Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1835 (starts 8/29/18)

    This week we have not one, but two entire album sides, both in the second hour. The first is the second side of the 1968 Eric Burdon and the Animals LP The Twain Shall Meet, featuring one of the best antiwar songs ever penned, Sky Pilot. Then we have the original 1968 mix of the Grateful Dead's Anthem Of The Sun, with its unique (for the time) mix of live and studio recordings into one continuous piece. As far as the first hour goes, we have sets from 1966 and 1967, followed by a long progression from 1964-1969, plus a bonus 1966 track.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution (at least according to Dylan). On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    5D
Source:    LP: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s):    Roger McGuinn
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The second single from the Byrds' third LP, Fifth Dimension, suffered from the same problem as its predecessor. Both 5D and Eight Miles High were branded as drug songs by people who had no clue as to what the songs were really about, which had the effect of discouraging the more conservative radio programmers from playing the songs. In the case of 5D, the song was, according to songwriter Roger McGuinn, an attempt to explain Einstein's theory of relativity in layman's terms. In a 1966 interview McGuinn had this to say about the song: "It's sort of weird but...what I'm talking about is the whole universe, the fifth dimension, which is height, width, depth, time and something else. But there definitely are more dimensions than five. It's infinite. The fifth dimension is the threshold of scientific knowledge." Despite McGuinn's attempts to explain the song, many people insisted on believing it was about an LSD trip, and the single died quickly after being released in late 1966.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    A Hazy Shade Of Winter
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Writer:    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966 (first stereo release: 1968)
    Originally released as a single in late 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs slated to be used in the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Flying High
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Any guesses to what a song called Flying High from an album called Electric Music For The Mind And Body by Country Joe And The Fish released in 1967 might be about? I thought not.

Artist:    Who
Title:    I Can See For Miles
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer:    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
     I Can See For Miles continued a string of top 10 singles in the UK and was their biggest US hit ever. Pete Townshend, however, was disappointed with the song's performance on the UK charts. He said that the song was the ultimate Who song and as such it should have charted even higher than it did. It certainly was one of the heaviest songs of its time and there is some evidence that it prompted Paul McCartney to come up with Helter Skelter in an effort to take the heaviest song ever title back for the Beatles. What makes the story even more bizarre is that at the time McCartney reportedly had never actually heard I Can See For Miles and was going purely by what he read in a record review. The song is preceeded by a series of jingles produced for Radio London, a pirate radio station operating off the coast with offices in London. One of those (Roto Sound Strings) was actually performed by the Who. The others were made by the same Texas company that supplied jingles to most US top 40 stations.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Antique Doll
Source:    CD: Underground)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Sometimes there is no comprehending what goes on in the mind of record company people. Take the Electric Prunes, for example. Their second single, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), put them right at the front of the pack of the psychedelic rock movement in early 1967. Their follow up single, Get Me To The World On Time, was a solid hit as well, which should have guaranteed them a good run. But even with that second single, problems with management's decision making were becoming apparent. For one thing, the song chosen as the second single's B side, Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less), had the potential to be a hit in its own right, but being put on a B side killed that idea entirely. It only got worse from there. The next single chosen was a novelty number from the band's second LP, Underground, called Dr. Do-Good. The tune was written by the same team of Annette Tucker and Nanci Mantz that had come up with both Dream and Lovin' Me More, but was played for laughs by the band. The choice of such a weird track is a complete puzzle, as there were several more commercial tunes on the LP, including one written by Tucker and Mantz themselves called Antique Doll. Unfortunately, the song was not even picked to be a B side, and has remained virtually unknown ever since. Rather than own up to their own mistakes, however, the band's management blamed the musicians themselves for their lack of commercial success, and eventually replaced the entire lineup of the original group (who had signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes early on). Of course, the new lineups were even less successful than the original crew, but really, what else would you expect?

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:    Velvet Illusions
Title:    Acid Head
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Weed/Radford
Label:    Rhino (original label: Metromedia, also released on Tell Records)
Year:    1967
    Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a suburban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle crowd as one of their own) the Illusions backtracked the Prunes' steps, leaving their native Yakima and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut this lone single, Acid Head, before calling it quits.

Artist:    Beau Brummels
Title:    Laugh Laugh
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ron Elliott
Label:    Rhino (original label: Autumn)
Year:    1964
    It was difficult for an American band to get a hit record in 1964. Some, such as San Francisco's Beau Brummels, decided the best way was to beat the Brits at their own game. Laugh Laugh, their debut single, was released in December of that year as one of the first singles on popular local DJ Tom Donahue's Autumn label. Ultimately, the decision to emulate British rock worked against the Brummels, as they were never considered part of the blossoming San Francisco music scene.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Colours
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy (original label: Hickory)
Year:    1965
    Having been introduced to Donovan's music through exposure to Sunshine Superman, Mellow Yellow and later songs, I was always a bit puzzled by references to the Scottish singer/soingwriter as Britain's poor Bob Dylan knockoff. Then I heard Colours and all was made clear. Donovan himself, however, credits Derroll Adams, a songwriter from the Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger school, as the song's direct influence.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Here Today
Source:    Mono CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Apparently there is a conversation about cameras going on in the background of the instrumental break of Here Today on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. I never noticed it. I guess I'll have to listen more closely next time.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
     Yeah, I know I played this on last week's show. So sue me.

Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Come And Buy/Time/Confusion (original unissued mono mix)
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Writer(s):    Brown/Crane
Label:    Polydor/Polygram
Year:    1968
    The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown was one of many LPs that I borrowed from friends as soon as they bought it, inviting them to come over and enjoy my dad's superior stereo system while I taped the album on his Akai reel to reel tape recorder. I spent many a night listening to the album's expansive stereo mix through a pair of Koss headphones, getting to know the entire album intimately. That said, what you are hearing on this week's show is radically different than what I heard back then. For one thing, this is a mono mix. More importantly, the songs are edited entirely differently, with entire sections moved from one place to another. It turns out that this is actually an early mix presented to the band's American record label (Atlantic), before the album was released. Although the people at Atlantic liked what they heard, they felt that the drums were a bit off. Since the original recordings had been made on four-track equipment, the drum tracks had been mixed with other instruments and "bounced" to an unused track to make room for overdubs, making it impossible to re-record the drums without also re-recording other instruments. Atlantic instead dubbed the mix over to state-of-the-art eight-track equipment and, working with some of the band members, added extensive orchestration that served to cover up the drum tracks for the most part. This new mix was then used for both stereo and mono pressings of the LP (although the only version available in the US was the stereo one). Needless to say, when the drummer heard the new mix he was furious. Anyway, here is that original mono mix of Come And Buy/Time/Confusion from side one of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. Personally I don't hear anything wrong with the drums.

Artist:    Elephant's Memory
Title:    Brief Encounter
Source:    CD: Elephant's Memory
Writer(s):    Richard Sussman
Label:    BMG/Collector's Choice (original label: Buddah)
Year:    1969
    One of the hardest-to-describe bands of the late 1960s, Elephant's Memory was formed by singer/saxophonist/flautist/clarinetist Stan Bronstein and drummer Rick Frank, along with bassist/trombonist Myron Yules. One early member of the band was vocalist Carly Simon, although by the time the band recorded their debut LP in 1969 she had been replaced by Michal Shapiro. Filling out the band's 1969 lineup were keyboardist Richard Sussman and guitarists John Ward and Chester Ayres. Shapiro's vocals were particularly well suited to the band's jazzier numbers, such as Brief Encounter, which also incorporates elements of latino music.

Artist:    Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels
Title:    Devil With A Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly
Source:    LP: Breakout
Writer(s):    Stevenson/Long/Marascalco/Blackwell
Label:    NewVoice
Year:    1966
    When it came down to old-fashioned get-out-on-the-dance-floor blue-collar rock 'n' roll, there was no local scene that could match that of Detroit, and the unquestioned kings of Motor City rock 'n' roll in 1966 were Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Ryder's boys cranked out hit after hit, many of which made the national charts, including Little Latin Lupe Lu, Sock It To Me-Baby!, and their biggest hit of all: Devil With A Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly. Rock on!

