arts festival, before disbanding the unit in favor of a smaller group, the Full-Tilt Boogie Band.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Teen Angel
Source: Mono British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
For the B side of Donovan's 1968 single, Hurdy Gurdy Man, the Scottish singer/songwriter recorded one of his older songs, Teen Angel. Unlike the A side, this track is a quiet, folky piece with minimal instrumentation.
Artist: Who
Title: Sunrise
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
One of the nicest tunes on The Who Sell Out is Sunrise, which is actually a Pete Townshend solo tune featuring Townshend's vocals and acoustic guitar. One of my favorites.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: As The World Rises And Falls
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's third album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is generally considered their best, and for good reason. The album includes some of guitarist Ron Morgan's finest contributions, including the gently flowing As The World Rises And Falls. Even Bob Markley's lyrics, which could run the range from inane to somewhat disturbing, here come across as poetic and original. Unfortunately for the band, Morgan was by this time quite disenchanted with the whole thing, and would often not even show up to record. Nonetheless, the band continued on for a couple more years (and two more albums) before finally calling it quits in 1970.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Delicate Fawn
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band made it a point to emphasize the fact that they had complete artistic control of their second LP for Reprise, Volume II. The album itself lives up to the band's name, as many of the songs are indeed quite experimental. The song Delicate Fawn is in a sense prophetic, as vocalist Bob Markley would find himself on the wrong side of the law over issues involving underage girls in the 1970s.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: 1906 (mono single mix)
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
A while back I was in contact with Robert Morgan, brother of the late Ron Morgan, guitarist for the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. I asked him if his brother had ever received royalties from songs like 1906, which was essentially a Morgan composition with spoken lyrics tacked on by bandleader/vocalist Bob Markley. He replied that Ron had received a check for something like eight dollars shortly before his death, but that he had always felt that Markley had paid him fairly for his services. He then went on to say that Ron Morgan was more interested in making his mark than in getting any financial compensation. Attitudes like that are a big part of why I do this show. It's hard to imagine many of today's pop stars making a statement like that and meaning it.
Artist: Castaways
Title: Liar Liar
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): James Donna
Label: Eric (original label: Soma)
Year: 1965
The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves with their song Liar Liar for a couple months before fading off into obscurity.
Artist: Animals
Title: Bright Lights, Big City
Source: LP: On Tour
Writer(s): Jimmy Reed
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1965
The Animals, especially in their early years, did not write much of their own material. Their singles were, for the most part, chosen by their producer, Mickey Most, while their album tracks were almost exclusively covers of 50s and early 60s Rhythm and Blues classics. Among those was Jimmy Reed's Bright Lights, Big City, a song originally released in 1961. The Animals version alternates between an approximation of Reed's own "steady-rolling" style and a more frenetic pace, with vocalist Eric Burdon putting on one of his finest performances throughout.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. He declined.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Lime Street Blues
Source: 45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Anyone expecting more of the same when flipping over their new copy of A Whiter Shade Of Pale in 1967 got a big surprise when they heard Lime Street Blues. The song, reminiscent of an early Ray Charles track, was strong enough to be included on their first greatest hits collection, no mean feat for a B side.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In)
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: No Way Out)
Writer(s): McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The Chocolate Watchband are unique in that they managed to attain legendary status in spite of their record label or even their own management. The band started off well enough; a group of guys enrolled at Foothills Junior College in what would become Silicon Valley forming a band to play mostly covers by such hard-edged British bands as the Kinks and the Rolling Stones. The problems started when they signed a management contract with Ed Cobb, who also managed and produced the Standells and other garage-punk bands. Cobb, at that point, was looking to make inroads with the crowd that was buying records by the Seeds and other flower power groups, and tried his best to reshape the Watchband into a more psychedelic sound. Unfortunately, the band was really not suited to what Cobb wanted, so Cobb brought in studio musicians to present his musical vision. The result was a pair of albums that both sounded like they had been recorded by two entirely different groups...because they had (some tracks even had a studio lead vocalist on them). One of the few true Watchband tracks is Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album. The irony about this track 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: Beatles
Title: Rock And Roll Music
Source: Mono CD: Beatles For Sale
Writer(s): Chuck Berry
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1964
John Lennon once told Dick Cavett that if they couldn't call it rock and roll they'd have to call it Chuck Berry, a line that sums up the regard that Lennon held for the rock pioneer. It should be no surprise, then, that in the Beatles' early years they performed, and sometimes recorded, a lot of Chuck Berry covers. Possibly the best of them was Rock And Roll Music, which the group recorded for their fourth LP, Beatles For Sale. Since there was no album released in the US called Beatles For Sale, this track did not appear on this side of the Atlantic until December of 1964, when it was included on an album called Beatles '65. As you might expect, John does the vocals on this one.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: May This Be Love
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The original UK version of Are You Experienced featured May This Be Love as the opening track of side two of the album. In the US, the UK single The Wind Cries Mary was substituted for it, with May This Be Love buried deep on side one. It's obvious that Hendrix thought more highly of the song than the people at Reprise who picked the track order for the US album.
Artist: Liberation News Service
Title: Mid-Winter's Afternoon
Source: Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Esko
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Esko)
Year: 1967
Liberation News Service was a Philadelphia band founded in 1965 by the Esko brothers, Ed and Jeff. Their first release was Mid-Winter's Afternoon, released on the band's own Esko label in 1967. Not long after its release the band added a new lead vocalist and changed their name to the Esko Affair, eventually getting a contract with Mercury Records and releasing singles in 1968 and 1969.
Artist: Doors
Title: Light My Fire
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first Doors album was the only one to be released in both mono and stereo versions. Due to an error in the mastering process the stereo version was slowed down by about 3.5%, or about half a step in musical terms. As the mono version was deleted from the Elektra catalog soon after the album's release, the error went unnoticed for many years until a college professor contacted engineer Bruce Botnick and told him of the discrepancy. This particular mono copy of the album is a bit worn, but still listenable. See if you can tell the difference.
Artist: E-Types
Title: Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
The E-Types were from Salinas, California, which at the time was known among travelers along US 101 mostly for it's sulfiric smell. As many people from Salinas apparently went to nearby San Jose as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene there, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. Since the Standells were already known as a garage-rock band (although they were really a bar band), Cobb tried positioning the Watchband as a psychedelic band (they were really more of a garage band) and the E-Types as a pop-rock band (although they were probably the most psychedelic of the three), hooking them up with the same Bonner/Gordon songwriting team that would soon be receiving fat royalty checks from songs like Happy Together and She's My Girl, both hits for the Turtles. Put The Clock Back On The Wall was actually titled after a popular phase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space), generally due to the influence of certain mind-altering chemicals, it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer. The song was originally released in early 1967, shortly before Happy Together hit the charts.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Flight 505
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
For years it was rumored that the Rolling Stones' Flight 505 was about the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly in 1959. In all likelihood, however, the song's title came from the fact that the band's first trip to the US in 1964 was on BOAC flight 505, a forgotten memory that probably was in the back of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' minds when they were coming up with material for the Aftermath album, which was released in early 1966. In fact, Aftermath was the Stones' first LP to be made up entirely of tunes composed by Jagger and Richards, who were writing songs at a record pace at the time. The song features the "sixth Stone" Ian Stewart, on piano. Stewart had originally been a performing member of the band, but became their road manager before they began their recording career.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Prodigal Son
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Robert Wilkins
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones always had a fondness for American Roots music, but by 1967 had largely abandoned the genre in favor of more modern sounds such as pychedelia. The 1968 album Beggar's Banquet, however, marked a return to the band's own roots and included such tunes as Prodigal Son, which at first was credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. In reality the song was written by the Reverend Robert Wilkins, and has since been acknowledged as such.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Under My Thumb
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
With the exception of certain Beatle tracks, pretty much every well-known song from the beginning of recorded music through the year 1966 had been released as a single either on 45 or 78 RPM records (and for a while in the 1950s, on both). With Under My Thumb, from the Aftermath album, the Rolling Stones proved that someone besides the fab four could record a classic that was available only as a 33 1/3 RPM LP track. In a sense, then, Aftermath can be considered the very foundation of album rock, as more and groups put their most creative energy into making albums rather than singles in the ensuing years. Thanks, Stones.
