Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1702 (B12) (starts 1/11/17)

This week's show is actually a backup show recorded in 2015, but never before aired. After the extra time it took to put together the last few shows (especially the Yule specials), I decided to take a break and pull this one out of the files. For those of you who follow such things, it was produced on a different audio board than current shows have been. I doubt anyone can hear the difference, though, since both boards are from the same company and made the same year. Still, knock yourself out trying if you want to. It's a free country (for now, at any rate).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Magical Mystery Tour
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    1967 had been a great year for the Beatles, starting with their double-sided hit single Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, followed by the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album and their late summer hit All You Need Is Love, with its worldwide TV debut (one of the few events of the time to utilize satellite technology). The next project, however, did not go over quite so well. It had been over two years since the group's last major movie (HELP!), and the band decided that their next film would be an exclusive for broadcast on BBC-TV. Unlike the previous two films, this new project would not follow traditional filmmaking procedures. Instead it would be a more experimental piece; a series of loosely related songs and comedy vignettes connected by a loose plot about a bus trip to the countryside. Magical Mystery Tour made its debut in early December of 1967 to overwhelmingly negative reaction by viewers and critics alike (partially because the film was shown in black and white on the tradition minded BBC-1 network; a later rebroadcast in color on BBC-2 went over much better). The songs used in the film, however, were quite popular. Since there were only six of them, far too few for a regular LP, it was decided to issue the album as a pair of 45 RPM EPs, complete with lyric sheets and booklet recounting the story from the film. The original EPs were available in both stereo and mono versions in Europe and the UK. In the US, where the six tunes were supplemented by the band's five remaining single sides from 1967 to create an LP, Magical Mystery Tour was only available in stereo. Although both the EP and LP versions have different sequencing than the telefilm, all three open the same way, with the film's title song.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    2,000 Light Years From Home
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released on LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request)
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more noticable than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover itself was a parody of Sgt. Pepper's, featuring the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines and pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interestingly enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) got significant airplay.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Tuesday Afternoon
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released on LP: Days Of Future Passed and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Justin Hayward
Label:    Priority (original label: Deram)
Year:    1967
    Tuesday Afternoon was the second single released from the Moody Blues' breakthrough 1967 LP Days Of Future Passed. At the insistence of producer Tony Clarke the album version of the song was retitled Forever Tuesday and was used as part one of a track called The Afternoon. When released as a single the following year, composer Justin Hayward's original title was restored to the piece, which was initially edited down to less than two and a half minutes for the 45 RPM pressing. The original album version of the song includes a separately recorded orchestral coda that segues directly into the next phase of the album, entitled The Evening. The version heard here includes the orchestral coda but does not segue into the next track.

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     Dead End Street
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Year:     1967
     The last major Kinks hit in the US was Sunny Afternoon in the summer of 1966. The November follow-up, Dead End Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success in the US (although it was a top five hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola in 1970.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Mr. Second Class
Source:    CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hardin/Davis
Label:    1967
Year:    Grapefruit (original label: United Artists)
            The Spencer Davis Group managed to survive the departure of their star member, Steve Winwood (and has brother Muff) in 1967, and with new members Eddie Hardin (vocals) and Phil Sawyer (guitar) managed to get a couple more singles on the chart over the next year or so. The last of these was Mr. Second Class, a surprisingly strong composition from Hardin and Davis.
       
Artist:    Them
Title:    Square Room
Source:    Mono LP: Now And Them
Writer(s):    Them
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
     After Van Morrison left Them to try his luck as a solo artist, the rest of the band returned to their native Ireland to recruit a new vocalist, Kenny McDowell, before relocating to California. After securing a record deal with Tower Records they went to work on the Now and Them album in late 1967, releasing the LP in January of '68. The standout track of the album is the nearly ten minute Square Room, an acid rock piece that showcases the work of guitarist Jim Armstrong.

