Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1747 (starts 11/22/17)

It's 1969 all over again! Well, until the last 10 minutes of this week's Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, at any rate. 

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Space Cowboy
Source:    LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s):    Miller/Sidran
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    One of the most popular of Steve Miller Band songs in the group's early years, Space Cowboy was a highlight of the 1969 album Brave New World. Two of the band's founding members, guitarist Boz Scaggs and keyboardist Jim Peterman, had left the band, with Ben Sidran taking over keyboards for the band. The song is considered to be one of three autobiographical songs by Miller (the others being Gangster Of Love and The Joker) recorded over a period of years.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Politician (live version)
Source:    LP: Goodbye
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Usually the bluesier numbers performed by Cream were covers of classic works by guys like Willie Dixon (Spoonful), Muddy Waters (Rollin' and Tumblin') or Albert King (Sitting On Top Of The World). One notable exception is Politician, which was written by Cream's bassist Jack Bruce, with his songwriting partner Pete Brown. Usually the team came up with the band's more psychedelic stuff, but in this case proved that they could crank out a blues tune with the best of 'em when they wanted to. Originally released on the 1968 album Wheels Of Fire, the live version of Politician (which runs in excess of six minutes) was featured on the band's final LP, Goodbye Cream, which came out the following year.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Fruit & Icebergs/Honey Butter Lover
Source:    LP: New! Improved Blue Cheer
Writer(s):    Randy Holden
Label:    Philips
Year:    1969
    Following the release of the second Blue Cheer album, Outsideinside, guitarist Leigh Stephens left the band. His replacement was Randy Holden, who had been a member of the Los Angeles underground band The Other Half. Holden did not stay with the band very long, however. In fact, he left halfway through the recording of the band's third album, New! Improved Blue Cheer, after recording only the three tracks that make up side two of the original LP. Those three tracks, however, are among the best recordings ever made by Blue Cheer. Two of the songs, Fruit & Icebergs and Honey Butter Lover, actually overlap each other to close out the album.

Artist:    Quill
Title:    They Live The Life
Source:    Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s):    Jon and Dan Cole
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2009
    Quill was a Boston-based band led by brothers Jon and Dan Cole. The band was one of the most popular bands throughout New England and eastern New York state for several years. An appearance at a club in New York City led to them getting invited to play the Woodstock festival in August of 1969. Prior to the festival itself, Quill did several gigs at the setup crew's camp as well as a tour of nearby prisons and mental hospitals designed to generate goodwill among the locals toward the upcoming festival. Quill was the first band to take the stage on the second day of the festival, playing a 40-minute long set that began with They Live The Life, a song from their self-titled first album. Unfortunately for the band, the equipment being used to record and film the festival was not functioning properly at this point, and Quill ended up not being included in the Woodstock movie or soundtrack album. Modern technology has made it possible to salvage the audio from their performance, however, and Quill's tracks appear on the 6-CD set Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm that was released in 2009.

Artist:    Joe Cocker
Title:    Something
Source:    LP: Joe Cocker!
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    The Beatles' Abbey Road album had been on the racks less than two months when it was joined by an album called Joe Cocker! that actually included covers of two songs from Abbey Road itself. One of these, Something, had been given to Cocker several months earlier by George Harrison, who, being limited to one or two songs per album, was looking for alternative outlets for his songwriting efforts. At the time, Harrison did not know if the Beatles would be recording Something at all. With Harrison's assistance, Cocker recorded a demo of Something at Apple studios. Whether or not this was the version used on the Joe Cocker! album or if Cocker re-recorded the track for the LP is disputed. As it turns out, however, Something became the first Harrison song to be released as the A side of a Beatles single, becoming a top 5 hit, while Cocker's version of the song is seldom heard at all.

Artist:    Andromeda
Title:    Turns To Dust
Source:    British import CD: The Definitive Collection (originally released in UK on LP: Andromeda)
Writer(s):    John Du Cann
Label:    Angel Air (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1969
    Before joining Atomic Rooster, guitarist John Du Cann fronted his own band, Andromeda. The group, one of the first true progressive rock bands, released one album on the British RCA Victor label in 1969. Although a respectable (for the time) 10,000 copies were sold, the album has been nearly impossible to find since the early 1970s. It is generally believed that this is because nobody wants to part with their copy of the album. A listen to Turns To Dust will make the reason for that abundantly clear.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I Hate Everybody/Fast Life Rider
Source:    LP: Second Winter
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    The shortest track on Johnny Winter's Second Winter album, I Hate Everybody is a 50s-styled blues boogie that features Johnny's younger brother Edgar prominently on both organ and saxophone, supported by the rhythm section of Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums. It's followed on the album immediately by the longest track on the album, the seven-minute Fast Life Rider, which features a long middle section of Winter jamming away against a military-type beat provided by Turner. The other band members provide hoots, hums and hollers, making the whole thing feel a bit like a chain gang recording from the 1930s.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    From The Beginning
Source:    CD: Trilogy
Writer(s):    Greg Lake
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1972
    Although his primary function in Emerson, Lake And Palmer was to provide lead vocals and play bass lines supporting Keith Emerson's keyboard work, Greg Lake generally got to include one of his own ballads on each ELP album. Usually Lake played acoustic guitar on these tracks, with synthesizer backup from Emerson and little or no drumwork from Carl Palmer. For the band's third LP, Trilogy, Lake provided From The Beginning, one of most melodic tunes in the group's catalog. The song ended up being the band's highest charting single, peaking at # 39.

Artist:    Joy Of Cooking
Title:    Waiting For The Last Plane
Source:    British import CD: Castles
Writer(s):    Toni Brown
Label:    Acadia/Evangeline (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1972
    Joy of Cooking was unique among folk-rock groups in that it was co-led by two female artists: Multi-instrumentalist Toni Brown and guitarist Terry Garthwaite, who sang lead vocals as well. Between the two of them, they wrote all the band's original tunes. The rest of the lineup was Fritz Kasten on drums, Jeff Neighbor on bass and Ron Wilson on harp, tambourine and congas. After recording their second album in Los Angeles, the group opted to return to their native Berkeley for their third and final LP, Castles. Most of the songs on Castles, including Waiting For The Last Plane, were written and sung by Brown.