Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1844 (starts 10/29/18)

    This week we have three artists' sets, one each from Cream, Love and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Otherwise it's a sort of mirror image of last week's show.

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     In My Life
Source:     CD: Rubber Soul
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Capitol/EMI
Year:     1965
    Rubber Soul was the first Beatles album to be made up entirely of songs written by the band members themselves, mostly John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon's contributions in particular were starting to move away from the typical "young love" songs the band had become famous for. One of the best examples is In My Life, which is a nostalgic look back at Lennon's own past (although put in such a way that it could be universally applied). Despite never being released as a single, In My Life remains one of the most popular songs in the Beatles catalog.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Happy Jack (acoustic version)
Source:    Mono CD: A Quick One
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA
Year:    1966
    It may seem odd now, but the Who did not find any great success in the US in their early years. Allthough several of their early singles were released in the US, none of them got played on the radio until spring of 1967, when Happy Jack became the group's first US hit. The band's second LP, A Quick One, had not yet been released in the US; with the success of Happy Jack as a single it was decided to add the song to the US version album and to retitle the LP Happy Jack. Interestingly enough, the 90s remastered CD version of A Quick One, which follows the original UK track order, does not include the familiar studio version of Happy Jack; instead, an earlier acoustic version of the song with slightly different lyrics appears as a bonus track.

Artist:    Noel Harrison
Title:    Life Is A Dream
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Smith/Ray
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The son of actor Rex Harrison, Noel Harrison was a Britisher with L.A. connections that he parlayed into a short musical career in the wake of the British invasion. Although he didn't score any major hits, he did turn out a rather interesting B side in 1967 with Life Is A Dream. Harrison also did some acting, appearing in a regular role on the TV series The Girl From Uncle.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    In The Country
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    By 1968, several bands, particularly in southern California, were starting to incorporate elements of country music into what were otherwise rock recordings. Some, like the Byrds and Poco, ended up being recognized as pioneers of what came to be known as country-rock. Others, such as L.A.'s West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, merely flirted with the idea on tracks such as In The Country on their fourth LP, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. By this point, conflicts within the band were starting to take their toll, and combined with a decided lack of commercial success, led to the band losing its contract with Reprise Records and falling deeper into obscurity before finally calling it quits in 1970.

Artist:    Richie Havens
Title:    Handsome Johnny
Source:    CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer:    Gossett/Gossett/Havens
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1969
    When it became obvious that the amplifiers needed by the various rock bands that were scheduled to perform on the opening Friday afternoon at Woodstock would not be ready in time, singer/songwriter Richie Havens came to the rescue, performing for several hours as the new opening act. One of the highlights of Havens' performance was Handsome Johnny, a song that he had co-written with Lou Gossett and Lou Gossett, Jr. and released on his debut album.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Worried Life Blues
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Major Merriweather
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    Major "Big Macao" Merriweather was an early blues artist who is best known for a song he wrote and recorded in 1941. Worried Life Blues has since been covered literally hundreds of times, including a 1965 version on the US-only LP The Animals On Tour. The Blues Magoos apparently were impressed by the Animals' recording of the song, as they copied the arrangement pretty much note for note for their own debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, the following year.
   
Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Super Bird
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rhino (original label: Vanguard)
Year:    1967
    Country Joe and the Fish, from Berkeley, California, were one of the first rock bands to incorporate political satire into their music. Their I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag is one of the most famous protest songs ever written. Super Bird is even heavier on the satire than the Rag. The song, from the band's debut LP, puts president Lyndon Johnson, whose wife and daughter were known as "Lady-bird" and "Linda-bird", in the role of a comic book superhero.

