Special announcement time:
This week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era (#1522) is a special anniversary show commemorating five years of syndication (and of this blog, for that matter).
To celebrate, we are counting down the 20 most played artists over the past five years (and several of the top songs as well). In order to keep you in suspense the playlist for this week's show is being withheld until after the show has aired on most stations. Sneaky, ain't I?
Monday, May 25, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1521 (starts 5/20/15)
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Purple Haze
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK as a single on the new Track label, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise, a division of what is now WEA, got the rights to release the first Hendrix album, Are You Experienced, in the US, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. The song next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which in Europe was on the Polydor label. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA (now Universal) acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced? is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that Purple Haze, as well as the rest of the Jimi Hendrix Experience catalog, has the distinction of having been released by every major record company in the world (yes, there are only three now).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: 51st Anniversary
Source: Mono CD: Are You Experienced? (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Track)
Year: 1967
The first Jimi Hendrix Experience single of 1967 (and the first for Track Records) was the classic Purple Haze, released on March 17, 1967. For the B side, the band chose one of producer Chas Chandler's favorite tracks, 51st Anniversary. The song expressed Hendrix's views on marraige by looking at it first from 51 years after the wedding, and then working his way back through the years. The first half, in Hendrix's words, was "just saying the good things about marraige, or maybe the usual things about marraige. The second part of the record tells about the parts of marraige which I've seen." Hendrix's own parents got married when his mother was just 17, just like the girl in the song. Musically, 51st Anniversary is unique in that it is the only Hendrix song ever released that did not have a guitar solo, although the recording does feature five guitar overdubs linked together throughout the track.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Castles Made Of Sand
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA
Year: 1967
When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, and stands in direct contrast to the usual goal-oriented American attitude.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: For Your Love
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
The last Yardbirds song to feature guitarist Eric Clapton, For Your Love was the group's fist US hit, peaking at the # 6 slot. The song did even better in the UK, peaking at # 3. Following its release, Clapton left the Yardbirds, citing the band's move toward a more commercial sound and this song in particular as reasons for his departure (ironic when you consider songs like his mid-90s hit Change the World or his slowed down lounge lizard version of Layla). For Your Love was written by Graham Gouldman, who would end up as a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and later 10cc with Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.
Artist: Del-Vetts
Title: Last Time Around
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dennis Dahlquist
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Dunwich Records was a small indepent label in Chicago that got national distribution through a deal with Atlantic Records. Their biggest act was the Shadows of Knight, who topped the charts with their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria in 1966. One of the most successful other bands on the label was the Del-Vetts, from Chicago's affluent North Side (band members had matching white Corvettes, hence the name.) Last Time Around, sounding a lot like the Yardbirds, was their only nationally charted song, although they did get airplay in the midwest with other songs as well.
Artist: Chris Carpenter
Title: This World (Is Closing In On Me)
Source: Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released in Canada as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): L. Drake
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Stone; released in US on Sidra, Oceanside and United Artists)
Year: 1967
This World (Is Closing In On Me) was a lavishly produced piece from Detroit's Chris Carpenter that was released on several different labels in 1967. The song first appeared on the Stone label in Canada, then on local Detroit labels Sidra and Oceanside (the latter being the source material for Arf Arf's CD reissue of the track). The recording was also picked up for national distribution by United Artists and was also issued on colored vinyl on the Sound Patterns label, but credited to "Preston" rather than Chris Carpenter. A strange history indeed!
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Blue Avenue
Source: British import CD: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: See For Miles (original US label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
Although never issued as a single in the US, Blue Avenue, from The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union, was the band's most popular song among UK radio listeners. This is due to the fact that the song was played by England's most influential DJ, John Peel, on his "Top Gear" show. One of the many garage bands I was in learned the song and played it at a failed audition for the Ramstein AFB Airman's club, although all five guys in the audience seemed to get a kick out of hearing me strum my guitar's deadened strings on the song's intro.
Artist: Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title: China Pig
Source: CD: Trout Mask Replica
Writer(s): Don Van Vliet
Label: Reprise (original label: Straight)
Year: 1969
Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band did probably more label hopping than any other band of the psychedelic era. Following one single for Herb Alpert's A&M label (that was only released in the Los Angeles area), the group, led by Don Van Vliet, recorded one LP each for three different labels from 1967 to 1968 before finally landing at Frank Zappa's Straight Records in 1969. Their first LP for the label, Trout Mask Replica, is considered a landmark in avant-garde rock and has made several all-time greatest albums lists in the years since it was released. The Captain was originally known for his unique take on the blues, and that style can still be heard on tunes like China Pig, one of the longer tracks on the album.
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: Cool It Down
Source: LP: Loaded
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Cotillion
Year: 1970
The final Velvet Underground album to feature Lou Reed, Loaded was a deliberate attempt by the band to move away from Andy Warhol's avant-garde leanings and become a commercial success. All 10 songs on the LP were edited down for their maximum commercial impact, including Cool It Down. VU drummer Maureen Tucker was pregnant at the time the album was recorded, and does not play on any of the tracks, although she does appear in the credits. Multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule was a major creative force on the album, singing lead on four tracks, as well as playing all the bass, piano and organ parts. Lou Reed, who sang lead on the remaining six tracks, including Cool It Down (which, incidentally features a guitar solo by Yule), wrote all the songs on the album, although originally the entire band was given songwriting credits. Reed was unhappy with the finished album, however, and left the band three months before it was released.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Come On In
Source: British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
It only cost a total of $150 for the Music Machine to record both sides of their debut single at RCA Studios in Los Angeles, thanks to the band having been performing the songs live for several months. The band then took the tapes to Original Sound, who issued Talk Talk and Come On In on their own label. Although Talk Talk was the obvious hit, more melodic songs like Come On In had perhaps a greater influence on later bands such as the Doors and Iron Butterfly.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Daily Nightly
Source: CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Michael Nesmith
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (he also sang lead on it).
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: Red The Sign Post
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Cauldron)
Writer(s): Roswicky/Blossom
Label: Rhino (original label: Limelight)
Year: 1968
Although most of the more avant-garde bands of the psychedelic era were headquarted in New York, there were some exceptions, such as San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose. The core members of the band were founder and bassist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist David Blossom, and his wife, vocalist Nancy Blossom. The group used a lot of unusual instruments, such as theramin, Moog synthesizer and prepared guitar and piano. Probably their most commercial song was Red The Sign Post from the LP Cauldron. After that album the group called it quits, with most of the members joining the cast of Hair. In fact, Nancy Blossom played lead character Sheila in the San Francisco production of the musical.
Artist: Blues Image
Title: Reality Does Not Inspire
Source: LP: Blues Image
Writer(s): Blues Image
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
Formed in 1967, Blues Image cited Greenwich Village's Blues Project as their primary inspiration, and is generally acknowledged to be Florida's first jam band. They were also one of the few bands to open their own club, the legendary Thee Image, and played host to many big name acts during the club's short run. Among the Blues Images fans was Jimi Hendrix, who once told them they did great arrangements of other people's material, but their own stuff was relatively weak. The band responded by temporarily putting their original material on the shelf, pulling it out later and giving it the same treatment they would any other cover song. This approach seemed to work well, as Reality Does Not Inspire, the nine minute "showcase" track for their debut LP demonstrates.
Artist: Free
Title: Mouthful Of Grass
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Fraser/Rodgers
Label: A&M
Year: 1969
Free's breakthrough single, All Right Now, was released in 1970. The B side, however, was an instrumental called Mouthful Of Grass that was taken from the group's second LP, released the previous year. Like most of Free's material from 1969 on, Mouthful Of Grass was written by lead vocalist Paul Rodgers and bassist Andy Fraser (who was all of sixteen years old at the time).
Artist: Thunderclap Newman
Title: Something In The Air
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Keen
Label: Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year: 1969
Thunderclap Newman was actually the creation of the Who's Pete Townshend, who assembled a bunch of studio musicians to work with drummer (and former Who roadie) John "Speedy" Keen. Keen had written Armenia City In The Sky, the opening track on The Who Sell Out, and Townshend set up the studio project to return the favor. Joining Keen were 15-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (who would eventually join Paul McCartney's Wings before dying of a heroin overdose in 1979), studio engineer Andy "Thunderclap" Newman (who had worked with Pink Floyd, among others) on piano, and Townshend himself on bass. Following the success of Something In The Air, the group recorded an album, but sales were disappointing and the group soon disbanded.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
In the early 1960s the San Bernardino/Riverside area of Southern California (sometimes known as the Inland Empire), was home to a pair of rival top 40 stations, KFXM and KMEN. The newer of the two, KMEN, had a staff that included Ron Jacobs, who would go on to co-create the Boss Radio format (more music, less talk!), and Brian Lord, one of the first American DJs to champion British Rock (even going so far as to have copies of Beatle albums shipped from record shops in London before they were released in the US), and the man responsible for setting up the Rolling Stones' first US gig (in San Bernardino). From 1965-67 Lord took a break from KMEN, moving north to the San Jose area. While there, he heard a local band playing in a small teen club and invited them to use his garage as a practice space. The band was Count Five, and, with Lord's help, they got a contract with L.A.'s Double Shot label, recording and releasing the classic Psychotic Reaction in 1966. Lord later claimed that this was the origin of the term "garage rock".
Artist: Dada
Title: Dorina
Source: CD: Puzzle
Writer(s): Calio/Gurney
Label: IRS
Year: 1992
In the early 1990s I found myself within listening range of a Virginia Beach radio station that called itself The Coast. Unlike other radio stations in the area, each of which had a tight playlist determined by extensive audience research, The Coast was a relatively free-form station that played an eclectic mix of classic, modern and alternative rock. Among the bands that got airplay on The Coast was a new three-piece band from California called Dada. Consisting of guitarist Michael Gurley, and bassist Joie Calio (who shared lead vocals) along with drummer Phil Leavitt, Dada made their recording debut with the 1992 album Puzzle. The first single released from the album, Dizz-Knee Land, got a lot of airplay on more mainstream rock stations, but it was the album's opening track, Dorina, that really grabbed my attention when I heard it on The Coast.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ron, Rudy and O'Kelley Isley
Label: LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol Records misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
Source: LP: The Grateful Dead
Writer: McGannahan Skjellyfetti
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
I once knew someone from San Jose, California who had an original copy of the single version of The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), the opening track from the first Grateful Dead album. It was totally worn out from being played a few hundred times, though.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded At The Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer(s): Redding/Butler
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although his name had appeared on the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts since 1962, it wasn't until the release of I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now) in 1965 that Redding began to get noticed by the public at large. The song hit # 2 on the R&B chart and just barely missed making the top 20 on the mainstream chart. Two years later Redding performed the song as part of his set at the Monterey International Pop Festival, backed by Booker T and the MGs, along with the Bar-Kays horn section. Less than a year later a plane crash would claim the lives of Redding and the Bar-Kays, just as the singer was achieving his greatest success.
