Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1705 (starts 2/1/17)

This week's show is a strange mix of some truly obscure tracks (such as Dino Valenti's demo tape of Let's Get Together) and exceedingly well-known tunes (In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, anyone?). Even our two artists' sets have this contrast within them. And look how the whole thing starts!

Artist:    John Barry
Title:    The James Bond Theme
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Monty Norman
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1963
    From the soundtrack of the film Dr. No we have the original James Bond theme. A few years after this record was made John Barry, who conducted the orchestra for the movie score, filed a lawsuit claiming that he actually co-wrote the theme music. At this point, however, Monty Norman is still considered the sole composer in the eyes of the law.

Artist:    Dino Valenti
Title:    Let's Get Together
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer(s):    Chet Powers (Dino Valenti)
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1964
    At first glance this version of Let's Get Together could be mistaken for a cover tune. In reality, though, Dino Valenti was one of several aliases used by the guy who was born Chester Powers. Perhaps this was brought on by his several encounters with the law, most of which led to jail time. By all accounts, Valenti was one of the more bombastic characters on the San Francisco scene. The song was first commercially recorded by Jefferson Airplane in 1966, but it wasn't until 1969, when the 1967 Youngbloods version was re-released with the title shortened to Get Together, that the song became a major hit.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Night Owl Blues
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Butler/Boone/Yanovsky/Sebastian
Label:    Kama Sutra/Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 2011
    Night Owl Blues was first released on the Lovin Spoonful's first album, Do You Believe In Magic, making an encore appearance as the B side of their 1966 hit Daydream. The original recording was edited down to less than three minutes on both releases. In 2011 Sundazed issued a previously unreleased recording of the Spoonful's high energy cover of the Hollywood Argyles hit Alley Oop on 45 RPM vinyl, backed with a longer, less edited version of Night Owl Blues made from the same original 1965 recording as the earlier release. The track features blues harp from John Sebastian and a rare electric guitar solo from Zal Yanovsky.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Gimme Some Lovin'
Source:    Mono LP: Gimme Some Lovin' (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Steve Winwood
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1966
    The 1980s movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becomming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear in major markets as well. Most of them are now playing 80s oldies, by the way.

Artist:    Love
Title:    A House Is Not A Motel
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer:    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
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 doing 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:    Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty
Title:    A Visit With Ayshia
Source:    CD: Things
Writer(s):    Merrell Fankhauser
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Shamley)
Year:    1968
    Merrill Fankhauser first started playing guitar shortly after moving to San Luis Obispo, California in his teens. By 1960 he had become proficient enough to join a local band, the Impacts, as lead guitarist. In 1962 the Impacts got what they thought was a lucky break, but that turned out to be a classic example of people in the music business taking advantage of young, naive musicians. Following a successful gig at a place called the Rose Garden Ballroom they were approached by a guy named Norman Knowles, who played saxophone with a band called the Revels. Knowles convinced the Impacts to record an album's worth of material at Tony Hilder at Hilder's backyard studio in the Hollywood area. The two of them then took the recordings to Bob Keene, who issued them on his own Del-Fi label. It is not known how much money Knowles and Hilder made on the deal, but the Impacts never saw a penny of it, having signed a contract giving the band the grand total of one US dollar. Not long after the incident Fankhauser left the Impacts to move to Lancaster, Calfornia, where he formed a new band, the Exiles, in 1964. The Exiles had some regional success with a song called Can't We Get Along before breaking up, with Fankhauser returning to the coast to form his own band, Merrell and the Xiles. This band had a minor hit with a song called Tomorrow's Girl in 1967, leading to an album issued under the name Fapardokly (a mashup of band members' Fankhauser, Parrish, Dodd and Lee's last names). Fankhauser and Dodd then formed another band called Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty, which landed a contract with Uni Records (the label that would became MCA), issuing a self-titled album in 1968. This album was even more psychedelic than Fapardokly, as can be heard on A Visit With Ayshia. Fankhauser has been involved with several other projects since then, including a band called Mu in the early 1970s and, more recently the Fankhauser Cassidy band with drummer Ed Cassidy from Spirit. His latest project is an MP3 album called Signals From Malibu, released in 2015.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Doncha Bother Me
Source:    CD: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richard
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    Aftermath was an album of firsts. It was the first Rolling Stones album to consist entirely of original compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was the first Rolling Stones album released in true stereo. It was the first Rolling Stones album to be recorded entirely in the US. Finally, it was the album that saw Brian Jones emerge as a multi-instrumentalist, leaving Richards to do most of the guitar work. At over 50 minutes, Aftermath was one of the longest albums released by a rock band up to that point, and it features one of the first rock songs to run over 10 minutes in length (Goin' Home). Although Jones (and bassist Bill Wyman) did a lot of experimenting with new (to them) instruments, several of the tracks, such as Doncha Bother Me, are classic Stones material in the vein of the Chicago blues that was such a major influence on the band's style.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Parachute Woman
Source:    LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1968
    The last Rolling Stones album to feature the band's original lineup was Beggar's Banquet, released in 1968. The album itself was a conscious effort on the part of the band to get back to their roots after the psychedelic excesses of Their Satanic Majesties Request. The band's founder, Brian Jones, was fast deteriorating at the time and his contributions to the album are minimal compared to the band's earlier efforts. As a result, Keith Richards was responsible for most of the guitar work on Beggar's Banquet, including both lead and rhythm parts on Parachute Woman.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Let's Spend The Night Together
Source:    CD: Flowers (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones second LP of 1967 was Flowers, one of a series of US-only albums made up of songs that had been released in various forms in the UK but not in the US. In the case of Flowers, though, there were a couple songs that had already been released in the US-but not in true stereo. One of those was Let's Spend The Night Together, a song intended to be the A side of a single, but that was soon banned on a majority of US radio stations because of its suggestive lyrics. Those stations instead flipped the record over and began playing the B side, Ruby Tuesday (apparently not realizing it was about a rock groupie). Ruby Tuesday ended up in the top 5, while Let's Spend The Night Together barely cracked the top 40. The Stones did get to perform the tune on the Ed Sullivan Show, but only after promising to change the lyrics to "let's spend some time together." Later on the same year the Doors made a similar promise to the Sullivan show to modify the lyrics of Light My Fire, but when it came time to actually perform the song Jim Morrison defiantly sang the lyrics as written. The Doors were subsequently banned from making any more appearances on the Sullivan show. Ironically, the Rolling Stones never appeared again on the show, either, so apparently their compromise was for naught.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Cry Baby Cry
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1968
    Unlike many of the songs on The Beatles (white album), Cry Baby Cry features the entire band playing on the recording. After a full day of rehearsal, recording commenced on July 16, 1968, with John Lennon's guitar and piano, Paul McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's drum tracks all being laid down on the first day. The remaining overdubs, including most of the vocals and George Harrison's guitar work (played on a Les Paul borrowed from Eric Clapton) were added a couple of days later. At the end of the track, McCartney can be heard singing a short piece known as "Can you take me back", accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar in a snippet taken from a solo session the following September.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Am The Walrus
Source:    Stereo British import 45 RPM EP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1967
    Common practice in the UK in the 1960s was to avoid duplication between single releases and album tracks. This led to a unique situation for the Beatles and their British label, EMI/Parlophone, in December of 1967. The band had self-produced a new telefilm to be shown on BBC-TV called Magical Mystery Tour and wanted to make the songs from the film available to the record-buying public in time for Christmas. The problem was that there were only six songs in the one-hour telefilm, not nearly enough to fill an entire album. The solution was to release the songs on a pair of Extended Play 45 RPM records, along with several pages of song lyrics, illustrations and stills from the film itself. My own introduction to Magical Mystery Tour was a friend's German copy of the EPs, and when years later I had the opportunity to pick up a copy of the original UK version, I of course couldn't resist. That copy got totalled in a flood a few years back, but in 2012 I was finally able to locate another copy of the EP set, which is the source of this week's airing of the ultimate British psychedelic recording, I Am The Walrus.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Savoy Truffle
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    George Harrison's skills as a songwriter continued to develop in 1968. The double-LP The Beatles (aka the White Album) contained four Harrison compositions, including Savoy Truffle, a tongue-in-cheek song about Harrison's friend Eric Clapton's fondness for chocolate. John Lennon did not participate in the recording of Savoy Truffle. The keyboards were probably played by Chris Thomas, who, in addition to playing on all four Harrison songs on the album, served as de facto producer when George Martin decided to take a vacation in the middle of the album's recording sessions. 