Artist:    Love
Title:    You I'll Be Following
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    When the Byrds decided to tour heavily to support their early hits Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn!, Arthur Lee's band Love was more than happy to fill the void left on the L.A. club scene. The group quickly established itself as the top band on the strip and caught the attention of Elektra Records, an album-oriented label that had previously specialized in blues and folk music but was looking to move into rock. Love was soon signed to a contract with Elektra and released their self-titled debut LP in 1966. That album featured songs that were primarily in a folk-rock vein, such as You I'll Be Following, although even then there were signs that bandleader Arthur Lee was capable of writing quality tunes that defied easy classification. Love would remain the top band on the strip for the next year and a half, releasing two more albums before the original group dissolved. To maintain their status as local heroes, Love chose to stay close to home. The lack of time spent promoting their records ultimately led to them being supplanted as the star group for Elektra by the Doors, a band that had been recommended to the label by Lee himself.

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     The Twain Shall Meet (side two)
Source:     LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     M-G-M
Year:     1968
     The Twain Shall Meet was the second album from Eric Burdon and the Animals, the new group formed in early 1967 after Eric Burdon changed his mind about embarking on a solo career. Produced by Tom Wilson (who had also produced Bob Dylan's first electric recordings and the Blues Project's Projections album), The Twain Shall Meet was an ambitious work that shows a band often reaching beyond its grasp, despite having its heart in the right place. For the most part, though, side two of the album works fairly well, starting with the anti-war classic Sky Pilot and continuing into the instrumental We Love You Lil. The final section, All Is One, is a unique blend of standard rock instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards) combined with strings, horns, sitar, bagpipes, oboe, flute, studio effects, and drone vocals that builds to a frenetic climax, followed by a spoken line by Burdon to end the album.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Anything
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change/The Twain Shall Meet (originally released on LP: Winds Of Change)
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:    BGO (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    The first album by the "new" Eric Burdon And The Animals, Winds Of Change, included three songs that were released as singles, however only one of the three got airplay in both the US and the UK. The US-only single was a song that Eric Burdon has since said was the one he was most proud of writing, a love generation song called Anything. In fact Burdon liked the song well enough to re-record it for a solo album in 1995.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Don't Bring Me Down
Source:    CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1966
    Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is reportedly one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked. The song was one of the last hit singles recorded by the original Animals before they disbanded in late 1966.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Alligator/Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
Source:    LP: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s):    Lesh/McKernan/Hunter/Garcia/Kreutzmann/Weir
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1968
    After a debut album that took about a week to record (and that the band was unanimously unhappy with) the Grateful Dead took their time on their second effort, Anthem Of The Sun. After spending a considerable amount of time in three different studios on two coasts and not getting the sound they wanted (and shedding their original producer along the way) the Dead came to the conclusion that the only way to make an album that sounded anywhere near what the band sounded like onstage was to use actual recordings of their performances and combine them with the studio tracks they had been working on. Side two of the album, which includes the classic Alligator and the more experimental Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks), is basically an enhanced live performance, with new vocal tracks added in the studio. Alligator itself is notable as the first Grateful Dead composition to feature the lyrics of Robert Hunter, who would become Jerry Garcia's main collaborator for many many years. Anthem Of The Sun was remixed by Phil Lesh in 1972, and the new mix was used on all subsequent pressings of the LP. Recently, Rhino records has pressed a new vinyl copy of Anthem Of The Sun using the original 1968 mix of the album, which is what I've used on this week's show.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Treat
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer(s):    Santana (band)
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Guitarist Carlos Santana's original band was known to the San Francisco area as a jam band with a decidedly Latino flavor. Promoter Bill Graham convinced the band to write more structured material for their first LP, which was released in 1969. Although not an instant success, the album, buoyed by the group's appearance at Woodstock, eventually reached the # 4 spot on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Treat, a fairly representative example of the group's early style, is indeed structured, yet maintains much of the band's free-flowing energy through several style and tempo changes.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1835 (starts 8/29/18)

    Got another week of freeform madness here, starting with a great Little Feat tune and ending with a hot J.Geils Band instrumental track, featuring Magic Dick on blues harp.

Artist:    Little Feat
Title:    Fat Man In The Bathtub
Source:    CD: Dixie Chicken
Writer(s):    Lowell George
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Lowell George, founder of Little Feat, came into his own as a songwriter with the 1973 album Dixie Chicken. Among the classic tunes on the LP was Fat Man In The Bathtub. There are many theories as to what the song is actually about, but most agree that somebody wasn't getting something he wanted.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Funk #49/Ashtonpark
Source:    CD:  James Gang Rides Again
Writer(s):    Fox/Peters/Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
                Following the release of their first LP, Yer' Album, the James Gang toured extensively, giving them little time to work up material for their followup album. Nonetheless, they managed to turn out a classic with the 1970 release James Gang Rides Again. The album starts with the song that all three band members agree was already worked out by the time they hit the studio, Funk #49. The song (which is probably the band's best known tune) is followed immediately by Ashtonpark, a short instrumental that picks up where Funk #49 fades out. The track is essentially Joe Walsh, Dale Peters and Jim Fox jamming over an echo effect created by cycling the playback of Walsh's guitar back through the record head of the studio tape recorder.
          
Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Time Does Tell
Source:    LP: Street Corner Talking
Writer(s):    Kim Simmonds
Label:    Parrott
Year:    1971
    Sounds Of Blue was a British R&B band formed in 1964 by David 'Rowdy' Yeats and Andy Silvester. After a series of lineup changes the group renamed itself Chicken Shack in 1965. The group continued to undergo lineup changes over the next few years, even as they had a residency at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany. The group signed to the Blue Horizon label in 1968, releasing three albums that year alone. So what does all this have to do with Savoy Brown, you ask? Well, in 1971, after being cut from the Blue Horizon roster, three of the band members, including founding member Silvester, left Chicken Shack to replace the three departing members of Savoy Brown, who in turn formed a new band, Foghat. The first Savoy Brown album with the new lineup was Street Corner Talking, featuring a mix of tracks from various band members, including the remaining original member of Savoy Brown, Kim Simmonds, who wrote Time Does Tell.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Fluff
Source:    LP: Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Tony Iommi might have called it Fluff, but in reality it is a nice bit of solo guitar work from the Black Sabbath guitarist. Officially the song is credited to the entire band (but we know better).

Artist:    Three Man Army
Title:    Let's Go Get Laid
Source:    German import CD: 3
Writer(s):    Adrian Gurvitz
Label:    Revisited
Year:    Recorded 1974, released 2004 (dates approximate)
    The Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul, got their first taste of international fame as two thirds of the band Gun, whose Race With The Devil was a monster hit in Germany and the UK, among other places. Following the breakup of Gun, the brothers went their separate ways for a year or so, reuniting in 1971 to form Three Man Army. The first album featured three different drummers, but the next two featured the talents of Tony Newman, formerly of the Jeff Beck Group. Plans for a fourth album were shelved when Newman left the group, to be replaced by Ginger Baker (prompting a name change to Baker-Gurvitz Army), but not until several tracks had already been recorded. Those tracks remained unreleased until 2004, when a German label released 3 (so named because it was the third album to feature Newman). Probably the best track on the album is Let's Go Get Laid. I'll leave it to you to figure out what the song is about.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills And Nash
Title:    Wooden Ships
Source:    CD: Crosby, Stills And Nash
Writer(s):    Crosby/Stills/Kantner
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    Among the various legendary characters on the late 60s San Francisco music scene, none is more reviled than Matthew Katz. His mistreatment of It's A Beautiful Day is legendary. Just about every band he managed was desperate to get out of their contract with him, including Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane. In fact, it was because of the Airplane's fight to get out from under Katz's thumb that Paul Kantner did not get a writing credit for Wooden Ships on the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album. David Crosby had this to say on the matter: "Paul called me up and said that he was having this major duke-out with this horrible guy who was managing the band, and he was freezing everything their names were on. 'He might injunct the release of your record,' he told me. So we didn’t put Paul’s name on it for a while. In later versions, we made it very certain that he wrote it with us. Of course, we evened things up with him with a whole mess of cash when the record went huge." Although Jefferson Airplane eventually won their battle with Katz, others weren't so fortunate. Katz's San Francisco Sound still owns the rights to recordings by Moby Grape and It's A Beautiful Day, which explains why it's so hard to find quality copies of those recordings these days. Anyone want to take a guess how much the surviving members of those bands receive in royalties from the CD reissues of their albums? (Hint: at least one member of Moby Grape was known to have been living under a bridge at one point).

