Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1837 (starts 9/10/18)

    This week's show is actually a series of progressions through the years, broken up by artists' sets (from Cream, Love and the Byrds) and an Advanced Psych segment in which I sneak one of my own tunes in.

Artist:    Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:    Steppin' Out
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Just Like Us
Writer(s):    Revere/Lindsay
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    1965 was the year that Paul Revere and the Raiders hit the big time. The Portland, Oregon band had already been performing together for several years, and had been the first rock band to record Louie Louie in the spring of 1963, getting airplay on the West Coast and Hawaii but losing out nationally to another Portland band, the Kingsmen, whose version was recorded the same month as the Raiders'. While playing in Hawaii the band came to the attention of Dick Clark, who was looking for a band to appear on his new afternoon TV program, Where The Action Is. Clark introduced the band to Terry Melcher, a successful producer at Columbia Records, which led to the Raiders being the first rock band signed by the label, predating the Byrds by about a year. Appearing on Action turned out to be a major turning point for the band, who soon became the show's defacto hosts as well as house band. The Raiders' first national hit in their new role was Steppin' Out, a song written by Revere and vocalist Mark Lindsay about a guy returning from military service (as Revere himself had done in the early 60s, reforming the band upon his return) and finding out his girl had been unfaithful. Working with Melcher the Raiders enjoyed a run of hits from 1965-67 unequalled by any other Amercian rock band of the time.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Leave
Source:    CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    Although Buffalo Springfield are generally acknowldeged to be among the pioneers of a softer rock sound that would gain popularity in the 70s with bands like the Eagles, Poco and Crosby, Stills and Nash, they did occasionally rock out a bit harder on tracks like Leave. Of particular note is lead guitarist Neil Young doing blues licks on Leave, a Stephen Stills tune from the first Buffalo Springfield album, released in 1966.

Artist:        Doors
Title:        End Of The Night
Source:      45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:        Elektra
Year:        1967
        End Of The Night is one of those songs that seems to define a band's sound. In the case of the Doors, that sound was dark and menacing. No wonder, then, that End Of The Night was chosen to be the B side of the band's first single in early 1967.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Hoochie Coochie Man
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a tune originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work from Michael Monarch.

Artist:    Alice Cooper
Title:    10 Minutes Before The Worm
Source:    European import CD: Pretties For You
Writer(s):    Cooper/Smith/Dunaway/Bruce/Buxton
Label:    Rhino/Bizarre/Straight
Year:    1969
    The band known as Alice Cooper was still in its pre-commercial underground phase as part of Frank Zappa's collection of misfits recording for Bizarre Productions when they released the album Pretties For You on Zappa's Straight label in 1969. Like the rest of the album, 10 Minutes Before The Worm is a somewhat experimental piece from the band that had formed a few years earlier in Phoenix, Arizona. Zappa would eventually sell Straight to Warner Brothers, and Alice Cooper would become the world's first major shock-rock band in the early 1970s.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.