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Albert Common Is Dead
Source:    Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    The second Blues Magoos LP, Electric Comic Book, was much in the same vein as their 1966 debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, with a mix of fast and slow originals and a couple of cover songs, one of which was done in an extended rave-up style. The second side opener, Albert Common Is Dead, is a fast rocker (with a slowed down final chorus) about an average guy's decision to take to the road, leaving his former life behind. As many young people were doing exactly that during the summer of 1967, you might expect such a song to become somewhat of a soundtrack of its times, but with so many other songs filling that role, Albert Common Is Dead was largely overlooked by the listening public.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Barracuda
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Try It)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Although Standell's producer Ed Cobb had his faults (among them an inability to fully appreciate the talents of the Chocolate Watchband, whom he also managed), he did write some truly cool songs for the band, including Dirty Water, Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, and an overlooked classic called Barracuda. One of the last of Cobb's songs to be recorded by the band, Barracuda, from the 1967 LP Try It, could be said to represent the culmination of the entire garage-rock movement, as a lighter style of pop music (the title track of the album itself being a good example) that would be known as "bubble-gum" was already starting to appear.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    Wind Chimes
Source:    Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: Mad River)
Writer(s):    Mad River
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    When Mad River's debut LP was released, the San Francisco rock press hailed it as "taking rock music as far as it could go." Indeed, songs like Wind Chimes certainly pushed the envelope in 1968, when bubble gum was king of top 40 radio and progressive FM stations were still pretty much in the future. One thing that helped was the band members' friendship with avant-garde poet Richard Brautigan, who pulled whatever strings he could to get attention for his favorite local band. Still, the time was not yet right for such a band as Mad River, who had quietly faded away by the early 1970s.

Artist:    Charlatans
Title:    We're Not On The Same Trip
Source:    British import CD: The Amazing Charlatans
Writer(s):    Dan Hicks
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1996
    Few bands have achieved such legendary status (without actually being heard by most people) as the Charlatans. Formed in 1964, The Charlatans were literally the first acid-influenced rock band, although their music actually bears little resemblance of what has come to be known as acid-rock. The Charlatans were actually hard to define musically, since each of the five individuals making up the group (George Hunter, Richard Olsen, Mike Wilhelm, Michael Ferguson and Dan Hicks) had their own unique musical vision. One thing the members did have in common was a sense of theatrics, with each member taking on a particular historical persona (Edwardian aristocrat, Mississippi gambler, old west gunfighter, etc.) and dressing to fit that persona. Another thing the band members had in common was a fondness for LSD, which until 1966 was still legal to ingest. My personal favorite Charlatans recording, We're Not On The Same Trip (a Dan Hicks tune recorded in 1967) reflects this prodigious use of the subtance.

Artist:    Little Richard
Title:    Dew Drop Inn
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Penniman/Esqrita/Winslow
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
    It can't be called psychedelic by any stretch of the imagination, I admit, but it's still a kick to pull out a Little Richard B side from 1970 and notice how similar Dew Drop Inn sounds to Creedence Clearwater Revival, at the time one of the hottest bands in the nation (if not the hottest).

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 was a pure Winwood piece that showcases both Winwood and Clapton on separate simultaneous guitar tracks.

Artist:    Beacon Street Union
Title:    Mystic Mourning
Source:    British import CD: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s):    Ulaky/Weisberg/Rhodes
Label:    See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    If I had to choose one single recording that represents the psychedelic era, my choice would be Mystic Mourning, from the album The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Everything about the tune screams (whispers? purrs?) psychedelic, starting with a short spacy intro of electric piano over cymbals, leading into a raga beat with a solo bass line that builds up to a repeating riff that ends up getting played at various times by guitar, bass, and/or piano. The lyrics are appropriately existential, and both guitar and piano get a chance to show their stuff over the course of the nearly six-minute track.

Artist:    Them
Title:    I Happen To Love You
Source:    Mono British import CD: Now And Them (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    Rev-Ola (original US label: Ruff)
Year:    1967
    Following the departure of frontman Van Morrison in June of 1966, the remaining members of Them returned to Belfast, where they recruited Kenny McDowell, formerly of a band called the Mad Lads, who had in fact opened for Them on several occasions. With no record deal, however, the band was at a loss as to what to do next; the solution came in the form of a recommendation from Carol Deck, editor of the California-based magazine The Beat, which led to the band relocating to Amarillo, Texas, where they cut a single for the local Scully label. The follow up single, released on Ruff Records, was a tune called Walking In The Queen's Garden that came to the attention of the people at Capitol Records, who reissued the single on their Tower subsidiary. Within a month the record company had issued a promo version of the single that shifting the emphasis to the original B side, a Gerry Goffin/Carole King collaboration called I Happen To Love You that had been previously recorded by the Electric Prunes, but not issued as a single. This led to Now And Them, the first of two albums the band released on the Tower label in 1968.

Artist:    Davie Allan And The Arrows
Title:    The Lonely Rider
Source:    Mono LP: The Wild Angels (soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Mike Curb
Label:    Tower
Year:    1966
    Davie Allen is best known for providing music for the soundtracks of several teen-oriented and biker movies from the 1960s. Allan grew up in the San Fernando Valley of California, where he met Mike Curb, with whom he would form an instrumental surf band. Curb, who had a keen business sense, formed his own Curb Records label in 1963, issuing Allan's first single, War Path. Allan played on several other singles for Curb as a session guitarist, both on the Curb label and its successor, Sidewalk Records. Around that same time Curb made a deal with Roger Corman's American International Pictures to supply music for the director's youth-oriented films. This led to the formation of the Arrows, a loose aggregation of studio musicians that Allan would utilize for various projects. Most of the Arrow's early recordings were fairly unremarkable, although he did get some local L.A. radio airplay for a song called Apache '65. Allan's big break came when he acquired a fuzz box for his guitar, using it for his most famous recording, Blues Theme from the film The Wild Angels. The shortest track from the Wild Angels soundtrack album was a piece called The Lonely Rider, which barely tops one minute (although the album cover lists it as being twice that length. The film itself is notable for its cast, which included Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra and Bruce Dern, among others.

Artist:    Great Society
Title:    Double Triptamine Superautomatic Lovin' Man
Source:    CD: Born To Be Burned
Writer:    David Miner
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    1966   
    The last person to join San Francisco's Great Society was also its most prolific songwriter. David Miner, who had been a postal worker prior to joining the band, brought along several songs that he had written in his native Texas, including Double Triptamine Superautomatic Lovin' Man, which was one of many unreleased recordings made by the band in 1966. Miner also handles lead vocals on the tune.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Did He Die
Source:    British import CD: Singles As & Bs (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    Big Beat (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1970   
    Of the four songs recorded for and released on the M-G-M label by the Seeds in 1970, the B side of the band's final single was arguably the best of the bunch. Did He Die is an anti-war song credited entirely to Sky Saxon, due more, I suspect, to his in your face lyrics than any actual musical contribution he may have made to the song. Still, the record does have flashes of the old Seeds magic, and serves as a fitting epitaph for one of the most iconic bands of the psychedelic era.

Artist:    Scarlet Letter
Title:    Timekeeper
Source:    Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Seanor/Spindler
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1969
    One of the Detroit music scene's most overlooked bands, the Scarlet Letter released three singles for Bob Shad's Mainstream label. The best of these was a tune called Mary Maiden, with the equally strong Timekeeper on the flip side. The group also released a single on the Time label (a subsidiary of Mainstream) using the name Paraphernalia in 1968.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Source:    LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    I think there is a law on the books somewhere that says I need to play the full version of Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida every so often, so here it is. Again.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Back Door Man
Source:    CD: The Doors
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    In their early days as an L.A. club band, the Doors supplemented their growing body of original material with covers of classic blues tunes (rather than covers of top 40 hits like many of their contemporaries). Perhaps best of these was Willie Dixon's Back Door Man, which had been a mid-50s R&B hit for Howlin' Wolf. The Doors themselves certainly thought so, as it was one of only two cover songs on their debut LP.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I've Got A Way Of My Own
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    L. Ransford
Label:    Sundazed/Reprise
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2016
    Not all of the songs the Electric Prunes recorded during sessions for their debut LP, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), ended up being included on the album itself. Among the unused tracks was a cover of a Hollies B side called I've Got A Way Of My Own. The song was actually one of the first tunes that the band recorded, while they were still, in the words of vocalist James Lowe, "searching for a sound and style we could capture on a record." Following the sessions the band decided that harmonies were better left to other groups, and I've Got A Way Of My Own remained unreleased until the 21st century.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1705 (starts 2/1/17)

