Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Respect
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Otis Redding
Label: Volt
Year: 1965
Released well over a year before Aretha Franklin's version, Otis Redding's Respect was a hit on the R&B charts and managed to crack the lower reaches of the mainstream charts as well. Although not as well known as Franklin's version, the Redding track has its own unique energy and is a classic in its own right. The track, like most of Redding's recordings, features the Memphis Group rhythm section and the Bar-Kays on horns.
Artist: Love
Title: My Flash On You
Source: Mono LP: Love
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
Sounding a bit like the fast version of Hey Joe (which was also on Love's debut LP), My Flash On You is essentially Arthur Lee in garage mode. A punk classic.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: I Can't Get Enough Of It
Source: Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Miller/Winwood
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
One listen to the B side of the Spencer Davis Group's1967 hit I'm A Man and it's easy to see why the young Stevie Winwood was often compared to Ray Charles by the British music press. I Can't Get Enough Of It, co-written by producer Jimmy Miller, features Winwood on both lead vocal and piano. Winwood would leave the group shortly after the release of this single and soon resurface with the more psychedelically-tinged Traffic later the same year.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Happiness Is A Warm Gun
Source: LP: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1968
It is by now a well-known fact that very few of the songs on the 1968 double-LP The Beatles (aka the White Album) actually featured the entire group. One of those few (and reportedly both Paul McCartney's and George Harrison's favorite song on the album) was Happiness Is A Warm Gun. Written by John Lennon, the piece is actually a pastiche of three song fragments, each of which is radically different from the others. The opening lines (uncredited) were contributed by Derek Taylor, a London promoter who was instrumental in bringing the Jimi Hendrix Experience to America to perform at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967. The track, one of the most musically challenging in the entire Beatles catalog, took three days to record, and was produced by Chris Thomas, who was filling in for a vacationing George Martin at the time.
Artist: Beatles
Title: You Never Give Me Your Money
Source: CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1969
Although I usually play the entire medley from side two of the Beatles' Abbey Road album, I thought for a change of pace I would play You Never Give Me Your Money, the opening song of the medley, by itself. Enjoy!
Artist: Beatles
Title: Revolution 1
Source: LP: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1968
The Beatles' Revolution has a somewhat convoluted history. The song, as originally recorded, was over eight minutes long and included what eventually became Revolution 1 and part of Revolution 9. The song's writer, John Lennon, at some point decided to separate the sections into two distinct tracks, both of which ended up on the Beatles self-titled double LP (aka the White Album). Lennon wanted to release Revolution 1 as a single, but was voted down by both George Harrison and Paul McCartney on the grounds that the song's tempo was too slow. Lennon then came up with a faster version of the song, which ended up being released a few weeks before the album came out as the B side to the band's 1968 single Hey Jude. As a result, many of the band's fans erroneously assumed that Revolution 1 was the newer version of the song.
Artist: Emitt Rhodes
Title: The Man He Was
Source: LP: The American Dream
Writer(s): Emitt Rhodes
Label: A&M
Year: 1971
Emitt Rhodes started his recording career at the age of sixteen as the drummer for the Palace Guard, a group of Los Angeles Anglophiles who had a minor hit with Falling Sugar in 1966. The following year he joined up with members of other area bands to form the Merry-Go-Round, this time as lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. The band sooned signed to A&M records, scoring a number one regional hit with Live in the summer of 1967. The band was never able to snag a national audience, however, and disbanded in 1969, leaving Rhodes to record several new songs by himself to fulfill the band's contractual obligations. A&M, however, chose not to release the tracks, and Rhodes eventually signed with Dunhill Records as a solo artist, releasing three moderately successful albums in the early 1970s. After Rhodes's self-titled debut LP made it into the Billboard top 30 A&M decided to issue the contractual obligation tracks (including a couple late period Merry-Go-Round songs) on an album called The American Dream. The move caused confusion among record buyers and in all likelihood caused irreparable harm to Rhodes's career.