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:    Max Frost And The Troopers
Title:    Shape Of Things To Come
Source:    CD: Shape Of Things To Come (originally released on LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Captain High (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Max Frost was a politically savvy rock star who rode the youth movement all the way to the White House, first through getting the support of a hip young Senator, then getting the age requirements for holding high political office lowered to 21, and finally lowering the voting age to 14. Everyone over 30 was locked away in internment camps, similar to those used during WWII by various governments to hold those of questionable loyalty to the current regime. What? You don't remember any of that? You say it sounds like the plot of a cheapie late 60s teen exploitation flick? Right on all counts except for the "cheapie" part. Wild in the Streets starred Christopher Jones as the rock star, Hal Holbrook as the hip young senator, and a Poseidon Adventure-sized Shelly Winter as the rock star's interred mom. Richard Pryor, in his film debut, played the band's drummer/political activist Stanley X. The most prominent song from the film was Shape Of Things To Come, writen by the Brill Building husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who had written several hit songs over the years, including Kicks and Hungry for Paul Revere And The Raiders. Shape Of Things To Come ended up being a hit as well, leading to an entire album being released by the fictional Max Frost And The Troopers. Although who the musicians who actually played on the song is not known for sure, most people who know anything about it believe it to be the work of Davie Allan and the Arrows, who were doing a lot of movie soundtracks for Mike Curb in the mid to late 1960s.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Cymbaline
Source:    British import LP: Soundtrack From The Film "More"
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Columbia/EMI
Year:    1969
    Following the release of their second LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, Pink Floyd, now completely without founding member Syd Barrett, got to work on Soundtrack From The Film "More". The album saw the group moving more into the avant-garde experimentalism that would characterize the band for the next several years, with tracks like Cymbaline taking on a more somber quality than Pink Floyd's earlier work. More was also the first Pink Floyd album to feature David Gilmour as the only lead vocalist on the LP. This would not happen again until 1989.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dance The Night Away
Source:    CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    The album Fresh Cream was perhaps the first LP from a rock supergroup, although at the time a more accurate description would have been British blues supergroup. Much of the album was reworking of blues standards by the trio of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, all of whom had established their credentials with various British blues bands. With their second album, Disraeli Gears, Cream showed a psychedelic side as well as their original blues orientation. Most of the more psychedelic material, such as Dance the Night Away, was from the songwriting team of Bruce and lyricist Pete Brown.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    SWLABR
Source:    Mono Russian import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, SWLABR (the title being an anagram for She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow) was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and poet Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Take It Back
Source:     CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer:     Bruce/Brown
Label:     Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:     1967
     After seven years of serving in the Air Force liason office at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, my dad got transferred to Weisbaden Air Force Base in Germany. Standard practice at the time was for the married GI to go on ahead of the rest of the family and find a place to live "on the economy." My dad, already having quite a bit of time in the service, was able to instead get a spot in a place called Kastel, which was a group of WWII Panzer barracks that had been adapted for use by American military with families. When the rest of us arrived in August I was happily surprised to find that my dad, in addition to finding us a place to live, had bought a state-of-the-art Akai X-355 Tape Recorder using money he had won at Lotto, along with a pair of Koss headphones. I of course had to go to the Base Exchange to look for pre-recorded tapes. Already having experience with reel to reel machines, I knew that tapes recorded at 3 3/4 ips had more tape hiss than those recorded at 7 1/2 ips, so I was resolved to only buy tapes recorded at the faster speed. Unfortunately several albums I wanted were only available at the slower speed. The problem was resolved a year later when my dad finally got a Dual turntable to hook up to the tape recorder. I immediately went out and bought a reel of blank tape; the first album I made a copy of was Cream's Disraeli Gears. I would often fall asleep listening to that tape, which meant I ended up sleeping through the last songs on the album, including Take It Back. I must have done some kind of sleep learning, though, since to this day I can quote the lyrics of the entire song.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    As Tears Go By
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards/Oldham
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1965
            As Tears Go By is sometimes referred to as the Rolling Stones' answer to the Beatles' Yesterday. The problem with this theory, however, is that As Tears Go By was written a year before Yesterday was released, and in fact was a top 10 UK single for Marianne Faithful in 1964. The story of the song's genesis is that producer/manager Andrew Oldham locked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the kitchen until they came up with an original song. The original title was As Time Goes By, but, not wanting anyone to confuse it with the famous song used in the film Casablanca, Oldham changed Time to Tears, and got a writing credit for his trouble. Since the Stones were not at that time known for soft ballads, Oldham gave the song to Marianne Faithful, launching a successful recording career for the singer in 1964. The following year the Stones included their own version of the song on the album December's Children (And Everybody's), using a string arrangement that may indeed have been inspired by the Beatles' Yesterday, which was holding down the # 1 spot on the charts at the time the Rolling Stones were recording As Tears Go By. After American disc jockeys began playing As Tears Go By as an album track, London Records released the song as a US-only single, which ended up making the top 10 in 1965.

Artist:    Phil Ochs
Title:    Love Me, I'm A Liberal
Source:    CD: There But For Fortune (originally released on LP: Phil Ochs In Concert)
Writer(s):    Phil Ochs
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Phil Ochs could have been a big star on the folk scene of the 1960s, except for on small flaw: he was too honest, even with himself. By 1966 Ochs was already well-established on the scene, both as a songwriter and a folk singer with a hit single (I Ain't Marching Anymore) to his credit. Ochs, though, thought of himself as more of a musical journalist chronicling a tumultuous decade, and he wasn't afraid to step on toes, even those of his fans. The left-leaning folk movement of the early 1960s had been enthusiastically supported by the more liberal members of mainstream society, but Ochs couldn't resist pointing out their hypocrisy with Love Me, I'm A Liberal, a song included on his 1966 LP Phil Ochs In Concert. Not long after the album was released, Ochs left the Greenwich Village area for California, switching from the New York based folk-oriented Elektra Records to the hip Hollywood label A&M (co-owned by trumpeter Herb Alpert, whose Tijuana Brass was one of the hottest acts on the coast at the time). Ochs's music became more introspective and less accessible over the next few years. Ochs eventually returned to New York, where he made an appearance at the 1975 War Is Over rally in Central Park, an event that marked the end of the movement that had brought Ochs to prominence so many years before. Always the observer, Ochs finally decided that he could no longer be a part of the world around him and took his own life on April 9, 1976.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Barterers And Their Wives
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Feher
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    The Left Banke made a huge impact with their debut single, Walk Away Renee, in late 1966. All of a sudden the rock press (such as it was in 1966) was all abuzz with talk of "baroque pop" and how it was the latest, greatest thing. The band soon released a follow-up single, Pretty Ballerina, which made the top 10 as well, which led to an album entitled (naturally enough) Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, which featured several more songs in the same vein, such as Barterers And Their Wives, which was also released as a B side later that year. An unfortunate misstep by keyboardist Michael Brown, however, led to the Left Banke's early demise, and baroque pop soon went the way of other sixties fads.