Artist: Richie Havens
Title: Just Like A Woman
Source: LP: Mixed Bag
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1967
Mixed Bag was Richie Havens's first LP, released in 1967 on the then-new Verve Forecast label. As the title implies, the album is a mixture of original and cover tunes, and was meant to showcase Havens's range as a performer. One of the more notable tracks is his rearrangement of Bob Dylan's Just Like A Woman, which had been a top 40 hit the previous fall.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: The Great Banana Hoax
Source: CD: Underground
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The second Electric Prunes LP, Underground, saw the band gaining greater creative control over the recording process than at any other time in their career (until their reformation in the 1990s). The album's opening track, The Great Banana Hoax, is notable for two reasons: first, it was composed by band members and second, it has nothing to do with bananas. The title probably refers to the rumor circulating at the time that Donovan's Mellow Yellow was really about smoking banana peels to get high. The song itself is an indication of the musical direction the band itself wanted to go in before it got sidetracked (some would say derailed) by producer David Hassinger, who would assert control to the point of eventually replacing all the original members of the band by their fourth album (yes, some producers had that kind of power in those days).
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Lazy Day
Source: LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash/Sundazed
Year: 1967
Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.
Artist: Small Faces
Title: (Tell Me) Have You Ever See Me
Source: CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (originally released on LP: There Are But Four Small Faces)
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane
Label: Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1967
The Small Faces discography can be a bit confusing, mostly because they released two self-titled albums in the UK on two different labels (Decca and Immediate) over a two-year period. To make it even more confusing, some of the songs on the second album were remakes of songs from the first one. Among those remade songs was (Tell Me) Have You Ever See Me, a tune that is now included on the import CD reissue of the group's next album, 1968's Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. One final note: the second Small Faces album was eventually released in the US, but under the title There Are But Four Small Faces, distributed by Columbia Records.
Artist: MC Squared
Title: My Mind Goes High
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Claugh/Crawly
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
MC2 (pronounced "em see squared") only released one single, the folk-pop tinged My Mind Goes High on the Reprise label in 1967, before disbanding following a dispute with their producer, Lenny Waronker. One member, however, drummer Jim Keltner, went on to make a name for himself playing on John Lennon's albums in the early 70s and doing studio work for a variety of well-known acts. He also toured with Booker T & the MGs in the 1990s, appearing onstage backing up Neil Young.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: She Has Funny Cars
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
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. The mono mix used for the single has noticably less reverb than the more familiar stereo version of the song.
Artist: Them
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Backtrackin' (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joe Williams
Label: London (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1965
Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Them, led by the fiery Van Morrison, quickly got a reputation for being rude and obnoxious, particularly to members of the English press (although it was actually a fellow Irishman who labeled them as "boorish"). Their first single was what has come to be considered the definitive version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the song did not appear on any of the band's original US albums. Finally, in 1974, London Records included Baby, Please Don't Go on a collection of UK singles and album tracks that had not been previously released in the US. Oddly enough, the song's B side ended up being the song most people associate with Them: the classic Gloria, which was released as Them's US debut single in 1965 but promptly found itself banned on most US radio stations due to suggestive lyrics. Them's recording of Baby, Please Don't Go enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980s when it was used in the hit movie Good Morning Vietnam.
Artist: Them
Title: Black Widow Spider
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them for a solo career, the band headed back to Belfast, where they recruited vocalist Kenny McDowell. Them soon relocated permanently to the US west coast, where they landed a contract with Tower Records. After a first album that featured songs from a variety of sources, they hooked up with Sharon Pulley and Tom Lane, who wrote an album's worth of material for the band. That album was Time Out! Time In! For Them, an album that has stayed under the radar for over 40 years, despite tunes like Black Widow Spider, which closes out the first side of the LP.
Artist: Them
Title: Just A Little Bit
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Backtrackin' (originally released in UK on LP: The Angry Young Them)
Writer(s): Thornton/Washington/Bass/Brown
Label: London (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
Like many mid-60s albums, the debut effort from Belfast's Them had a slightly different track lineup on either side of the Atlantic, with a few of the songs from the British version left off the American album. One of the songs from The Angry Young Them that was left of its US counterpart (titled simply Them) was a remake of a 1959 Roscoe Gordon tune called Just A Little Bit. The song finally appeared in the US on an album called Backtrackin' in 1974. By then, however, LPs were being pressed only in stereo, whereas the original recordings used were all mixed monoraully. Rather than use the mono mixes, London Records chose to create "fake stereo" mixes of the songs on the LP.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Move Over (take 13)
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions
Writer(s): Janis Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1970
The Pearl Sessions CD, released in 2012, features many early takes of songs included on Janis Joplin's final album, Pearl. Among those are three takes of Move Over, arranged back to back on the CD as a way of documenting the evolution of the Full Tilt Boogie Band's arrangement of the Joplin-penned tune. The middle of these three takes includes hand clapping over the intro and an extended fade out section at the end of the song that features Joplin improvising vocals lines for almost a full minute.
Title: Purple Haze
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK as a single on the new Track label, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise, a division of what is now WEA, got the rights to release the first Hendrix album, Are You Experienced, in the US, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. The song next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which in Europe was on the Polydor label. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA (now Universal) acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced? is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that Purple Haze, as well as the rest of the Jimi Hendrix Experience catalog, has the distinction of having been released by every major record company in the world (yes, there are only three now).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: 51st Anniversary
Source: Mono CD: Are You Experienced? (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Track)
Year: 1967
The first Jimi Hendrix Experience single of 1967 (and the first for Track Records) was the classic Purple Haze, released on March 17, 1967. For the B side, the band chose one of producer Chas Chandler's favorite tracks, 51st Anniversary. The song expressed Hendrix's views on marraige by looking at it first from 51 years after the wedding, and then working his way back through the years. The first half, in Hendrix's words, was "just saying the good things about marraige, or maybe the usual things about marraige. The second part of the record tells about the parts of marraige which I've seen." Hendrix's own parents got married when his mother was just 17, just like the girl in the song. Musically, 51st Anniversary is unique in that it is the only Hendrix song ever released that did not have a guitar solo, although the recording does feature five guitar overdubs linked together throughout the track.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Castles Made Of Sand
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA
Year: 1967
When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, and stands in direct contrast to the usual goal-oriented American attitude.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: For Your Love
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
The last Yardbirds song to feature guitarist Eric Clapton, For Your Love was the group's fist US hit, peaking at the # 6 slot. The song did even better in the UK, peaking at # 3. Following its release, Clapton left the Yardbirds, citing the band's move toward a more commercial sound and this song in particular as reasons for his departure (ironic when you consider songs like his mid-90s hit Change the World or his slowed down lounge lizard version of Layla). For Your Love was written by Graham Gouldman, who would end up as a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and later 10cc with Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.
Artist: Del-Vetts
Title: Last Time Around
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dennis Dahlquist
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Dunwich Records was a small indepent label in Chicago that got national distribution through a deal with Atlantic Records. Their biggest act was the Shadows of Knight, who topped the charts with their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria in 1966. One of the most successful other bands on the label was the Del-Vetts, from Chicago's affluent North Side (band members had matching white Corvettes, hence the name.) Last Time Around, sounding a lot like the Yardbirds, was their only nationally charted song, although they did get airplay in the midwest with other songs as well.
Artist: Chris Carpenter
Title: This World (Is Closing In On Me)
Source: Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released in Canada as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): L. Drake
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Stone; released in US on Sidra, Oceanside and United Artists)
Year: 1967
This World (Is Closing In On Me) was a lavishly produced piece from Detroit's Chris Carpenter that was released on several different labels in 1967. The song first appeared on the Stone label in Canada, then on local Detroit labels Sidra and Oceanside (the latter being the source material for Arf Arf's CD reissue of the track). The recording was also picked up for national distribution by United Artists and was also issued on colored vinyl on the Sound Patterns label, but credited to "Preston" rather than Chris Carpenter. A strange history indeed!
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Blue Avenue
Source: British import CD: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: See For Miles (original US label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
Although never issued as a single in the US, Blue Avenue, from The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union, was the band's most popular song among UK radio listeners. This is due to the fact that the song was played by England's most influential DJ, John Peel, on his "Top Gear" show. One of the many garage bands I was in learned the song and played it at a failed audition for the Ramstein AFB Airman's club, although all five guys in the audience seemed to get a kick out of hearing me strum my guitar's deadened strings on the song's intro.
Artist: Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title: China Pig
Source: CD: Trout Mask Replica
Writer(s): Don Van Vliet
Label: Reprise (original label: Straight)
Year: 1969
Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band did probably more label hopping than any other band of the psychedelic era. Following one single for Herb Alpert's A&M label (that was only released in the Los Angeles area), the group, led by Don Van Vliet, recorded one LP each for three different labels from 1967 to 1968 before finally landing at Frank Zappa's Straight Records in 1969. Their first LP for the label, Trout Mask Replica, is considered a landmark in avant-garde rock and has made several all-time greatest albums lists in the years since it was released. The Captain was originally known for his unique take on the blues, and that style can still be heard on tunes like China Pig, one of the longer tracks on the album.
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: Cool It Down
Source: LP: Loaded
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: Cotillion
Year: 1970
The final Velvet Underground album to feature Lou Reed, Loaded was a deliberate attempt by the band to move away from Andy Warhol's avant-garde leanings and become a commercial success. All 10 songs on the LP were edited down for their maximum commercial impact, including Cool It Down. VU drummer Maureen Tucker was pregnant at the time the album was recorded, and does not play on any of the tracks, although she does appear in the credits. Multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule was a major creative force on the album, singing lead on four tracks, as well as playing all the bass, piano and organ parts. Lou Reed, who sang lead on the remaining six tracks, including Cool It Down (which, incidentally features a guitar solo by Yule), wrote all the songs on the album, although originally the entire band was given songwriting credits. Reed was unhappy with the finished album, however, and left the band three months before it was released.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Come On In
Source: British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
It only cost a total of $150 for the Music Machine to record both sides of their debut single at RCA Studios in Los Angeles, thanks to the band having been performing the songs live for several months. The band then took the tapes to Original Sound, who issued Talk Talk and Come On In on their own label. Although Talk Talk was the obvious hit, more melodic songs like Come On In had perhaps a greater influence on later bands such as the Doors and Iron Butterfly.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Daily Nightly
Source: CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Michael Nesmith
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (he also sang lead on it).