This week, following a progression from 1968 to 1972, we put the spotlight on Deep Purple for a nearly 20-minute long set, followed by a couple of classic tracks from 1970.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Uncle Jack
Source:    CD: Spirit
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Despite nearly universal positive reviews by the rock press, the first Spirit album never really caught the imagination of the record buying public. Why this is the case is still a bit of a mystery, as the album is full of outstanding tracks such as Uncle Jack. Perhaps the album, and indeed the band itself, was just a bit ahead of its time.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Ramble On
Source:    German import LP: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    Some songs grab you the first time you hear them, but soon wear out their welcome. Others take a while to catch on, but tend to stay with you for a lifetime. Then there are those rare classics that manage to hook you from the start and yet never get old. One such song is Led Zeppelin's Ramble On, from their second LP. The song starts with a Jimmy Page acoustic guitar riff played high up on the neck with what sounds almost like footsteps keeping time (but turns out to be John Bonham playing bongo style on a guitar case). John Paul Jones soon adds one of the most melodic bass lines ever to appear in a rock song, followed closely by Robert Plant's Tolkien-influenced lyrics. For the chorus the band gets into electric mode, with guitar, bass and drums each contributing to a unique staggered rhythmic pattern. The song also contains one of Page's most memorable solos, that shares tonal qualities with Eric Clapton's work on Cream's Disraeli Gears album. Although I usually don't pay much attention to lyrics, one set of lines from Ramble On has stuck with me for a good many years:
'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor
I met a girl so fair.
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up
And slipped away with her.
Good stuff, that!

Artist:    Stephen Stills
Title:    Old Times Good Times
Source:    LP: Stephen Stills
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Following the release of the Déjà Vu album, the individual members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young each got to work on a solo LP. Of the four, it was Stephen Stills's album that was the most commercially successful, thanks in large part to the inclusion of the song Love The One You're With, which was a top 20 hit. Stills brought in several notable guest musicians for the album, including Jimi Hendrix, who provided the guitar part on Old Times Good Times (Stills played keyboards on the piece). The album was released only one month after Hendrix's death, making Old Times Good Times technically the first post-humous Hendrix release. In addition, Stills dedicated the entire album to his friend Jimi.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    L.A. Woman
Source:    LP: L.A. Woman
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971
    Ray Manzarek became justifiably famous as the keyboard player for the Doors. Before joining up with Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger and John Densmore, however, Manzarek was already making a name for himself as an up-and-coming student filmmaker at UCLA. Although he didn't have much of a need to pursue a career in films once the Doors hit it big, he did end up producing and directing an outstanding video for the title track of the 1971 album L.A. Woman years after the band had split up. I only mention this because, really, what else can I say about a song that you've probably heard a million times or so?

Artist:     Jo Jo Gunne
Title:     Run Run Run
Source:     LP: Jo Jo Gunne
Writer:     Ferguson/Andes
Label:     Asylum
Year:     1972
     After Spirit called it quits following the disappointing sales of the Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes hooked up with Andes's brother Matt and William "Curly" Smith to form Jo Jo Gunne. Their best known song was Run Run Run, which hit the British top 10 and the US top 30 in 1972, receiving considerable amount of airplay on progressive rock stations as well.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    No No No
Source:    LP: Fireball
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Although not the band members' favorite album by any means, Deep Purple's fifth LP, Fireball, was their first album to hit #1 in their native UK. Richie Blackmore has said that the band was being rushed by the record company throughout the making of the album, and that he just "threw ideas to the group that I thought up on the spur of the moment" in order to get the album finished in time. One of those ideas was the basic rift for No No No, a song that became part of the band's permanent rotating repertoire.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Mandrake Root
Source:    LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Evans/Lord
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    Deep Purple was formed in early 1968 by former Searchers drummer Chris Curtis, who recruited organist Jon Lord and guitarist Richie Blackmore, then left to go do something else. Blackmore and Lord added bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice, as well as frontman Rod Evans, to complete the band's first lineup. The group's debut LP, Shades Of Deep Purple, was recorded in three days in May of 1968. One of the four original compositions on the album was a song called Mandrake Root, which was also the name of the band that Blackmore had been trying to put together in Germany before hooking up with Deep Purple. The song started off as an instrumental, but Evans added lyrics to the tune during rehearsals just prior to the band going into the studio to record.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    No One Came
Source:    LP: Fireball
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    The second album by the popular Deep Purple "Mk II" lineup (Richie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice), Fireball was an instant hit on both sides of the Atlantic, going to the top of the British charts and garnering significant airplay on FM rock radio stations in the US. One of the highlights of the album is the closing track, No One Came. Vocalist Gillan has said of Fireball that "The reason I liked that so much was because I thought, from a writing point of view, it was really the beginning of tremendous possibilities of expression. And some of the tracks on that album are really, really inventive." Deep Purple would release two more albums before once again undergoing a lineup change.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Glad/Freedom Rider
Source:    European import LP: John Barleycorn Must Die
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year:    1970
    Following the breakup of Blind Faith in early 1970, Steve Winwood got to work on his first solo LP, to be called Mad Shadows. After completing a couple of tracks Winwood found that he preferred to work within the band format and invited Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi to join him on the project, which became the fourth Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. Unlike earlier Traffic studio recordings, John Barleycorn Must Die contained longer, improvisational pieces incorporating jazz elements, as can be heard on the album's opening tracks, Glad (an instrumental) and Freedom Rider. The new approach worked, as John Barleycorn Must Die became Traffic's first album to go gold.

Artist:    Mountain
Title:    Mississippi Queen
Source:    CD: The Best Of Mountain (originally released on LP: Mountain Climbing)
Writer(s):    West/Laing/Pappalardi/Rea
Label:    Columbia/Windfall
Year:    1970
    One of the most overlooked bands of the mid-1960s was the Vagrants. Based on Long Island, the group made a specialty of covering popular R&B and rock songs, often slowing them down and featuring extended solos by guitarist Leslie Weinstein, inspiring fellow Long Islanders Vanilla Fudge to do the same. Although the Vagrants never were able to gain much national attention, Weinstein himself had established quite a reputation by the time the group disbanded. Meanwhile, keyboardist/producer/songwriter Felix Pappalardi had been working with the members of Cream as a producer, but with the demise of that band was looking for a new project to sink his teeth into. That new project turned out to be a solo album by Weinstein, who by then had shortened his last name to West. The album was called Mountain, and soon after its release West and Pappalardi decided to form a band of the same name. The group first got national attention performing at Woodstock, and in 1970 released the album Mountain Climbing, featuring the hit single Mississippi Queen.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1704 (starts 1/25/17)

From a garage rock set, (courtesy the Shadows of Knight) to some pretty obscure stuff, here's this week's playlist:

Artist:    Shadows of Knight
Title:    Gloria
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (essentially substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.

Artist:    Shadows of Knight
Title:    Light Bulb Blues
Source:    CD: Dark Sides (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    I'm Gonna Make You Mine
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carr/Derrico/Sager
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Possibly the loudest rockin' recordings of 1966 came from the Shadows of Knight. A product of the Chicago suburbs, the Shadows (as they were originally known) quickly established a reputation as the region's resident bad boy rockers (lead vocalist Jim Sohns was reportedly banned from more than one high school campus for his attempts at increasing the local teen pregnancy rate). After signing a record deal with the local Dunwich label, the band learned that there was already a band called the Shadows and added the Knight part (after their own high school sports teams' name). Their first single was a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that changed one line ("around here" in place of "up to my room") and thus avoided the mass radio bannings that had derailed the original Them version. I'm Gonna Make You Mine was the second follow up to Gloria, but its lack of commercial success consigned the Shadows to one-hit wonder status until years after the band's breakup, when they finally got the recognition they deserved as one of the founding bands of garage/punk, and perhaps its greatest practicioner.

Artist:    The Raik's Progress
Title:    Sewer Rat Love Chant
Source:    Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Kates/Krikorian/Scott
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1966
    Fresno, California, was home to the Raik's Progress, once described as "a bunch of 17-year-old quasi-intellectual proto-punks" by frontman Steve Krikorian. The band only released one single, a tune called Why Did You Rob Us, Tank? The B side of that single had an even stranger title: Sewer Rat Love Chant. It makes me wish they had been able to release more records before Krikorian morphed into 80s new wave star Tonio K.