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind)
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    The title track of the second Amboy Dukes album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind, is by far their best known recording, going all the way to the #16 spot on the top 40 in 1968. The song features the lead guitar work of Ted Nugent, who co-wrote the song with guitarist/vocalist Steve Farmer. Journey To The Center Of The Mind would be the last album to feature lead vocalist John Drake, who left the band for creative reasons shortly after the album's release.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    Joe Hill
Source:    CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm (originally released on LP: Woodstock)
Writer:    Robinson/Hayes
Label:    Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1969
    Joe Hill, written as a poem in the early part of the 20th century and set to music a few years later, was a highlight of Joan Baez's Woodstock performance. The song was inspired by the struggles of one of the martyrs of the labor movement of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Jeff's Boogie
Source:     Mono CD: Roger The Engineer
Writer:     Dreja/Relf/Samwell-Smith/McCarty/Beck
Label:     Great American Music (original US label: Epic)
Year:     1966
     We start off our second hour this week with one of the hottest B sides ever issued: the instrumental Jeff's Boogie, which appeared as the flip side of Over, Under, Sideways Down in 1966 and was included on an LP with the same name (that LP, with a different track lineup and cover, was issued in the UK under the name Yardbirds, although it has since come to be known as Roger The Engineer due to its cover art, sketched by rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja). Although credited to the entire band, the song is actually based on Chuck Berry's guitar boogie, and features some outstanding lead guitar work by Jeff Beck.

Artist:     McKendree Spring
Title:     Down By The River
Source:     LP: McKendree Spring 3
Writer:     Neil Young
Label:     Decca
Year:     1972
     Decca Records was considered one of the "big six" record companies of the 50s-60s, and one of the three based in New York. Unlike RCA Victor and Columbia, which had offices and studios on both coasts, Decca remained primarily an East Coast label, with a generous helping of imports supplementing the local talent, until it was folded into MCA in the early 1970s. One of the last acts signed by the label was McKendree Spring, from Glens Falls, NY. Best described as a progressive folk-rock band, the group supplemented its basic rock instrumentation with violin, viola and synthesizers, all provided by Dr. Michael Dreyfuss. Their third album, released in 1972, starts off with a powerful version of the Neil Young classic Down By The River.

Artist:    Stephen R Webb
Title:    Jeremy Johnson
Source:    CD: The Electric Dream Project
Writer(s):    Stephen R Webb
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1987
    Ever lay awake at night, trying not to think of things that scare the crap out of you, but of course thinking of nothing else? When that happens to a songwriter it can result in something like Jeremy Johnson. The scary thought in this instance was actually a question: what if some Jimmy Jones type got hold of a thermonuclear device and decided that if mass suicide was good enough for his own followers it would be even better for massive numbers of people, like the population of a large American city? I then started thinking about the followers of Charles Manson and came up with the idea of Sarah Lee Winston, a girl from a moderately wealthy, but emotionally lacking, family that is so devoted to Jeremy Johnson that she will commit any act, no matter how horrific, to please him. The ominous, slightly discordant music flowed naturally from the concept of the lyrics, and the song was first performed by the band Civilian Joe in 1986. The studio version of Jeremy Johnson, featuring Civilian Joe's Suzan Hagler on rhythm guitar and me on everything else, was recorded at Bottom Line as part of the Electric Dream Project in 1987. I hope it scares the crap out of you, too.

Artist:    Romeo Void
Title:    I Mean It
Source:    LP: Itsacondition
Writer(s):    Iyall/Zincavage/Woods/Bossi
Label:    415
Year:    1981
    Formed in 1979 at the San Francisco Art Institute by vocalist Deborah Iyall and bassist Frank Zincavage, Romeo Void also included saxophonist Benjamin Bossi, guitarist Peter Woods, and a (shades of Spinal Tap!) succession of drummers. Their first LP, Itsacondition (sometimes referred to as It's A Condition) was released in 1981. I first ran across this album while doing a contemporary alternative rock show called Rock Nouveaux on KUNM in Albuquerque in the early 1980s. Although most of the album was fast-paced and punkish in nature, it was I Mean It, the haunting closing track from side one, that stood out from just about everything else that was happening musically at the time.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Old Man
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the band. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, was actually one of the first tracks recorded for Forever Changes. At the time, the band's rhythm section was more into sex and drugs than rock and roll, and McLean and Lee arranged to have studio musicians play on Old Man, as well as on one of Lee's songs. The rest of the group was so stunned by this development that they were able to temporarily get their act together long enough to complete the album. Nonetheless, the two tunes with studio musicians were left as is, although reportedly Ken Forssi did step in to show Carol Kaye how the bass part should be played (ironic, since Kaye is estimated to have played on over 10,000 recordings in her long career as a studio musician).

Artist:    Love
Title:    Que Vida!
Source:    CD: Da Capo
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The first Love album was pretty much garage rock with a touch of folk-rock thrown in. Their second effort, however, showed off the rapidly maturing songwriting skills of both Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean. Que Vida! (yes, I know that technically there should be an upside down exclamation point at the beginning of the song title, but my keyboard doesn't speak Spanish) is a good example of Lee moving into territory usually associated with middle-of-the-road singers such as Johnny Mathis. Lee would continue to defy convention throughout his career, leading to a noticable lack of commercial success even as he won the respect of his musical peers.