Artist:    Acid Gallery
Title:    Dance Around The Maypole
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Roy Wood
Label:    Rhino (original label: CBS)
Year:    1969
    Possibly the top British band to not have a hit in the US was the Move. The band was so popular that when BBC One signed on for the first time in 1967, the Move's current hit, Flowers In The Rain, was chosen to be the first song played on the station. The band, led by Roy Wood, produced many spinoff projects as well. One of these was called the Acid Gallery, which released a song called Dance Around The Maypole in 1969. Although Wood himself wrote the song and his voice is featured prominently in the mix, the rest of the Move was not included on the record. It is believed that the actual group was a band called the Epics, who would soon change their name to Christie and have a minor hit with the song Yellow River.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
    After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the Byrds turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Signed D.C.
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1966
    One of the most striking tunes on the first Love album is Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions.

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    It's Wonderful
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Once Upon A Dream)
Writer:    Cavaliere/Brigati
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1967
    Psychedelic rock is generally considered to have begun on the West Coast (although Austin, Texas has a legitimate claim as well). By the time of the Summer of Love, however, psychedelic rock was a national trend. New York had always been one of the major centers of the music industry, so it's not surprising that on the East Coast 1967 was the year of the psychedelic single. One of the most popular New York bands of the time was the Young Rascals, generally considered to be the greatest blue-eyed soul band of the era, if not of all time. Still, the times being what they were, the Rascals departed from their usual style more than once in '67, first with the smash hit How Can I Be Sure, and then with their own psychedelic single, It's Wonderful, released in November of the same year.

Artist:     Rose Garden
Title:     Here's Today
Source:     Mono CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as a 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Noreen/Vickery
Label:     Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:     1968
     One of many new groups signed to Atco in the late 60s, the Rose Garden was generally disposed to recording light pop tunes with radio airplay in mind. Here's Today was an attempt to move the group in a slightly different direction.

Artist:    Legend
Title:    Enjoy Yourself
Source:    CD: A Lethal Dose of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Davis/Russ
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Megaphone)
Year:    1968
    Dragonfly was a Los Angeles based psychedelic band that released one self-titled album on the Megaphone label in 1970. In their earlier years, however, they were known as the Legend. They recorded a trio of singles for Megaphone under that name, including an early version of Enjoy Yourself, a highlight of the Dragonfly album.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Girl In Your Eye
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Spirit)
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Ode)
Year:    1968   
    Spirit was born in 1965 when drummer Ed Cassidy left the Rising Sons after breaking his arm and settled down with his new wife, who had a teenaged son named Randy. It wasn't long before Ed and Randy (who played guitar) formed a new band called the Red Roosters. The group lasted until the spring of 1966, when the family moved to New York for a few months. During that stay Randy became a member of a band called Jimmy James and his Blue Flames, but when the band's leader, a young guitarist who would soon change his name to Jimi Hendrix, got an offer to relocate to London, Randy's parents refused to allow their son to accompany him. After returning to California, Randy ran into two of his Red Roosters bandmates, singer Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes, and decided to form a new band with Cassidy and keyboardist John Locke. Both Cassidy and Locke had played in jazz bands, and the new band, Spirit, incorporated both rock and jazz elements into their sound. Most of the songs of the band's 1968 debut album were written by Ferguson, who tended to favor a softer sound on tracks like Girl In Your Eye. On later albums Randy California would take a greater share in the songwriting, eventually becoming the only original member to stay with the band throughout its history.

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    Wasted Union Blues
Source:    CD: It's A Beautiful Day
Writer(s):    David LaFlamme
Label:    San Francisco Sound (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    It's A Beautiful Day was founded in the mid-60s by classical violinist David LaFlamme. The group had a hard time lining up gigs at first and eventually hooked up with local impressario Matthew Katz, who had similar deals with Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape. What the members of IABD did not know at the time was that those other bands were desperately trying to sever all ties with Katz due to his heavy-handed management style. LaFlamme and company would soon find out just how bad a deal they had gotten into when Katz shipped them off to Seattle to be the resident band at his own "San Francisco Sound" club from late 1967 through most of 1968. The group was put up in the attic of a house that Katz owned and given a small allowance that barely put food on the table. To make matters worse, attendance at the club was dismal. Still, the adversity did inspire some of LaFlamme's best songwriting, such as Wasted Union Blues from the group's debut LP, released in 1969.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    Psycho
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Greg Roslie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1965
    In 1965 Seattle record label Etiquette decided to re-release the first Sonics single, The Witch, this time with a different B side. That B side, Psycho, proved so popular that eventually it was itself reissued, this time as an A side. The song itself is a solid example of what made the Sonics one of the most revered bands in indy rock history.