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: Red The Sign Post
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Cauldron)
Writer(s): Roswicky/Blossom
Label: Rhino (original label: Limelight)
Year: 1968
Although most of the more avant-garde bands of the psychedelic era were headquarted in New York, there were some exceptions, such as San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose. The core members of the band were founder and bassist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist David Blossom, and his wife, vocalist Nancy Blossom. The group used a lot of unusual instruments, such as theramin, Moog synthesizer and prepared guitar and piano. Probably their most commercial song was Red The Sign Post from the LP Cauldron. After that album the group called it quits, with most of the members joining the cast of Hair. In fact, Nancy Blossom played lead character Sheila in the San Francisco production of the musical.
Artist: Blues Image
Title: Reality Does Not Inspire
Source: LP: Blues Image
Writer(s): Blues Image
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
Formed in 1967, Blues Image cited Greenwich Village's Blues Project as their primary inspiration, and is generally acknowledged to be Florida's first jam band. They were also one of the few bands to open their own club, the legendary Thee Image, and played host to many big name acts during the club's short run. Among the Blues Images fans was Jimi Hendrix, who once told them they did great arrangements of other people's material, but their own stuff was relatively weak. The band responded by temporarily putting their original material on the shelf, pulling it out later and giving it the same treatment they would any other cover song. This approach seemed to work well, as Reality Does Not Inspire, the nine minute "showcase" track for their debut LP demonstrates.
Artist: Free
Title: Mouthful Of Grass
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Fraser/Rodgers
Label: A&M
Year: 1969
Free's breakthrough single, All Right Now, was released in 1970. The B side, however, was an instrumental called Mouthful Of Grass that was taken from the group's second LP, released the previous year. Like most of Free's material from 1969 on, Mouthful Of Grass was written by lead vocalist Paul Rodgers and bassist Andy Fraser (who was all of sixteen years old at the time).
Artist: Thunderclap Newman
Title: Something In The Air
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Keen
Label: Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year: 1969
Thunderclap Newman was actually the creation of the Who's Pete Townshend, who assembled a bunch of studio musicians to work with drummer (and former Who roadie) John "Speedy" Keen. Keen had written Armenia City In The Sky, the opening track on The Who Sell Out, and Townshend set up the studio project to return the favor. Joining Keen were 15-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (who would eventually join Paul McCartney's Wings before dying of a heroin overdose in 1979), studio engineer Andy "Thunderclap" Newman (who had worked with Pink Floyd, among others) on piano, and Townshend himself on bass. Following the success of Something In The Air, the group recorded an album, but sales were disappointing and the group soon disbanded.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
In the early 1960s the San Bernardino/Riverside area of Southern California (sometimes known as the Inland Empire), was home to a pair of rival top 40 stations, KFXM and KMEN. The newer of the two, KMEN, had a staff that included Ron Jacobs, who would go on to co-create the Boss Radio format (more music, less talk!), and Brian Lord, one of the first American DJs to champion British Rock (even going so far as to have copies of Beatle albums shipped from record shops in London before they were released in the US), and the man responsible for setting up the Rolling Stones' first US gig (in San Bernardino). From 1965-67 Lord took a break from KMEN, moving north to the San Jose area. While there, he heard a local band playing in a small teen club and invited them to use his garage as a practice space. The band was Count Five, and, with Lord's help, they got a contract with L.A.'s Double Shot label, recording and releasing the classic Psychotic Reaction in 1966. Lord later claimed that this was the origin of the term "garage rock".
Artist: Dada
Title: Dorina
Source: CD: Puzzle
Writer(s): Calio/Gurney
Label: IRS
Year: 1992
In the early 1990s I found myself within listening range of a Virginia Beach radio station that called itself The Coast. Unlike other radio stations in the area, each of which had a tight playlist determined by extensive audience research, The Coast was a relatively free-form station that played an eclectic mix of classic, modern and alternative rock. Among the bands that got airplay on The Coast was a new three-piece band from California called Dada. Consisting of guitarist Michael Gurley, and bassist Joie Calio (who shared lead vocals) along with drummer Phil Leavitt, Dada made their recording debut with the 1992 album Puzzle. The first single released from the album, Dizz-Knee Land, got a lot of airplay on more mainstream rock stations, but it was the album's opening track, Dorina, that really grabbed my attention when I heard it on The Coast.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ron, Rudy and O'Kelley Isley
Label: LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol Records misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
Source: LP: The Grateful Dead
Writer: McGannahan Skjellyfetti
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
I once knew someone from San Jose, California who had an original copy of the single version of The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), the opening track from the first Grateful Dead album. It was totally worn out from being played a few hundred times, though.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded At The Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer(s): Redding/Butler
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although his name had appeared on the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts since 1962, it wasn't until the release of I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now) in 1965 that Redding began to get noticed by the public at large. The song hit # 2 on the R&B chart and just barely missed making the top 20 on the mainstream chart. Two years later Redding performed the song as part of his set at the Monterey International Pop Festival, backed by Booker T and the MGs, along with the Bar-Kays horn section. Less than a year later a plane crash would claim the lives of Redding and the Bar-Kays, just as the singer was achieving his greatest success.
Artist: Richie Havens
Title: Just Like A Woman
Source: LP: Mixed Bag
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1967
Mixed Bag was Richie Havens's first LP, released in 1967 on the then-new Verve Forecast label. As the title implies, the album is a mixture of original and cover tunes, and was meant to showcase Havens's range as a performer. One of the more notable tracks is his rearrangement of Bob Dylan's Just Like A Woman, which had been a top 40 hit the previous fall.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: The Great Banana Hoax
Source: CD: Underground
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The second Electric Prunes LP, Underground, saw the band gaining greater creative control over the recording process than at any other time in their career (until their reformation in the 1990s). The album's opening track, The Great Banana Hoax, is notable for two reasons: first, it was composed by band members and second, it has nothing to do with bananas. The title probably refers to the rumor circulating at the time that Donovan's Mellow Yellow was really about smoking banana peels to get high. The song itself is an indication of the musical direction the band itself wanted to go in before it got sidetracked (some would say derailed) by producer David Hassinger, who would assert control to the point of eventually replacing all the original members of the band by their fourth album (yes, some producers had that kind of power in those days).
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Lazy Day
Source: LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash/Sundazed
Year: 1967
Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.
Artist: Small Faces
Title: (Tell Me) Have You Ever See Me
Source: CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (originally released on LP: There Are But Four Small Faces)
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane
Label: Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1967
The Small Faces discography can be a bit confusing, mostly because they released two self-titled albums in the UK on two different labels (Decca and Immediate) over a two-year period. To make it even more confusing, some of the songs on the second album were remakes of songs from the first one. Among those remade songs was (Tell Me) Have You Ever See Me, a tune that is now included on the import CD reissue of the group's next album, 1968's Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. One final note: the second Small Faces album was eventually released in the US, but under the title There Are But Four Small Faces, distributed by Columbia Records.
Artist: MC Squared
Title: My Mind Goes High
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Claugh/Crawly
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
MC2 (pronounced "em see squared") only released one single, the folk-pop tinged My Mind Goes High on the Reprise label in 1967, before disbanding following a dispute with their producer, Lenny Waronker. One member, however, drummer Jim Keltner, went on to make a name for himself playing on John Lennon's albums in the early 70s and doing studio work for a variety of well-known acts. He also toured with Booker T & the MGs in the 1990s, appearing onstage backing up Neil Young.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: She Has Funny Cars
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
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. The mono mix used for the single has noticably less reverb than the more familiar stereo version of the song.
Artist: Them
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Backtrackin' (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joe Williams
Label: London (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1965
Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Them, led by the fiery Van Morrison, quickly got a reputation for being rude and obnoxious, particularly to members of the English press (although it was actually a fellow Irishman who labeled them as "boorish"). Their first single was what has come to be considered the definitive version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the song did not appear on any of the band's original US albums. Finally, in 1974, London Records included Baby, Please Don't Go on a collection of UK singles and album tracks that had not been previously released in the US. Oddly enough, the song's B side ended up being the song most people associate with Them: the classic Gloria, which was released as Them's US debut single in 1965 but promptly found itself banned on most US radio stations due to suggestive lyrics. Them's recording of Baby, Please Don't Go enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980s when it was used in the hit movie Good Morning Vietnam.
Artist: Them
Title: Black Widow Spider
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them for a solo career, the band headed back to Belfast, where they recruited vocalist Kenny McDowell. Them soon relocated permanently to the US west coast, where they landed a contract with Tower Records. After a first album that featured songs from a variety of sources, they hooked up with Sharon Pulley and Tom Lane, who wrote an album's worth of material for the band. That album was Time Out! Time In! For Them, an album that has stayed under the radar for over 40 years, despite tunes like Black Widow Spider, which closes out the first side of the LP.
Artist: Them
Title: Just A Little Bit
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Backtrackin' (originally released in UK on LP: The Angry Young Them)
Writer(s): Thornton/Washington/Bass/Brown
Label: London (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
Like many mid-60s albums, the debut effort from Belfast's Them had a slightly different track lineup on either side of the Atlantic, with a few of the songs from the British version left off the American album. One of the songs from The Angry Young Them that was left of its US counterpart (titled simply Them) was a remake of a 1959 Roscoe Gordon tune called Just A Little Bit. The song finally appeared in the US on an album called Backtrackin' in 1974. By then, however, LPs were being pressed only in stereo, whereas the original recordings used were all mixed monoraully. Rather than use the mono mixes, London Records chose to create "fake stereo" mixes of the songs on the LP.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Move Over (take 13)
Source: CD: The Pearl Sessions
Writer(s): Janis Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1970
The Pearl Sessions CD, released in 2012, features many early takes of songs included on Janis Joplin's final album, Pearl. Among those are three takes of Move Over, arranged back to back on the CD as a way of documenting the evolution of the Full Tilt Boogie Band's arrangement of the Joplin-penned tune. The middle of these three takes includes hand clapping over the intro and an extended fade out section at the end of the song that features Joplin improvising vocals lines for almost a full minute.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1520 (starts 5/13/15)
Artist: Hollies
Title: Don't Run And Hide
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Clark/Hicks/Nash
Label: Imperial
Year: 1966
The Hollies were already established in the UK with a series of hit records by the time they scored their breakthrough US hit, Bus Stop, in 1966. Don't Run and Hide is the B side of that US single. Like many early Hollies tunes, Don't Run And Hide was credited to the fictional L. Ransford, rather than band members Allan Clark, Terry Hicks and Graham Nash, who actually wrote the song.