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Home At Last
Source:    CD: Aja
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1977
    Walter Becker gets a chance to shine as solo lead guitarist on Home At Last, Steely Dan's take on the Odyssey from the 1977 album Aja. I think that pretty much covers it.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Never
Source:    LP: Grape Jam
Writer(s):    Bob Mosley
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    For their second album, Moby Grape decided to do something different. In addition to the LP Wow, there was a second disc called Grape Jam included for a minimal extra charge. For the most part Grape Jam is exactly what you'd expect: a collection of after-hours jam sessions with guest guitarist/keyboardist Michael Bloomfield. The opening track of Grape Jam, however, is actually a composition by Bob Mosley. The song features Mosley on bass and vocals, Jerry Miller and Skip Spence and guitars and Don Stevenson on drums, all of whom were actual members of Moby Grape.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    When The Music's Over
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Strange Days)
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    I remember the first time I heard When The Music's Over. My girlfriend's older brother had the new Doors album on the stereo in his room and told us to get real close to the speakers so we could hear the sound of a butterfly while he turned the volume way up. What we got, of course, was a blast of "...we want the world and we want it now." Good times.

Artist:    J. Geils Band
Title:    Whammer Jammer
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Juke Box Jimmie
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    First they were a Boston bar band called Snoopy and the Sopwith Camel. Then they became the J. Geils Blues Band. Finally they dropped the "blues" from the name and became famous. Whammer Jammer, an early B side showcasing "Magic Dick" Salwitz on lead harmonica, shows why the "blues" part was there in the first place.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1834 (starts 8/22/18)

    This is one of these shows that seems to take on a life of its own. In such cases, I do what I can to keep up, but end up getting surprised here and there.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Song To Woody
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released on LP: Bob Dylan)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1962
    As hard as it may be to believe, the fact is that Bob Dylan only wrote two of the songs that appeared on his 1962 debut LP. The rest were all covers of tunes by well known folk artists such as Woody Guthrie. Naturally, one of the two originals was Song For Woody.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    I Want You
Source:    CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Blonde On Blonde)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    I Want You, Bob Dylan's first single of 1966, was released in advance of his Blonde On Blonde album and was immediately picked by the rock press to be a hit. It was.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Positively 4th Street
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1965
    Recorded during the same 1965 sessions that produced the classic Highway 61 Revisited album, Positively 4th Street was deliberately held back for release as a single later that year. It would not appear on an LP until the first Dylan Greatest Hits album.

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    One of the quintessential songs of the psychedelic era is the Chambers Brothers' classic Time Has Come Today. The song was originally recorded and issued as a single in 1966. The more familiar version heard here, however, was recorded in 1967 for the album The Time Has Come. The LP version of the song runs about eleven minutes, way too long for a 45 RPM record, so before releasing the song as a single for the second time, engineers at Columbia cut the song down to around 3 minutes. The edits proved so jarring that the record was recalled and a re-edited version, clocking in at 4:57 became the third and final single version of the song, hitting the charts in 1968.

Artist:    Wildflower
Title:    Jump In
Source:    British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers
Writer(s):    Ehret/Ellis/McCausland
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    In early 1966, independent producer and record label owner Bob Shad decided to travel across the US looking for acts to sign to his Mainstream and Brent labels. One of the first places he visited was San Francisco, where he held auditions at several locations, including Gene Estribou's loft studio in Haight-Ashbury. He signed two of the bands he heard at the small facility: Big Brother And The Holding Company and The Wildflower. Shad then instructed the various bands that he had signed (with the exception of Big Brother, who were about to hit the road to Chicago) to come down to Los Angeles and record a few tracks each at United Studios. The Wildflower recorded a total of four tracks, two of which were issued as a single in late 1966. The remaining two tracks, including Jump In, appeared the following year on an album called With Love-A Pot Of Flowers on Shad's Mainstream label.

Artist:    N'Betweens
Title:    Delighted To See You
Source:    Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road
Writer(s):    P. Dello
Label:    EMI
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1998.
    The name N'Betweens may not ring any bells with even the most hardcore rock fans, but after changing their name, first to Ambrose Slade and later Slade, they had a decent following in the 1970s. The group originally migrated to London from the industrial city of Birmingham in 1966, where they met up with American producer Kim Fowley, who produced their first single, a cover of the Young Rascals' You Better Run. The band did record other songs before changing their name, including Delighted To See You, which was recorded in 1967, but not released until 1998.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
     The Music Machine was by far the most advanced of all the bands playing on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. Not only did they feature tight sets (so that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other bands. With all the band members dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair) and wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell, disheartened, dissillusioned and/or disgusted, eventually quit the music business altogether.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Strange Days
Source:    CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (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 band's most memorable recordings, including the title tune, which tends to show up on just about every "best of" collection of Doors tracks ever released, despite having never been issued as a single.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady (live in studio)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2018
    In November of 1967 the Jimi Hendrix Experience was still very much an underground phenomenon in the US. Their June appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival had introduced the band to an audience that numbered in the thousands, and their records were being played heavily on college radio, but for the most part mainstream America was still unaware of them. In Europe, however, it was an entirely different story. Jimi Hendrix was the hottest thing on the London scene by the time 1967 started; it wasn't long before the word spread to the continent about the outrageously talented guitarist with an equally outrageous stage presence. Most of that year was spendt touring Europe, including stops at various TV and radio studios in several countries. One of these was in the Netherlands, where the Experience performed Foxy Lady live in the studio in November of 1967. The recording of this performance has surfaced as the non-album B side of the Lover Man single released (in limited quantity) for Record Store Day 2018.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    It's Not Easy
Source:    British import LP: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:    1966
    The Rolling Stones' Aftermath, along with the Beatles' Rubber Soul, began a revolution in rock music that was felt for several decades. Prior to those two releases, albums were basically a mix of original and cover songs meant to provide a little supplemental income for popular artists who had hit singles. Aftermath, however, was full of songs that could stand on their own. Even songs like It's Not Easy, which could have been hit singles for lesser artists, were completely overlooked in favor of tracks like Under My Thumb, which is arguably the first true rock classic not to be released as a single. Within the short span of two years, rock would find itself in a place where an artist could be considered a success without having a hit single, something that was completely unheard of when Aftermath was released.

Artist:     Mothers of Invention
Title:    Who Are The Brain Police?
Source:     CD: Freak Out
Writer:     Frank Zappa
Label:     Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year:     1966
     In 1966, Los Angeles, with its variety of all-ages clubs along Sunset Strip, had one of the most active underground music scenes in rock history. One of the most underground of these bands was the Mothers of Invention, led by musical genius Frank Zappa. In 1966 Tom Wilson, who was already well known for producing Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Blues Project, brought the Mothers into the studio to record the landmark Freak Out album. To his credit he allowed the band total artistic freedom, jeopardizing his own job in the process (the album cost somewhere between $20,000-30,000 to produce). The second song the band recorded was Who Are The Brain Police, which reportedly prompted Wilson to get on the phone to M-G-M headquarters in New York, presumably to ask for more money.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Summer In The City
Source:    LP: Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful
Writer(s):    Sebastian/Sebastian/Boone
Label:    Sundazed/Kama Sutra
Year:    1966
    The Lovin' Spoonful changed gears completely for what would become their biggest hit of 1966: Summer In The City. Inspired by a poem by John Sebastian's brother, the song was recorded for the album Hums Of The Lovin' Spoonful. That album was an attempt by the band to deliberately record in a variety of styles; in the case of Summer In The City, it was a rare foray into psychedelic rock for the band. Not coincidentally, Summer In The City is also my favorite Lovin' Spoonful song.