Artist:     Love
Title:     7&7 Is
Source:     Mono CD: Love Story (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Arthur Lee
Label:     ElektraRhino
Year:     1966
     In the fall of 1966 my parents took by brother and me to a drive-in movie to see The Russians Are Coming and The 10th Victim (don't ask me why I remember that). In an effort to extend their season past the summer months, that particular drive-in was pioneering a new technology that used a low-power radio transmitter (on a locally-unused frequency) to broadcast the audio portion of the films so that people could keep their car windows rolled all the way up (and presumably stay warm) instead of having to roll the window partway down to accomodate the hanging speakers that were attached to posts next to where each car was parked. Before the first movie and between films music was pumped through the speakers (and over the transmitter). Of course, being fascinated by all things radio, I insisted that my dad use the car radio as soon as we got settled in. I was immediately blown away by a song that I had not heard on either of Denver's two top 40 radio stations. That song was Love's 7&7 Is, and it was my first inkling that there were some great songs on the charts that were being ignored by local stations. I finally heard the song again the following spring, when a local FM station (that had been previously used to simulcast a full-service AM station) began running a "top 100" format a few hours a day.

Artist:    Association
Title:    Enter The Young
Source:    LP: And Then  Along Comes...The Association
Writer(s):    Terry Kirkman
Label:    Valiant
Year:    1966
    The Association started off the same way as many Los Angeles club bands in the mid-1960s, playing various venues and trying to get a record deal. Their first few singles, first on the Jubilee label and then the Valiant label, were not commercially successful, although they did allow the group to get a feel for the recording studio. The Association's version of Bob Dylan's One Too Many Mornings got the attention of producer Curt Boettcher, who gave them their first real hit, Along Comes Mary. This in turn led to the group's first LP, And Then Along Comes...The Association, which Boettcher produced. The opening track on the LP, Enter The Young, was at the time an appropriate way to introduce the group to album buyers, although it does sound a bit dated today. The tune was written by band member Terry Kirkman, who also wrote their next major hit, Cherish.

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Minstrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote (and sang lead on) most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the group, thanks to the fact that one of the two songs he sang lead on, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), became a huge top 40 hit. It wasn't long before the official name of the band was changed to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status, leaving the First Edition far behind.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Can You Dig It
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Peter Tork
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1968
    Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings. The first, and most familiar, was For Pete's Sake, which was released on the Headquarters album in 1967 and used as the closing theme for the second season of their TV series. The second Tork solo piece was the more experimental Can You Dig It used in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. Not long after Head was completed, Tork left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    All Together Now
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine (soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:    1969
    Less than a month after completing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band the Beatles found themselves in the position of being contractually obligated to provide songs for an animated film inspired by the song Yellow Submarine, which had appeared on the 1966 LP Revolver. The band was physically and emotionally exhausted at that point in time and ended up providing only four previously unreleased tunes for the project. One of those four was All Together Now, a tune written primarily by Paul McCartney, and meant to be in the same lighhearted vein as Yellow Submarine. McCartney later described the song as a "throwaway".

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Tribal Gathering
Source:    The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer(s):    Crosby/Hillman/McGuinn
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    In January of 1967 David Crosby attended something called "The Gathering of the Tribes: The Human Be-In" at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Crosby was so impressed by the event and those attending it that he wrote a song about the experience. Tribal Gathering was recorded by the Byrds on August 16, 1967, and included on the 1968 LP The Notorious Byrd Brothers, despite the fact that by the time the album was released Crosby had been fired by fellow band members Chris Hillman and Reoger McGuinn. Even more remarkable is the fact that the next track on the album, Dolphin's Smile, was also a Crosby composition. Both tracks have shared songwriting credits between Crosby and Hillman, with McGuinn's name appearing on Dolphin's Smile as well. Since both tracks were recorded on the same day, two months before Crosby left the group, it is possible that the co-writing credits were tacked on during overdub sessions later in the year. It wouldn't be the first time (according to Crosby) that the others took credit for his work.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Everybody's Been Burned
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    There is a common misconception that David Crosby's songwriting skills didn't fully develop until he began working with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. A listen to Everybody's Been Burned from the Byrds' 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday, however, puts the lie to that theory in a hurry. The track has all the hallmarks of a classic Crosby song: a strong melody, intelligent lyrics and an innovative chord structure. It's also my personal favorite tune from what is arguably the Byrds' best LP.

Artist:     Byrds
Title:     Draft Morning (alt. ending)
Source:     The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer:     Crosby/Hillman/McGuinn
Label:     Columbia/Legacy
Year:     Recorded 1967; alternate version released 1997
     Draft Morning is one of the most controversial recordings in the Byrds catalog. The song was originally composed by David Crosby, who was kicked out of the band shortly after they had recorded the instrumental tracks for the tune. Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman then proceded to write new lyrics for the song, and included it on The Notorious Byrd Brothers, released on Jan 3, 1968. This version of the song, first released on the expanded CD edition of The Notorious Byrd Brothers in 1997, was recorded in 1967 and has a different ending (although the same lyrics) as the LP version.