Artist: Wimple Winch
Title: Save My Soul
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Christopholus/Kelman
Label: Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1966
Dee Fenton and the Silhouettes were a fairly typical merseybeat band formed in 1961 by Dee Christopholus, a Greek immigrant whose parents had moved to Liverpool in the 1950s. In 1963 they changed their name to the Four Just Men, which became the Just Four Men when they were signed to Parlophone the following year. After a pair of singles failed to make a dent in the British charts EMI (Parlophone's parent company) cut the band from its roster. Rather than disband, the group decided to reinvent themselves as a British counterpart to the many garage bands popping up in the US. Changing their name to Wimple Winch, the group released three singles on the Fontana label, the second of which was Save My Soul, released in June of 1966. All three singles did well in Liverpool but failed to make an impression elsewhere. The group finally decided to call it quits when Fontana dropped them in early 1967.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Bert's Blues
Source: Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Sundazed
Year: 1966
In 1966 Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch got into a contractual dispute with his record label, Pye Records UK. Up to that point his records had appeared in the US on the independent Hickory label. Now, however, he was about to make his US major label debut (on Epic), and the dispute with Pye led to his newest album, Sunshine Superman, being released only in North America. Like Bob Dylan, Donovan was beginning to expand beyond his folk roots, but in addition to the usual rock instruments (guitar, bass, drums, organ) Donovan used older acoustic instruments such as strings and harpsichord as well as experimenting with modern jazz arrangements and instrumentation. Somehow he managed to combine all of these elements in one track, Bert's Blues. Surprisingly, it worked.
Artist: Smoke
Title: My Friend Jack
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Rowley/Gill/Luker/Lund
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
My Friend Jack was well on its way to becoming a huge international hit when it was suddenly recalled in the UK by EMI's Columbia label. The reason, as it turns out, is that the "sugar lumps" mentioned throughout the song was actually a drug reference; a fact that apparently did not matter so much in Germany, where the song held the #1 spot on the charts for seven weeks. The Smoke was formed in Yorkshire in 1965 as the Shots, and released one single that year that did not go anywhere, in spite of (or perhaps because of) backing by some of London's most notorious mobsters. After the name change the group released My Friend Jack and ended up spending much of 1967 touring in Germany, where they released several more singles before the original lineup split up in 1968 (although Smoke records by various personnel would continue to be released well into the 1970s).
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Dark Side
Source: Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Rogers/Sohns
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
Dark Side, written by guitarist Warren Rogers and singer Jim Sohns, is probably the quintessential Shadows of Knight song. It has all the classic elements of a garage rock song: three chords, a blues beat and lots of attitude. Oh, and the lyrics "I love you baby more than birds love the sky". What more can you ask for?
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pictures And Designs
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s): Saxon/Hooper
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The first Seeds album was somewhat unusual for its time in that all the songs on the album (including both singles from the album) were written by members of the band itself. Unfortunately this resulted in a sort of formulaic sameness from one track to the next, with many tunes sounding like attempts to recapture the magic of their most famous song, Pushin' Too Hard. The second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, also was made up of (mostly) original material, but this time Sky Saxon and company made an effort to expand beyond the formula with tracks like Pictures And Designs, which starts off sounding a bit like the Yardbirds, but soon becomes a snarling punk drone that manages to break new ground for the band while maintaining the distinctive Seeds sound.
Artist: Mojo Men
Title: She's My Baby
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stewart/Alaimo/Curcio
Label: Rhino (original label: Autumn)
Year: 1966
Although generally considered to be one of the early San Francisco bands, the Mojo Men actually originated in Rochester, NY. After spending most of the early 60s in Florida playing to fraternities, the band moved out the West Coast in 1965, soon falling in with Autumn Records producer Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone), for a time becoming his backup band. Stewart produced several singles for the Mojo Men, including She's My Baby, a song that had originally been recorded in 1962 as a song to do the mashed potato (an early 60s dance) to by Steve Alaimo, brother of Mojo Men bassist/lead vocalist Jim Alaimo and co-host (with Paul Revere and the Raiders) of the nationally distributed dance show Where The Action Is. The Mojo Men version of She's My Baby has more of a blues/garage-rock sound than the Steve Alaimo original, prompting its inclusion on several compilation albums over the past forty years.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK, and were deleted at Simon's request.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Stone Free
Source: LP: Smash Hits
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
Whether or not Stone Free was the first song ever written by Jimi Hendrix, there is no doubt it was his first original composition to be recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In fact, it is the only song written by Hendrix to be released in 1966, albeit only in Europe and the UK as the B side to Hey Joe. The first time the song was released in the US was on the Smash Hits anthology album that was put out by Reprise Records in 1969. A newer version was recorded, but not released, that same year under the title Stone Free Again.
Artist: Animals
Title: Cheating
Source: LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Burdon/Chandler
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
As a general rule, the original Animals wrote very little of their own material, preferring to record covers of their favorite blues songs to supplement the songs from professional songwriters that producer Mickie Most picked for single release. One notable exception is Cheating, a strong effort from vocalist Eric Burdon and bassist Chas Chandler that appeared on the Animalization album. The hard-driving song was also chosen for release as a B side in 1966.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Light Years From Home
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more noticable than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover featured the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines, This "mini cover" was pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interesting enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) got significant airplay.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Sittin' On A Fence
Source: CD: Flowers
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
Not all the songs from the Rolling Stones' recording sessions for the album Aftermath were included on either the British or American version of the final LP. One of the songs that was left off the album was Sittin' On A Fence, a country flavored tune that finally surfaced in 1967 on the US-only LP Flowers.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Street Fighting Man
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Beggar's Banquet)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.
Artist: Front Line
Title: Got Love
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Lanigan/Philipet
Label: Rhino (original label: York)
Year: 1965
The Front Line was a band from San Rafael, California whose story in many ways was typical of their time. Marin County, being a fairly upscale place, had its share of clubs catering to the sons and daughters of its affluent residents. Of course, these teens wanted to hear live performances of their favorite top 40 tunes and bands like the Front Line made a decent enough living catering to their preferences. Like most bands of the time, the Front Line had one song that was of their own creation, albeit one that was somewhat derivative of the kinds of tunes they usually performed (not to mention unusually short in duration) so as not to scare off their audience. That song was Got Love, which was released on the York label in 1965.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
In their early days Jefferson Airplane, like most of their contemporaries, included several cover tunes in their repertoire. Unlike many other bands, however, the Airplane managed to stamp all of their covers with their own unmistakeable sound. One excellent example of this is the Airplane's version of Tobacco Road, a song by John D. Loudermilk that had been a hit for the British invasion band Nashville Teens in 1964. The Airplane version, which appears on their debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, takes an entirely different approach than the Teens' rendition (or the similarly styled Blues Magoos version recorded around the same time as the Airplane's), laying off the power chords in favor of a jazzier approach more in tune with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's style.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Pipe Dream
Source: Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer: Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Pipe Dream, the Blues Magoos strong follow-up single to (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was handicapped by having an equally strong track, There's A Chance We Can Make It, on the other side of the record. As it was not Mercury's policy to push one side of a single over the other, stations were confused about which song to play. The result was that each tune got about an equal amount of airplay. With each song getting airplay on only half the available stations, neither tune was able to make a strong showing in the charts. This had the ripple effect of slowing down album sales of Electric Comic Book, which in turn hurt the careers of the members of the Blues Magoos.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer: Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of hate. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack of its time.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Daily Nightly
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.)
Writer(s): Michael Nesmith
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (he also sang lead on it). The Moog itself had been programmed by electronic music pioneer Paul Beaver especially for this recording.
Artist: Brian Wilson
Title: Good Vibrations
Source: CD: Brian Wilson Presents Smile
Writer(s): Wilson/Love/Asher
Label: Nonesuch
Year: 2004
Rock history is full of stories about albums that were started with the best of intentions, but for one reason or another ended up on the shelf, sometimes indefinitely. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Beach Boys' follow up album to their critically acclaimed Pet Sounds LP. The album was to be called Smile, and the priveledged few who had heard the work in progress all agreed it was to be Brian Wilson's masterpiece, both as writer and producer. However, a series of problems, including internal disputes among the band members and Wilson's own mental state, kept pushing back the album's completion date. Finally the whole thing was scrapped, and a far less ambitious LP called Smiley Smile was hastily recorded in its place. The legend of the original Smile continued to grow over the years, however, with occasional fragments of the original tapes (which had first thought to have been destroyed) surfacing from time to time. Finally, in the early 2000s, Wilson decided to start the entire project over from scratch, working purely from his own creative vision and memory of what he originally had in mind. The result was Brian Wilson Presents Smile, released in 2004. Unlike the original Smile tapes, the new recording was done entirely in stereo (no small feat considering Wilson is deaf in one ear). There were other, more significant changes as well, such as new lyrics for one of Wilson's best known songs, Good Vibrations. Personally I find it a bit jarring to hear unexpected words on a familiar tune, but I leave it up to you to decide whether the new lyrics enhance or detract from the beauty of the song.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Set Me Free
Source: Mono LP: Kinda Kinks
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
After scoring international success with a series of R&B influenced rockers in 1964, the Kinks started to mellow a bit in 1965, releasing more melodic songs such as Set Me Free. The band would continue to evolve throughout the decade, eventually becoming one of the first groups to release a concept album, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), in 1969.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities are considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was this 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: Jon
Title: Is It Love
Source: Mono British import CD: Insane Times (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Leopold/Mills
Label: Zonophone (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1967
Despite the name, Jon was actually a group, not an individual with only one name (although one of the members had formerly been with a band that existed solely to back up Lulu, who was indeed an individual with only one name). Jon recorded two singles for EMI, the second being Is It Love, released in 1967.
Artist: Cream
Title: Tales Of Brave Ulysses
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Sharp
Label: RSO (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Cream was one of the first bands to break British tradition and release singles that were also available as album cuts. This tradition likely came about because 45 RPM records (both singles and extended play 45s) tended to stay in print indefinitely in the UK, unlike in the US, where a hit single usually had a shelf life of around 4-6 months then disappeared forever. When the Disraeli Gears album was released, however, the song Strange Brew, which leads off the LP, was released in Europe as a single. The B side of that single was Tales Of Brave Ulysses, which opens side two of the album. The track is notable for being the first song on which Eric Clapton uses a wah-wah pedal.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of the Cream classic White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sunshine Of Your Love
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears (picture disc, if anyone cares)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown/Clapton
Label: RSO (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. Clapton and 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: Blind Faith
Title: Had To Cry Today
Source: CD: Blind Faith
Writer(s): Steve Winwood
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Blind Faith, the self-titled debut album of a group consisting of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker from Cream, Steve Winwood from Traffic and Rich Grech, who had played bass with a band called Family. The buzz about this new band was such that the rock press had to coin a brand-new term to describe it: supergroup. On release, the album shot up to the number one spot on the charts in record time. Of course, as subsequent supergroups have shown, such bands seldom stick around very long, and Blind Faith set the pattern early on by splitting up after just one LP and a short tour to promote it. The opening track of the album, Had To Cry Today, was a pure Winwood piece that showcases both Winwood and Clapton on separate simultaneous guitar tracks.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: The Lemon Song
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
If I had to choose just one Led Zeppelin song as representative of the band's early work it would have to be The Lemon Song, from their second album. The track has all the elements that made the Zep's reputation: Jimmy Page's distinctive guitar work, John Bonham's stuttered (but always timely) drum fills, John Paul Jones's funky bass line and Robert Plant's gutsy vocals (with lyrics famously derived from classic blues tunes). Squeeze my lemon, baby indeed!