Artist: Animals
Title: Bring It On Home To Me
Source: CD: The Best Of The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sam Cooke
Label: Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1965
One of the original Animals' most popular recordings was their 1965 cover of the Sam Cooke classic Bring It On Home To Me. Cooke's version was actually a reworking of a 1959 Charles Brown song called I Want To Go Home, and was deliberately written and recorded in a style reminiscent of Cooke's old gospel group, the Soul Stirrers. Although the song has been covered by several artists over the years, the Animals were the only ones to take it into the top 40.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: It's No Secret
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer: Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
The first Jefferson Airplane song to get played on the radio was not Somebody To Love. Rather, it was It's No Secret, from the album Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, that got extensive airplay, albeit only in the San Francisco Bay area. Still, the song was featured on a 1966 Bell Telephone Hour special on Haight Ashbury that introduced a national TV audience to what was happening out on the coast and may have just touched off the exodus to San Francisco the following year.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Porpoise Mouth
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
The songs on the first Country Joe And The Fish album ranged from silly satire (Super Bird) to downright spacey. One of the spaciest tracks on the album is Porpoise Mouth, both lyrically and musically.
Artist: Bert Sommer
Title: Smile
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s): Bert Sommer
Label: Rhino
Year: 1969
Bert Sommer was one of the many singer-songwriters (although the term hadn't really come into vogue at that point) to pitch in and perform on the opening day of Woodstock, when equipment problems prevented the electric rock bands from performing as scheduled. Perhaps because there were so many acoustic acts performing back to back, his part has gone largely unnoticed over the years. Last year Rhino decided to rectify that situation somewhat by including several of his tunes on their 40th anniversary Woodstock collection. Smile is one of those tunes.
Artist: Crosby, Stills And Nash
Title: Pre-Road Downs
Source: CD: Crosby, Stills And Nash
Writer(s): Graham Nash
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
The 1969 LP Crosby, Stills And Nash is considered one of the strongest debut albums in rock history, as well as one of the most influential. Against a backdrop of guitar-dominated blues-based jam-oriented bands, CSN shifted the emphasis to vocal harmonies and highly personal lyrics, creating a template for the singer-songwriter movement of the early 70s as well as the so-called California Sound (as typified by the Eagles, Jackson Browne and others) in the latter part of the decade and beyond. One of the harder rocking tunes on that first album is Pre-Road Downs, a song about the various highs and lows associated with touring with a rock band.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: The Train Kept A-Rollin'
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Great Hits (originally released on LP: Having A Rave-Up)
Writer(s): Bradshaw/Mann
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
Originally recorded by Tiny Bradshaw in 1951, The Train Kept A-Rollin' was transformed from a relatively unremarkable jump blues tune into a rock classic when it was reworked by Jeff Beck and the Yardbirds in 1965. The song was chosen to be featured in the film Blowup the following year, but when the filmmakers ran into difficulties securing copyrights to the song Yardbirds vocalist Keith Relf came up with new lyrics and a new title, Stroll On. The entire band, including new member Jimmy Page, was given songwriting credit for the 1966 version of the song.
Artist: Jury
Title: Who Dat?
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Canada as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bill Ivaniuk
Label: Rhino (original label: Quality)
Year: 1966
Formed by members of two Winnipeg bands, the Chord-U-Roys and the Phantoms, in 1964, the Jury released three Beatles-inspired singles on the Canadian London label in 1965 before switching to the locally-owned Quality label the following year. Their only single for Quality (Who Dat?) was a savage piece of garage rock that got enough regional airplay to pique the interest of a small US label, Port. Nonetheless, the group disbanded before 1966 was over.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation and Rhino's first Nuggets LP.
Artist: Janis Ian
Title: Society's Child
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Janis Ian
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1966
Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one (Now Sounds) to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record got picked up and re-issued in 1966 by M-G-M's experimental label Verve Forecast, a label whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations the song became a major hit when re-released yet another time in early 1967. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Wrong
Source: British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Big Beat (
Year: 1967
Sean Bonniwell was a member of the mainstream (i.e. lots of appearances on TV variety shows hosted by people like Perry Como and Bob Hope) folk group The Lamplighters in the early 60s. By 1966 he had morphed into one of the more mysterious figures on the LA music scene, leading a proto-punk band dressed entirely in black. Bonniwell himself wore a single black glove (Michael Jackson was about seven years old at the time), and was one of the most prolific songwriters of the time. His recordings, often featuring the distinctive Farfisa organ sound, were a primary influence on later LA bands such as Iron Butterfly and the Doors. One of the first Music Machine tracks to appear on vinyl was Wrong, which was released as the B side of the band's first single and included on their debut LP.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Somewhere
Source: LP: People, Hell And Angels
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2013
Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience did not officially disband until 1969, Hendrix himself was spending more and more time working with musicians outside the band as early as 1968. The Electric Ladyland album itself features guest appearances by the likes of Steve Winwood, Buddy Miles and Chris Wood, among others, and for years there have been even more recordings by non-Experience members rumored to exist. Among those legendary tracks is Somewhere, a piece that features Miles on drums, and, unusually, Stephen Stills on bass. In addition to a special 45 RPM single release, Somewhere is available on the 2013 album People, Hell and Angels. According to engineer Eddie Kramer, this is the final collection of unreleased studio tracks to be issued by the Hendrix family estate.