    This week's show is actually a series of progressions through the years, broken up by artists' sets (from Cream, Love and the Byrds) and an Advanced Psych segment in which I sneak one of my own tunes in.

Artist:    Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:    Steppin' Out
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Just Like Us
Writer(s):    Revere/Lindsay
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    1965 was the year that Paul Revere and the Raiders hit the big time. The Portland, Oregon band had already been performing together for several years, and had been the first rock band to record Louie Louie in the spring of 1963, getting airplay on the West Coast and Hawaii but losing out nationally to another Portland band, the Kingsmen, whose version was recorded the same month as the Raiders'. While playing in Hawaii the band came to the attention of Dick Clark, who was looking for a band to appear on his new afternoon TV program, Where The Action Is. Clark introduced the band to Terry Melcher, a successful producer at Columbia Records, which led to the Raiders being the first rock band signed by the label, predating the Byrds by about a year. Appearing on Action turned out to be a major turning point for the band, who soon became the show's defacto hosts as well as house band. The Raiders' first national hit in their new role was Steppin' Out, a song written by Revere and vocalist Mark Lindsay about a guy returning from military service (as Revere himself had done in the early 60s, reforming the band upon his return) and finding out his girl had been unfaithful. Working with Melcher the Raiders enjoyed a run of hits from 1965-67 unequalled by any other Amercian rock band of the time.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Leave
Source:    CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    Although Buffalo Springfield are generally acknowldeged to be among the pioneers of a softer rock sound that would gain popularity in the 70s with bands like the Eagles, Poco and Crosby, Stills and Nash, they did occasionally rock out a bit harder on tracks like Leave. Of particular note is lead guitarist Neil Young doing blues licks on Leave, a Stephen Stills tune from the first Buffalo Springfield album, released in 1966.

Artist:        Doors
Title:        End Of The Night
Source:      45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:        Elektra
Year:        1967
        End Of The Night is one of those songs that seems to define a band's sound. In the case of the Doors, that sound was dark and menacing. No wonder, then, that End Of The Night was chosen to be the B side of the band's first single in early 1967.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Hoochie Coochie Man
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a tune originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work from Michael Monarch.

Artist:    Alice Cooper
Title:    10 Minutes Before The Worm
Source:    European import CD: Pretties For You
Writer(s):    Cooper/Smith/Dunaway/Bruce/Buxton
Label:    Rhino/Bizarre/Straight
Year:    1969
    The band known as Alice Cooper was still in its pre-commercial underground phase as part of Frank Zappa's collection of misfits recording for Bizarre Productions when they released the album Pretties For You on Zappa's Straight label in 1969. Like the rest of the album, 10 Minutes Before The Worm is a somewhat experimental piece from the band that had formed a few years earlier in Phoenix, Arizona. Zappa would eventually sell Straight to Warner Brothers, and Alice Cooper would become the world's first major shock-rock band in the early 1970s.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.