Artist: Zephyr
Title: Boom-Ba-Boom/Somebody Listen
Source: CD: Zephyr
Writer(s): Givens/Givens/Bolin/Faris
Label: MCA/One Way (original label: ABC Probe)
Year: 1969
Hailing from Boulder, Colorado, Zephyr was a blues rock band that had formed in 1968 by members of various local bands. In the early days the focus was on vocalist Candy Givens, who had a range of several octaves and could easily have performed without a microphone. Once the band had recorded their self-titled debut LP, the attention began to shift to Tommy Bolin, a self-taught guitarist who would go on to become a member of the James Gang, and then Deep Purple, as well as pursuing a solo career. In addition to Bolin and Givens, the band included Candy's husband David Givens on bass, John Faris on keyboards, and Robbie Chamberlin on drums. Many of the tracks on the first Zephyr album were credited to the full membership of the band, although Boom-Ba-Boom, which segues into Somebody Listen, came from David Givens.
Artist: Changin' Tymes
Title: Hark The Child
Source: British import CD: Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sounds Of Memphis
Writer(s): Barham/Ferrer/Frazier/Moore/Warner
Label: Big Beat
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2012
Memphis, Tennessee, is a town known for its music. In particular, it is known for its vibrant blues scene, its classic R&B roots (as the home of Stax Records) and of course for some guy named Elvis. What Memphis is not particularly known for, however, is a psychedelic club scene. Nonetheless, like many other US cities in the late 1960s, Memphis did indeed boast a handful of truly psychedelic bands. One of the best of these was the Changin' Tymes, who recorded a pair of tracks for producer James Parks. One of these was later released on a single under the auspices of the Memphis Underground Music Association; the other, more overtly psychedelic track, was a tune called Hark The Child, which remained unreleased until 2012, when it appeared on a British CD dedicated to the Memphis psych scene. Enjoy!
Title: Don't Run And Hide
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Clark/Hicks/Nash
Label: Imperial
Year: 1966
The Hollies were already established in the UK with a series of hit records by the time they scored their breakthrough US hit, Bus Stop, in 1966. Don't Run and Hide is the B side of that US single. Like many early Hollies tunes, Don't Run And Hide was credited to the fictional L. Ransford, rather than band members Allan Clark, Terry Hicks and Graham Nash, who actually wrote the song.
Artist: Wimple Winch
Title: Save My Soul
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Christopholus/Kelman
Label: Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1966
Dee Fenton and the Silhouettes were a fairly typical merseybeat band formed in 1961 by Dee Christopholus, a Greek immigrant whose parents had moved to Liverpool in the 1950s. In 1963 they changed their name to the Four Just Men, which became the Just Four Men when they were signed to Parlophone the following year. After a pair of singles failed to make a dent in the British charts EMI (Parlophone's parent company) cut the band from its roster. Rather than disband, the group decided to reinvent themselves as a British counterpart to the many garage bands popping up in the US. Changing their name to Wimple Winch, the group released three singles on the Fontana label, the second of which was Save My Soul, released in June of 1966. All three singles did well in Liverpool but failed to make an impression elsewhere. The group finally decided to call it quits when Fontana dropped them in early 1967.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Bert's Blues
Source: Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Sundazed
Year: 1966
In 1966 Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch got into a contractual dispute with his record label, Pye Records UK. Up to that point his records had appeared in the US on the independent Hickory label. Now, however, he was about to make his US major label debut (on Epic), and the dispute with Pye led to his newest album, Sunshine Superman, being released only in North America. Like Bob Dylan, Donovan was beginning to expand beyond his folk roots, but in addition to the usual rock instruments (guitar, bass, drums, organ) Donovan used older acoustic instruments such as strings and harpsichord as well as experimenting with modern jazz arrangements and instrumentation. Somehow he managed to combine all of these elements in one track, Bert's Blues. Surprisingly, it worked.
Artist: Smoke
Title: My Friend Jack
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Rowley/Gill/Luker/Lund
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
My Friend Jack was well on its way to becoming a huge international hit when it was suddenly recalled in the UK by EMI's Columbia label. The reason, as it turns out, is that the "sugar lumps" mentioned throughout the song was actually a drug reference; a fact that apparently did not matter so much in Germany, where the song held the #1 spot on the charts for seven weeks. The Smoke was formed in Yorkshire in 1965 as the Shots, and released one single that year that did not go anywhere, in spite of (or perhaps because of) backing by some of London's most notorious mobsters. After the name change the group released My Friend Jack and ended up spending much of 1967 touring in Germany, where they released several more singles before the original lineup split up in 1968 (although Smoke records by various personnel would continue to be released well into the 1970s).
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Dark Side
Source: Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Rogers/Sohns
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
Dark Side, written by guitarist Warren Rogers and singer Jim Sohns, is probably the quintessential Shadows of Knight song. It has all the classic elements of a garage rock song: three chords, a blues beat and lots of attitude. Oh, and the lyrics "I love you baby more than birds love the sky". What more can you ask for?
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pictures And Designs
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s): Saxon/Hooper
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The first Seeds album was somewhat unusual for its time in that all the songs on the album (including both singles from the album) were written by members of the band itself. Unfortunately this resulted in a sort of formulaic sameness from one track to the next, with many tunes sounding like attempts to recapture the magic of their most famous song, Pushin' Too Hard. The second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, also was made up of (mostly) original material, but this time Sky Saxon and company made an effort to expand beyond the formula with tracks like Pictures And Designs, which starts off sounding a bit like the Yardbirds, but soon becomes a snarling punk drone that manages to break new ground for the band while maintaining the distinctive Seeds sound.
Artist: Mojo Men
Title: She's My Baby
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stewart/Alaimo/Curcio
Label: Rhino (original label: Autumn)
Year: 1966
Although generally considered to be one of the early San Francisco bands, the Mojo Men actually originated in Rochester, NY. After spending most of the early 60s in Florida playing to fraternities, the band moved out the West Coast in 1965, soon falling in with Autumn Records producer Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone), for a time becoming his backup band. Stewart produced several singles for the Mojo Men, including She's My Baby, a song that had originally been recorded in 1962 as a song to do the mashed potato (an early 60s dance) to by Steve Alaimo, brother of Mojo Men bassist/lead vocalist Jim Alaimo and co-host (with Paul Revere and the Raiders) of the nationally distributed dance show Where The Action Is. The Mojo Men version of She's My Baby has more of a blues/garage-rock sound than the Steve Alaimo original, prompting its inclusion on several compilation albums over the past forty years.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK, and were deleted at Simon's request.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Stone Free
Source: LP: Smash Hits
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
Whether or not Stone Free was the first song ever written by Jimi Hendrix, there is no doubt it was his first original composition to be recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In fact, it is the only song written by Hendrix to be released in 1966, albeit only in Europe and the UK as the B side to Hey Joe. The first time the song was released in the US was on the Smash Hits anthology album that was put out by Reprise Records in 1969. A newer version was recorded, but not released, that same year under the title Stone Free Again.
Artist: Animals
Title: Cheating
Source: LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Burdon/Chandler
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
As a general rule, the original Animals wrote very little of their own material, preferring to record covers of their favorite blues songs to supplement the songs from professional songwriters that producer Mickie Most picked for single release. One notable exception is Cheating, a strong effort from vocalist Eric Burdon and bassist Chas Chandler that appeared on the Animalization album. The hard-driving song was also chosen for release as a B side in 1966.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Light Years From Home
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more noticable than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover featured the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines, This "mini cover" was pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interesting enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) got significant airplay.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Sittin' On A Fence
Source: CD: Flowers
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
Not all the songs from the Rolling Stones' recording sessions for the album Aftermath were included on either the British or American version of the final LP. One of the songs that was left off the album was Sittin' On A Fence, a country flavored tune that finally surfaced in 1967 on the US-only LP Flowers.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Street Fighting Man
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Beggar's Banquet)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.
Artist: Front Line
Title: Got Love
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Lanigan/Philipet
Label: Rhino (original label: York)
Year: 1965
The Front Line was a band from San Rafael, California whose story in many ways was typical of their time. Marin County, being a fairly upscale place, had its share of clubs catering to the sons and daughters of its affluent residents. Of course, these teens wanted to hear live performances of their favorite top 40 tunes and bands like the Front Line made a decent enough living catering to their preferences. Like most bands of the time, the Front Line had one song that was of their own creation, albeit one that was somewhat derivative of the kinds of tunes they usually performed (not to mention unusually short in duration) so as not to scare off their audience. That song was Got Love, which was released on the York label in 1965.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
In their early days Jefferson Airplane, like most of their contemporaries, included several cover tunes in their repertoire. Unlike many other bands, however, the Airplane managed to stamp all of their covers with their own unmistakeable sound. One excellent example of this is the Airplane's version of Tobacco Road, a song by John D. Loudermilk that had been a hit for the British invasion band Nashville Teens in 1964. The Airplane version, which appears on their debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, takes an entirely different approach than the Teens' rendition (or the similarly styled Blues Magoos version recorded around the same time as the Airplane's), laying off the power chords in favor of a jazzier approach more in tune with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's style.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Pipe Dream
Source: Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer: Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Pipe Dream, the Blues Magoos strong follow-up single to (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was handicapped by having an equally strong track, There's A Chance We Can Make It, on the other side of the record. As it was not Mercury's policy to push one side of a single over the other, stations were confused about which song to play. The result was that each tune got about an equal amount of airplay. With each song getting airplay on only half the available stations, neither tune was able to make a strong showing in the charts. This had the ripple effect of slowing down album sales of Electric Comic Book, which in turn hurt the careers of the members of the Blues Magoos.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer: Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of hate. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack of its time.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Daily Nightly
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.)
Writer(s): Michael Nesmith
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (he also sang lead on it). The Moog itself had been programmed by electronic music pioneer Paul Beaver especially for this recording.