Artist: Caleb
Title: Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Caleb Quayle
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1967
A studio effect known as phasing, created by playing two identical recordings slightly out of synchronization with each other, was all the rage in England in 1967. Jimi Hendrix used it effectively on the title track of his second album, Axis: Bold As Love, which in turn inspired bands like the Small Faces (Itchycoo Park) and Status Quo (Pictures Of Matchstick Men). Perhaps the most excessive use of phasing, however, was Caleb Quayle's Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad, with the effect permeating the entire recording.
Artist: The Light
Title: Back Up
Source: Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Anglin/Samson
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: A&M)
Year: 1967
The San Bernadino/Riverside area of southern California is probably better known to racing fans than to music afficionados, yet the area did have its share of local bands filling up various venues in the area in the late 60s. Among those bands was the Light, who released one single, Back Up, on the A&M label in 1967.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday
Source: CD: Volume II
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Once upon a time record producer Kim Fowley hired the Yardbirds to play a private Hollywood party. The Harris brothers, a pair of local art school students who had sent their homemade tapes to Fowley were impressed by the band's musical abilities. Bob Markley, an almost-30-year-old hipster with a law degree and an inheritance was impressed with the band's ability to attract teenage girls. Fowley introduced the Harris brothers to Markley, who expressed a willingness to finance them in return for letting him be their new lead vocalist, and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was formed. Before it was all over the group had recorded five or six albums for at least three labels, churning out an eclectic mix of psychedelic tunes such as Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday, which appeared on the second album for Reprise Records (their third LP overall), appropriately titled Volume II.
Artist: Velvet Illusions
Title: Acid Head
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Weed/Radford
Label: Rhino (original label: Metromedia, also released on Tell Records)
Year: 1967
Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a suburban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle scene as one of their own) the Illusions backtracked the Prunes steps, leaving their native Yakima and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut this lone single, Acid Head, before calling it quits.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Peter Perceival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky/Pleasant Valley Sunday
Source: CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer: Tork/Goffin/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
The album version of Pleasant Valley Sunday differs from the single version in two ways. First, the mix is different, with the background vocals more prominent on the stereo album mix. Second, on the original LP Peter Tork's spoken piece Peter Perceival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky precedes the song on the album and is considered part of the same track (although the CD version assigns the two different track numbers). In honor of the original album I'm playing the entire combo. Besides, Tork's piece is fun to listen to and it only lasts 27 seconds.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sunshine Of Your Love
Source: Mono Russian import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown/Clapton
Label: Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Although by mid-1967 Cream had already released a handful of singles in the UK, Sunshine Of Your Love, featuring one of the most recognizable guitar rifts in the history of rock, was their first song to make a splash in the US. Although only moderately successful in edited form on AM Top-40 radio, the full-length LP version of the song received extensive airplay on the more progressive FM stations, and turned Disraeli Gears into a perennial best-seller. Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce constantly trade off lead vocal lines throughout the song. The basic compatibility of their voices is such that it is sometimes difficult to tell exactly who is singing what line. Clapton's guitar solo (which was almost entirely edited out of the AM version) set a standard for instrumental breaks in terms of length and style that became a hallmark for what is now known as "classic rock". Yeah, I write this stuff myself.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: In The Midnight Hour
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Pickett/Cropper
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2012
Among the many Chocolate Watchband recordings that were subjected to major changes by producer Ed Cobb was a cover of Wilson Pickett's R&B classic In The Midnight Hour, a song that was also covered by the Young Rascals. The biggest change Cobb made to the recording was to replace Dave Aguilar's original lead vocals with those of studio vocalist Don Bennett. Once Sundazed got the rights to the Watchband's recordings they included both versions on their CD version of the No Way Out album and in 2012 issued the mono mix of the Aguilar version for the first time as a single.