Artist:    Euphoria
Title:    Hungry Women
Source:    British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Wesley Watt
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1966
            Euphoria was the brainchild of multi-instrumentalists Wesley Watt and Bill Lincoln. The band existed in various incarnations, starting in 1966. Originally based in San Francisco, the group, minus Lincoln, relocated to Houston in early summer of 1966, only to return a couple months later with a pair of new members pirated from a band called the Misfits that had gotten in trouble with local law enforcement officials. Around this time they were discovered by Bob Shad, who was out on the west coast looking for acts to sign to his Chicago-based Mainstream label. The band recorded four songs at United studios, two of which, Hungry Women and No Me Tomorrow, were issued as a single in late 1966. The following year both songs appeared in stereo on Shad's Mainstream showcase LP With Love-A Pot Of Flowers, along with tunes from several other Bay Area acts that Shad had signed in 1966.
       
Artist:    Ballroom
Title:    Love's Fatal Way
Source:    Mono CD: Present Tense (Sagittarius) (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Boettcher/Naylor
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    1966
    In 1966, having successfully worked with the Association on their debut hit, Along Comes Mary (which he co-wrote), Our Productions staff producer Curt Boettcher started work on his own project, a studio group known as the Ballroom. While working on the Ballroom project, Boettcher reconnected with producer Peter Asher (whom he had met early in 1966), who was starting work on his own studio project, Sagittarius. Asher, a veteran producer and songwriter who had worked with Brian Wilson, Terry Melcher and others and had access to the top studio musicians in Los Angeles (collectively known as the Wrecking Crew), was impressed with Boettcher's talent and enthusiasm. For his part, Boettcher had idolized Asher for years, and the two soon began working together on the Sagittarius project, after Asher negotiated a buyout of Boettcher's contract with Our Productions by Asher's own employer, CBS. Only one single was ever issued by the Ballroom, with several of the remaining Ballroom tracks being reworked and/or included on the Sagittarius album, Present Tense. One Ballroom track that did not make the album was Love's Fatal Way, a ethereal pop number that is now available as a bonus track on the Present Tense CD.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Little Olive
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    James Lowe
Label:    Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Allowing a band to compose its own B side was a fairly common practice in the mid-1960s, as it saved the producer from having to pay for the rights to a composition by professional songwriters and generated a little royalty money for the band. As a result, many B sides were actually a better indication of what a band really was about, since most A sides were picked by the record's producer, rather than the band. Such is the case with Little Olive, a song written by the Electric Prunes' Jim Lowe and released as the B side of their debut single in 1966.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     The Wind Cries Mary
Source:     Simulated stereo British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     Polydor (original US label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     The US version of Are You Experienced was significantly different than its UK counterpart. For one thing, the original UK album was only available in mono. For the US version, engineers at Reprise Records, working from the original multi-track masters, created all new stereo mixes of about two-thirds of the album, along with all three of the singles that the Jimi Hendrix Experience had released in the UK. The third of these singles was The Wind Cries Mary, which had hit the British charts in February of 1967. When Are You Experienced became available in the UK and Europe, however, they did not use the Reprise mixes, instead using electronic rechannelling to create a simulated stereo sound. When Polydor decided that the band was taking too long on their third album, Electronic Ladyland, the label put together a late 1967 release called Smash Hits that collected the band's four European singles and B sides, along with selected album tracks from Are You Experienced, using the "fake" stereo mixes rather than the Reprise versions.

Artist:    Lollipop Shoppe
Title:    Mr. Madison Avenue
Source:    CD: The Weeds aka The Lollipop Shoppe (originally released on LP: Angels From Hell soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Stu Phillips
Label:    Way Back (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    When it comes to long strange trips, the Grateful Dead have nothing on Fred Cole, the legendary indy rock pioneer. Like many baby boomers, he got into his first band at age 14. From there the story gets a bit more unique. At age 15 he played bass in a band called the Lords that became the backup band for Frank Sinatra, Jr. That may have been success enough for an average 15-year-old, but for Cole it was only the beginning. After one unsuccessful single the Lords split up and Cole found himself being groomed as the "white Stevie Wonder" by Mike Tell, the owner of the record label that had issued the Lords' single, working with a group of studio musicians led by Larry Williams (of Dizzy Miss Lizzy fame). The group cut a pair of songs using the name Deep Soul Cole (with Cole on lead vocals and bass) and a few copies were made of a possible single, but the record failed to get the attention of top 40 radio and Cole found himself forming a new band, the Weeds, in early 1966. After recording a single for Teenbeat Records, the group got what it thought was its big break when their manager told them they were booked as an opening act for the Yardbirds at the Fillmore in San Francisco. On arrival, however, they soon discovered that nobody, from Bill Graham on down, had any idea who they were. Thus, nearly broke and without a gig, the Weeds decided to do what any band with members of draftable age in 1966 would do: move to Canada. Unfortunately for the band, they only had enough gas to get to Portland, Oregon. Still, being young and resilient, they soon got a steady gig as the house band at a local coffeehouse, with Cole meeting his soon-to-be wife Toody in the process. The Weeds soon became an important part of the Portland music scene, with a series of appearances at the Crystal Ballroom supplementing their regular gig at The Folk Singer throughout 1967. Late in the year the band decided to move on, first to Sausalito, California (for about six months, playing all over the Bay area), then to Los Angeles, where they brazenly showed up unannounced at Lord Tim Productions with a demo tape. Lord Tim, then the manager of the Seeds and claiming to be the guy who coined the term "flower power", signed them on the spot. Soon, a new 45 RPM record appeared on MCA's Uni label: You Must Be A Witch. It came as a shock to the band, however, to see the name Lollipop Shoppe on the label rather than The Weeds. Apparently Lord Tim wanted to avoid any name confusion between the Seeds and the Weeds and arbitrarily decided to rename the band without consulting them first. Before long an entire album by the Lollipop Shoppe hit the shelves. Later in 1968 the band was invited to appear in the cheapie biker film Angels From Hell, although to avoid having to pay Cole for having a speaking (singing) role they only filmed him from the neck down. Two songs from the band, including Mr. Madison Avenue, appeared on the soundtrack album, released on the Tower label (big surprise there). After severing ties with Uni (and Lord Tim) in 1969, the band continued under various names for a few more years before finally giving way to one of the first, and most long-lived indy rock bands, Dead Moon, which was co-led by Fred and Toody Cole for over 20 years.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    Percy's Song
Source:    LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Unhalfbricking)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    Although Bob Dylan recorded Percy's Song in 1963, his version of the song remained unreleased until 1985, when it appeared (along with other unreleased tracks) on the Biograph compilation album. Meanwhile, however, bootleg copies of the song were widely circulated and at least two cover versions of the song were released. The best known of these is by Fairport Convention, originally released on the 1969 album Halfbricking and featured on the Fairport Chronicles compilation album.

Artist:    Glass Family
Title:    House Of Glass
Source:    British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US on LP: The Glass Family Electric Band)
Writer(s):    Ralph Parrett
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    The Glass Family (Ralph Parrett, David Capilouto and Gary Green) first surfaced in 1967 with a single called Teenage Rebellion on Mike Curb's Sidewalk label. The following year they signed with Warner Brothers, releasing their only LP, The Glass Family Electric Band, that same year. The opening track from the album, House Of Glass, is, in the words of Capilouto, self-explanatory, which is a good thing, as it saves me the trouble of trying to figure out what it's about.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Grace
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Country Joe McDonald liked to write songs that were inspired by women he knew. Being Country Joe McDonald these included some women who would end up becoming quite famous as part of the San Francisco scene. One of the most famous of those was Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, who inspired the final track on the first Country Joe And The Fish LP, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. Who would have guessed?