Artist: Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show
Title: Hey, Lady Godiva
Source: LP: Doctor Hook
Writer(s): Shel Silversteen
Label: Columbia
Year: 1971
One of the most unusual bands in rock history was a group originally known as Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show. With a sound that owed as much to the vaudeville tradition as it did to rock and roll, the group was seen as the perfect vehicle for songs written by Shel Silversteen for the film Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About Me. Following work on the film's soundtrack, the group signed with Columbia Records, where they continued to record Silversteen's tunes. Among those tunes was the band's first hit, Sylvia's Mother, as well as Hey, Lady Godiva, a humorous take on history's most famous equestrian nudist. Both songs appear on the band's first album, entitled Doctor Hook. As time went on, the group turned to more serious pop songs like When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman, shortening their name to Doctor Hook in the process.
Artist: Syd Barrett
Title: No Good Trying
Source: British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: The Madcap Laughs)
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
After parting company with Pink Floyd in 1968, Syd Barrett made an aborted attempt at recording a solo album. After spending several months in psychiatric care, Barrett resumed work on the project in April of 1969, recording the basic tracks for songs such as It's No Good Trying with producer Malcolm Jones. In May of 1969 Barrett brought in three members of the Soft Machine to record overdubs for several songs, including No Good Trying (the "It's" having mysteriously disappeared from the song title). Barrett then added some backwards guitar, and the final track appeared on his 1970 LP The Madcap Laughs.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Brave New World
Source: LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1969
It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the film itself.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: The Pusher
Source: CD: Easy Rider Soundtrack (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s): Hoyt Axton
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
While AM radio was all over Born To Be Wild in 1968 (taking the song all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts), the edgier FM stations were playing heavier tunes from the debut Steppenwolf album. The most controversial (and thus most popular) of these heavier tunes was Hoyt Axton's The Pusher, with it's repeated use of the line "God damn the Pusher." Axton himself did not record the song until 1971, at which point the song was already burned indelibly in the public consciousness as a Steppenwolf tune.
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: All Tomorrow's Parties
Source: CD: The Velvet Underground And Nico
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
If nothing else characterized the lifestyle of Andy Warhol, it was the sheer number of people who always seemed to be hanging around. This was especially noticable at the numerous parties Warhol would throw. In late 1966 and early 1967 the Velvet Underground was part of this scene, and the band's main songwriter, Lou Reed, took advantage of the situation to come up All Tomorrow's Parties for the band's debut LP, The Velvet Underground And Nico. Although the song was somewhat satiric, it was reportedly Warhol's personal favorite Velvet Underground tune.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: The Flute Thing
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
The Blues Project was one of the most influential bands in rock history, yet to this day remains one of the most obscure. Perhaps the first of the "underground" rock bands, the Project made their name by playing small colleges across the country (including Hobart College, where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is produced). The Flute Thing, from the group's first studio LP, Projections, features bassist Andy Kuhlberg on flute, with rhythm guitarist Steve Katz taking over the bass playing, joining lead guitarist Danny Kalb and keyboardist Al Kooper for a tune that owes more to jazz artists like Roland Kirk than to anything top 40 rock had to offer at the time.
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1965
San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small (at the time) city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities were considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page).
Artist: Brigands
Title: (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kris/Arthur Resnick
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Virtually nothing is known about the Brigands, other than the fact that they recorded in New York City. Their only single was a forgettable piece of imitation British pop, but the B side, (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man, holds up surprising well. The song itself was written by the husband and wife team of Kris and Artie Resnick, who would end up writing a series of bubble gum hits issued under various band names on the Buddah label in 1968.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Slip Inside This House
Source: CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s): Hall/Erickson
Label: Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1967
The 13th Floor Elevators returned from their only California tour in time to celebrate Christmas of 1966 in their native Texas. Not long after that things began to fall apart for the band. Much of this can be attributed to bad management, but at least some of the problems were internal in nature. Lead guitarist Stacy Southerland was caught with marijuana in the trunk of his car, thus causing his probation to be revoked, which in turn meant he was not allowed to leave the Lone Star state. This in turn caused the entire rhythm section to head off for San Francisco, leaving Southerland, along with Tommy Hall and Roky Erickson, to find replacement members in time to start work on the band's second album, Easter Everywhere. Despite this, the album itself came out remarkably well, and is now considered a high point of the psychedelic era. Unlike the first 13th Floor Elevators album, Easter Everywhere was designed to be a primarily spiritual work. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's opening track, the eight-minute epic Slip Inside This House. Written primarily by Hall, Slip Inside This House was intended to "establish the syncretic concepts behind Western and Eastern religions, science and mysticism, and consolidate them into one body of work that would help redefine the divine essence". Whether he succeeded or not is a matter of opinion; the track itself is certainly worth hearing for yourself. Enjoy.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: A Public Execution
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1965
It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousins down in Tyler. Mouse and the Traps, in fact, got quite a bit of airplay in that part of the state with a series of singles issued in the mid-60s. A Public Execution is unique among those singles in that the artist on the label was listed simply as Mouse.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Priority (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released to the L.A. market as a single in 1965 and included on side one of the first Seeds album the following year. After being re-released as a single the song did well enough to go national in early 1967, hitting its peak in February of that year.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Kozmic Blues
Source: LP: I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s): Joplin/Mekler
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
After she parted company with Big Brother and the Holding Company following the Cheap Thrills album, Janis Joplin got to work forming a new band that would come to be known as the Kozmic Blues Band. Unlike Big Brother, this new band included a horn section, and leaned more toward R&B than the earlier band's hard rocking sound. Joplin released only one studio album with the Kozmic Blues Band, 1969's I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although the album sold well, it was savaged by the rock press. Still, there were some standout tracks on the album, including the title tune of sorts, Kozmic Blues. Joplin made several live appearances with this group, including the Woodstock performing arts festival, before disbanding the unit in favor of a smaller group, the Full-Tilt Boogie Band.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Teen Angel
Source: Mono British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
For the B side of Donovan's 1968 single, Hurdy Gurdy Man, the Scottish singer/songwriter recorded one of his older songs, Teen Angel. Unlike the A side, this track is a quiet, folky piece with minimal instrumentation.