Artist: Teddy And His Patches
Title: Suzy Creamcheese
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dave Conway
Label: Rhino (original label: Chance)
Year: 1967
Teddy And His Patches were a group of high school students who heard the phrase "Suzy Creamcheese, what's got into you" from a fellow San Jose, California resident and decided to make a song out of it. Reportedly none of the band members had ever heard the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out, where the phrase had originated. Nonetheless, they managed to turn out a piece of inspired madness worthy of Frank Zappa himself.
Artist: Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title: Living Sin
Source: CD: Trilogy
Writer(s): Emerson/Lake/Palmer
Label: Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1972
Vocalist/bassist Greg Lake has said that Trilogy, the third album by Emerson, Lake And Palmer, is his favorite by the group. Although most of the band's tracks are credited either to Lake or keyboardist Keith Emerson, the credits for Living Sin are shared by the entire group, including Carl Palmer.
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: Train Round The Bend
Source: LP: Loaded
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Cotillion
Year: 1970
After three LPs that were, at best, cult hits, the shirts at Atlantic Records requested that the Velvet Underground come up with an album that was "loaded with hits". The result was Loaded, an LP that was released on Atlantic's Cotillion label in 1970. Lou Reed, who wrote the songs on Loaded, left the band three months before the album was released, and in the interrim the entire LP was remixed and resequenced, much to Reed's displeasure. Of the ten tracks on the final LP, only six actually have Reed's lead vocals, and several of those had been heavily edited. One of the relatively untouched songs on the album was Train Round The Bend, which does feature Reed's vocals.
Artist: Koobas
Title: Barricades
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released on LP: Koobas)
Writer(s): Ellis/Stratton-Smith/Leathwood
Label: EMI (original UK label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
The Koobas were a Merseybeat band that never managed to achieve the level of success enjoyed by bands such as the Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers, despite having the patronage of Beatles manager Brian Epstein and even appearing in the film Ferry Across The Mersey. They did record several singles for both Pye and Columbia, but with little to show for it. Nonetheless, EMI, the parent company of Columbia, commissioned an entire album from the band in 1969. Among the standout tracks from that self-titled LP was the five-minute long Barricades, a track that starts with a Motown beat, but before long morphs into a chaotic portrait of riot and revolution, complete with anarchic sound effects.
Artist: Byrds
Title: The Girl With No Name
Source: CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): Chris Hillman
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
A failed relationship was the inspiration for The Girl With No Name, one of five songs written or co-written by Byrds bassist Chris Hillman for the group's fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. The tune has a strong country feel to it, presaging Hillman's future career as a member of the Desert Rose Band in the 1980s. Guitarist Clarence White, who would soon become a member of the band, makes an early appearance on the track.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: The Behemoth
Source: LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s): H. Pye
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
When it comes to garage punk bands of the sixties there are two that are generally considered to be at the top of the heap. Unlike the Standells, who started off as a bar band and only embraced the punk ethic when they hooked up with writer/producer Ed Cobb, the Shadows of Knight were the real deal. Coming from the Chicago suburbs, they literally got their start practicing in the garage, slowly graduating to parties and high school dances, getting banned from at least one high school campus in the process (something having to do with a female student getting knocked up, rumor has it). The Shadows (as they were originally known) cited the British blues bands as their main influence, with a dose of Chicago blues thrown in for good measure. The Behemoth, an instrumental track from their second album, Back Door Men, was chosen for a 1967 B side as well.
Artist: Kinks
Title: All Day And All Of The Night
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1964
Following up on their worldwide hit You Really Got Me, the Kinks proved that lightning could indeed strike twice with All Day And All Of The Night. Although there have been rumors over the years that the guitar solo on the track may have been played by studio guitarist Jimmy Page, reliable sources insist that it was solely the work of Dave Davies, who reportedly slashed his speakers to achieve the desired sound.
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