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Lemmon Princess
Source:    Mono British import CD: All The Good That's Happening
Writer(s):    Jim Pons
Label:    Grapefruit (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    The Leaves were formed in 1964 as the Rockwells by a group of fraternity brothers from San Fernando Valley College in Northridge, California. The group was financed by bassist/vocalist Jim Pons, who used money he had received from an insurance settlement to buy the band's original equipment. After a few personnel changes the band, which by 1965 had changed their name to the Leaves, successfully auditioned to replace the Byrds as the unofficial house band at Ciro's, a popular club on Sunset Strip. The Leaves released one LP and a handful of singles for the local Mira label, including a fast version of Billy Roberts's Hey Joe that became a national hit. This prompted a move to major label Capitol Records toward the end of 1966. Their first release for Capitol was Lemmon Princess, which came out in early December. The tune, written by Pons, was also included on the band's only Capitol LP, All The Good That's Happening. Stylistically the song was not typical of the Leaves at all; in fact, it would have been right at home on an album by fellow L.A.ins the Turtles. This may have been intentional, since by most accounts the Leaves were already disintegrating even as All The Good That's Happening was being made, and Pons would soon leave the band he founded to join...you guessed it: the Turtles.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Girl
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    Some people think Girl is one of those John Lennon drug songs. I see it as one of those John Lennon observing what's really going on beneath the civilized veneer of western society songs myself. Your choice.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    I'm A Man
Source:    Mono LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Miller
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1967
    The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer. The group itself continued on for several years, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes. As for Steve Winwood, he quickly faded off into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Except as the leader of Traffic. And a member of Blind Faith. And Traffic again. And some critically-acclaimed collaborations in the early 1980s with Asian musicians. Oh yeah, and a few major solo hits in the late 80s. Other than that, nothing.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer:    McElroy/Bennett
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teensploitation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    For A Thousand Mothers
Source:    CD: Stand Up
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969

For years, the only copy I had of this track was a homemade cassette tape. As a result I was under the impression that this was actually two separate songs. Long silences will do that. Long silences will also trip automatic sensors on automated radio station equipment, which partially explains why such a great track has always gotten far less airplay than it deserves.

Artist:    King Crimson
Title:    Thela Hun Gingeet
Source:    LP: Discipline
Writer(s):    King Crimson
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1981
    In 1981, after a seven-year hiatus, Robert Fripp decided to reform his old band, the legendary King Crimson. Not content to rehash the past, however, Fripp assembled a new lineup, with only drummer Bill Bruford being retained from any of the band's previous incarnations. Filling out the new lineup were guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew (who had played with Talking Heads and Frank Zappa's band) and bassist Tony Levin, who also played Chapman stick on the album. Probably the most notable track on the album was Thela Hun Gingeet, which opens side two of the original LP. The track features a recording of Belew recounting a rather harrowing experience on the streets of London, where he was attempting to make a field recording. Belew speaks of being harrassed by local Rastafarians, who took exception to a stranger walking around their part of town with a tape recorder, accusing him of being a cop. The song's title is actually an anagram of "heat in the jungle", a slang reference to urban crime.

Artist:    Splinter Fish
Title:    Mars
Source:    LP: Splinter Fish
Writer(s):    Chuck Hawley
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    One of my favorite bands on the late 80s Albuquerque music scene was Splinter Fish, a group that didn't quite fall naturally into any specific musical genre. They certainly had things in common with many new wave bands, but also touched on world music and even hard rock. One of their most popular tracks was Mars, which itself is hard to define, thanks to many sudden tempo and even stylistic changes, even though the entire track runs less than three minutes in length. Guitarist/vocalist Chuck Hawley is now quite active in the Portland, Oregon music scene, while fem vocalist Deb-O performs with a variety of Albuquerque musicians in several different combos.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    The Lantern
Source:    LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones hit a bit of a commercial slump in 1967. It seemed at the time that the old Beatles vs. Stones rivalry (a rivalry mostly created by US fans of the bands rather than the bands themselves) had been finally decided in favor of the Beatles with the chart dominance of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that summer. The Stones answer to Sgt. Pepper's came late in the year, and was, by all accounts, their most psychedelic album ever. Sporting a cover that included a 5X5" hologram of the band dressed in wizard's robes, Their Satanic Majesties Request was percieved as a bit of a Sgt. Pepper's ripoff, possibly due to the similarity of the band members' poses in the holo. Musically Majesties was the most adventurous album the group ever made in their long history, amply demonstrated by songs like The Lantern. The Stones' next LP, Beggar's Banquet, was celebrated as a return to the band's roots.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    We Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
     After the less than stellar chart performance of the LP Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Stones decided to pull out all the stops with a double 'A' sided single. We Love You was their most expensive production ever, and included a promotional film that is considered a forerunner of the modern music video. Oddly enough, the other side of the record, Dandelion, ended up getting more airplay, at least in the US.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
Source:     LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     London
Year:     1967
     Following the critical and commercial success of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Stones responded with their most psychedelic album ever, Their Satanic Majesties Request, with its own cover parodying the Sgt. Pepper cover. As an added touch, the Stones album featured cover art done on special holographic paper (the same material used for holo rings purchased from bubble gum machines) to simulate a 3D effect. The first side wrapped up with the nearly eight-minute Sing This All Together (See What Happens), a sort of psychedelic jam track featuring an unusual array of instruments and effects.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Chushingura
Source:    LP: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s):    Spencer Dryden
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1968
    Drummer Spencer Dryden was certainly not the most prolific songwriter in Jefferson Airplane. In fact, in terms of total output he was probably dead last, although bassist Jack Casady is not far ahead of him. However, Dryden's few contributions as a songwriter rank among the band's most innovative work. Chushingura, which closes out side one of the band's fourth LP, Crown Of Creation, is a good example of this innovation. Although the track is less than a minute and a half long, it stands as one of the earliest examples of electronic music on a rock album.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Wooden Ships
Source:    LP: Volunteers
Writer(s):    Crosby/Kantner/Stills
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1969
    By 1969 it was becoming more common for rock music to take on more serious themes, both musically and lyrically. The Byrds, in particular, had used science fiction themes on songs like Mr. Spaceman and CTA-102. One of the best science fiction themed song was Wooden Ships, which tells the tale of survivors of a nuclear apocalypse, who are escaping the radiation. The song appeared on two different LPs in 1969: Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers album and the self-titled debut by Crosby, Stills and Nash. The song was co-written by Crosby, Stills and the Airplane's Paul Kantner. Kantner's name was deliberately left off the credits on the Crosby, Stills and Nash version due to issues between Kantner and the Airplane's manager, whom Kantner feared would file an injunction against the release of the CSN album if Kantner's name appeared anywhere on it.
       
Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Lather
Source:    LP: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1968
    One of Grace Slick's most memorable tunes was Lather from the Jefferson Airplane's fourth LP, Crown Of Creation. Featuring an eerie instrumental bridge played on a tissue-paper covered comb (at least that's what I think it was), the song was reportedly about drummer Spencer Dryden, the band's oldest member, who had turned 30 while the album was being recorded. A popular phrase of the time was "don't trust anyone over 30", making it an unfortunate time to have that particular birthday.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Steeled Blues
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Jeff Beck
Label:     Epic
Year:     1965
     The Yardbirds were not known for their original material. They did, however, come up with a few tunes of their own, such as Steeled Blues, an instrumental penned by vocalist/harmonicat Keith Relf and guitarist Jeff Beck. The title pretty much describes the song itself, as it is essentially a blues jam with Beck playing slide guitar with steel strings.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Bring It On Home To Me
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sam Cooke
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1965
    One of the original Animals' most popular recordings was their 1965 cover of the Sam Cooke classic Bring It On Home To Me. Cooke's version was actually a reworking of a 1959 Charles Brown song called I Want To Go Home, and was deliberately written and recorded in a style reminiscent of Cooke's old gospel group, the Soul Stirrers. Although the song has been covered by several artists over the years, the Animals were the only ones to take it into the top 40.

Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    Move Over (mono single mix)
Source:    Mono CD: The Pearl Sessions (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Janis Joplin
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1971
    1970 had been a good year for Janis Joplin. She had disbanded the disappointing Kozmik Blues Band and was nearing completion of a new album (Pearl) with a new group (the Full Tilt Boogie Band) and a new producer (Paul Rothchild), who was entirely supportive of her musical abilities. Unlike previous bands, Joplin's new group spent considerable time in the studio working on material for the album, often developing the arrangements with the tape machines running, much like Jimi Hendrix was known to do. The resulting album was musically far tighter than her previous efforts, with a mixture of cover songs and original material such as the opening track, Move Over, written by Joplin herself. Sadly, Joplin's problems ran deeper than just musical issues and she did not live to see her final album completed.