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:     LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer:     Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label:     Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:     1966
     The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos, not surprising for a bunch of guys from the Bronx) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    The Black Plague
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    One of the most interesting recordings of 1967 was Eric Burdon And The Animals' The Black Plague, which appeared on the Winds Of Change album. The Black Plague is a spoken word piece dealing with life and death in a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague (natch), set to a somewhat gothic piece of music that includes Gregorian style chanting and an occasional voice calling out the words "bring out your dead" in the background. The album itself had a rather distinctive cover, consisting of a stylized album title accompanied by a rather lengthy text piece on a scroll against a black background, something that has never been done before or since on an album cover.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    On The Way Home
Source:    LP: Retrospective (originally released on LP: Last Time Around)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Things fell apart for Buffalo Springfield following the drug bust and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer in January of 1968. Neil Young stopped showing up for gigs, forcing Stephen Stills to carry all lead guitar duties for the band. By March, the band was defunct in everything but name. However, the group was still contractually obligated to provide Atco Records with one more album, so Richie Furay, along with replacement bassist Jim Messina, set about compiling a final Buffalo Springfield album from various studio tapes that the band members had made. None of these tapes featured the entire lineup of the band, although Neil Young's On The Way Home, which was chosen to open the album, came close, as it featured  Furay on lead vocals, Stills on guitar and backup vocals, and Palmer on bass as well as Young himself on lead guitar and backup vocals.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Never Learn Not To Love
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: 20/20)
Writer(s):    Dennis Wilson
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    There are several interesting facts about the Beach Boys's Never Learn Not To Love. First off, although credited entirely to Dennis Wilson, the song is actually a reworked version of a song called Cease To Exist by an aspiring folk singer named Charles Manson. Yes, that Charles Manson. In fact, a studio version of Manson's original song was released in 1970 on Manson's only studio LP, Lie: The Love And Terror Cult. Manson had met Wilson after the Beach Boys drummer had picked up a couple of Manson's female followers hitchhiking and taken them to his Malibu home. Wilson actually thought Manson's material had potential, and even introduced Manson to some of his contacts in the music business. As Manson's behavior became increasingly erratic, however, Wilson began to distance himself from the cult leader. Reportedly, Manson was none too happy to not get a songwriting credit for Never Learn Not To Love.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Wolf Run (Part 2)
Source:    British import CD: Just For Love
Writer(s):    Dino Valenti
Label:    BGO (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    Fans of Quicksilver Messenger Service's first three LPs were somewhat shocked when the band's fourth LP, Just For Love, was released in 1970. Gone were the improvisational jams that had become the band's trademark, replaced by a set of shorter tunes written by founding member Dino Valenti, who had been absent from the band's lineup literally from the day the group was formed (he was busted for Marijuana and spent the years 1968-69 in prison). Not all of these songs were bursting with commercial potential, however. Wolf Run, an experimental piece that resembles some of Pink Floyd's recordings from around the same time, was split into two parts and served as bookends for the entire album. The second part, which is actually the longer of the two, runs just barely over two minutes.

Artist:    Sly And The Family Stone
Title:    Underdog
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: A Whole New Thing)
Writer(s):    Sylvester Stewart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    Sly and the Family Stone were a showstopper at the Woodstock festival in 1969, but their story starts years before that historic performance. Sylvester Stewart was a popular DJ and record producer in mid-60s San Francisco, responsible for the first recordings of the Warlocks (later the Grateful Dead) and the Great! Society, among others. During that time he became acquainted with a wealth of talent, including bassist Larry Graham. In 1967, with Autumn Records having been sold to and closed down by Warner Brothers, he decided to form his own band. Anchored by Graham, Sly and the Family Stone's first LP, A Whole New Thing, was possibly the very first pure funk album ever released.

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Daughter Of England
Source:    CD: 50
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rag Baby
Year:    2017
    Country Joe McDonald's 2017 album, 50, has been described as "a contemporary survey of current topics". That label certainly applies to Daughter Of England, a song about the current state of affairs in what was once the crown jewel of the British colonial empire and has now become the most powerful (and some say most dangerous) nation on Earth.

Artist:    Country Joe and the Fish
Title:    Section 43
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer:    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    In 1966 Country Joe and the Fish released their original mono version of an instrumental called Section 43. The song was included on a 7" EP inserted in an underground newspaper called Rag Baby. In 1967 the group recorded an expanded stereo version of Section 43 and included it on their debut LP for Vanguard Records, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. It was this arrangement of the piece (and quite possibly this recording) that was used in D. A. Pennebacker's film chronicle of the Monterey International Pop Festival that June. Even Joe McDonald himself is unsure where it came from.

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Silent Rage
Source:    CD: 50
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rag Baby
Year:    2017
    Although it was originally intended to be released in 2015, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Country Joe McDonald's first recording, the album 50 ended up taking over two years to complete. As can be heard on tracks like Silent Rage, it was worth taking the extra time on. Like many of the tracks on 50, Silent Rage features the talents of the legendary Tubes drummer Prarie Prince, along with guitarist James DePrato, vocalist Diana Mangano and bassist Blair Hardman (who accompanied McDonald on his first recording, The Goodbye Blues, of which only a dozen or so copies were originally pressed).

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.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    CD: Epistle To Dippy (alt. arrangement)
Source:    CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    Following up on his successful Mellow Yellow album, Donovan released Epistle To Dippy in the spring of 1967. The song, utilizing the same kind of instrumentation as Mellow Yellow, was further proof that the Scottish singer was continuing to move beyond the restrictions of the "folk singer" label and was quickly becoming the model for what would come to be called "singer/songwriters" in the following decade. Due to an ongoing contractual dispute between the artist and his UK record label (Pye), Epistle To Dippy was only released in the US. This alternate arrangement of the song was recorded about 10 months after the single version and features a violin prominently, replacing the electric guitar used on the original.

rtist:    Turtles
Title:    You Showed Me
Source:    Mono CD: All The Singles (originally released on LP: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands)
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Clark
Label:    Manifesto (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1968
    In 1964, while still performing as a duo, Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark wrote a song called You Showed Me. After the Beefeaters, as they were then known, added new members David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke, changing their name to the Jet Set in the process, they recorded a demo version of the song. Not long after that You Showed Me was dropped from the band's repertoire and promptly forgotten by almost everyone. One person who didn't forget the song, however, was Chip Douglas, who had seen McGuinn and Clark perform the song in 1964. Four years later, after a stint as bass player for the Turtles, then producer for the Monkees, Douglas met up with his old bandmates and played them his own version of You Showed Me. Douglas's presentation, however, was considerable slower than the original version, due to the fact that he was using a harmonium with a broken bellows and couldn't play the song at its proper speed. The Turtles, however, liked the slower tempo and used it for their own recording of the song, which appeared on the 1968 LP The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands and became the band's last major hit single.

Artist:    Aerovons
Title:    World Of You
Source:    CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hartman
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1969
    Originally from St. Louis, Mo., the Aerovons were such big fans of the Beatles that they moved to England in hopes of meeting their idols. They had enough talent in their own right to get a contract with EMI, recording an album's worth of material at Abbey Road in 1969. Although only two singles from those sessions were originally released (on Parlophone, the same label that the Beatles' records were on), the Aerovons finally got some recognition many years later when an acetate of their unreleased album was discovered and remastered for release on the RPM label. Perhaps more important for the band members, they got to meet the Beatles while recording at Abbey Road.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Have You Seen The Saucers
Source:    LP: Early Flight (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    Grunt (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1970
    Have You Seen The Saucers, a Paul Kantner composition, was first released as the B side to Mexico, the last single to include Jefferson Airplane founder Marty Balin. Unlike Mexico, which is basically a Grace Slick vehicle, Saucers features Balin, Kantner and Slick sharing vocal duties equally. After the single failed to chart, Have You Seen The Saucers was unavailable until 1974, when it was included on the LP Early Flight, a collection of tracks that had never been released on LP vinyl.

Artist:    Shadows of Knight
Title:    Oh Yeah
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Elias McDaniel
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The original British blues bands like the Yardbirds made no secret of the fact that they had created their own version of a music that had come from Chicago. The Shadows Of Knight, on the other hand, were a Chicago band that created their own version of the British blues, bringing the whole thing full circle. After taking their version of Van Morrison's Gloria into the top 10 early in 1966, the Shadows (which had added "of Knight" to their name just prior to releasing Gloria) decided to follow it up with an updated version of Bo Diddley's Oh Yeah. Although the song did not have a lot of national top 40 success, it did help establish the Shadows' reputation as one of the premier garage-punk bands.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Outside Woman Blues
Source:    LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Arthur Reynolds
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Although Cream's second album, Disraeli Gears, is best known for its psychedelic cover art and original songs such as Strange Brew, Sunshine Of Your Love and Tales of Brave Ulysses, the LP did have one notable blues cover on it. Outside Woman Blues was originally recorded by Blind Joe Reynolds in 1929 and has since been covered by a variety of artists including Van Halen, Johnny Winters, Jimi Hendrix and even the Atlanta Rhythm Section.