Artist: Who
Title: Sunrise
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
One of the nicest tunes on The Who Sell Out is Sunrise, which is actually a Pete Townshend solo tune featuring Townshend's vocals and acoustic guitar. One of my favorites.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: As The World Rises And Falls
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's third album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is generally considered their best, and for good reason. The album includes some of guitarist Ron Morgan's finest contributions, including the gently flowing As The World Rises And Falls. Even Bob Markley's lyrics, which could run the range from inane to somewhat disturbing, here come across as poetic and original. Unfortunately for the band, Morgan was by this time quite disenchanted with the whole thing, and would often not even show up to record. Nonetheless, the band continued on for a couple more years (and two more albums) before finally calling it quits in 1970.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Delicate Fawn
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band made it a point to emphasize the fact that they had complete artistic control of their second LP for Reprise, Volume II. The album itself lives up to the band's name, as many of the songs are indeed quite experimental. The song Delicate Fawn is in a sense prophetic, as vocalist Bob Markley would find himself on the wrong side of the law over issues involving underage girls in the 1970s.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: 1906 (mono single mix)
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
A while back I was in contact with Robert Morgan, brother of the late Ron Morgan, guitarist for the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. I asked him if his brother had ever received royalties from songs like 1906, which was essentially a Morgan composition with spoken lyrics tacked on by bandleader/vocalist Bob Markley. He replied that Ron had received a check for something like eight dollars shortly before his death, but that he had always felt that Markley had paid him fairly for his services. He then went on to say that Ron Morgan was more interested in making his mark than in getting any financial compensation. Attitudes like that are a big part of why I do this show. It's hard to imagine many of today's pop stars making a statement like that and meaning it.
Artist: Castaways
Title: Liar Liar
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): James Donna
Label: Eric (original label: Soma)
Year: 1965
The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves with their song Liar Liar for a couple months before fading off into obscurity.
Artist: Animals
Title: Bright Lights, Big City
Source: LP: On Tour
Writer(s): Jimmy Reed
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1965
The Animals, especially in their early years, did not write much of their own material. Their singles were, for the most part, chosen by their producer, Mickey Most, while their album tracks were almost exclusively covers of 50s and early 60s Rhythm and Blues classics. Among those was Jimmy Reed's Bright Lights, Big City, a song originally released in 1961. The Animals version alternates between an approximation of Reed's own "steady-rolling" style and a more frenetic pace, with vocalist Eric Burdon putting on one of his finest performances throughout.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. He declined.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Lime Street Blues
Source: 45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Anyone expecting more of the same when flipping over their new copy of A Whiter Shade Of Pale in 1967 got a big surprise when they heard Lime Street Blues. The song, reminiscent of an early Ray Charles track, was strong enough to be included on their first greatest hits collection, no mean feat for a B side.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In)
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: No Way Out)
Writer(s): McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The Chocolate Watchband are unique in that they managed to attain legendary status in spite of their record label or even their own management. The band started off well enough; a group of guys enrolled at Foothills Junior College in what would become Silicon Valley forming a band to play mostly covers by such hard-edged British bands as the Kinks and the Rolling Stones. The problems started when they signed a management contract with Ed Cobb, who also managed and produced the Standells and other garage-punk bands. Cobb, at that point, was looking to make inroads with the crowd that was buying records by the Seeds and other flower power groups, and tried his best to reshape the Watchband into a more psychedelic sound. Unfortunately, the band was really not suited to what Cobb wanted, so Cobb brought in studio musicians to present his musical vision. The result was a pair of albums that both sounded like they had been recorded by two entirely different groups...because they had (some tracks even had a studio lead vocalist on them). One of the few true Watchband tracks is Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album. The irony about this track 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: Beatles
Title: Rock And Roll Music
Source: Mono CD: Beatles For Sale
Writer(s): Chuck Berry
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1964
John Lennon once told Dick Cavett that if they couldn't call it rock and roll they'd have to call it Chuck Berry, a line that sums up the regard that Lennon held for the rock pioneer. It should be no surprise, then, that in the Beatles' early years they performed, and sometimes recorded, a lot of Chuck Berry covers. Possibly the best of them was Rock And Roll Music, which the group recorded for their fourth LP, Beatles For Sale. Since there was no album released in the US called Beatles For Sale, this track did not appear on this side of the Atlantic until December of 1964, when it was included on an album called Beatles '65. As you might expect, John does the vocals on this one.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: May This Be Love
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The original UK version of Are You Experienced featured May This Be Love as the opening track of side two of the album. In the US, the UK single The Wind Cries Mary was substituted for it, with May This Be Love buried deep on side one. It's obvious that Hendrix thought more highly of the song than the people at Reprise who picked the track order for the US album.
Artist: Liberation News Service
Title: Mid-Winter's Afternoon
Source: Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Esko
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Esko)
Year: 1967
Liberation News Service was a Philadelphia band founded in 1965 by the Esko brothers, Ed and Jeff. Their first release was Mid-Winter's Afternoon, released on the band's own Esko label in 1967. Not long after its release the band added a new lead vocalist and changed their name to the Esko Affair, eventually getting a contract with Mercury Records and releasing singles in 1968 and 1969.
Artist: Doors
Title: Light My Fire
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first Doors album was the only one to be released in both mono and stereo versions. Due to an error in the mastering process the stereo version was slowed down by about 3.5%, or about half a step in musical terms. As the mono version was deleted from the Elektra catalog soon after the album's release, the error went unnoticed for many years until a college professor contacted engineer Bruce Botnick and told him of the discrepancy. This particular mono copy of the album is a bit worn, but still listenable. See if you can tell the difference.
Artist: E-Types
Title: Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
The E-Types were from Salinas, California, which at the time was known among travelers along US 101 mostly for it's sulfiric smell. As many people from Salinas apparently went to nearby San Jose as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene there, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. Since the Standells were already known as a garage-rock band (although they were really a bar band), Cobb tried positioning the Watchband as a psychedelic band (they were really more of a garage band) and the E-Types as a pop-rock band (although they were probably the most psychedelic of the three), hooking them up with the same Bonner/Gordon songwriting team that would soon be receiving fat royalty checks from songs like Happy Together and She's My Girl, both hits for the Turtles. Put The Clock Back On The Wall was actually titled after a popular phase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space), generally due to the influence of certain mind-altering chemicals, it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer. The song was originally released in early 1967, shortly before Happy Together hit the charts.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Flight 505
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
For years it was rumored that the Rolling Stones' Flight 505 was about the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly in 1959. In all likelihood, however, the song's title came from the fact that the band's first trip to the US in 1964 was on BOAC flight 505, a forgotten memory that probably was in the back of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' minds when they were coming up with material for the Aftermath album, which was released in early 1966. In fact, Aftermath was the Stones' first LP to be made up entirely of tunes composed by Jagger and Richards, who were writing songs at a record pace at the time. The song features the "sixth Stone" Ian Stewart, on piano. Stewart had originally been a performing member of the band, but became their road manager before they began their recording career.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Prodigal Son
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Robert Wilkins
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones always had a fondness for American Roots music, but by 1967 had largely abandoned the genre in favor of more modern sounds such as pychedelia. The 1968 album Beggar's Banquet, however, marked a return to the band's own roots and included such tunes as Prodigal Son, which at first was credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. In reality the song was written by the Reverend Robert Wilkins, and has since been acknowledged as such.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Under My Thumb
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
With the exception of certain Beatle tracks, pretty much every well-known song from the beginning of recorded music through the year 1966 had been released as a single either on 45 or 78 RPM records (and for a while in the 1950s, on both). With Under My Thumb, from the Aftermath album, the Rolling Stones proved that someone besides the fab four could record a classic that was available only as a 33 1/3 RPM LP track. In a sense, then, Aftermath can be considered the very foundation of album rock, as more and groups put their most creative energy into making albums rather than singles in the ensuing years. Thanks, Stones.