Artist:    Ipsissimus
Title:    Hold On
Source:    Mono import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Haskell/Condor/Lynton
Label:    Zonophone UK (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1969
    The song Hold On was originally recorded as a B side in 1967 by a band called Les Fleur De Lys, although the label credited the track to Rupert's People, who recorded the A side of the record. Le Fleur De Lys later recorded another version of Hold On with South African-born singer Sharon Tandy. Finally, the heaviest version of the song was cut by an obscure band from Barnet called Ipsissimus. To my knowledge it was their only record.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1704 (starts 1/25/17)

A look at this week's first four song titles might give one the impression that we're making some sort of political statement.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    1984
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Epic
Year:    1969
    One of Spirit's best known songs is 1984, a non-album single released in 1969 in between the band's second and third LPs. Unlike the Rolling Stones' 2000 Man, 1984 was not so much a predictive piece as an interpretation of concepts first expressed in George Orwell's book of the same name. Of course, by the time the actual year 1984 arrived it had become obvious that politics had moved in an entirely different direction than predicted, although some of the mind control techniques described in both the book and song were already being used, while others had to wait until 2017 to come to pass.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Strange Days
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Strange Days)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    One of the first rock albums to not picture the band members on the front cover was the Doors' second LP, Strange Days. Instead, the cover featured several circus performers doing various tricks on a city street, with the band's logo appearing on a poster on the wall of a building. The album itself contains some of the Doors' most memorable tracks, including the title song, which also appears on their greatest hits album (which has Jim Morrison's picture on the cover) despite never being released as a single.

Artist:    Rory Gallagher
Title:    Can't Believe It's True
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Rory Gallagher)
Writer(s):    Rory Gallagher
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1971
    In addition to his obvious prowess on guitar, Rory Gallagher was an accomplished saxophonist, although he largely abandoned the instrument in the mid-1970s. This can be heard on Can't Believe It's True, the final and longest track on Gallagher's first solo album, recorded in 1971. Accompanying Gallagher on the album were drummer Wilgar Campbell and bass guitarist Gerry McAvoy. Gallagher had set up practice sessions with Campbell and McAvoy, as well as former Jimi Hendrix Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding following the breakup of his original band, Taste, but ultimately decided to form a power trio with the two Belfast natives for his solo debut.

Artist:    Black Oak Arkansas
Title:    Lord Have Mercy On My Soul/When Electricity Came To Arkansas
Source:    LP: Black Oak Arkansas
Writer(s):    Black Oak Arkansas
Label:    Atco
Year:    1971
    The final phase of my summer of '71 adventures started with a concert. I had arrived at the Southwestern College campus in Weatherford, Oklahoma on a September evening, hoping that our band, Sunn, would be able to regroup after losing our lead guitarist and driving force, David Mason (no, not The Dave Mason). Our rhythm guitarist, DeWayne Davis and drummer, Mike Higgins, were both starting their freshman year at Southwestern and were rooming together at one of the dorms. Our second lead guitarist, Doug Philips, had stayed in Mangum while I had gone back to New Mexico to visit my parents for a couple weeks following Dave's decision to quit the band and join the Air Force so he could marry his pregnant girlfriend. The day following my arrival in Weatherford, DeWayne, Mike and our roadie, Ronnie, were planning on going down to Norman to see Grand Funk Railroad, and had already bought their tickets. I was invited to go along and buy a ticket at the gate. I did, but the only tickets left at that point were way up in the bleacher seats, while the other guys had floor tickets. So, at least for the opening band, I got to sit by myself in the cheap seats. It turns out that was actually a blessing in disguise, as I was able to focus my attention completely on the band itself, without any distractions. This was a good thing, since it was a band I had never even heard of before called Black Oak Arkansas, performing, in its entirety, their self-titled first album. I found myself imagining that I was a music critic up there in the bleachers, and, thanks to an enhanced state of mind, had a very clear picture of Black Oak Arkansas as a band by the time their set was done. My favorite part of their set was the final two songs, a rocker called Lord Have Mercy On My Soul that sequed directly into an instrumental called When Electricity Came To Arkansas that featured twin lead guitars playing in harmony in a way remiscent of Wishbone Ash or the Allman Brothers Band. The next time I had enough money to buy an album I snatched up a copy of the debut Black Oak Arkansas LP, which is still my favorite out of the ten albums they recorded in the 1970s.

Artist:    Leslie West
Title:    Long Red
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    West/Pappaliardi/Ventura/Landsberg
Label:    Windfall
Year:    1969
    After popular Long Island club band the Vagrants disbanded guitarist Leslie Weinstein changed his last name to West and recorded a solo album called Mountain for the Windfall label. Helping him with the project was producer Felix Pappaliardi, who had previously worked with Cream on their Disraeli Gears and Wheels Of Fire albums. The two enjoyed working together so much that they decided to form a band called Mountain. West released two singles from the LP, the second of which was Long Red, a song that would later be included on the 1972 album Mountain Live. The song was also part of the newly-formed band's set at Woodstock.

Artist:    Gentle Giant
Title:    Knots
Source:    CD: Octopus
Writer(s):    Minnier/Shulman/Shulman/Shulman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    In 1972 I was still pursuing the garage rocker's dream, despite the fact that the last band from my high school days, Sunn, had finally given up the ghost in the fall of '71. That dream was sorely put to the test, however, when I heard Gentle Giant's Octopus album. I mean, really! How was a garage rocker supposed to play music that even a seasoned jazz professional would find daunting? Of course the answer was to dive into the heavy metal movement that was still in its infancy, but still, the sheer complexity of Gentle Giant's music nonetheless continues to blow my mind. Take Knots, for instance. Inspired by the works of Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, Knots is full of unexpected musical twists and turns, using dissonance and abrupt timing to enhance the lyrics. To top it off, it is basically an a cappela piece, with only minimal instrumentation until late in the track.

Artist:    Bloodrock
Title:    Fantastic Piece Of Architecture
Source:    CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s):    Cobb/Grundy/Pickens/Rutledge/Taylor
Label:    One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    Dallas's Bloodrock is best known for the song D.O.A., which was heard all over the place in late 1970. The song combined spooky music with macabre lyrics to produce a truly chilling song lasting over eight minutes. It was the only Bloodrock song with spooky music, however. Fantastic Piece Of Architecture, which closes out the band's first LP, is done in a similar style, although lyrically it takes on an entirely different subject. Although, come to think of it, the protagonist of this one dies in the end as well, so maybe it's not so different after all.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    One Of These Days/A Pillow Of Winds
Source:    CD: Meddle
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label:    Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    Pink Floyd's sixth studio album, Meddle, is a study in contrasts. The LP opens with One Of These Days, the hardest rocking recording the band had made since the departure of founding member Syd Barrett. The tune actually starts off quietly, with the sound of wind interrupted by a single bass note echoing off into the distance. This soon becomes a steady rhythm of bass, played on two separate bass guitars by Roger Waters and David Gilmour, with each bass panned all the way to one side of the stereo mix. As the song progresses, the drums enter the mix, followed by other instruments, and finally the only vocals of the track: the highly distorted words "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces" spoken by drummer Nick Mason. Following the song's explosive climax, the track fades into one of the band's most quiet and melodic recordings, A Pillow Of Winds. The title of the tune comes from a possible hand of mahjong, a game the band had gotten into as a diversion while touring. Meddle is often cited as the beginning of the band's new direction that would define Pink Floyd in the 1970s, leaving behind the last vestiges of Barrett's influence.

Artist:    Paul Simon
Title:    Still Crazy After All These Years
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1975
    Whenever I hear Paul Simon's 1975 recording of Still Crazy After All These Years I flash back to an appearance the singer/songwriter made on Saturday Night Live the following Thanksgiving weekend. For his opening sequence as guest host, Simon came out dressed as a giant turkey and began singing Still Crazy After All These Years, only to stop after a few bars and say "I'm sorry, I just can't do it". Brilliant stuff, that.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1703 (starts 1/18/17)