Artist:     Them
Title:     I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source:     British import CD: Now and Them
Writer(s):    John Mayall
Label:     Rev-Ola (original label: Tower)
Year:     1968
     Them's version of I'm Your Witch Doctor is an oddity: a pyschedelicized version of a John Mayall song by Van Morrison's old band with a new vocalist (Kenny McDowell). Just to make it even odder we have sound effects at the beginning of the song that were obviously added after the fact by the producer (and not done particularly well at that). But then, what else would you expect from the label that put out an LP by a band that didn't even participate in the recording of half the tracks on the album (Chocolate Watchband's No Way Out), a song about a city that none of the band members had even been to (the Standells' Dirty Water), and soundtrack albums to films like Wild In the Streets, Riot On Sunset Strip and The Love In? Let's hear it for Tower, the American International of the record industry!

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Juicy John Pink
Source:    LP: A Salty Dog
Writer(s):    Trower/Reid
Label:    1969
Year:    A&M
    Procol Harum always suffered from a basic incompatibility of musical direction between guitarist Robin Trower and keyboardist Gary Brooker. Whereas Brooker was very much into the neo-classical progressive rock direction the band generally took, Trower was (naturally) into a more guitar-oriented style. This was starting to become obvious on the band's third LP, A Salty Dog, which included two songs written by Trower that sounded nothing like the rest of the album. The shorter of these, Juicy John Pink, is deliberately lo-fi, recorded in such a way as to recall the sound of old blues records. Trower would eventually leave the band for a solo career; his 1974 LP Bridge Of Sighs ended up charting higher than any Procol Harum album.

Artist:        Beatles
Title:        The Word
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:        Capitol/EMI
Year:        1965
        The original concept for the album Rubber Soul was to show the group stretching out into R&B territory. The US version of the album, however, deleted several of the more soulful numbers in favor of folk-rock oriented songs. This was done by Capitol records mainly to cash in on the sudden popularity of the genre in 1965. Not all of the more R&B flavored songs were replaced, however. John Lennon's The Word appeared on both US and UK versions of Rubber Soul.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Richard Cory
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    My ultra-cool 9th-grade English teacher brought in a copy of Simon And Garfunkel's Sounds Of Silence album one day. As a class, we deconstructed the lyrics of two of the songs on that album: A Most Peculiar Man and Richard Cory. Both songs deal with suicide, but under vastly different circumstances. Whereas A Most Peculiar Man is about a lonely man who lives an isolated existence as an anonymouse resident of a boarding house, Richard Cory deals with a character who is at the center of society, known and envied by many. Too bad most high school English classes weren't that interesting.

Artist:    Fenwyck
Title:    Mindrocker
Source:    Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Keith and Linda Colley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year:    1967
     Fenwyck was a southern California rock band that found itself in the unenviable position of being forever associated with a vocalist that they actually only worked with for a short amount of time. Formed in 1963 by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Pat Robinson, in Arcadia, San Gabriel Valley, CA, the group was moderately successful playing various clubs in the L.A. suburbs before signing with 4-Star Productions in early 1967, where they were paired with Jerry Raye, a second-tier Conway Twitty wannabe trying to maintain an early 60s teen idol style. The result was an album called The Many Faces Of Jerry Raye with the words "featuring Fenwyck" in smaller text halfway down the right side of the cover. The LP itself was essentially two mini-LPs, with each side having little or nothing to do with the other. Raye's side consisted of a set of nondescript songs from professional songwriters. The first side of the album, however, was all Fenwyck, with all but one of the tracks written by Robinson. The sole exception was Mindrocker, written by the husband and wife team of Keith and Linda Colley, which was released as a single on the Challenge label even before the rest of the album had been recorded. After the album was released on the brand-new Deville label, several singles appeared on Deville credited to Jerry Raye and Fenwyck, including a re-release of Mindrocker with Raye's vocals overdubbed over Robinson's original track. Raye soon moved on to greater obscurity, while Fenwyck itself evolved into Back Pocket, recording a handful of LPs for the Allied label in 1968-69.

Artist:    Bonzo Dog Band
Title:    I'm The Urban Spaceman
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Neil Innes
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (as they were originally called) was as much theatre (note the British spelling) as music, and were known for such antics as starting out their performances by doing calisthentics (after being introduced as the warm-up band) and having one of the members, "Legs" Larry Smith tapdance on stage (he was actually quite good). In 1967 they became the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's TV show that also featured sketch comedy by future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with David Jason, the future voice of Mr. Toad and Danger Mouse. Late in the year they appeared in the Beatles' telefilm Magical Mystery Tour, performing a song called Deathcab For Cutie. In 1968 the Bonzos released their only hit single, I'm The Urban Spaceman, co-produced by Paul McCartney. Frontman Neil Innes would go on to hook up with Eric Idle for the Rutles project, among other things, and is often referred to as the Seventh Python.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1834 (starts 8/22/18)

    This week's show boldly goes where Rockin' in the Days of Confusion has never gone before, with 11 out of 13 tracks making their debut. That was not the original plan, but, as is often the case, the show just seemed to take on a life of its own from about the third song on. Enjoy!

Artist:    Seatrain
Title:    13 Questions
Source:    British import CD: Seatrain/Marblehead Messenger (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Seatrain)
Writer(s):    Kulberg/Roberts
Label:    BGO (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    Despite being formed by the remaining members of the Blues Project, Seatrain spent most of its four years under the radar, getting little attention from the rock press and even less from the record buying public. Some of this lack of popularity can be attributed to the band's basic instability. None of their four albums (for three different labels!) have the same lineup, making it hard to establish a fan base. The fact that they didn't fit neatly into any particular genre, having elements of folk, country and jazz as well as rock, didn't help either. Their most successful record was the 1970 single, 13 Questions. Anyone who bought the album Seatrain soon realized, however, that the punchy horn-based single was nothing like the rest of the record.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Ramble Tamble
Source:    LP: cosmo's Factory
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1970
    Creedence Clearwater Revival is rightly known for its series of catchy, compact singles, all of which scored high on the Billboard charts. As a result, their longer, more instrumentally-oriented material such as Ramble Tamble often gets overlooked. The track, which opens the 1970 LP Cosmo's Factory, showcases John Fogerty's guitar work, along with the solidity of the band's rhythm section of Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford.

Artist:    Derek And The Dominos
Title:    Little Wing
Source:    CD: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience often performed an instrumental jam based on Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love, so it seems only fair that Eric Clapton would someday return the favor. When he did, it was memorable. Little Wing is one of the standout tracks on an album full of standout tracks. As such, it is often overlooked in favor of other tunes from Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. Still, it is a unique arrangement of the Hendrix classic, enhanced by the presence of Duane Allman on slide guitar.

Artist:    Van Morrison
Title:    Brand New Day
Source:    LP: Moondance
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    As leader of the first major Irish rock band (Them), Van Morrison helped set the standard for rebellious young musicians looking to make their mark on the world. His Gloria was the single most defining song of the entire garage-rock movement of the mid-1960s, while his disrespectful relationship with the British music press was legendary. By 1970, however, Morrison had taken on a new role, that of the sensitive singer-songwriter, blazing a path that would soon be followed by James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, John Fogelberg and many many others over the next few years. This version of Van Morrison was manifested on the album Moondance, and on songs like Brand New Day in particular. Moondance was also the first album produced by Morrison himself. He has not worked with any other producers since.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Spare Me A Little Of Your Love
Source:    CD: Bare Trees
Writer(s):    Christine McVie
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    Fleetwood Mac was known as much for its various changes in personnel as for its music during its first several years of existence. In fact, only drummer Mick Fleetwood appeared on every Fleetwood Mac recording (bassist John McVie was not on the band's first recordings). The third-longest serving member of the band was keyboardist/vocalist Christine Perfect, who contributed to the band's second, third and fouth albums before becoming an official member as of the Future Games LP, following her marraige (and corresponding name change) to McVie. The next Fleetwood Mac album, Bare Trees, included a McVie composition called Spare Me A Little Of Your Love. The song proved popular enough to become part of the band's stage repertoire for the next five years.

Artist:     Bill Withers
Title:     Harlem
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Bill Withers
Label:     Sussex
Year:     1971
     Bill Withers's first single, Three Nights And A Morning, pretty much defines the word obscure. It was the only record ever released on the Lotus label, and after its appearance in 1967 Withers went back to his day job and did not resurface until 1970, when the album Just As I Am was released on Buddah's Sussex label. The first single from that album was a tune called Harlem, which was backed with a song called Moanin' And Groanin'. The record was soon re-issued with a different B side, however; a tune called Ain't No Sunshine that soon became a hit single and finally allowed Withers to become a full-time musician. Harlem, the original A side of the single, has been overlooked ever since, despite the fact that it's a great tune. Check it out.