Artist: Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show
Title: Hey, Lady Godiva
Source: LP: Doctor Hook
Writer(s): Shel Silversteen
Label: Columbia
Year: 1971
One of the most unusual bands in rock history was a group originally known as Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show. With a sound that owed as much to the vaudeville tradition as it did to rock and roll, the group was seen as the perfect vehicle for songs written by Shel Silversteen for the film Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About Me. Following work on the film's soundtrack, the group signed with Columbia Records, where they continued to record Silversteen's tunes. Among those tunes was the band's first hit, Sylvia's Mother, as well as Hey, Lady Godiva, a humorous take on history's most famous equestrian nudist. Both songs appear on the band's first album, entitled Doctor Hook. As time went on, the group turned to more serious pop songs like When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman, shortening their name to Doctor Hook in the process.
Artist: Syd Barrett
Title: No Good Trying
Source: British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: The Madcap Laughs)
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
After parting company with Pink Floyd in 1968, Syd Barrett made an aborted attempt at recording a solo album. After spending several months in psychiatric care, Barrett resumed work on the project in April of 1969, recording the basic tracks for songs such as It's No Good Trying with producer Malcolm Jones. In May of 1969 Barrett brought in three members of the Soft Machine to record overdubs for several songs, including No Good Trying (the "It's" having mysteriously disappeared from the song title). Barrett then added some backwards guitar, and the final track appeared on his 1970 LP The Madcap Laughs.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Brave New World
Source: LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1969
It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the film itself.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: The Pusher
Source: CD: Easy Rider Soundtrack (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s): Hoyt Axton
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
While AM radio was all over Born To Be Wild in 1968 (taking the song all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts), the edgier FM stations were playing heavier tunes from the debut Steppenwolf album. The most controversial (and thus most popular) of these heavier tunes was Hoyt Axton's The Pusher, with it's repeated use of the line "God damn the Pusher." Axton himself did not record the song until 1971, at which point the song was already burned indelibly in the public consciousness as a Steppenwolf tune.
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: All Tomorrow's Parties
Source: CD: The Velvet Underground And Nico
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
If nothing else characterized the lifestyle of Andy Warhol, it was the sheer number of people who always seemed to be hanging around. This was especially noticable at the numerous parties Warhol would throw. In late 1966 and early 1967 the Velvet Underground was part of this scene, and the band's main songwriter, Lou Reed, took advantage of the situation to come up All Tomorrow's Parties for the band's debut LP, The Velvet Underground And Nico. Although the song was somewhat satiric, it was reportedly Warhol's personal favorite Velvet Underground tune.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: The Flute Thing
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
The Blues Project was one of the most influential bands in rock history, yet to this day remains one of the most obscure. Perhaps the first of the "underground" rock bands, the Project made their name by playing small colleges across the country (including Hobart College, where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is produced). The Flute Thing, from the group's first studio LP, Projections, features bassist Andy Kuhlberg on flute, with rhythm guitarist Steve Katz taking over the bass playing, joining lead guitarist Danny Kalb and keyboardist Al Kooper for a tune that owes more to jazz artists like Roland Kirk than to anything top 40 rock had to offer at the time.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1423 (starts 6/4/14)
Artist: Traffic
Title: Paper Sun
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
One of the first British acid-rock bands was a group called Deep Feeling, which included drummer Jim Capaldi and woodwind player Chris Wood. At the same time Deep Feeling was experimenting with psychedelia, another, more commercially oriented band, the Spencer Davis Group, was tearing up the British top 40 charts with hits like Keep On Running, Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man. The undisputed star of the Spencer Davis Group was a teenaged guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist named Steve Winwood, who was also beginning to make his mark as a songwriter. Along with guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, who had worked with Capaldi in earlier bands, they formed Traffic in the spring of 1967, releasing their first single, Paper Sun, in May of that year. Capaldi and Winwood had actually written the tune while Winwood was still in the Spencer Davis Group, and the song was an immediate hit in the UK. This was followed quickly by an album, Mr. Fantasy, that, as was the common practice at the time in the UK, did not include Paper Sun. When the album was picked up by United Artists Records for US release in early 1968, however, Paper Sun was included as the LP's opening track. The US version of the album was originally titled Heaven Is In Your Mind, but was quickly retitled Mr. Fantasy to match the original British title (although the alterations in track listing stayed).
Artist: Love
Title: Old Man
Source: CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Bryan MacLean
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the band. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, was actually one of the first tracks recorded for Forever Changes. At the time, the band's rhythm section was more into sex and drugs than rock and roll, and McLean and Lee arranged to have studio musicians play on Old Man, as well as on one of Lee's songs. The rest of the group was so stunned by this development that they were able to temporarily get their act together long enough to complete the album. Nonetheless, the two tunes with studio musicians were left as is, although reportedly Ken Forssi did step in to show Carol Kaye how the bass part should be played (ironic, since Kaye is estimated to have played on over 10,000 recordings in her long career as a studio musician).
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Rock And Roll Woman
Source: LP: Buffalo Springfield Again
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth). Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock and Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 40 years after it was recorded.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Dark Side Of The Mushroom
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Cooper/Podolor
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Just who played on Dark Side Of The Mushroom is lost to history. What is certain, however, is that it is not the Chocolate Watchband, despite its inclusion on that band's debut LP. Producer Ed Cobb apparently had his own agenda when it came to the Watchband, which included making them sound much more psychedelic on vinyl than when they performed onstage (in fact it is doubtful that Cobb ever actually attended any of the band's live gigs). To accomplish his goal, Cobb enlisted the help of songwriter/musician Richie Podolor, who would later go on to produce Three Dog Night's records. Podolor put together the group of anonymous studio musicians that recorded Dark Side Of The Mushroom, which, despite its shady history, is a decent slice of instrumental psychedelia.
Artist: Association
Title: Along Comes Mary
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Tandyn Almer
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Valiant)
Year: 1966
The Association are best known for a series of love ballads and light pop songs such as Cherish, Never My Love and Windy. Many of these records were a product of the L.A. studio scene and featured several members of the Wrecking Crew, the studio musicians who played on dozens of records in the late 60s and early 70s. The first major Association hit, however, featured the band members playing all the instruments themselves. Produced (and possibly co-written) by Curt Boettcher, who would soon join Gary Usher's studio project Sagittarius, Along Comes Mary shows that the Association was quite capable of recording a classic without any help from studio musicians.
Artist: Supremes
Title: Reflections
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Motown
Year: 1967
The Supremes weren't exactly known as a psychedelic group, nor were their primary songwriters, Lamont Dozier and the Holland brothers. Nonetheless, together they produced one of the most psychedelic tunes ever to come out of Motown. Well, it was 1967, after all.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: No Expectations
Source: CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1968
After the heavy dose of studio effects on Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones took a back-to-basics approach for their next album, Beggar's Banquet, the first to be produced by Jimmy Miller (who had previously worked with Steve Winwood in Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group). No Expectations, the second track on the album, uses minimal instrumentation and places a greater emphasis on Mick Jagger's vocals and Brian Jones's slide guitar work. Sadly, it was to be Jones's last album as a member of the Rolling Stones, as heavy drug use was already taking its toll (and would soon take his life as well).
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Planet Caravan
Source: CD: Paranoid
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
Many rock musicians are also science fiction fans. Why this should be is a bit of a mystery, but it is a fact nonetheless. As a result, some of the coolest rock songs have science fiction overtones. A case in point is Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan, from their second LP, Paranoid. The use of minor and diminished chords, along with weird studio effects like running Ozzy Osbourne's vocals through the rotating horns of a Leslie cabinet, gives Planet Caravan a decidedly otherworldly feel (the song's title and lyrics don't hurt, either).