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    San Franciscan Nights
Source:    CD: The Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals (originally released on LP: Winds of Change and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    In late 1966, after losing several original members over a period of about a year, the original Animals disbanded. Eric Burdon, after releasing one single as a solo artist (but using the Animals name), decided to form a "new" Animals. After releasing a moderately successful single, When I Was Young, the new band appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. While in the area, the band fell in love with the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, during what came to be called the Summer Of Love. The first single to be released from their debut album, Winds Of Change, was a tribute to the city by the bay called San Franciscan Nights. Because of the topicality of the song's subject matter, San Franciscan Nights was not released in the UK as a single. Instead, the song Good Times (which was the US B side of the record), became the new group's biggest UK hit to date (and one of the Animals' biggest UK hits overall). Eventually San Franciscan Nights was released as a single in the UK as well (with a different B side) and ended up doing quite well.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    One More Rainy Day
Source:    LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Evans/Lord
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    The last song to be recorded for Shades Of Deep Purple was a song called One More Rainy Day. Quite honestly, I find it to be the weakest track on the album, but that still puts it ahead of 90% of what was being played on top 40 radio in 1968. The song also appeared as the B side of the Hush single, which made the top 10.

Artist:    Bubble Puppy
Title:    A Gathering Or Promises
Source:    British import CD: A Gathering Or Promises
Writer(s):    Prince/Taylor
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1969
    Bubble Puppy was formed in 1966 in San Antonio, Texas, moving to Austin the following year. The band's name was inspired by Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, a fictitious children's game mentioned in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. They were one of the first bands to use two lead guitars, predating both the Allman Brothers Band and Wishbone Ash by at least a year. In late 1968 they released their first single on the local International Artists label, a song called Lonely that went nowhere until some DJ in Houston decided to flip the record over and play the B side, Hot Smoke And Sassafras. The record took off and the band released their debut LP, A Gathering Of Promises, in early 1969. The album was full of outstanding songs such as the title track, but problems between the band and their label, combined with an unfortunately similarity between the name Bubble Puppy and the term "bubble gum music" kept the band from reaching its full potential. Eventually the group parted company with International Artists, moving to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian in the process.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title:    Machine Gun
Source:    LP: The Esssential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Band Of Gypsys)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    In 1965 Jimi Hendrix sat in on a recording session with R&B vocalist Curtis Knight, signing what he thought was a standard release contract relinquishing any future claim to royalties on the recordings. Three years later, after Hendrix had released a pair of successful albums on the Reprise label with his new band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Capitol records issued the Knight sessions as an LP called Get That Feeling, giving Hendrix equal billing with Knight. Additionally, Capitol claimed that  the guitarist was under contract to them. Eventually the matter was settled by Hendrix promising to provide Capitol with an album of new material by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, although it was not specified whether the album be made up of studio or live recordings. While all this was going on, the Experience disbanded, leaving Hendrix bandless and under pressure to come up with new material for his regular label, Reprise, as well as the Capitol album. The solution was to record a set of concerts at the Fillmore East on December 31st, 1969 and January 1st, 1970, and release the best of these recordings as a live album on the Capitol label, freeing Hendrix up to concentrate on a new studio album for Reprise. Hendrix was still working on the studio album when he died, making the live album, Band Of Gypsys, the last new material to be released during the guitarist's lifetime. It features bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles on Hendrix originals such as Machine Gun, as well as material written by Miles.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Lawdy Mama
Source:    LP: Live Cream
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Eric Clapton
Label:    Atco
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1970
    Lawdy Mama (sometimes known as Hey Lawdy Mama) is a blues song that goes back at least as far as the 1920s. In 1965 Junior Wells and Buddy Guy recorded a Chicago blues version of the song for the Hoodoo Man Blues album. It was this version that Cream performed on a December 1966 BBC broadcast, recording a similar version in the studio in early 1967. They then reworked the instrumental tracks but kept Wells's lyrics for a second version of Lawdy Mama, which they also recorded in early 1967. Still not satisfied with the way the song was going, producer Felix Pappalardi and his wife Janet Collins came up with a whole new melody line and lyrics to go with the newer instrumental tracks; Eric Clapton then added his vocals and a new lead guitar track to the recording, which was released under the title Strange Brew on the Disraeli Gears album. Meanwhile, a mix of the second version of Lawdy Mama was set aside, and eventually got released as the only studio track on the 1970 album Live Cream. Luckily, the then-common practice of superimposing fake crowd sounds to make a studio recording sound like a live track was not followed by the producers of Live Cream.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer:    Sky Saxon
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1965
    One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. market in 1965 was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, its local success predating that of the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.