Artist:    Queen
Title:    Doing All Right
Source:    LP: Queen
Writer(s):    May/Staffell
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1973
    Before there was a band called Queen, there was Smile. Formed by guitarist Brian May and bassist Tim Staffell, the group soon recruited drummer Roger Taylor and, eventually, keyboardist/vocalist Farrokh Basada, who suggested the band change its name to Queen. Staffell left the band before the group's first album (replaced by John Deacon), but not before co-writing a song called Doing All Right, which Staffell originally sang lead vocals on. When Queen finally got a record contract in 1973, they included Doing All Right on the debut LP, with Basada, who by then had taken the stage name Freddie Mercury, doing the vocals in a style deliberately similar to that of Staffell.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Sexy Sadie
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    I can't hear the song Sexie Sadie without being reminded of Charles Manson and his misinterpretation of the White Album (Sadie Mae Glutz was the nickname Manson gave Susan Atkins, one of his female followers). The song was actually inspired by the Mararishi Mahesh Yogi, or more specifically, John Lennon's disillusionment with the man. Lennon said that Sexie Sadie was the last song he wrote before leaving India, and that bandmate George Harrison would only agree to recording the tune if its original title of Maharishi was changed.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Cars Hiss By My Window
Source:    LP: L.A. Woman
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971
    In their early days as a club band the Doors included several blues covers in their sets. Once they were signed to Elektra, however, the band chose to instead concentrate on their original material, with only Back Door Man being recorded for their debut LP. After their fourth LP, The Soft Parade, was savaged by the rock press for being over-produced the band decided to return to a more stripped-down sound, and began to write their own blues songs. This trend came to a peak with the 1971 album L.A. Woman, the last Doors LP to feature vocalist Jim Morrison. One of those blues originals was Cars Hiss By My Window. Like all the tracks on L.A. Woman, the song was credited to the entire band, a practice that the group had abandoned as of The Soft Parade.

Artist:    Alice Playton
Title:    Pizza Man
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits Of The National Lampoon (originally released on LP: Lemmings)
Writer(s):    Kelly/Jacobs/Guest
Label:    Uproar (original label: Blue Thumb)
Year:    1973
    National Lampoon is probably best known these days for their various movies, including Animal House and a series of "vacation" films starring Chevy Chase. They were a whole lot more than just a movie company, however. Initially a monthly magazine, National Lampoon grew to encompass books, records, a weekly radio show and even an off-Broadway play called Lemmings. As a parody of the Woodstock festival, Lemmings featured several different acts that paralleled those at the actual festival. Filling the role of "50s novelty act" (Sha-Na-Na), Lemmings had Goldy Oldie, played by Alice Playton, whose Pizza Man was considered a highlight of the show. To my knowledge Playton never did anything else associated with National Lampoon in her long career in Broadway musicals.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sister Morphine
Source:    LP: Sticky Fingers
Writer(s):    Faithfull/Jagger/Richards
Label:    Rolling Stones
Year:    1971
     Sister Morphine was first recorded by Marianne Faithfull and released as a B side in 1969, but the single was quickly banned by the BBC for its drug references and was subsequently withdrawn in the UK. The record stayed in print in other countries, however, although in many places, including the US, an alternate take of the song was used. Two years later the Rolling Stones recorded their own version of the song for their Sticky Fingers album, but Faithfull's name was left off the songwriting credits. It has since been restored. Both versions feature Ry Cooder on slide guitar and strings arranged by Jack Nitchze.

Artist:    Graham Nash
Title:    Prison Song
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    Graham Nash's Prison Song is one of those songs that by all rights should have been a huge hit. It was by a name artist. It had a catchy opening harmonica riff and a haunting melody. I can only surmise that once again Bill Drake (the man who controlled top 40 radio in the 60s and early 70s) decided that the lyrics were too controversial for AM radio and had the song blacklisted, much as he had done with the Byrds Eight Miles High a few years earlier. Those lyrics center on a subject that is unfortunately still relevant today: the utter absurdity of drug laws and the unequal sentences for violation of those laws in the US and its various states.

Artist:    Peter Gabriel
Title:    Solsbury Hill
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo copy)
Writer(s):    Peter Gabriel
Label:    Atco
Year:    1977
    Vocalist Peter Gabriel's first single after leaving Genesis was Solsbury Hill, a song inspired by a spiritual experience Gabriel had atop Little Solsbury Hill in Somerset, England. Gabriel said of the song:  "It's about being prepared to lose what you have for what you might get ... It's about letting go." The song hit the top 20 in the UK and shows up from time to time in various TV and movie soundtracks.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1833 (starts 8/15/18)

    This week we have four sequences that start in one year and then work their way backwards through the years one at a time. The first one is a set of album tracks (and one B side) running from 1970 to 1966. From there we have a short second down featuring tracks from 1970-1968 from bands that were desperately hanging on, despite the fact that their best days were long behind them. Between downs we have a special artist's set from the Blues Project, taken from their 1966 Projections album, followed by a third down of singles from 1968-1966. A quick little tune from the Kinks (that hasn't been played on the show since 2010) sets up our longest down, running from 1971 to 1964, and featuring several tracks never heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before this week. That still leaves us with half an hour to fill, though, forcing us to fudge things up a bit. Well, actually Vanilla Fudge, to be specific, with a set of seldom heard tracks from 1968. With just a few minutes left in the show, we go to the favorites stack for the final three songs of the week.

Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    Mercedes Benz
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Pearl)
Writer(s):    Joplin/Neuwirth/McClure
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 1971
    Mercedes Benz was the last song recorded by Janis Joplin in October of 1970. After laying down this vocal track she went home and OD'd on Heroin.

Artist:    Love
Title:    August
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Four Sail)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1969
         Following the release of Forever Changes, the classic Love lineup made only one more trip to the studio, recording a single that was released in 1968. Not long after that the group disbanded, with a new incarnation of the band making its vinyl debut the following year. Arthur Lee was contractually obligated to provide Elektra Records with one more Love LP even as he began working on tracks for the band's first album for Blue Thumb. As a result, Elektra got the first pick of the songs Lee was working on with his new lineup, including August, which features, in addition to Lee, guitarist Jay Donnellan, bassist Frank Fayad and drummer George Suranovich on what is arguably the hardest rocking tune ever released by a band called Love.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Boysenberry Jam
Source:    LP: Grape Jam
Writer(s):    Spence/Miller/Stevenson/Mosley
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    For their second album, San Francisco's Moby Grape decided to throw in something extra. Instead of a single LP at the standard price, the group added a second album for just a dollar more. This second album, packaged in its own cover, was made up of a series of jam sessions featuring various band members, with a couple of guest artists thrown in. One of the hardest rocking of these was Boysenberry Jam, which features guitarist Jerry Miller, drummer Don Stevenson and bassist Bob Mosley on their usual instruments, along with Skip Spence playing the piano. This was really not all that much of a stretch, given that Spence, normally a guitarist, had been the original drummer of Jefferson Airplane, proving his versatility.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Page/McCarty
Label:    Epic
Year:    1967
    By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from their blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. The band had recently picked up a new producer, Mickey Most, known mostly for his work with Herman's Hermits and the original Animals. Most had a tendency to concentrate solely on the band's single A sides, leaving Page an opportunity to develop his own songwriting and production skills on songs such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, a track that also shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style (including an instrumental break played with a violin bow) that would help define 70s rock.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Love Seems Doomed
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    Unlike most of the tracks on the Blues Magoos' 1966 Debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, Love Seems Doomed is a slow, moody piece with a message. Along with the Paul Revere and the Raiders hit Kicks from earlier that year, Love Seems Doomed is one of the first songs by a rock band to carry a decidedly anti-drug message. While Kicks warned of the addictive qualities of drugs (particularly the phenomenon of the need larger doses of a drug to achieve the same effect over time), Love Seems Doomed focused more on how addiction affects the user's relationships, particularly those of a romantic nature. Love Seems Doomed is also a more subtle song than Kicks, which tends to hit the listener over the head with its message.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Did He Die
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    Sundazed/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:    Charlatans
Title:    Easy When I'm Dead
Source:    CD: The Charlatans
Writer(s):    Darrell DeVore
Label:    One Way (original label: Philips)
Year:    1969
    1969 was not a great year for the Charlatans, a legendary San Francisco band that had been formed in 1964 and is often credited with creating the so-called San Francisco sound (and being the first band to take LSD prior to a performance when it was still legal). Only two of the original members, guitarist Mike Wilhelm and bassist Richard Olson, were still in the group at this point, and the band's sound was no longer considered anywhere near the cutting edge. Nonetheless, 1969 was the year the group finally got to record their only LP, entitled simply The Charlatans, for Mercury's subsidiary label Philips, which was also home to one of San Francisco's hardest rocking bands, Blue Cheer. Arguably the strongest material on the album was provided by one of the band's new members, keyboardist Darrell DeVore, who wrote Easy When I'm Dead. Predictably, the record was not a commercial success, and after a brief reunion of the original members later in the year, the Charlatans finally called it quits shortly before the beginning of the new decade.