Artist: Spirit
Title: Fresh Garbage
Source: LP: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic (original label: Ode)
Year: 1968
Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a fairly hard rocker and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Girl In Your Eye
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Spirit was born in 1965 when drummer Ed Cassidy left the Rising Sons after breaking his arm and settled down with his new wife, who had a teenaged son named Randy. It wasn't long before Ed and Randy (who played guitar) formed a new band called the Red Roosters. The group lasted until the spring of 1966, when the family moved to New York for a few months, where Randy jammed up with an unknown guitarist named Jimi Hendrix for the summer. After returning to California, Randy ran into two of his Red Roosters bandmates, singer Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes, and decided to form a new band with Cassidy and keyboardist John Locke. Both Cassidy and Locke had played in jazz bands, and the new band, Spirit, incorporated both rock and jazz elements into their sound. Most of the songs of the band's 1968 debut album were written by Ferguson, who tended to favor a softer sound on tracks like Girl In Your Eye. On later albums Randy California would take a greater share in the songwriting, eventually becoming the only original member to stay with the band throughout its history.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Taurus
Source: LP: Spirit
Writer(s): Randy California
Label: Epic (original label: Ode)
Year: 1968
After the release of Spirit's debut album they went on tour, with a new band, Led Zeppelin, opening for them. I mention this just in case you happen to notice any similarity between the opening acoustic guitar riff on this song and the one on "Stairway To Heaven", which was released three or four years later. I bet you thought Jimmy Page only ripped off blues legends like Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon.
Artist: Nashville Teens
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: John D. Loudermilk
Label: KTel (original label: London)
Year: 1964
The Nashville Teens were not teens. Nor were they from Nashville. In fact, they were one of the original British Invasion bands. Their version of John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road was a huge international hit in the summer of 1964. The lead guitar parts on the recording are the work of studio musician Jimmy Page.
Artist: Cream
Title: Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
Right from the beginning Cream demonstrated two distinct sides: the psychedelic-tinged studio side and the blues-based live performance side. In the case of the US version of the band's first LP, Fresh Cream, that was literally true, as side one consisted entirely of original songs (mostly written by bassist Jack Bruce) and side two was nearly all covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'. What makes this particular recording interesting is the instrumentation used: guitar, vocals, harmonica and drums, with no bass whatsoever. This could be due to the limited number of tracks available for overdubs. Just as likely, though, is the possibility that the band chose to make a recording that duplicated their live performance of the song.
Artist: Van Der Graaf Generator
Title: People You Were Going To (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: Mono British import CD: Spirit Of Joy
Writer(s): Peter Hammill
Label: Polydor
Year: 1969
One of the rarest records ever released was Van Der Graff's debut single, People You Were Going To. The record was released on the UK Polydor label in January of 1969, but was almost immediately withdrawn due to the fact that the band's leader, Peter Hammill, had signed a contract with Mercury Records the previous year. The Mercury contract was so bad, however, that the rest of the band members refused to sign it, and for a while it looked like Van Der Graaf Generator would be little more than a footnote in the history of British Rock. Later that year, however, Hammill began work on a solo album that appeared under the name Van Der Graaf Generator, but only in the US. Nonetheless, it was enough to fulfill the terms of his Mercury contract, freeing Hammill up to reform the band and sign with the Charisma label, where they established themselves as one of the top progressive rock bands of the 1970s.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Head soundtrack)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1968
In 1968 the Monkees, trying desperately to shed a teeny-bopper image, enlisted Jack Nicholson to co-write a feature film that was a 180-degree departure from their recently-cancelled TV show. This made sense, since the original fans of the show were by then already outgrowing the group. Unfortunately, by 1968 the Monkees brand was irrevocably tainted by the fact that the Monkees had not been allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums. The movie Head itself was the type of film that was best suited to being shown in theaters that specialized in "art" films, but that audience was among the most hostile to the Monkees and the movie bombed. It is now considered a cult classic.
Artist: Spanky And Our Gang
Title: Lazy Day
Source: LP: Spanky And Our Gang
Writer(s): Fischoff/Powers
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Sounding a bit like the Mamas and the Papas, Spanky And Our Gang had a series of hit records, starting with Sunday Will Never Be The Same, in 1967. The follow-up single, Lazy Day, actually had a longer chart life than its predecessor, although it did not chart quite as high. Both songs were featured on the group's debut LP. A second album yielded another major hit, I'd Like To Get To Know You, but, like many other hit-oriented bands of the time, Spanky And Our Gang were already starting to sound dated by 1968 and soon faded off into pop music history.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1965
Although San Jose, Ca. is a rather large city in its own right (the 10th-largest city in the US in fact), it has always had a kind of suburban status, thanks to being within the same media market as San Francisco. Nonetheless, San Jose had its own very active music scene in the mid-60s, and Count Five was, for a time in late 1966, at the top of the heap, thanks in large part to Psychotic Reaction tearing up the national charts. The song had originally been released in 1965, but had not made much of an initial impression outside the local San Jose area.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Foxy Lady
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The first track on the original UK release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was moved to the middle of side 2.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: She Has Funny Cars
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
Label: Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
She Has Funny Cars, the opening track of Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, was a reference to some unusual possessions belonging to new drummer Spencer Dryden's girlfriend. As was the case with many of the early Airplane tracks, the title has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song itself. The song was also released as the B side to the band's first top 10 single, Somebody To Love.
Artist: Collectors
Title: Looking At A Baby
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vickberg/Henderson
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Valiant)
Year: 1967
Formed as the Classics in 1961, the Collectors hailed from Vancouver, British Columbia. By 1966 they had managed to secure a contract with Valiant Records, releasing Looking At A Baby as a single in January of 1967. Although the record was not a hit in the US, it did get the attention of engineer/producer Dave Hassinger, who was having problems completing David Axelrod's Mass In F Minor using the Electric Prunes. As the Collectors were musically more adept than the Prunes, Hassinger hired them to provide the instrumental tracks for the album, which nonetheless came out under the Electric Prunes name (which Hassinger owned at that time). Eventually the Collectors would change their name to Chilliwack and release a series of moderately successful records on the A&M label in the early to mid 1970s.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Poor Girl
Source: CD: Looking In
Writer(s): Kim Simmonds
Label: Deram (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1970
Poor Girl, from the 1970 album Looking In, is probably Savoy Brown's best known recording. Shortly after Looking In was released, the entire band except for leader Kim Simmonds left Savoy Brown to form a new band: Foghat.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: In The Time Of Our Lives
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Ingle/Bushy
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
The lead track on Ball, Iron Butterfly's highly-anticipated 1969 follow-up LP to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, was In The Time Of Our Lives. It was also chosen to be released as a single. Although some labels were starting to issue stereo 45s, Atco was not one of them, and In The Time Of Our Lives became one of only two songs from Ball with an alternate monoraul mix (the other being the B side of the single, It Must Be Love).
Artist: Nazz
Title: Open My Eyes
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Nazz)
Writer(s): Todd Rundgren
Label: Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year: 1968
The Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. The Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, among others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a new solo version would become Rundgren's first major hit five years later).