Artist: Brian Wilson
Title: Good Vibrations
Source: CD: Brian Wilson Presents Smile
Writer(s): Wilson/Love/Asher
Label: Nonesuch
Year: 2004
Rock history is full of stories about albums that were started with the best of intentions, but for one reason or another ended up on the shelf, sometimes indefinitely. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Beach Boys' follow up album to their critically acclaimed Pet Sounds LP. The album was to be called Smile, and the priveledged few who had heard the work in progress all agreed it was to be Brian Wilson's masterpiece, both as writer and producer. However, a series of problems, including internal disputes among the band members and Wilson's own mental state, kept pushing back the album's completion date. Finally the whole thing was scrapped, and a far less ambitious LP called Smiley Smile was hastily recorded in its place. The legend of the original Smile continued to grow over the years, however, with occasional fragments of the original tapes (which had first thought to have been destroyed) surfacing from time to time. Finally, in the early 2000s, Wilson decided to start the entire project over from scratch, working purely from his own creative vision and memory of what he originally had in mind. The result was Brian Wilson Presents Smile, released in 2004. Unlike the original Smile tapes, the new recording was done entirely in stereo (no small feat considering Wilson is deaf in one ear). There were other, more significant changes as well, such as new lyrics for one of Wilson's best known songs, Good Vibrations. Personally I find it a bit jarring to hear unexpected words on a familiar tune, but I leave it up to you to decide whether the new lyrics enhance or detract from the beauty of the song.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Set Me Free
Source: Mono LP: Kinda Kinks
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
After scoring international success with a series of R&B influenced rockers in 1964, the Kinks started to mellow a bit in 1965, releasing more melodic songs such as Set Me Free. The band would continue to evolve throughout the decade, eventually becoming one of the first groups to release a concept album, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), in 1969.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities are considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was this 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: Jon
Title: Is It Love
Source: Mono British import CD: Insane Times (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Leopold/Mills
Label: Zonophone (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1967
Despite the name, Jon was actually a group, not an individual with only one name (although one of the members had formerly been with a band that existed solely to back up Lulu, who was indeed an individual with only one name). Jon recorded two singles for EMI, the second being Is It Love, released in 1967.
Artist: Cream
Title: Tales Of Brave Ulysses
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Sharp
Label: RSO (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Cream was one of the first bands to break British tradition and release singles that were also available as album cuts. This tradition likely came about because 45 RPM records (both singles and extended play 45s) tended to stay in print indefinitely in the UK, unlike in the US, where a hit single usually had a shelf life of around 4-6 months then disappeared forever. When the Disraeli Gears album was released, however, the song Strange Brew, which leads off the LP, was released in Europe as a single. The B side of that single was Tales Of Brave Ulysses, which opens side two of the album. The track is notable for being the first song on which Eric Clapton uses a wah-wah pedal.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of the Cream classic White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sunshine Of Your Love
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears (picture disc, if anyone cares)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown/Clapton
Label: RSO (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. Clapton and 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: Blind Faith
Title: Had To Cry Today
Source: CD: Blind Faith
Writer(s): Steve Winwood
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Blind Faith, the self-titled debut album of a group consisting of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker from Cream, Steve Winwood from Traffic and Rich Grech, who had played bass with a band called Family. The buzz about this new band was such that the rock press had to coin a brand-new term to describe it: supergroup. On release, the album shot up to the number one spot on the charts in record time. Of course, as subsequent supergroups have shown, such bands seldom stick around very long, and Blind Faith set the pattern early on by splitting up after just one LP and a short tour to promote it. The opening track of the album, Had To Cry Today, was a pure Winwood piece that showcases both Winwood and Clapton on separate simultaneous guitar tracks.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: The Lemon Song
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
If I had to choose just one Led Zeppelin song as representative of the band's early work it would have to be The Lemon Song, from their second album. The track has all the elements that made the Zep's reputation: Jimmy Page's distinctive guitar work, John Bonham's stuttered (but always timely) drum fills, John Paul Jones's funky bass line and Robert Plant's gutsy vocals (with lyrics famously derived from classic blues tunes). Squeeze my lemon, baby indeed!
Artist: Zephyr
Title: Boom-Ba-Boom/Somebody Listen
Source: CD: Zephyr
Writer(s): Givens/Givens/Bolin/Faris
Label: MCA/One Way (original label: ABC Probe)
Year: 1969
Hailing from Boulder, Colorado, Zephyr was a blues rock band that had formed in 1968 by members of various local bands. In the early days the focus was on vocalist Candy Givens, who had a range of several octaves and could easily have performed without a microphone. Once the band had recorded their self-titled debut LP, the attention began to shift to Tommy Bolin, a self-taught guitarist who would go on to become a member of the James Gang, and then Deep Purple, as well as pursuing a solo career. In addition to Bolin and Givens, the band included Candy's husband David Givens on bass, John Faris on keyboards, and Robbie Chamberlin on drums. Many of the tracks on the first Zephyr album were credited to the full membership of the band, although Boom-Ba-Boom, which segues into Somebody Listen, came from David Givens.
Artist: Changin' Tymes
Title: Hark The Child
Source: British import CD: Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sounds Of Memphis
Writer(s): Barham/Ferrer/Frazier/Moore/Warner
Label: Big Beat
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2012
Memphis, Tennessee, is a town known for its music. In particular, it is known for its vibrant blues scene, its classic R&B roots (as the home of Stax Records) and of course for some guy named Elvis. What Memphis is not particularly known for, however, is a psychedelic club scene. Nonetheless, like many other US cities in the late 1960s, Memphis did indeed boast a handful of truly psychedelic bands. One of the best of these was the Changin' Tymes, who recorded a pair of tracks for producer James Parks. One of these was later released on a single under the auspices of the Memphis Underground Music Association; the other, more overtly psychedelic track, was a tune called Hark The Child, which remained unreleased until 2012, when it appeared on a British CD dedicated to the Memphis psych scene. Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1519 (starts 5/6/15)
Artist: Kinks
Title: Till The End Of The Day
Source: Mono CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1965
Although the Kinks had, by 1965, largely moved beyond their hard-rocking roots into more melodic territory, there were a few exceptions. The most notable of these was Till The End Of The Day, which was released as a single toward the end of the year. Although it was not as big a hit as, say, You Really Got Me, it did prove that the band could still rock out when it wanted to.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Still, I'm Sad
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Great Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): McCarty/Samwell-Smith
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
The most influential Yardbirds song on US garage bands, as well as their biggest US hit, was their grunged out version of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man, which hit the top 10 in 1965. The B side of that record was Still I'm Sad, possibly the first rock song to incorporate Gregorian chant. Interestingly enough, Still I'm Sad was released in the UK on the exact same day as in the US, but as the B side to an entirely different tune, Evil Hearted You.
Artist: Rising Sons
Title: Statesboro Blues (version 2)
Source: CD: The Rising Sons featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder
Writer(s): Willie McTell
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1965, released 1992
The Rising Sons were not your typical Los Angeles club band. Indeed, when they managed to land a record deal with Columbia, nobody at the label knew what to do with them. As a result, the band only released one single, despite being one of the most talked about groups on the strip. By all accounts, the band's showpiece was a high-energy take on Willie McTell's Statesboro Blues. In fact, the song was so popular with the band that they actually recorded two versions of the piece in the studio. When Columbia finally released the band's studio recordings in 1992, both versions of Statesboro Blues were included on the disc.
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: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Good Times
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and was a hit there as well.
Artist: Tim Buckley
Title: Once Upon A Time
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Buckley/Beckett
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1967, released 2009
Tim Buckley was one of those people whose style it is almost impossible to define. His first album, consisting of songs he and his friend Bob Beckett had written while still attending high school, was released in 1966 on Elektra Records, and was considered folk music. Before recording a follow-up, Buckley switched gears, recording Once Upon A Time in a deliberate effort to achieve commercial success. Elektra Records chose not to release the song, however, and Buckley soon eased into a more eclectic vein, writing songs that incorporated elements of several genres, including folk, rock and even jazz.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Born Cross-Eyed
Source: CD: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): The Grateful Dead
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After cranking out their first LP in a matter of days, San Francisco's Grateful Dead took a full six months to record, edit and mix the follow-up album, Anthem Of The Sun. Most of the tracks on the album run together and feature an experimental mix of live and studio material. The sole exception is Born Cross-Eyed, which has a running time of barely over two minutes. As near as I can tell, it is also the only actual studio track on the album. Although the song is credited to the entire band, Bob Weir's lyrics are rumoured to be autobiographical in nature.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Light Your Windows
Source: CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Writer(s): Duncan/Freiberg
Label: Rock Beat (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
There are differing opinions on just how serious legendary San Francisco singer/songwriter and general iconoclast Dino Valenti was being when, at a jam session with guitarist John Cippolina one night, he suggested that the two of them form a band. Since Valenti was busted for drugs the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in jail), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love. The band toned down their jamming for their first LP, preferring to concentrate on more structured compositions such as Light Your Windows, which clocks in at less that three minutes.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them are considered improvements over Dylan's original versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sleepy Time Time
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Bruce/Godfrey
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: In The Morning
Source: LP: Early Flight
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: Grunt
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
One of the earliest and best collections of previously unreleased material from a major rock band was the Jefferson Airplane's Early Flight LP, released in 1974. Among the rarities on the LP is In The Morning, a blues jam with Jorma Kaukonen on vocals and lead guitar that runs over six minutes long. The length itself precluded the track being included on the band's debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, despite the obvious quality of the performance. The song has since been included as a bonus track on the CD version of JATO.
Artist: Clue
Title: Bad Times
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles-vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Steve Thomas
Label: BFD (original label: Byron)
Year: 1966
Presumably from somewhere around the Midland, Texas area (where Byron Records was located), the Clue only released one single, a garage/punk classic called Bad Times. Unfortunately the only copy I have of the tune (from vol. 8 of the Pebbles anthology series) suffers from poor audio quality. Reportedly the original 45 RPM record sounded much better, so if anyone out there has a copy they can spare (or at least knows of a better version).....