Artist:    Them
Title:    We've All Agreed To Help
Source:    British import CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Them
Label:    Rev-Ola (original US label: tower)
Year:    1968
    Following the departure of Van Morrison, the remaining members of Them returned temporarily to Northern Ireland to recruit a new lead vocalist, Kenny McDowell, before "permanently" relocating to Los Angeles, California. Once in the Golden State, Them recorded a pair of psychedelically oriented LPs for the Tower label, both released in 1968. The second of these, Time Out! Time In! For Them, primarilly featured songs written by Sharon Pulley and Tom Lane, but there were a few exceptions, such as We've All Agreed To Help, which were credited to the entire band. To be honest,I think the Pulley/Lane tracks are stronger than the band's own material, but I thought you might want to take a listen for yourself.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Wake Me, Shake Me
Source:    LP: Tommy Flanders, Danny Kalb, Steve Katz, Al Kooper, Andy Kuhlberg, Roy Blumenfeld Of The Blues Project (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s):    arr. Al Kooper
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1967
           After losing their original lead vocalist, Tommy Flanders, in early 1966, the remaining members of the Blues Project decided to concentrate on their improvisational and songwriting skills, splitting vocal duties between them. Rather than trying to rework the same songs they had been performing with Flanders, they instead began to work up new material, including keyboardist Al Kooper's rock and roll arrangement of an old gospel song, Wake Me, Shake Me. It was this arrangement that appeared on the group's next LP, Projections.

rtist:    Blues Project
Title:    The Flute Thing
Source:    Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s):    Al Kooper
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1966
    The Blues Project was one of the most influential bands in rock history, yet one of the least known. Perhaps the first of the "underground" rock bands, the Project made their name by playing small colleges across the country (including Hobart College, where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is produced). The Flute Thing, from the band's second album, Projections, features bassist Andy Kuhlberg on flute, with rhythm guitarist Steve Katz taking over the bass playing, joining lead guitarist Danny Kalb and keyboardist Al Kooper for a tune that owes more to jazz artists like Roland Kirk than to anything top 40 rock had to offer at the time.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Fly Away
Source:     LP:Tommy Flanders, Danny Kalb, Steve Katz, Al Kooper, Andy Kuhlberg, Roy Blumenfeld Of The Blues Project (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer:     Al Kooper
Label:     Verve Forecast
Year:     1966
     Al Kooper was a guitarist with some talent (but no professional experience) on keyboards who was already sufficiently connected enough to be allowed in the studio when Bob Dylan was recording his Highway 61 Revisited album. Not content to be merely a spectator (Mike Bloomfield was already there as a guitarist), Kooper noticed that there was an organ in the studio and immediately sat down and started playing on the sessions. Dylan was impressed enough with Kooper's playing to not only include him on the album, but to invite him to perform with him at the upcoming Newport Jazz Festival as well. The gig became probably Dylan's most notorious moment in his career, as several folk purists voiced their displeasure with Dylan's use of electric instruments. Some of them even stormed the stage, knocking over Kooper's keyboards in the process. After the gig Kooper became an in-demand studio musician. It was in this capacity (brought in to play piano by producer Tom Wilson) that he first met Danny Kalb, Andy Kuhlberg, Tommy Flanders, Roy Blumenthal and Steve Katz, who had recently formed the Blues Project and were auditioning for Columbia Records at their New York studios. Kooper had been looking for an opportunity to improve his skills on the keyboards (most of his gigs as a studio musician were for producers hoping to cash in on the "Dylan sound", which he found limiting), and soon joined the band as their full-time keyboardist. In addition to his instrumental contributions to the band, he provided some of their best original material as well. One such tune is Fly Away, from the Projections album (generally considered to be the apex of the Blues Project's studio career).

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:    Priority
Year:    1968
    Detroit was one of the major centers of pop music in the late 60s. In addition to the myriad Motown acts, the area boasted the popular retro-rock&roll band Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the harder rocking Heard (later known as the Bob Seger System), the anarchistic MC5, and Ted Nugent's outfit, the Amboy Dukes, who scored big in 1968 with Journey To The Center Of The Mind.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Tomorrow
Source:    LP: The Best Of The Strawberry Alarm Clock
Writer(s):    Weitz/King
Label:    Sundazed/Uni
Year:    1967
    The story of the Strawberry Alarm Clock almost seems like a "best of" (or maybe "worst of") collection of things that could have happened to a band during the psychedelic era. Signed with a local label: check. Released single: check. Started getting airplay on local radio stations: check. Record picked up by major label for national distribution: check. Record becomes hit: check. Band gets to record an entire album: check. Album does reasonably well on charts, mostly due to popularity of single: check. Band gets to record second album, but with more creative freedom, thanks to previous successes: check. Single from second album does OK, but nowhere near as OK as first hit single: check. Second album fails to chart: check. Second single from second album charts lower than either previous single. Band soldiers on for a while longer, but never manages to duplicate success of first single: check. Band disbands: check. In the case of the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the hit single was huge. Incense And Peppermints is still one of the best known songs of 1967. The second single, Tomorrow, not so much, although it did indeed make the top 40, peaking at #23. Not that it's a bad song, by any means. But, to be honest, it's no Incense And Peppermints, either.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    You Didn't Have To Be So Nice
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:    John Sebastian
Label:    Buddah (original label: Kama Sutra)
Year:    1965
    People who advocate for monoraul versions of recordings from the 1960s often cite the unnatural sounding separation between vocals and instruments on stereo recordings. Generally, I don't mind such separation myself, as I am usually sitting equally distant from the speakers and kind of like the illusion of things coming from different points in the stereo field. In the case of the Lovin' Spoonful's second single, You Didn't Have To Be So Nice, I have to side with the mono guys. The main reason is that the mix itself puts more emphasis on the backup vocals than it does on the lead vocals. In fact, the lead vocals are at times barely audible at all. Too bad George Martin didn't get the chance to do a remix on this one when he did the mid-period Beatles albums back in the 1980s.

Artist:      Kinks
Title:     Harry Rag
Source:      CD: Something Else By The Kinks
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:     1967
     By 1967 the Kinks were starting to feel the effects of a four-year ban on performing in the United States imposed in 1965 by the American Federation of Musicians due to their rowdy onstage behavior. Their last major US hit had been Sunny Afternoon the previous summer, although they continued to have success in their native England. Their 1967 album Something Else was their first LP to be released in stereo, but went virtually unnoticed in the US. The album was produced by Ray Davies, and included a wide variety of songs, including Harry Rag, a tune that could easily have been passed off as an English sea chanty. The Kinks would continue to struggle in the US until 1970, when the international hit Lola put them once again in the spotlight.