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Yes, I'm Experienced
Source: LP: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
A grand tradition dating back to the early Rhythm and Blues recordings was something called the "answer song". Someone would record a song (Hound Dog, for example), that would become popular. In turn, another artist (often a friend of the original one), would then come up with a song that answered the original tune (Bear Cat, in our example earlier). This idea was picked up on by white artists in the late 50s (Hey Paula answered by Hey Paul). True to the tradition, Eric Burdon answered his friend Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced with this song, done in a style similar to another Hendrix tune, Manic Depression.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Sorry
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Australia as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Wright/Young
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1966
While Beatlemania was sweeping the northern hemisphere, a similar phenomena known as Easyfever was all the rage down under. Formed in the migrant hostels on the edge of Sydney, the Easybeats signed with Parlophone in 1965, and hit the top of the Australian charts with their second single. From that point on, the Easybeats were the # 1 band in the country, cranking out hit after hit, including Sorry from 1966. Like all the band's early hits, Sorry was written by the team of vocalist Stevie Wright and guitarist George Young. Not long after the release of Sorry, the Easybeats would decide to relocate to England. At around the same time lead guitarist Harry Vanda replaced Wright as Young's primary writing partner; together they wrote the international smash Friday On My Mind. The Easybeats continued to record into the early 70s, but with only moderate success. Eventually Young returned to Australia, where he was instrumental in helping his younger brothers Angus and Malcolm find success with their own band, AC/DC.
Artist: Red Squares
Title: You Can Be My Baby
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Denmark as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Martin/Bell
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Originally formed in Boston, England, in 1964, the Red Squares relocated to Denmark in 1966 and soon became massively popular. For the most part the band's sound was similar to the Hollies, as can be heard on the original LP version of You Can Be My Baby. The single version of the song heard here, however, cranks up the energy levels to something approaching the early Who records.
Artist: Simon Dupree And The Big Sound
Title: Kites
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road-1965-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pockriss/Hackaday
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1967
Almost all of the British beat bands of the 1960s played R&B covers in their early days. Most, like the Animals and Rolling Stones, covered blues artists like John Lee Hooker or early rock and rollers like Chuck Berry. Simon Dupree And The Big Sound, however, saw themselves more as a "soul" band in the image of such American artists as Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. Led by the Shulman brothers (Derek, Ray and Phil), the band was formed in early 1966 and was soon signed to EMI's Parlophone label. After their first few singles failed to chart, the band's label and management convinced them to record the more psychedelic-sounding Kites. Although the band hated the record, it ended up being their only top 10 single in the UK, and after subsequent records went nowhere, the group, finally realizing that they were not destined to hit the big time as a blue-eyed soul band, disbanded in 1969. The Shulman brothers, however, did achieve success in the 1970s with their new band Gentle Giant, which was about as far removed from blue-eyed soul as you can get.
Artist: Randy Newman
Title: Last Night I Had A Dream
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Randy Newman
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Randy Newman has, over the course of the past fifty-plus years, established himself as a Great American Writer of Songs. His work includes dozens of hit singles (over half of which were performed by other artists), nearly two dozen movie scores and eleven albums as a solo artist. Newman has won five Grammys, as well as two Oscars and Three Emmys. Last Night I Had A Dream was Newman's second single for the Reprise label (his third overall), coming out the same year as his first LP, which did not include the song.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: American Woman
Source: LP: American Woman
Writer: Bachman/Cummings/Peterson/Kale
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1970
From 1968-1970 I was living on Ramstein AFB, which was and is a huge base in Germany with enough Canadian personnel stationed there to justify their own on-base school. For much of the time I lived there I found myself hanging out with a bunch of Canadian kids and I gotta tell you, they absolutely loved everything by the Guess Who, who were, after all, the most successful Canadian band in history. In particular, they all loved the band's most political (and controversial) hit, the 1970 tune American Woman. I rather liked it myself, and immediately went out and bought a copy of the album, one of the first to be pressed on RCA's Dynaflex vinyl. In fact, I still have that copy, which explains why the intro to the song sounds so scratchy.
Artist: Loose Endz
Title: Easy Rider
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): R. Bershinger
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Virtue)
Year: 1968
Although they only released two singles, the Loose Endz, from York, Pennsylvania, are legendary among collectors of vintage garage rock records. The B side of their second single was a tune called Easy Rider that has shown up on various anthology LPs and CDs over the year.
Artist: Beatles
Title: What Goes On
Source: CD: Rubber Soul (originally held back in US and included on LP: Yesterday...And Today)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney/Starkey
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1965 (US release: 1966)
Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote several songs for Ringo Starr to sing on their albums, only one actually conferred songwriting credits on the drummer. What Goes On, a country and western flavored tune, appeared in the UK on the Rubber Soul album, but was not included on the US version of that album. Instead, the song appeared on the 1966 album Yesterday...And Today, an LP that only came out in North America.
Artist: James Brown
Title: I Got You (I Feel Good)
Source: Mono CD: 20 All-Time Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): James Brown
Label: Polydor (original label: King)
Year: 1965
James Brown had probably more nicknames/titles than any other entertainer of the 20th century, including Soul Brother # 1, the Godfather of Soul, and the Hardest Working Man In Show Business. He also had one of the longest careers as a recording artists, starting in 1956 with Please Please Please and continuing into the 1980s on the pop charts and the 1990s on the R&B charts. During that time he chalked up over 100 hit singles, including 17 #1 R&B hits. Oddly enough, for all that he never got a number one hit on the pop charts; in fact Brown holds the all-time record for the number of charted singles without ever hitting the top spot. The nearest he came was his 1965 hit I Got You (I Feel Good), which made it to the # 3 spot on the Billboard top 100 chart. The song spent six week's topping the R&B chart, however, and has been ranked # 78 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
Title: Paper Sun
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
One of the first British acid-rock bands was a group called Deep Feeling, which included drummer Jim Capaldi and woodwind player Chris Wood. At the same time Deep Feeling was experimenting with psychedelia, another, more commercially oriented band, the Spencer Davis Group, was tearing up the British top 40 charts with hits like Keep On Running, Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man. The undisputed star of the Spencer Davis Group was a teenaged guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist named Steve Winwood, who was also beginning to make his mark as a songwriter. Along with guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, who had worked with Capaldi in earlier bands, they formed Traffic in the spring of 1967, releasing their first single, Paper Sun, in May of that year. Capaldi and Winwood had actually written the tune while Winwood was still in the Spencer Davis Group, and the song was an immediate hit in the UK. This was followed quickly by an album, Mr. Fantasy, that, as was the common practice at the time in the UK, did not include Paper Sun. When the album was picked up by United Artists Records for US release in early 1968, however, Paper Sun was included as the LP's opening track. The US version of the album was originally titled Heaven Is In Your Mind, but was quickly retitled Mr. Fantasy to match the original British title (although the alterations in track listing stayed).
Artist: Love
Title: Old Man
Source: CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Bryan MacLean
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the band. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, was actually one of the first tracks recorded for Forever Changes. At the time, the band's rhythm section was more into sex and drugs than rock and roll, and McLean and Lee arranged to have studio musicians play on Old Man, as well as on one of Lee's songs. The rest of the group was so stunned by this development that they were able to temporarily get their act together long enough to complete the album. Nonetheless, the two tunes with studio musicians were left as is, although reportedly Ken Forssi did step in to show Carol Kaye how the bass part should be played (ironic, since Kaye is estimated to have played on over 10,000 recordings in her long career as a studio musician).
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Rock And Roll Woman
Source: LP: Buffalo Springfield Again
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth). Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock and Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 40 years after it was recorded.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Dark Side Of The Mushroom
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Cooper/Podolor
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Just who played on Dark Side Of The Mushroom is lost to history. What is certain, however, is that it is not the Chocolate Watchband, despite its inclusion on that band's debut LP. Producer Ed Cobb apparently had his own agenda when it came to the Watchband, which included making them sound much more psychedelic on vinyl than when they performed onstage (in fact it is doubtful that Cobb ever actually attended any of the band's live gigs). To accomplish his goal, Cobb enlisted the help of songwriter/musician Richie Podolor, who would later go on to produce Three Dog Night's records. Podolor put together the group of anonymous studio musicians that recorded Dark Side Of The Mushroom, which, despite its shady history, is a decent slice of instrumental psychedelia.