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: Los Chijuas
Title: Changing The Colors Of Life
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jose and Julian Ganem
Label: Rhino (original label: Musart)
Year: 1968
Although it was issued on an American label, Changing The Colors Of Life was actually the product of Los Chijuas, a band from Ciudad Juarez, a city located directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Like Tijuana, Juarez was a popular destination for off-duty US military personnel from White Sands Missile Range, Holloman AFB (both in New Mexico) and especially Fort Bliss, located in El Paso itself. The city had a strong local music scene, with bands performing various mixtures of salsa, ranchero, mariachi, rock and soul nightly at the city's many clubs. One band that stood out from the rest was Los Chijuas, who, unlike most of the local groups, was strongly influenced by the folk-rock movement that had stormed the US West Coast just a couple years earlier. Changing The Colors Of Life, written by co-founders Jose and Julian Ganem, was recorded in Juarez, but released on the American Musart label in 1968. The group also had a hit in Mexico that same year with their own version of Bob Dylan's Mighty Quinn, thanks in part to the support of El Paso disc jockey Steve Crosno, who in addition to being the voice of XELO (the bilingual AM top 40 station radiating 100 kilowatts of power from south of the border) was host of a weekly dance show on a local El Paso TV station.
Artist: Sly And The Family Stone
Title: Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Source: Simulated stereo CD: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sylvester Stewart
Label: Epic
Year: 1969
For any given season of any year there's always one song that seems to be constantly playing wherever you go; on your favorite radio station, on the jukebox where you hang out, on the stereo at a friend's house or even at a dance, where the song is already being played (by popular request, of course) by a local cover band. In the winter of 1969-70 that song was Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) by Sly And The Family Stone. The record, the last to be released in the 1960s by the band, was a monster hit, spending five weeks at the top of the R&B charts (at that time known as the soul singles charts) and hitting the top spot on the pop charts as well. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) was actually one half of a double A-sided single (the other half being Everybody Is A Star) and along with the band's previous single, Hot Fun In The Summertime, was intended to be part of the first new album released by the band since wowing the crowd at Woodstock the previous summer. However, the album project was shelved, and the three songs were instead included (in fake stereo) on a greatest hits album released in 1970. Sly And The Family Stone would not release any more new material until autumn 1971, when yet another single, Family Affair, signalled the beginning of a whole new direction for the band.
Artist: Paper Bubble
Title: Fillin' A Gap
Source: British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released on LP: Scenery)
Writer(s): Brake/Crane
Label: Grapefruit (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
Paper Bubble was actually the folk club duo of Brian Crane and Terry Brake, supporting the Strawberry Hill Boys (later to be known as Strawbs), on an album called Scenery, which was recorded in late 1969. The album, released in 1970, was heavy on the vocals and embellished with strings, with relatively little in the way of the usual rock instrumetation, as can be heard on the tune Fillin' A Gap.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. All but Try It were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written some of the Chocolate Watch Band's best stuff as well.
Artist: Liquid Scene
Title: The Mystery Machine
Source: Revolutions
Writer(s): Becki diGregorio (bodhi)
Label: Ziglain
Year: 2014
Keeping the spirit of psychedelia alive we have Liquid Scene with a track from their 2014 debut CD Revolutions. The Mystery Machine, the third track on the CD, uses acoustic percussion instruments to set the tone for a piece that combines modern production techiques with bodhi's haunting vocals to create a memorable soundscape without in any way abandoning its late 60s roots. I like this one more every time I hear it.
Artist: Tears For Fears
Title: Sowing The Seeds Of Love
Source: CD single
Writer(s): Orzabal/Smith
Label: Fontana
Year: 1989
Although generally not considered a psychedelic band, Tears For Fears managed to effectively channel George Martin's Magical Mystery Tour production techniques (e.g. I Am The Walrus) on their most political recording, 1989's Sowing The Seeds Of Love. Written in response to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party's winning of a third consecutive term in office in June of 1987, the track reflects Roland Orzabal's working-class sensibilities with lines like "Politician granny with your high ideals, have you no idea how the majority feels?"
Title: A House Is Not A Motel
Source: CD: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of a recluse, despite leading the most popular band on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. When the band was not playing at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go Lee was most likely to be found at his home up in the Hollywood Hills, often in the company of fellow band member Bryan McLean. The other members of the band, however, were known to hang out in the most popular clubs, chasing women and imbibing all kinds of substances. Sometimes they would show up at Lee's house unbidden. Sometimes they would crash there. Sometimes Lee would get annoyed, and probably used the phrase which became the title of the second track on Love's classic Forever Changes album, A House Is Not A Motel.
Artist: Love
Title: The Everlasting First
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Blue Thumb
Year: 1970
After disbanding the original Love in 1968, Arthur Lee soon resurfaced with a new version of the band, recording one more LP for Elektra, as well as a double LP for the fledgling Blue Thumb label. Yet another lineup made its debut on the 1970 album False Start, the final Love album for Blue Thumb. The album features Lee's old friend Jimi Hendrix as co-arranger and lead guitarist on the album's opening track, a tune called The Everlasting First. The track was likely put together from a series of jams that Lee and Hendrix recorded at Island Records' London studios in March of 1970.
Artist: Love
Title: No. 14
Source: Mono Australian import CD: Comes In Colours (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
With a title that is an obvious joke, No. 14 is among the most obscure of the original Love's recordings, having appeared on vinyl only as a B side to the 1966 single 7&7 Is and on a 1973 compilation album that was only released in Europe. At less than two minutes long, it would seem that the track's main objective was to make sure that disc jockeys didn't accidentally play the wrong side of the record.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Down On Me
Source: Live At The Carousel Ballroom-1968
Writer(s): trad., arr. Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2012
The first single by Big Brother And The Holding Company, Down On Me, barely missed making the top 40 charts when it was released in 1967, peaking at # 42. As can be heard on their Live At The Carousel Ballroom-1968 CD, recorded directly off the sound board by Owsley "Bear" Stanley, their performance of the old song from the 1930s only got better with time.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s): Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of violence. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack of its time.
Artist: Spirit
Title: The Great Canyon Fire In General
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Among other things, Southern California is known for its periodic wildfires, which, fueled by hot Santa Ana winds, destroy everything in their path before they can be brought under control. In the summer of 1967, while the members of Spirit were living in L.A.'s Topanga Canyon and working on their first album, one of these wildfires took out about half of the canyon. Although the house the band was living in was spared, the entire area was evacuated and the members of Spirit (and their family) had to spend a week camped out at the beach. Now that's what I call roughing it!
Artist: Grass Roots
Title: Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1965
In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that there was no band called the Grass Roots (at least not that they knew of), so Sloan and Barri decided to recruit an existing band and talk them into changing their name. The band they found was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man). The band soon got to work promoting the single to Southern California radio stations, but with both the Byrds and the Turtles already on the charts with Dylan covers it soon became obvious that the market was pretty much saturated. After a period of months the band, who wanted more freedom to write and record their own material, had a falling out with Sloan and Barri and it wasn't long before they moved back to San Francisco, leaving drummer Joel Larson in L.A. The group, with another drummer, continued to perform as the Grass Roots until Dunhill Records ordered them to stop. Eventually Dunhill would hire a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots who would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. Meanwhile the original lineup changed their name but never had the opportunity to make records again.
Artist: Mothers of Invention
Title: Hungry Freaks, Daddy
Source: CD: Freak Out
Writer: Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1966
Hungry Freaks, Daddy is the opening track on the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out! This alone would make the track historically significant, but the truth of the matter is that Hungry Freaks, Daddy is an excellent song in its own right. Unlike most socially aware songs up to that point in time, Hungry Freaks, Daddy has a decidedly satirical edge that would become a trademark of Frank Zappa's songwriting for years to come.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source: Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
Artist: Other Half
Title: Mr. Pharmacist
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Jeff Nowlen
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1966
The Other Half was one of the many bands that could be found playing the local L.A. clubs when the infamous Riot On Sunset Strip happened in 1966. They are also the only other band I know of besides the Seeds that recorded for the GNP Crescendo label. The guitar solo is provided by Randy Holden, who would end up replacing Leigh Stephens in Blue Cheer a few years later.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Mr. Limousine Driver (extended version)
Source: CD: Grand Funk (bonus track)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
With the advent of eight-track technology, artists sometimes found themselves with more recording space than they actually needed. Bands like Grand Funk Railroad, who only had three members, were generally able to lay down the basic instrumentals on only four tracks (two for drums and one each for bass and guitar), adding vocals on one or two of the remaining tracks. This left extra room for multiple takes of the lead guitar solos and fills. This extended version of one of their most popular tunes, Mr. Limousine Driver, (which was originally released on the band's second LP, Grand Funk (aka The Red Album)), uses the same basic instrumental and vocal tracks as the LP version, but features an unused alternate lead guitar track and does not fade out early like the version heard on Grand Funk.
Title: Till The End Of The Day
Source: Mono CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1965
Although the Kinks had, by 1965, largely moved beyond their hard-rocking roots into more melodic territory, there were a few exceptions. The most notable of these was Till The End Of The Day, which was released as a single toward the end of the year. Although it was not as big a hit as, say, You Really Got Me, it did prove that the band could still rock out when it wanted to.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Still, I'm Sad
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Great Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): McCarty/Samwell-Smith
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
The most influential Yardbirds song on US garage bands, as well as their biggest US hit, was their grunged out version of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man, which hit the top 10 in 1965. The B side of that record was Still I'm Sad, possibly the first rock song to incorporate Gregorian chant. Interestingly enough, Still I'm Sad was released in the UK on the exact same day as in the US, but as the B side to an entirely different tune, Evil Hearted You.
Artist: Rising Sons
Title: Statesboro Blues (version 2)
Source: CD: The Rising Sons featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder
Writer(s): Willie McTell
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1965, released 1992
The Rising Sons were not your typical Los Angeles club band. Indeed, when they managed to land a record deal with Columbia, nobody at the label knew what to do with them. As a result, the band only released one single, despite being one of the most talked about groups on the strip. By all accounts, the band's showpiece was a high-energy take on Willie McTell's Statesboro Blues. In fact, the song was so popular with the band that they actually recorded two versions of the piece in the studio. When Columbia finally released the band's studio recordings in 1992, both versions of Statesboro Blues were included on the disc.
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: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Good Times
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and was a hit there as well.