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:    Max Frost And The Troopers
Title:    Shape Of Things To Come
Source:    CD: Shape Of Things To Come (originally released on LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Captain High (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Max Frost was a politically savvy rock star who rode the youth movement all the way to the White House, first through getting the support of a hip young Senator, then getting the age requirements for holding high political office lowered to 21, and finally lowering the voting age to 14. Everyone over 30 was locked away in internment camps, similar to those used during WWII by various governments to hold those of questionable loyalty to the current regime. What? You don't remember any of that? You say it sounds like the plot of a cheapie late 60s teen exploitation flick? Right on all counts except for the "cheapie" part. Wild in the Streets starred Christopher Jones as the rock star, Hal Holbrook as the hip young senator, and a Poseidon Adventure-sized Shelly Winter as the rock star's interred mom. Richard Pryor, in his film debut, played the band's drummer/political activist Stanley X. The most prominent song from the film was Shape Of Things To Come, writen by the Brill Building husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who had written several hit songs over the years, including Kicks and Hungry for Paul Revere And The Raiders. Shape Of Things To Come ended up being a hit as well, leading to an entire album being released by the fictional Max Frost And The Troopers. Although who the musicians who actually played on the song is not known for sure, most people who know anything about it believe it to be the work of Davie Allan and the Arrows, who were doing a lot of movie soundtracks for Mike Curb in the mid to late 1960s.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Cymbaline
Source:    British import LP: Soundtrack From The Film "More"
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Columbia/EMI
Year:    1969
    Following the release of their second LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, Pink Floyd, now completely without founding member Syd Barrett, got to work on Soundtrack From The Film "More". The album saw the group moving more into the avant-garde experimentalism that would characterize the band for the next several years, with tracks like Cymbaline taking on a more somber quality than Pink Floyd's earlier work. More was also the first Pink Floyd album to feature David Gilmour as the only lead vocalist on the LP. This would not happen again until 1989.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dance The Night Away
Source:    CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    The album Fresh Cream was perhaps the first LP from a rock supergroup, although at the time a more accurate description would have been British blues supergroup. Much of the album was reworking of blues standards by the trio of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, all of whom had established their credentials with various British blues bands. With their second album, Disraeli Gears, Cream showed a psychedelic side as well as their original blues orientation. Most of the more psychedelic material, such as Dance the Night Away, was from the songwriting team of Bruce and lyricist Pete Brown.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    SWLABR
Source:    Mono Russian import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, SWLABR (the title being an anagram for She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow) was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and poet Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Take It Back
Source:     CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer:     Bruce/Brown
Label:     Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:     1967
     After seven years of serving in the Air Force liason office at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, my dad got transferred to Weisbaden Air Force Base in Germany. Standard practice at the time was for the married GI to go on ahead of the rest of the family and find a place to live "on the economy." My dad, already having quite a bit of time in the service, was able to instead get a spot in a place called Kastel, which was a group of WWII Panzer barracks that had been adapted for use by American military with families. When the rest of us arrived in August I was happily surprised to find that my dad, in addition to finding us a place to live, had bought a state-of-the-art Akai X-355 Tape Recorder using money he had won at Lotto, along with a pair of Koss headphones. I of course had to go to the Base Exchange to look for pre-recorded tapes. Already having experience with reel to reel machines, I knew that tapes recorded at 3 3/4 ips had more tape hiss than those recorded at 7 1/2 ips, so I was resolved to only buy tapes recorded at the faster speed. Unfortunately several albums I wanted were only available at the slower speed. The problem was resolved a year later when my dad finally got a Dual turntable to hook up to the tape recorder. I immediately went out and bought a reel of blank tape; the first album I made a copy of was Cream's Disraeli Gears. I would often fall asleep listening to that tape, which meant I ended up sleeping through the last songs on the album, including Take It Back. I must have done some kind of sleep learning, though, since to this day I can quote the lyrics of the entire song.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    As Tears Go By
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards/Oldham
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1965
            As Tears Go By is sometimes referred to as the Rolling Stones' answer to the Beatles' Yesterday. The problem with this theory, however, is that As Tears Go By was written a year before Yesterday was released, and in fact was a top 10 UK single for Marianne Faithful in 1964. The story of the song's genesis is that producer/manager Andrew Oldham locked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the kitchen until they came up with an original song. The original title was As Time Goes By, but, not wanting anyone to confuse it with the famous song used in the film Casablanca, Oldham changed Time to Tears, and got a writing credit for his trouble. Since the Stones were not at that time known for soft ballads, Oldham gave the song to Marianne Faithful, launching a successful recording career for the singer in 1964. The following year the Stones included their own version of the song on the album December's Children (And Everybody's), using a string arrangement that may indeed have been inspired by the Beatles' Yesterday, which was holding down the # 1 spot on the charts at the time the Rolling Stones were recording As Tears Go By. After American disc jockeys began playing As Tears Go By as an album track, London Records released the song as a US-only single, which ended up making the top 10 in 1965.

Artist:    Phil Ochs
Title:    Love Me, I'm A Liberal
Source:    CD: There But For Fortune (originally released on LP: Phil Ochs In Concert)
Writer(s):    Phil Ochs
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Phil Ochs could have been a big star on the folk scene of the 1960s, except for on small flaw: he was too honest, even with himself. By 1966 Ochs was already well-established on the scene, both as a songwriter and a folk singer with a hit single (I Ain't Marching Anymore) to his credit. Ochs, though, thought of himself as more of a musical journalist chronicling a tumultuous decade, and he wasn't afraid to step on toes, even those of his fans. The left-leaning folk movement of the early 1960s had been enthusiastically supported by the more liberal members of mainstream society, but Ochs couldn't resist pointing out their hypocrisy with Love Me, I'm A Liberal, a song included on his 1966 LP Phil Ochs In Concert. Not long after the album was released, Ochs left the Greenwich Village area for California, switching from the New York based folk-oriented Elektra Records to the hip Hollywood label A&M (co-owned by trumpeter Herb Alpert, whose Tijuana Brass was one of the hottest acts on the coast at the time). Ochs's music became more introspective and less accessible over the next few years. Ochs eventually returned to New York, where he made an appearance at the 1975 War Is Over rally in Central Park, an event that marked the end of the movement that had brought Ochs to prominence so many years before. Always the observer, Ochs finally decided that he could no longer be a part of the world around him and took his own life on April 9, 1976.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Barterers And Their Wives
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Feher
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    The Left Banke made a huge impact with their debut single, Walk Away Renee, in late 1966. All of a sudden the rock press (such as it was in 1966) was all abuzz with talk of "baroque pop" and how it was the latest, greatest thing. The band soon released a follow-up single, Pretty Ballerina, which made the top 10 as well, which led to an album entitled (naturally enough) Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, which featured several more songs in the same vein, such as Barterers And Their Wives, which was also released as a B side later that year. An unfortunate misstep by keyboardist Michael Brown, however, led to the Left Banke's early demise, and baroque pop soon went the way of other sixties fads.