Artist:     David Bowie
Title:     Bombers
Source:     CD: Sound+Vision Sampler (originally released as bonus track on CD reissue of Hunky Dory)
Writer:     David Bowie
Label:     Ryko
Year:     Recorded 1971, released 1990
     When CDs fist started coming out in the mid 1980s, the track lineups were the same as the album versions. One of the first companies to include bonus tracks was Ryko with its Sound+Vision series of remastered David Bowie albums in 1990. Bombers was a 1971 recording that appeared for the first time on the remastered Hunky Dory CD.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Singing Winds, Crying Beasts
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Abraxas)
Writer(s):    Mike Carabello
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    Mike Carabello, one of the three Santana percussionists, only had one solo songwriting credit on the three LPs he played on. It was a good one, though. Singing Winds, Crying Beasts is the opening track of the second Santana LP, Abraxas. The tune flows so naturally into the next track that it is sometimes considered a long intro to Black Magic Woman, despite the fact that Singing Winds, Crying Beasts is nearly five minutes long.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Torn Between Temptations
Source:    German import CD: Turtle Soup
Writer(s):    Kaylan/Volman/Nichol/Pons/Seiter
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: White Whale)
Year:    1969
    By 1969 the Turtles, as the only money-making act on While Whale Records, had enough clout to dictate to the label who would produce theirlatest album. They chose Ray Davies of the Kinks, who had recently released an album called The Village Green Preservation Society that the members of the Turtles admired. Davies and the band, however, had entirely different ideas about how the album should sound. When the band members heard Davies first mix they were dismayed to hear almost all of the band's instrumental work buried underneath layers of strings and horns, and insisted that the album be remixed to sound more like, well, the Turtles. As a result, some songs, such as Torn Between Temptations, sound slightly unfinished. The piece itself is a hybrid of styles. On the surface Torn Between Temptations sounds more like a country song than a rock tune. The underlying structure, though, is similar to that of ranchero music, with a change of key between verse and chorus. Lyrically, something seems to be missing, but I can't quite put my finger on what, even after finding a web site with the lyrics written out for me.

Artist:    Jade Hexagram
Title:    Crushed Purple
Source:    British import CD: Love, Poetry and Revolution
Writer(s):    Morris/Callow/Leman/Halliday
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2009
    Although perhaps not as well publicized as that of San Francisco or Los Angeles, London had a thriving underground music scene in the late 1960s that was at least the equal of any other similar scene anywhere. In addition to bands that would eventually become major acts (Pink Floyd, T-Rex, Soft Machine and others) there were several other talented groups that never got the break they deserved. One such band was Jade Hexagram. Formed in South Wales, the Hexagram made their share of club appearances before finally getting a chance to cut a demo of original material, including a tune called Crushed Purple, at London's Marquee Studios in early 1968. They were unable to land a record deal, however, and by the end of the year had called it quits.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    The Fool On The Hill
Source:    British import stereo 45 RPM Extended Play album: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1967
    The Beatles only came up with six new songs for their 1967 telefilm Magical Mystery Tour, enough to fill up only one side of an LP. Rather than use outtakes and B sides to complete the album (which they had done in 1965 for the Help album), the band chose to release the six songs on a two-record 45 RPM Extended Play set, complete with a booklet that included the storyline, lyric sheets and several still photographs from the film itself. Magical Mystery Tour appeared in this form in both the UK and in Europe, while in the US and Canada, Capitol Records instead issued the album in standard LP format, using the band's 1967 singles and B sides to fill up side two. None of the songs from the telefilm were issued as singles, although one, I Am The Walrus, was used as the B side to the Hello Goodbye single. Another song, Fool On The Hill, was covered by Sergio Mendes and Brazil '66, making the US charts in early 1968. By the 1980s, however, the only version of the song still played on the radio was the original Beatles version, with the footage from the Magical Mystery Tour telefilm used as a video on early music TV channels.

Artist:    Monks
Title:    Shut Up
Source:    German import CD: Black Monk time
Writer(s):    Burger/Clark/Day/Johnston/Shaw
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Polydor International)
Year:    1966
    There are a lot of contenders for the title of "first punk rock band". Detroit's MC5 get mentioned often, as do Chicago's Shadows Of Knight. Some give credit to L.A.'s Standells, while others cite Pacific Northwest bands such as the Wailers and the Sonics as being the first true punks. Serious consideration has to be given, however, to a group of five members of the US Army stationed in Frankfurt Germany, who decided to augment their GI haircuts by shaving the centers of their heads and calling themselves the Monks. Vocalist/guitarist Gary Burger, organist Larry Clarke, drummer Roger Johnston, bassist Eddie Shaw and banjoist Dave Day began hitting the trinkhauses (combination bars and dance halls) around the area in 1965, moving up to more visible venues the following year after their Army stint was over (apparently they had all been drafted at around the same time). Their style, unlike other bands of the time, was loud, harsh and direct, with lyrics about death, war and hate rather than the usual love ballads made popular by British bands like the Beatles and Herman's Hermits. This, combined with surprisingly strong musicianship, got them a contract with the German branch of Polydor Records. They released their first single, Complication, early in the year, following it up with an LP, Black Monk Time, that summer. In retrospect, the Monks were too far ahead of their time to be a commercial success, but have come to be highly regarded as forerunners of British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Shut Up, from Black Monk Time, is just a small sample of what the Monks were all about.

Artist:    Crescent Six
Title:    And Then
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lite Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gregory Ferrera
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Rust)
Year:    1965
    One of the earliest psychedelic tracks was a single called And Then by New Jersey's Crescent Six. Virtually nothing else is known about the record, which was released on New York's Rust Records label.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    The Sun Is Burning
Source:    LP: Wednesday Morning 3AM
Writer(s):    Ian Campbell
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1964
    The "great folk music scare" (to quote Martin Mull) of the early 60s was centered, for the most part, on traditional American ballads and original compositions by American artists. There was, however, a British folk revival going on at the same time, albeit a bit more underground than its US counterpart. At the forefront of the British folk revival was the Ian Campbell Folk Group, who were well-known for their numerous appearances at various festivals as well as frequent visits to the BBC radio and TV studios. American folk artists Simon And Garfunkel (particularly Simon) were fans of the British folk scene, and so it was surprise that the duo included Campbell's The Sun Is Burning on their own debut LP, Wednesday Morning 3AM, in 1964. In fact, when the album initially failed to generate much interest in the US, Paul Simon relocated to London, recording a solo album there before returning to the States in 1966 and reuniting with Art Garfunkel.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    The Sky Cried/When I Was A Boy
Source:    LP: Renaissance
Writer:    Stein/Bogert
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    The first Vanilla Fudge LP, released in 1967, was filled with psychedelicized versions of established hits such as Cher's Bang Bang, the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby and of course, the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On. For their second LP the group went with a concept album built around Sonny and Cher's The Beat Goes On. The group's third LP, Renaissance, finally revealed the band members' abilities as songwriters (although there were still a pair of cover songs on the album). The opening track on the album, The Sky Cried/When I Was A Boy, was written by bassist Tim Bogert and organist/vocalist Mark Stein.

Artist:          Vanilla Fudge
Title:        Come By Day, Come By Night
Source:    45 RPM B side
Writer(s):    Mark Stein
Label:     Atco
Year:        1968
       The Vanilla Fudge version of  the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On was first released as a single in 1967, but tanked before it could hit the top 60. In 1968 the song was re-released with a different B side and made the top 20. That B side, Come By Day, Come By Night, was written by keyboardist Mark Stein, and was never released on a Vanilla Fudge album. The song is now available on a CD called The Complete Atco Singles.

Artist:        Vanilla Fudge
Title:        Season of the Witch
Source:   LP: Renaissance
Writer:        Donovan Leitch
Label:        Atco
Year:        1968
        The Vanilla Fudge are generally best remembered for their acid rock rearrangements of hit songs such as You Keep Me Hangin' On, Ticket To Ride and Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). Their third album, Renaissance, while actually featuring more original material that their previous albums, still included a couple of these cover songs. The best-known of these was this rather spooky (and a little over-the-top) version of Donovan's Season Of The Witch, a song that was also covered by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills the same year on the first Super Session album.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and added to LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound). And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in December. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was becoming a breakout hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth, making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.

Artist:    Human Expression
Title:    Optical Sound
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Quarles/Foster
Label:    Rhino (original label: Accent)
Year:    1967
    One thing Los Angeles had become known for by the mid-1960s was its urban sprawl. Made possible by one of the world's most extensive regional freeway systems, the city had become surrounded by suburbs on all sides (except for the oceanfront). Many of these suburbs were (and are) in Orange County, home to Anaheim stadium, Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. The O.C. was also home to the Human Expression, a band that recorded a trio of well-regarded singles for the Accent label. The second of these was Optical Sound. True to its name, the song utilized the latest technology available to achieve a decidedly psychedelic sound.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Fresh Garbage
Source:    CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Spirit)
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Epic (original label: Ode)
Year:    1968
    Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a fairly hard rocker and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.