Artist: Association
Title: Along Comes Mary
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Tandyn Almer
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Valiant)
Year: 1966
The Association are best known for a series of love ballads and light pop songs such as Cherish, Never My Love and Windy. Many of these records were a product of the L.A. studio scene and featured several members of the Wrecking Crew, the studio musicians who played on dozens of records in the late 60s and early 70s. The first major Association hit, however, featured the band members playing all the instruments themselves. Produced (and possibly co-written) by Curt Boettcher, who would soon join Gary Usher's studio project Sagittarius, Along Comes Mary shows that the Association was quite capable of recording a classic without any help from studio musicians.
Artist: Supremes
Title: Reflections
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Motown
Year: 1967
The Supremes weren't exactly known as a psychedelic group, nor were their primary songwriters, Lamont Dozier and the Holland brothers. Nonetheless, together they produced one of the most psychedelic tunes ever to come out of Motown. Well, it was 1967, after all.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: No Expectations
Source: CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1968
After the heavy dose of studio effects on Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones took a back-to-basics approach for their next album, Beggar's Banquet, the first to be produced by Jimmy Miller (who had previously worked with Steve Winwood in Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group). No Expectations, the second track on the album, uses minimal instrumentation and places a greater emphasis on Mick Jagger's vocals and Brian Jones's slide guitar work. Sadly, it was to be Jones's last album as a member of the Rolling Stones, as heavy drug use was already taking its toll (and would soon take his life as well).
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Planet Caravan
Source: CD: Paranoid
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
Many rock musicians are also science fiction fans. Why this should be is a bit of a mystery, but it is a fact nonetheless. As a result, some of the coolest rock songs have science fiction overtones. A case in point is Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan, from their second LP, Paranoid. The use of minor and diminished chords, along with weird studio effects like running Ozzy Osbourne's vocals through the rotating horns of a Leslie cabinet, gives Planet Caravan a decidedly otherworldly feel (the song's title and lyrics don't hurt, either).
Artist: Spirit
Title: Fresh Garbage
Source: LP: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic (original label: Ode)
Year: 1968
Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a fairly hard rocker and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Girl In Your Eye
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Spirit was born in 1965 when drummer Ed Cassidy left the Rising Sons after breaking his arm and settled down with his new wife, who had a teenaged son named Randy. It wasn't long before Ed and Randy (who played guitar) formed a new band called the Red Roosters. The group lasted until the spring of 1966, when the family moved to New York for a few months, where Randy jammed up with an unknown guitarist named Jimi Hendrix for the summer. After returning to California, Randy ran into two of his Red Roosters bandmates, singer Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes, and decided to form a new band with Cassidy and keyboardist John Locke. Both Cassidy and Locke had played in jazz bands, and the new band, Spirit, incorporated both rock and jazz elements into their sound. Most of the songs of the band's 1968 debut album were written by Ferguson, who tended to favor a softer sound on tracks like Girl In Your Eye. On later albums Randy California would take a greater share in the songwriting, eventually becoming the only original member to stay with the band throughout its history.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Taurus
Source: LP: Spirit
Writer(s): Randy California
Label: Epic (original label: Ode)
Year: 1968
After the release of Spirit's debut album they went on tour, with a new band, Led Zeppelin, opening for them. I mention this just in case you happen to notice any similarity between the opening acoustic guitar riff on this song and the one on "Stairway To Heaven", which was released three or four years later. I bet you thought Jimmy Page only ripped off blues legends like Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon.
Artist: Nashville Teens
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: John D. Loudermilk
Label: KTel (original label: London)
Year: 1964
The Nashville Teens were not teens. Nor were they from Nashville. In fact, they were one of the original British Invasion bands. Their version of John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road was a huge international hit in the summer of 1964. The lead guitar parts on the recording are the work of studio musician Jimmy Page.
Artist: Cream
Title: Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
Right from the beginning Cream demonstrated two distinct sides: the psychedelic-tinged studio side and the blues-based live performance side. In the case of the US version of the band's first LP, Fresh Cream, that was literally true, as side one consisted entirely of original songs (mostly written by bassist Jack Bruce) and side two was nearly all covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'. What makes this particular recording interesting is the instrumentation used: guitar, vocals, harmonica and drums, with no bass whatsoever. This could be due to the limited number of tracks available for overdubs. Just as likely, though, is the possibility that the band chose to make a recording that duplicated their live performance of the song.
Artist: Van Der Graaf Generator
Title: People You Were Going To (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: Mono British import CD: Spirit Of Joy
Writer(s): Peter Hammill
Label: Polydor
Year: 1969
One of the rarest records ever released was Van Der Graff's debut single, People You Were Going To. The record was released on the UK Polydor label in January of 1969, but was almost immediately withdrawn due to the fact that the band's leader, Peter Hammill, had signed a contract with Mercury Records the previous year. The Mercury contract was so bad, however, that the rest of the band members refused to sign it, and for a while it looked like Van Der Graaf Generator would be little more than a footnote in the history of British Rock. Later that year, however, Hammill began work on a solo album that appeared under the name Van Der Graaf Generator, but only in the US. Nonetheless, it was enough to fulfill the terms of his Mercury contract, freeing Hammill up to reform the band and sign with the Charisma label, where they established themselves as one of the top progressive rock bands of the 1970s.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Head soundtrack)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1968
In 1968 the Monkees, trying desperately to shed a teeny-bopper image, enlisted Jack Nicholson to co-write a feature film that was a 180-degree departure from their recently-cancelled TV show. This made sense, since the original fans of the show were by then already outgrowing the group. Unfortunately, by 1968 the Monkees brand was irrevocably tainted by the fact that the Monkees had not been allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums. The movie Head itself was the type of film that was best suited to being shown in theaters that specialized in "art" films, but that audience was among the most hostile to the Monkees and the movie bombed. It is now considered a cult classic.
Artist: Spanky And Our Gang
Title: Lazy Day
Source: LP: Spanky And Our Gang
Writer(s): Fischoff/Powers
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Sounding a bit like the Mamas and the Papas, Spanky And Our Gang had a series of hit records, starting with Sunday Will Never Be The Same, in 1967. The follow-up single, Lazy Day, actually had a longer chart life than its predecessor, although it did not chart quite as high. Both songs were featured on the group's debut LP. A second album yielded another major hit, I'd Like To Get To Know You, but, like many other hit-oriented bands of the time, Spanky And Our Gang were already starting to sound dated by 1968 and soon faded off into pop music history.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1965
Although San Jose, Ca. is a rather large city in its own right (the 10th-largest city in the US in fact), it has always had a kind of suburban status, thanks to being within the same media market as San Francisco. Nonetheless, San Jose had its own very active music scene in the mid-60s, and Count Five was, for a time in late 1966, at the top of the heap, thanks in large part to Psychotic Reaction tearing up the national charts. The song had originally been released in 1965, but had not made much of an initial impression outside the local San Jose area.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Foxy Lady
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The first track on the original UK release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was moved to the middle of side 2.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: She Has Funny Cars
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
Label: Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
She Has Funny Cars, the opening track of Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, was a reference to some unusual possessions belonging to new drummer Spencer Dryden's girlfriend. As was the case with many of the early Airplane tracks, the title has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song itself. The song was also released as the B side to the band's first top 10 single, Somebody To Love.