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind)
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    The title track of the second Amboy Dukes album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind, is by far their best known recording, going all the way to the #16 spot on the top 40 in 1968. The song features the lead guitar work of Ted Nugent, who co-wrote the song with guitarist/vocalist Steve Farmer. Journey To The Center Of The Mind would be the last album to feature lead vocalist John Drake, who left the band for creative reasons shortly after the album's release.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    Joe Hill
Source:    CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm (originally released on LP: Woodstock)
Writer:    Robinson/Hayes
Label:    Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1969
    Joe Hill, written as a poem in the early part of the 20th century and set to music a few years later, was a highlight of Joan Baez's Woodstock performance. The song was inspired by the struggles of one of the martyrs of the labor movement of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Jeff's Boogie
Source:     Mono CD: Roger The Engineer
Writer:     Dreja/Relf/Samwell-Smith/McCarty/Beck
Label:     Great American Music (original US label: Epic)
Year:     1966
     We start off our second hour this week with one of the hottest B sides ever issued: the instrumental Jeff's Boogie, which appeared as the flip side of Over, Under, Sideways Down in 1966 and was included on an LP with the same name (that LP, with a different track lineup and cover, was issued in the UK under the name Yardbirds, although it has since come to be known as Roger The Engineer due to its cover art, sketched by rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja). Although credited to the entire band, the song is actually based on Chuck Berry's guitar boogie, and features some outstanding lead guitar work by Jeff Beck.

Artist:     McKendree Spring
Title:     Down By The River
Source:     LP: McKendree Spring 3
Writer:     Neil Young
Label:     Decca
Year:     1972
     Decca Records was considered one of the "big six" record companies of the 50s-60s, and one of the three based in New York. Unlike RCA Victor and Columbia, which had offices and studios on both coasts, Decca remained primarily an East Coast label, with a generous helping of imports supplementing the local talent, until it was folded into MCA in the early 1970s. One of the last acts signed by the label was McKendree Spring, from Glens Falls, NY. Best described as a progressive folk-rock band, the group supplemented its basic rock instrumentation with violin, viola and synthesizers, all provided by Dr. Michael Dreyfuss. Their third album, released in 1972, starts off with a powerful version of the Neil Young classic Down By The River.

Artist:    Stephen R Webb
Title:    Jeremy Johnson
Source:    CD: The Electric Dream Project
Writer(s):    Stephen R Webb
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1987
    Ever lay awake at night, trying not to think of things that scare the crap out of you, but of course thinking of nothing else? When that happens to a songwriter it can result in something like Jeremy Johnson. The scary thought in this instance was actually a question: what if some Jimmy Jones type got hold of a thermonuclear device and decided that if mass suicide was good enough for his own followers it would be even better for massive numbers of people, like the population of a large American city? I then started thinking about the followers of Charles Manson and came up with the idea of Sarah Lee Winston, a girl from a moderately wealthy, but emotionally lacking, family that is so devoted to Jeremy Johnson that she will commit any act, no matter how horrific, to please him. The ominous, slightly discordant music flowed naturally from the concept of the lyrics, and the song was first performed by the band Civilian Joe in 1986. The studio version of Jeremy Johnson, featuring Civilian Joe's Suzan Hagler on rhythm guitar and me on everything else, was recorded at Bottom Line as part of the Electric Dream Project in 1987. I hope it scares the crap out of you, too.

Artist:    Romeo Void
Title:    I Mean It
Source:    LP: Itsacondition
Writer(s):    Iyall/Zincavage/Woods/Bossi
Label:    415
Year:    1981
    Formed in 1979 at the San Francisco Art Institute by vocalist Deborah Iyall and bassist Frank Zincavage, Romeo Void also included saxophonist Benjamin Bossi, guitarist Peter Woods, and a (shades of Spinal Tap!) succession of drummers. Their first LP, Itsacondition (sometimes referred to as It's A Condition) was released in 1981. I first ran across this album while doing a contemporary alternative rock show called Rock Nouveaux on KUNM in Albuquerque in the early 1980s. Although most of the album was fast-paced and punkish in nature, it was I Mean It, the haunting closing track from side one, that stood out from just about everything else that was happening musically at the time.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Old Man
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the band. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, was actually one of the first tracks recorded for Forever Changes. At the time, the band's rhythm section was more into sex and drugs than rock and roll, and McLean and Lee arranged to have studio musicians play on Old Man, as well as on one of Lee's songs. The rest of the group was so stunned by this development that they were able to temporarily get their act together long enough to complete the album. Nonetheless, the two tunes with studio musicians were left as is, although reportedly Ken Forssi did step in to show Carol Kaye how the bass part should be played (ironic, since Kaye is estimated to have played on over 10,000 recordings in her long career as a studio musician).

Artist:    Love
Title:    Que Vida!
Source:    CD: Da Capo
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The first Love album was pretty much garage rock with a touch of folk-rock thrown in. Their second effort, however, showed off the rapidly maturing songwriting skills of both Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean. Que Vida! (yes, I know that technically there should be an upside down exclamation point at the beginning of the song title, but my keyboard doesn't speak Spanish) is a good example of Lee moving into territory usually associated with middle-of-the-road singers such as Johnny Mathis. Lee would continue to defy convention throughout his career, leading to a noticable lack of commercial success even as he won the respect of his musical peers.