Artist: Tim Buckley
Title: Once Upon A Time
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s): Buckley/Beckett
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1967, released 2009
Tim Buckley was one of those people whose style it is almost impossible to define. His first album, consisting of songs he and his friend Bob Beckett had written while still attending high school, was released in 1966 on Elektra Records, and was considered folk music. Before recording a follow-up, Buckley switched gears, recording Once Upon A Time in a deliberate effort to achieve commercial success. Elektra Records chose not to release the song, however, and Buckley soon eased into a more eclectic vein, writing songs that incorporated elements of several genres, including folk, rock and even jazz.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Born Cross-Eyed
Source: CD: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): The Grateful Dead
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After cranking out their first LP in a matter of days, San Francisco's Grateful Dead took a full six months to record, edit and mix the follow-up album, Anthem Of The Sun. Most of the tracks on the album run together and feature an experimental mix of live and studio material. The sole exception is Born Cross-Eyed, which has a running time of barely over two minutes. As near as I can tell, it is also the only actual studio track on the album. Although the song is credited to the entire band, Bob Weir's lyrics are rumoured to be autobiographical in nature.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Light Your Windows
Source: CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Writer(s): Duncan/Freiberg
Label: Rock Beat (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
There are differing opinions on just how serious legendary San Francisco singer/songwriter and general iconoclast Dino Valenti was being when, at a jam session with guitarist John Cippolina one night, he suggested that the two of them form a band. Since Valenti was busted for drugs the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in jail), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love. The band toned down their jamming for their first LP, preferring to concentrate on more structured compositions such as Light Your Windows, which clocks in at less that three minutes.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them are considered improvements over Dylan's original versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sleepy Time Time
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Bruce/Godfrey
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: In The Morning
Source: LP: Early Flight
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: Grunt
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
One of the earliest and best collections of previously unreleased material from a major rock band was the Jefferson Airplane's Early Flight LP, released in 1974. Among the rarities on the LP is In The Morning, a blues jam with Jorma Kaukonen on vocals and lead guitar that runs over six minutes long. The length itself precluded the track being included on the band's debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, despite the obvious quality of the performance. The song has since been included as a bonus track on the CD version of JATO.
Artist: Clue
Title: Bad Times
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles-vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Steve Thomas
Label: BFD (original label: Byron)
Year: 1966
Presumably from somewhere around the Midland, Texas area (where Byron Records was located), the Clue only released one single, a garage/punk classic called Bad Times. Unfortunately the only copy I have of the tune (from vol. 8 of the Pebbles anthology series) suffers from poor audio quality. Reportedly the original 45 RPM record sounded much better, so if anyone out there has a copy they can spare (or at least knows of a better version).....
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: Los Chijuas
Title: Changing The Colors Of Life
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jose and Julian Ganem
Label: Rhino (original label: Musart)
Year: 1968
Although it was issued on an American label, Changing The Colors Of Life was actually the product of Los Chijuas, a band from Ciudad Juarez, a city located directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Like Tijuana, Juarez was a popular destination for off-duty US military personnel from White Sands Missile Range, Holloman AFB (both in New Mexico) and especially Fort Bliss, located in El Paso itself. The city had a strong local music scene, with bands performing various mixtures of salsa, ranchero, mariachi, rock and soul nightly at the city's many clubs. One band that stood out from the rest was Los Chijuas, who, unlike most of the local groups, was strongly influenced by the folk-rock movement that had stormed the US West Coast just a couple years earlier. Changing The Colors Of Life, written by co-founders Jose and Julian Ganem, was recorded in Juarez, but released on the American Musart label in 1968. The group also had a hit in Mexico that same year with their own version of Bob Dylan's Mighty Quinn, thanks in part to the support of El Paso disc jockey Steve Crosno, who in addition to being the voice of XELO (the bilingual AM top 40 station radiating 100 kilowatts of power from south of the border) was host of a weekly dance show on a local El Paso TV station.
Artist: Sly And The Family Stone
Title: Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Source: Simulated stereo CD: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sylvester Stewart
Label: Epic
Year: 1969
For any given season of any year there's always one song that seems to be constantly playing wherever you go; on your favorite radio station, on the jukebox where you hang out, on the stereo at a friend's house or even at a dance, where the song is already being played (by popular request, of course) by a local cover band. In the winter of 1969-70 that song was Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) by Sly And The Family Stone. The record, the last to be released in the 1960s by the band, was a monster hit, spending five weeks at the top of the R&B charts (at that time known as the soul singles charts) and hitting the top spot on the pop charts as well. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) was actually one half of a double A-sided single (the other half being Everybody Is A Star) and along with the band's previous single, Hot Fun In The Summertime, was intended to be part of the first new album released by the band since wowing the crowd at Woodstock the previous summer. However, the album project was shelved, and the three songs were instead included (in fake stereo) on a greatest hits album released in 1970. Sly And The Family Stone would not release any more new material until autumn 1971, when yet another single, Family Affair, signalled the beginning of a whole new direction for the band.
Artist: Paper Bubble
Title: Fillin' A Gap
Source: British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released on LP: Scenery)
Writer(s): Brake/Crane
Label: Grapefruit (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
Paper Bubble was actually the folk club duo of Brian Crane and Terry Brake, supporting the Strawberry Hill Boys (later to be known as Strawbs), on an album called Scenery, which was recorded in late 1969. The album, released in 1970, was heavy on the vocals and embellished with strings, with relatively little in the way of the usual rock instrumetation, as can be heard on the tune Fillin' A Gap.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. All but Try It were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written some of the Chocolate Watch Band's best stuff as well.
Artist: Liquid Scene
Title: The Mystery Machine
Source: Revolutions
Writer(s): Becki diGregorio (bodhi)
Label: Ziglain
Year: 2014
Keeping the spirit of psychedelia alive we have Liquid Scene with a track from their 2014 debut CD Revolutions. The Mystery Machine, the third track on the CD, uses acoustic percussion instruments to set the tone for a piece that combines modern production techiques with bodhi's haunting vocals to create a memorable soundscape without in any way abandoning its late 60s roots. I like this one more every time I hear it.
Artist: Tears For Fears
Title: Sowing The Seeds Of Love
Source: CD single
Writer(s): Orzabal/Smith
Label: Fontana
Year: 1989
Although generally not considered a psychedelic band, Tears For Fears managed to effectively channel George Martin's Magical Mystery Tour production techniques (e.g. I Am The Walrus) on their most political recording, 1989's Sowing The Seeds Of Love. Written in response to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party's winning of a third consecutive term in office in June of 1987, the track reflects Roland Orzabal's working-class sensibilities with lines like "Politician granny with your high ideals, have you no idea how the majority feels?"
Title: A House Is Not A Motel
Source: CD: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of a recluse, despite leading the most popular band on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. When the band was not playing at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go Lee was most likely to be found at his home up in the Hollywood Hills, often in the company of fellow band member Bryan McLean. The other members of the band, however, were known to hang out in the most popular clubs, chasing women and imbibing all kinds of substances. Sometimes they would show up at Lee's house unbidden. Sometimes they would crash there. Sometimes Lee would get annoyed, and probably used the phrase which became the title of the second track on Love's classic Forever Changes album, A House Is Not A Motel.
Artist: Love
Title: The Everlasting First
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Blue Thumb
Year: 1970
After disbanding the original Love in 1968, Arthur Lee soon resurfaced with a new version of the band, recording one more LP for Elektra, as well as a double LP for the fledgling Blue Thumb label. Yet another lineup made its debut on the 1970 album False Start, the final Love album for Blue Thumb. The album features Lee's old friend Jimi Hendrix as co-arranger and lead guitarist on the album's opening track, a tune called The Everlasting First. The track was likely put together from a series of jams that Lee and Hendrix recorded at Island Records' London studios in March of 1970.
Artist: Love
Title: No. 14
Source: Mono Australian import CD: Comes In Colours (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
With a title that is an obvious joke, No. 14 is among the most obscure of the original Love's recordings, having appeared on vinyl only as a B side to the 1966 single 7&7 Is and on a 1973 compilation album that was only released in Europe. At less than two minutes long, it would seem that the track's main objective was to make sure that disc jockeys didn't accidentally play the wrong side of the record.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Down On Me
Source: Live At The Carousel Ballroom-1968
Writer(s): trad., arr. Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2012
The first single by Big Brother And The Holding Company, Down On Me, barely missed making the top 40 charts when it was released in 1967, peaking at # 42. As can be heard on their Live At The Carousel Ballroom-1968 CD, recorded directly off the sound board by Owsley "Bear" Stanley, their performance of the old song from the 1930s only got better with time.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s): Cochrane/Capehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of violence. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack of its time.
Artist: Spirit
Title: The Great Canyon Fire In General
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Among other things, Southern California is known for its periodic wildfires, which, fueled by hot Santa Ana winds, destroy everything in their path before they can be brought under control. In the summer of 1967, while the members of Spirit were living in L.A.'s Topanga Canyon and working on their first album, one of these wildfires took out about half of the canyon. Although the house the band was living in was spared, the entire area was evacuated and the members of Spirit (and their family) had to spend a week camped out at the beach. Now that's what I call roughing it!
Artist: Grass Roots
Title: Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1965
In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that there was no band called the Grass Roots (at least not that they knew of), so Sloan and Barri decided to recruit an existing band and talk them into changing their name. The band they found was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man). The band soon got to work promoting the single to Southern California radio stations, but with both the Byrds and the Turtles already on the charts with Dylan covers it soon became obvious that the market was pretty much saturated. After a period of months the band, who wanted more freedom to write and record their own material, had a falling out with Sloan and Barri and it wasn't long before they moved back to San Francisco, leaving drummer Joel Larson in L.A. The group, with another drummer, continued to perform as the Grass Roots until Dunhill Records ordered them to stop. Eventually Dunhill would hire a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots who would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. Meanwhile the original lineup changed their name but never had the opportunity to make records again.
Artist: Mothers of Invention
Title: Hungry Freaks, Daddy
Source: CD: Freak Out
Writer: Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1966
Hungry Freaks, Daddy is the opening track on the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out! This alone would make the track historically significant, but the truth of the matter is that Hungry Freaks, Daddy is an excellent song in its own right. Unlike most socially aware songs up to that point in time, Hungry Freaks, Daddy has a decidedly satirical edge that would become a trademark of Frank Zappa's songwriting for years to come.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source: Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
Artist: Other Half
Title: Mr. Pharmacist
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Jeff Nowlen
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1966
The Other Half was one of the many bands that could be found playing the local L.A. clubs when the infamous Riot On Sunset Strip happened in 1966. They are also the only other band I know of besides the Seeds that recorded for the GNP Crescendo label. The guitar solo is provided by Randy Holden, who would end up replacing Leigh Stephens in Blue Cheer a few years later.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Mr. Limousine Driver (extended version)
Source: CD: Grand Funk (bonus track)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
With the advent of eight-track technology, artists sometimes found themselves with more recording space than they actually needed. Bands like Grand Funk Railroad, who only had three members, were generally able to lay down the basic instrumentals on only four tracks (two for drums and one each for bass and guitar), adding vocals on one or two of the remaining tracks. This left extra room for multiple takes of the lead guitar solos and fills. This extended version of one of their most popular tunes, Mr. Limousine Driver, (which was originally released on the band's second LP, Grand Funk (aka The Red Album)), uses the same basic instrumental and vocal tracks as the LP version, but features an unused alternate lead guitar track and does not fade out early like the version heard on Grand Funk.
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