A lot of good stuff this week, including sets from Jefferson Airplane (all from their first LP) and the Kinks. Also, a classic 13-minute long space jam from the Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland album and lots more fun stuff.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Someone's Coming
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    John Entwhistle
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1968
    Some songs just get no respect. First released in 1967 in the UK as the B side of I Can See For Miles, John Alec Entwistle's Someone's Coming got left off the US release entirely. It wasn't until the release of the Magic Bus single (and subsequent LP) in 1968 that the tune appeared on US vinyl, and then, once again as a B side. The Magic Bus album, however, was never issued on CD in the US, although it has been available as a Canadian import for several years. Finally, in 1995 the song found a home on a US CD as a bonus track on The Who Sell Out.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    End Of The Night
Source:    LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The Doors first big break came when they opened for Love at L.A.'s most famous club, the Whisky-A-Go-Go, and became friends with the members of the more established popular local band. Love was already recording for Elektra Records, and enthusiastically recommended that the label sign the Doors as well. Elektra did, and the Doors went on to become one of the most successful and influential bands in rock history. Although not as well-known as Light My Fire or The End, the dark and moody End Of The Night is a classic early Doors tune, from the opening bent chords from guitarist Robby Krieger to the spooky keyboard work of Ray Manzarek and of course Jim Morrison's distinctive vocals, all backed up by John Densmore's tastefully understated drumming.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Blue Jay Way
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    The Beatles' psychedelic period hit its peak with the late 1967 release of the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack. As originally conceived there were only six songs on the album, too few for a standard LP. The British solution was to present Magical Mystery Tour as two Extended Play (EP) 45 RPM records in a gatefold sleeve with a 23 page booklet featuring lyrics and scenes from the telefilm of the same name (as well as the general storyline in prose form).  As EPs were out of vogue in the US, Capitol Records, against the band's wishes, added five songs that had been issued as single A or B sides in 1967 to create a standard LP. The actual Magical Mystery Tour material made up side one of the LP, while the single sides were on side two. The lone George Harrison contribution to the project was Blue Jay Way, named for a street in the Hollywood Hills that Harrison had rented that summer.  As all five of the extra tracks were credited to the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team, this meant that each of the band's 1967 albums had only one Harrison composition on them. This became a point of contention within the band, and on the Beatles' next album (the white album), Harrison's share of the songwriting had doubled.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    No Way Out
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1967
    The Chocolate Watchband, from the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area (specifically Foothills Junior College in Los Altos Hills), were fairly typical of the South Bay music scene, centered in San Jose. Although they were generally known for lead vocalist Dave Aguilar's ability to channel Mick Jagger with uncanny accuracy (and a propensity for blowing better known acts off the stage), producer Ed Cobb gave them a more psychedelic sound in the studio with the use of studio effects and other enhancements (including adding tracks to their albums that were performed entire by studio musicians). The title track of No Way Out is credited to Cobb, but in reality is a fleshing out of a jam the band had previously recorded, but never released.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Billy Roberts
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

Artist:    Chants R&B
Title:    I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in New Zealand as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Mayall
Label:    Rhino (original label: Action)
Year:    1966
    The Chants R&B were formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1964 and were heavily influenced by such punkish UK bands as the Pretty Things and Them. Shortly after the released of their first single in mid-1966, the group got a new guitarist, Max Kelly, whose efforts helped make their second single, a wild cover of John Mayall's I'm Your Witch Doctor, a national hit. Before they could return to the studio however, it was discovered that Kelly, whose real name was Matt Croke, was actually a deserter from the Australian Air Force, and was soon deported. The rest of the band followed him to Sydney, but things didn't work out and the band split up in early 1967.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Mellow Yellow
Source:    Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic
Year:    1966
    Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to his ongoing contract dispute with Pye Records.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let's Get Together
Source:    Mono LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Dino Valenti
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    Although Dino Valenti recorded a demo version of his song Let's Get Together in 1964, it wasn't until two years later that the song made its first appearance on vinyl as a track on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The Airplane version of the song is unique in that the lead vocals alternate between Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin, with each one taking a verse and all of them singing on the chorus.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Run Around
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    The first Jefferson Airplane album was dominated by the songwriting of the band's founder, Marty Balin, both as a solo writer and as a collaborator with other band members. Run Around, from Balin and rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner, is fairly typical of the early Jefferson Airplane sound.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Come Up The Years
Source:    Mono LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    One of the most overused motifs in pop music is the "You're too young for me" song. This probably reflects, to a certain degree, a lifestyle that goes back to the beginnings of rock and roll (Chuck Berry did jail time for transporting a minor across state lines, Jerry Lee Lewis saw his career get derailed by his marraige to his 13-year-old cousin, etc.). The Marty Balin/Paul Kantner tune Come Up The Years takes a more sophisticated look at the subject, although it still comes to the same conclusion (I can't do this because you're jailbait). In fact, the only rock songwriter I know of that came to any other conclusion on the matter was Bob Markley of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and that's what ultimately got him in trouble with the law.

Artist:    Zombies
Title:    She's Not There
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:    Rod Argent
Label:    London (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1964
    Most of the original British invasion bands were guitar-oriented, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. One notable exception was the Zombies, whose leader, Rod Argent, built the group around his electric piano. Their first single, She's Not There, was a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic and is ranked among the top British rock songs of all time.

Artist:    Knickerbockers
Title:    Lies
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Randall/Charles
Label:    Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year:    1965
    A lot of people thought the song Lies was the Beatles recording under a pseudonym when it came out. It wasn't, and I can't help but wonder why anyone would have thought the Beatles had any need to record under a different name (the Knickerbockers) and release a song on a second-tier label (Challenge) in the first place. Is it a Richard Bachman kind of thing?

Artist:    Love
Title:    And More
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer:    Lee/MacLean
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Although the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was already recording for Elektra, the first genuine rock band to be signed to the label was L.A.'s Love. The band had originally planned to call itself the Grass Roots, but soon discovered that the songwriting team of Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan had already locked up the name. Jan Holzman, owner of Elektra, was so high on Love that he created a whole new numbering series for their first album (the same series that later included the first few Doors LPs). Most of Love's songs were written by multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Arthur Lee, with a handful of tunes provided by rhythm guitarist/vocalist Bryan MacLean. The two seldom collaborated, despite sharing a house in the Hollywood hills that had once belonged to Bela Lugosi. One of the few songs they did collaborate on was And More, a tune from the first album that shows the two songwriters' interest in folk-rock as popularized by fellow L.A. band the Byrds.

Artist:    Ballroom
Title:    Baby, Please Don't Go
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Joe Williams
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    This rather unusual arrangement of Joe Williams classic Baby, Please Don't Go was the creation of producer/vocalist Curt Boettcher. Boettcher had previously worked with the Association, co-writing their first hit Along Comes Mary. While working on the Ballroom project for Our Productions in 1966 he came to the attention of Brian Wilson and Gary Usher. Usher was so impressed with Boettcher's creativity in the studio that he convinced his own bosses at Columbia Records to buy out Boettcher's contract from Our Productions. As a result, much of Boettcher's Ballroom project became part of Usher's own Sagittarius project, with only Baby, Please Don't Go (and its B side) released under the Ballroom name. Boettcher turned out to be so prolific that it was sometimes said that the giant "CBS" logo on the side of the building stood for Curt Boettcher's Studios.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Ritual # 2
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    There's a reason music like that of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band is sometimes called Acid Rock, and Ritual #2, from the band's last album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is as good an example as you'll find. Best listened to with headphones on.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It
Source:    LP: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    The first Neil Young song I ever heard was Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, which was issued as the B side of For What It's Worth in 1967. I had bought the single and, as always, after my first listen flipped the record over to hear what was on the other side. (Years later I was shocked to learn that there were actually people who never listened to the B side of records they bought. I've never been able to understand that.) Anyway, at the time I didn't know who Neil Young was, or the fact that although Young was a member of Buffalo Springfield it was actually Richie Furay singing the song on the record. Now I realize that may seem a bit naive on my part, but I was 14 at the time, so what do you expect? At least I had the good taste to buy a copy of For What It's Worth in the first place (along with the Doors' Light My Fire and the Spencer Davis Group's I'm A Man if I remember correctly). Where I got the money to buy three current records at the same time is beyond me, though.