Artist:     Love
Title:     7&7 Is
Source:     Mono CD: Love Story (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Arthur Lee
Label:     ElektraRhino
Year:     1966
     In the fall of 1966 my parents took by brother and me to a drive-in movie to see The Russians Are Coming and The 10th Victim (don't ask me why I remember that). In an effort to extend their season past the summer months, that particular drive-in was pioneering a new technology that used a low-power radio transmitter (on a locally-unused frequency) to broadcast the audio portion of the films so that people could keep their car windows rolled all the way up (and presumably stay warm) instead of having to roll the window partway down to accomodate the hanging speakers that were attached to posts next to where each car was parked. Before the first movie and between films music was pumped through the speakers (and over the transmitter). Of course, being fascinated by all things radio, I insisted that my dad use the car radio as soon as we got settled in. I was immediately blown away by a song that I had not heard on either of Denver's two top 40 radio stations. That song was Love's 7&7 Is, and it was my first inkling that there were some great songs on the charts that were being ignored by local stations. I finally heard the song again the following spring, when a local FM station (that had been previously used to simulcast a full-service AM station) began running a "top 100" format a few hours a day.

Artist:    Association
Title:    Enter The Young
Source:    LP: And Then  Along Comes...The Association
Writer(s):    Terry Kirkman
Label:    Valiant
Year:    1966
    The Association started off the same way as many Los Angeles club bands in the mid-1960s, playing various venues and trying to get a record deal. Their first few singles, first on the Jubilee label and then the Valiant label, were not commercially successful, although they did allow the group to get a feel for the recording studio. The Association's version of Bob Dylan's One Too Many Mornings got the attention of producer Curt Boettcher, who gave them their first real hit, Along Comes Mary. This in turn led to the group's first LP, And Then Along Comes...The Association, which Boettcher produced. The opening track on the LP, Enter The Young, was at the time an appropriate way to introduce the group to album buyers, although it does sound a bit dated today. The tune was written by band member Terry Kirkman, who also wrote their next major hit, Cherish.

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Minstrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote (and sang lead on) most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the group, thanks to the fact that one of the two songs he sang lead on, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), became a huge top 40 hit. It wasn't long before the official name of the band was changed to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status, leaving the First Edition far behind.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Can You Dig It
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Peter Tork
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1968
    Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings. The first, and most familiar, was For Pete's Sake, which was released on the Headquarters album in 1967 and used as the closing theme for the second season of their TV series. The second Tork solo piece was the more experimental Can You Dig It used in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. Not long after Head was completed, Tork left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    All Together Now
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine (soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:    1969
    Less than a month after completing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band the Beatles found themselves in the position of being contractually obligated to provide songs for an animated film inspired by the song Yellow Submarine, which had appeared on the 1966 LP Revolver. The band was physically and emotionally exhausted at that point in time and ended up providing only four previously unreleased tunes for the project. One of those four was All Together Now, a tune written primarily by Paul McCartney, and meant to be in the same lighhearted vein as Yellow Submarine. McCartney later described the song as a "throwaway".

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Tribal Gathering
Source:    The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer(s):    Crosby/Hillman/McGuinn
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    In January of 1967 David Crosby attended something called "The Gathering of the Tribes: The Human Be-In" at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Crosby was so impressed by the event and those attending it that he wrote a song about the experience. Tribal Gathering was recorded by the Byrds on August 16, 1967, and included on the 1968 LP The Notorious Byrd Brothers, despite the fact that by the time the album was released Crosby had been fired by fellow band members Chris Hillman and Reoger McGuinn. Even more remarkable is the fact that the next track on the album, Dolphin's Smile, was also a Crosby composition. Both tracks have shared songwriting credits between Crosby and Hillman, with McGuinn's name appearing on Dolphin's Smile as well. Since both tracks were recorded on the same day, two months before Crosby left the group, it is possible that the co-writing credits were tacked on during overdub sessions later in the year. It wouldn't be the first time (according to Crosby) that the others took credit for his work.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Everybody's Been Burned
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    There is a common misconception that David Crosby's songwriting skills didn't fully develop until he began working with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. A listen to Everybody's Been Burned from the Byrds' 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday, however, puts the lie to that theory in a hurry. The track has all the hallmarks of a classic Crosby song: a strong melody, intelligent lyrics and an innovative chord structure. It's also my personal favorite tune from what is arguably the Byrds' best LP.

Artist:     Byrds
Title:     Draft Morning (alt. ending)
Source:     The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer:     Crosby/Hillman/McGuinn
Label:     Columbia/Legacy
Year:     Recorded 1967; alternate version released 1997
     Draft Morning is one of the most controversial recordings in the Byrds catalog. The song was originally composed by David Crosby, who was kicked out of the band shortly after they had recorded the instrumental tracks for the tune. Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman then proceded to write new lyrics for the song, and included it on The Notorious Byrd Brothers, released on Jan 3, 1968. This version of the song, first released on the expanded CD edition of The Notorious Byrd Brothers in 1997, was recorded in 1967 and has a different ending (although the same lyrics) as the LP version.