Artist: Collectors
Title: Looking At A Baby
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vickberg/Henderson
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Valiant)
Year: 1967
Formed as the Classics in 1961, the Collectors hailed from Vancouver, British Columbia. By 1966 they had managed to secure a contract with Valiant Records, releasing Looking At A Baby as a single in January of 1967. Although the record was not a hit in the US, it did get the attention of engineer/producer Dave Hassinger, who was having problems completing David Axelrod's Mass In F Minor using the Electric Prunes. As the Collectors were musically more adept than the Prunes, Hassinger hired them to provide the instrumental tracks for the album, which nonetheless came out under the Electric Prunes name (which Hassinger owned at that time). Eventually the Collectors would change their name to Chilliwack and release a series of moderately successful records on the A&M label in the early to mid 1970s.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Poor Girl
Source: CD: Looking In
Writer(s): Kim Simmonds
Label: Deram (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1970
Poor Girl, from the 1970 album Looking In, is probably Savoy Brown's best known recording. Shortly after Looking In was released, the entire band except for leader Kim Simmonds left Savoy Brown to form a new band: Foghat.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: In The Time Of Our Lives
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Ingle/Bushy
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
The lead track on Ball, Iron Butterfly's highly-anticipated 1969 follow-up LP to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, was In The Time Of Our Lives. It was also chosen to be released as a single. Although some labels were starting to issue stereo 45s, Atco was not one of them, and In The Time Of Our Lives became one of only two songs from Ball with an alternate monoraul mix (the other being the B side of the single, It Must Be Love).
Artist: Nazz
Title: Open My Eyes
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Nazz)
Writer(s): Todd Rundgren
Label: Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year: 1968
The Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. The Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, among others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a new solo version would become Rundgren's first major hit five years later).
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Yes, I'm Experienced
Source: LP: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
A grand tradition dating back to the early Rhythm and Blues recordings was something called the "answer song". Someone would record a song (Hound Dog, for example), that would become popular. In turn, another artist (often a friend of the original one), would then come up with a song that answered the original tune (Bear Cat, in our example earlier). This idea was picked up on by white artists in the late 50s (Hey Paula answered by Hey Paul). True to the tradition, Eric Burdon answered his friend Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced with this song, done in a style similar to another Hendrix tune, Manic Depression.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Sorry
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Australia as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Wright/Young
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1966
While Beatlemania was sweeping the northern hemisphere, a similar phenomena known as Easyfever was all the rage down under. Formed in the migrant hostels on the edge of Sydney, the Easybeats signed with Parlophone in 1965, and hit the top of the Australian charts with their second single. From that point on, the Easybeats were the # 1 band in the country, cranking out hit after hit, including Sorry from 1966. Like all the band's early hits, Sorry was written by the team of vocalist Stevie Wright and guitarist George Young. Not long after the release of Sorry, the Easybeats would decide to relocate to England. At around the same time lead guitarist Harry Vanda replaced Wright as Young's primary writing partner; together they wrote the international smash Friday On My Mind. The Easybeats continued to record into the early 70s, but with only moderate success. Eventually Young returned to Australia, where he was instrumental in helping his younger brothers Angus and Malcolm find success with their own band, AC/DC.
Artist: Red Squares
Title: You Can Be My Baby
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Denmark as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Martin/Bell
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Originally formed in Boston, England, in 1964, the Red Squares relocated to Denmark in 1966 and soon became massively popular. For the most part the band's sound was similar to the Hollies, as can be heard on the original LP version of You Can Be My Baby. The single version of the song heard here, however, cranks up the energy levels to something approaching the early Who records.
Artist: Simon Dupree And The Big Sound
Title: Kites
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road-1965-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pockriss/Hackaday
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1967
Almost all of the British beat bands of the 1960s played R&B covers in their early days. Most, like the Animals and Rolling Stones, covered blues artists like John Lee Hooker or early rock and rollers like Chuck Berry. Simon Dupree And The Big Sound, however, saw themselves more as a "soul" band in the image of such American artists as Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. Led by the Shulman brothers (Derek, Ray and Phil), the band was formed in early 1966 and was soon signed to EMI's Parlophone label. After their first few singles failed to chart, the band's label and management convinced them to record the more psychedelic-sounding Kites. Although the band hated the record, it ended up being their only top 10 single in the UK, and after subsequent records went nowhere, the group, finally realizing that they were not destined to hit the big time as a blue-eyed soul band, disbanded in 1969. The Shulman brothers, however, did achieve success in the 1970s with their new band Gentle Giant, which was about as far removed from blue-eyed soul as you can get.
Artist: Randy Newman
Title: Last Night I Had A Dream
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Randy Newman
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Randy Newman has, over the course of the past fifty-plus years, established himself as a Great American Writer of Songs. His work includes dozens of hit singles (over half of which were performed by other artists), nearly two dozen movie scores and eleven albums as a solo artist. Newman has won five Grammys, as well as two Oscars and Three Emmys. Last Night I Had A Dream was Newman's second single for the Reprise label (his third overall), coming out the same year as his first LP, which did not include the song.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: American Woman
Source: LP: American Woman
Writer: Bachman/Cummings/Peterson/Kale
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1970
From 1968-1970 I was living on Ramstein AFB, which was and is a huge base in Germany with enough Canadian personnel stationed there to justify their own on-base school. For much of the time I lived there I found myself hanging out with a bunch of Canadian kids and I gotta tell you, they absolutely loved everything by the Guess Who, who were, after all, the most successful Canadian band in history. In particular, they all loved the band's most political (and controversial) hit, the 1970 tune American Woman. I rather liked it myself, and immediately went out and bought a copy of the album, one of the first to be pressed on RCA's Dynaflex vinyl. In fact, I still have that copy, which explains why the intro to the song sounds so scratchy.
Artist: Loose Endz
Title: Easy Rider
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): R. Bershinger
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Virtue)
Year: 1968
Although they only released two singles, the Loose Endz, from York, Pennsylvania, are legendary among collectors of vintage garage rock records. The B side of their second single was a tune called Easy Rider that has shown up on various anthology LPs and CDs over the year.
Artist: Beatles
Title: What Goes On
Source: CD: Rubber Soul (originally held back in US and included on LP: Yesterday...And Today)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney/Starkey
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1965 (US release: 1966)
Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote several songs for Ringo Starr to sing on their albums, only one actually conferred songwriting credits on the drummer. What Goes On, a country and western flavored tune, appeared in the UK on the Rubber Soul album, but was not included on the US version of that album. Instead, the song appeared on the 1966 album Yesterday...And Today, an LP that only came out in North America.
Artist: James Brown
Title: I Got You (I Feel Good)
Source: Mono CD: 20 All-Time Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): James Brown
Label: Polydor (original label: King)
Year: 1965
James Brown had probably more nicknames/titles than any other entertainer of the 20th century, including Soul Brother # 1, the Godfather of Soul, and the Hardest Working Man In Show Business. He also had one of the longest careers as a recording artists, starting in 1956 with Please Please Please and continuing into the 1980s on the pop charts and the 1990s on the R&B charts. During that time he chalked up over 100 hit singles, including 17 #1 R&B hits. Oddly enough, for all that he never got a number one hit on the pop charts; in fact Brown holds the all-time record for the number of charted singles without ever hitting the top spot. The nearest he came was his 1965 hit I Got You (I Feel Good), which made it to the # 3 spot on the Billboard top 100 chart. The song spent six week's topping the R&B chart, however, and has been ranked # 78 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
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