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle was the official leader on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Portable People
Source:    CD: Ten Years After (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1968
    Following the release of the 1967 debut LP, Ten Years After got to work on what was to be a followup album. These plans got sidetracked, however, when it was decided that their second LP would be made up of live performances taped at a London club near a recording studio. This left the band with several finished studio recordings, many of which were the same songs that would appear on the live Undead album. Two of the other unused studio tracks became the band's first US single, the A side of which was a tune called Portable People. This song remained unavailable in any other form for several years, finally appearing as a bonus track on the CD version of their first album.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Surfer Dan
Source:    CD: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands
Writer:    The Turtles
Label:    Sundazed (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1968
    In 1968 the Turtles decided to self-produce four recordings without the knowledge of their record label, White Whale. When company executives heard the tapes they rejected all but one of the recordings. That lone exception was Surfer Dan, which was included on the band's 1968 concept album Battle of the Bands. The idea was that each track (or band, as the divisions on LPs were sometimes called) would sound like it was recorded by a different group. As the Turtles had originally evolved out of a surf band called the Crossfires, that name was the obvious choice for the Surfer Dan track. The song was also chosen to be the B side of Elenore, the Turtles biggest hit of 1968.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Dandy
Source:    Mono LP: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    Ray Davies was well into his satirical phase when he wrote and recorded Dandy for the Kinks' 1966 album Face To Face. Later that year the song was covered by Herman's Hermits, becoming a hit on the US top 40 charts.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I Need You
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    After a series of hard-rocking hits in 1964 such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks mellowed out a bit with songs like Set Me Free and Tired Of Waiting For You the following year. Lurking on the other side of Set Me Free, though, was a song that showed that the band still knew how to rock out: I Need You.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sunny Afternoon
Source:    Mono LP: Face To Face
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    My family got its first real stereo (a GE console model with a reel-to-reel recorder instead of a turntable) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off). Of course, none of the stereo FM stations were playing rock songs in 1966, but since the Kinks were still only mixing their songs in mono at that point it didn't really matter.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Codine
Source:    LP: Revolution soundtrack
Writer(s):    Buffy St. Marie
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    Buffy St. Marie's Codine was a popular favorite among the club crowd in mid-60s California. In 1967, L.A. band The Leaves included it on their second LP. Around the same time, up the coast in San Francisco, the Charlatans selected it to be their debut single. The suits at Kama-Sutra Records, however, balked at the choice, and instead sold the band's master tapes to Kapp Records, who then released the group's cover of the Coasters' The Shadow Knows (and sped up the master tape in the mastering process). The novelty-flavored record bombed so bad that the label decided not to release any more Charlatans tracks, thus leaving their version of Codine gathering dust in the vaults until the mid 1990s, when the entire Kama-Sutra sessions were released on CD. Meanwhile, back in 1968, fellow San Francisco band Quicksilver Messenger Service was still without a record contract, despite pulling decent crowds at various Bay Area venues, including a credible appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. Quicksilver did find their way onto vinyl, however, when the producers of the quasi-documentary film Revolution decided to include footage of the band playing Codine, and commissioned this studio recording of the song for the soundtrack album.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Deserted Cities Of The Heart
Source:     LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:     Bruce/Brown
Label:     Atco
Year:     1968
     The most psychedelic of Cream's songs were penned by Jack Bruce and his songwriting partner Pete Brown. One of the best of these was chosen to close out the last studio side of the last Cream album released while the band was still in existence. Deserted Cities Of The Heart is a fitting epitaph to an unforgettable band.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Born To Be Wild
Source:    CD: Easy Rider Soundtrack (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s):    Mars Bonfire
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Born To Be Wild's status as a counter-cultural anthem was cemented when it was chosen for the soundtrack of the movie Easy Rider. The popularity of both the song and the movie resulted in Steppenwolf becoming the all-time favorite band of bikers all over the world.

Artist:    Max Frost And The Troopers
Title:    Shape Of Things To Come
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wild In The Streets (soundtrack))
Writer(s):    Mann/Weill
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Max Frost was a politically savvy rock star who rode the youth movement all the way to the White House, first through getting the support of a hip young Senator, then getting the age requirements for holding high political office lowered to 21, and finally lowering the voting age to 14. Everyone over 30 was locked away in internment camps, similar to those used during WWII by various governments to hold those of questionable loyalty to the current regime. What? You don't remember any of that? You say it sounds like the plot of a cheapie late 60s teen exploitation flick? Right on all counts. "Wild in the Streets" starred Christopher Jones as the rock star, Hal Holbrook as the hip young senator, and a Poseidon Adventure-sized Shelly Winter as the rock star's interred mom. Richard Pryor, in his film debut, played the band's drummer/political activist Stanley X. The band itself, Max Frost And The Troopers, was actually either a group called the 13th Power (as credited on the label) or Davie Allen And The Arrows, an instrumental group that was often called on to provide music for teen-oriented B movie soundtracks.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    The Dangling Conversation
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia/Sundazed
Year:    1966
    The first Simon and Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM, originally tanked on the charts, causing Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to temporarily pursue solo careers. Simon went to England, where he wrote and recorded an album's worth of material. Meanwhile, producer Tom Wilson, fresh from producing Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, went into the studio with the original recording of the song Sound of Silence and added electric instruments to it. The result was a surprise hit that led Paul Simon to return to the US, reuniting with Art Garfunkel and re-recording several of the tunes he had recorded as a solo artist for a new album, Sounds of Silence. The success of that album prompted Columbia to re-release Wednesday Morning, 3AM, which in turn became a bestseller. Meanwhile, Simon and Garfunkel returned to the studio to record an album of all new material. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was yet another success that spawned several hit songs, including The Dangling Conversation, a song Simon described as similar to The Sound Of Silence, but more personal. The song was originally released as a single in fall of 1966, before the album itself came out.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    My Back Pages
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the items of contention between David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the latter's insistence on continuing to record covers of Bob Dylan songs when the band members themselves had a wealth of their own material available. Indeed, it was reportedly an argument over whether or not to include Crosby's Triad on the next album that resulted in Crosby being fired from the band in October of 1967 (although other factors certainly played into it as well). Nonetheless, the last Dylan cover with Crosby still in the band was perhaps their best as well. Although not as big a hit as Mr. Tambourine Man, My Back Pages from the Younger Than Yesterday album did respectably well on the charts, becoming one of the Byrds' last top 40 hits.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)/Moon Turn The Tides (Gently, Gently Away)
Source:    LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)/Moon Turn The Tides (Gently, Gently Away) from the Electric Ladyland album is the longest work created purely in the studio by Jimi Hendrix, with a running time of over 16 minutes. The piece starts with tape effects that lead into the song's main guitar rift. The vocals and drums join in to tell a science fiction story set in a future world where the human race has had to move underwater in order to survive some unspecified catastrophe. After a couple verses, the piece goes into a long unstructured section made up mostly of guitar effects before returning to the main theme and closing out with more effects that combine volume control and stereo panning to create a circular effect. As is the case with several tracks on Electric Ladyland, 1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)/Moon Turn The Tides (Gently, Gently Away) features Hendrix on both guitar and bass, with Mitch Mitchell on drums and special guest Chris Wood (from Traffic) on flute.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Wrapcity In English/Fred
Source:    CD: Yer' Album
Writer:    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year:    1969
    The only rock record to ever be released on the Bluesway label was Yer' Album, the debut LP by Cleveland's James Gang. Featuring Joe Walsh on Guitar, Tom Criss (who would leave the band after this album) on bass and Dale Peters on drums, the group was one of the first "power trios" of the 70s. Unlike the group's later efforts, Yer' Album included cover tunes written by such diverse composers as Stephen Stills, Jerry Ragavoy and Jeff Beck, as well as a smattering of original compositions. One of those originals was Fred, a Walsh song that was described in the liner notes as "and it's straaaaaaaange." It is preceded by a short fully orchestrated Walsh instrumental called Wrapcity In English that tracks directly into Fred.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Chasing Shadows
Source:    LP: Purple Passages (originally released on LP: Deep Purple)
Writer(s):    Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1969
    As a general rule, recording artists tend to do better on their home ground than anywhere else. Even the Beatles already had a pair of chart-topping British singles (Please Please Me and She Loves You) under their collective belts by the time they touched off the British Invasion of the US with I Want To Hold Your Hand in 1964. There are exceptions, however. One British band that had huge success in the US, yet was unable to buy a hit in its native England, was the original incarnation of a band called Deep Purple. The group had a major US hit right out of the box with their 1968 cover of Joe South's Hush, but the song did not chart at all in the UK. The band's US label, Tetragrammaton, promoted the band heavily and the group's debut LP, Shades Of Deep Purple, was the all-time best selling album in that label's short history. The band followed Shades up with a second LP, The Book Of Taleisyn, that included another hit cover song, this time of Neil Diamond's Kentucky Woman. Still, the British record-buying public was unimpressed, and it was estimated that the group on the average made fifteen to twenty times as much money per gig in the US than they did at home. Unfortunately for the band, Tetragrammaton was badly managed and went belly up just days after the release of the band's self-titled third album. This left the band without a US label and still unsuccessful at home. This, combined with internal conflicts about what direction the band should take musically, led to major personnel changes. Ultimately those changes, particularly the addition of lead vocalist Ian Gilliam, proved beneficial, as Deep Purple became one of the top rock bands in the world in the early 1970s. This in turn led to Warner Brothers, the band's new US label, releasing a compilation album of the group's early material called Purple Passages, which included almost the entire third album. Among the outstanding tracks from that album is Chasing Shadows, which utilizes African rhythms from drummer Ian Paice, as well as a strong performance by the band's original vocalist, Rod Evans, who would go on to become the front man for a band called Captain Beyond in the early 1970s.