Artist:     Five Americans
Title:     I See The Light
Source:     Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Writer:     Durill/Ezell/Rabon
Label:     Rhino (original label: Abnak)
Year:     1965
     For years I was under the impression that the Five Americans were a Texas band, mainly due to Abnak Records having a Texas address. It turns out, though, that the band was actually from Durant, Oklahoma, although by the time they had their biggest hit, Western Union, they were playing most of their gigs in the Lone Star state. I See The Light is an earlier single built around a repeating Farfisa organ riff that leads into a song that can only be described as in your face.
   
Artist:     Who
Title:     My Generation
Source:     Mono CD: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (originally released on LP: The Who Sings My Generation)
Writer:    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:     1965
     In late 1965 the Who released a song that quickly became the anthem of a generation. As a matter of fact it's My Generation. Some of us, including Who drummer Keith Moon, did indeed die before we got old. The rest of us weren't so lucky, but hey, that's life.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Amphetamine Annie
Source:    LP: Boogie With Canned Heat
Writer(s):    Canned Heat
Label:    United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    By the end of 1967 the Haight-Ashbury scene had taken a definite turn for the worse. Most veterans of the street (i.e. those who had been there before the Summer of Love) placed the blame firmly on the influx of naive runaways that had flooded the area in the wake of calls to "go to San Francisco" earlier in the year, and on the drug dealers who preyed upon them. Methamphetamine (aka speed) was the drug usually singled out as the most destructive force at play. Back then it was the pill form of speed, such as white crosses, that was prevalent among users; the powdered crystal meth that has become a concern in modern rural America would not be used widely until the 1970s. As one of the original Bay Area bands, Canned Heat decided to take a stand against the drug, declaring in the song Amphetamine Annie that "speed kills", a phrase that would show up as graffiti on various walls in the city as well.

Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     Catfish Blues
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Canned Heat)
Writer:     Robert Petway
Label:     United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year     1967
     Like many other US cities in the 1960s, San Francisco had a small but enthusiastic community of collectors of blues records. A group of them got together in 1966 to form Canned Heat, and made quite an impression when they played the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. This led to a contract with Liberty Records and an album consisting entirely of cover versions of blues standards. One standout track from that album is Robert Petway's Catfish Blues, expanded to over six minutes by the Heat.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Fried Hockey Boogie
Source:    LP: Boogie With Canned Heat
Writer(s):    Samuel L. Taylor
Label:    United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    The climax of every Canned Heat performance was the "boogie", a loose jam based on a repeating three-note riff that gave each band member a chance to strut their stuff as a soloist. The first of these to be released on a record was actually a studio recording. Fried Hockey Boogie was the final track on the band's second LP, appropriately titled Boogie With Canned Heat. The song was officially credited to bassist Larry Taylor.