Artist:     Johnny Winter
Title:     Bad Luck And Trouble
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer:     Johnny Winter
Label:     United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year:     1968
     Johnny Winter first started getting attention while playing the Texas blues circuit. His first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the regional Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who gravitated to rock music, Johnny Winter remained primarily a blues musician throughout his career.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Do It
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Morrison/Krieger
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1969
    One sign of a truly great band is that even at the lowest point in their history they manage to create songs that are above and beyond most other bands. Case in point: the Doors. 1969 was a horrendous year for the band. Jim Morrison was looking at possible jail time for indecent exposure and their producer, Paul Rothchild, was pressuring them to add strings and horns to their recordings. The result was what is universally considered the weakest of the Doors' studio albums, The Soft Parade. Recorded over a period of nine months, The Soft Parade was the first Doors album to give individual writing credits, reportedly because vocalist Jim Morrison did not want his name associated with some of guitarist Robby Kreiger's lyrics. Despite all this, there were some hidden gems on The Soft Parade. Do It, also released as a B side of a failed single, is one such gem.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     One Rainy Wish
Source:     CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     In the summer of 1967 my dad (who was a Sergeant in the Air Force), got transferred to Lindsay Air Station in Weisbaden, Germany. The housing situation there being what it was, it was several weeks before the rest of us could join him, and during that time he went out and bought an Akai X-355 reel to reel tape recorder that a fellow GI had picked up in Japan. The Akai had small speakers built into it, but the best way to listen to it was through headphones. It would be another year before he would pick up a turntable, so I started buying pre-recorded reel to reel tapes. Two of the first three tapes I bought were Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love, both by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. As I was forced to share a bedroom with my little brother I made it a habit to sleep on the couch instead, usually with the headphones on listening to Axis: Bold As Love. I was blown away by the stereo effects on the album, which I attributed (somewhat correctly) to Hendrix, although I would find out years later that much of the credit belongs to engineer Eddie Kramer as well. One Rainy Wish, for example, starts off with all the instruments in the center channel (essentially a mono mix). After a few seconds of slow spacy intro the song gets into gear with vocals isolated all the way over to the left, with a guitar overdub on the opposite side to balance it out. As the song continues, things move back and forth from side to side, fading in and out at the same time. It was a hell of a way to drift off to sleep every night.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    I Don't Live Today
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    I remember a black light poster that choked me up the first time I saw it. It was a shot of Jimi Hendrix playing his guitar with the caption I Don't Live Today. I don't believe Hendrix was being deliberately prophetic when he wrote and recorded this classic track for the Are You Experienced album, but it occasionally gives me chills to hear it, even now.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Wait Until Tomorrow
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Jimi Hendrix showed a whimsical side with Wait Until Tomorrow, a track from his second Jimi Hendrix Experience LP, Axis: Bold As Love. The song tells a story of a young man standing outside his girlfriend's window trying to convince her to run away from him. He gets continually rebuffed by the girl, who keeps telling him to Wait Until Tomorrow. Ultimately the girl's father resolves the issue by shooting the young man. The entire story is punctuated by outstanding distortion-free guitar work that showcases just how gifted Hendrix was on his chosen instrument.

Artist:    The Ariel
Title:    It Feels Like I'm Crying
Source:    Mono British import CD: With Love- A Pot Of Flowers (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jack Walters
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year:    1966
    San Francisco occupies the north end of a peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and San Francisco Bay to the north and east. At the south end of the bay is the city of San Jose. In between the two, about halfway down the peninsula itself, is the city of San Mateo. The city serves as the western terminus of the only bridge across the bay south of San Francisco itself. For much of 1966 it was also the home of a band called The Ariel. The band, originally called the Banshees, was formed in 1965 by a group of high school students from the San Mateo suburbs. The renamed themselves The Ariel in 1966 (Ariel being the name of a female fan from Hayward, the city on the eastern end of the bridge). In July they cut some demos at Golden State Recorders, which got them an audition with Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records, who was doing some talent scouting in the Bay Area that summer. They passed the audition and headed south to L.A. (at their own expense) to make a record. Unfortunately, when they arrived they learned that Shad was no longer interested in recording them. Nevertheless, they persisted (sorry, couldn't resist) and eventually got Shad to book them a couple hours in a local studio, where they a pair of songs written by the band's vocalist/lead guitarist, Jack Walters. It Feels Like I'm Crying was issued as the A side of the band's only single in late summer, but by then some of the band members were attending college and were not able to support the record with live appearances with any kind of regularity. By the end of the year The Ariel was history.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Why
Source:    Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the earliest collaborations between Byrds songwriters David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the up-tempo raga rocker Why. The song was first recorded at RCA studios in Los Angeles in late 1965 as an intended B side for Eight Miles High, but due to the fact that the band's label, Columbia, refused to release recordings made at their main rival's studios, the band ended up having to re-record both songs at Columbia's own studios in early 1966. Although the band members felt the newer versions were inferior to the 1965 recordings, they were released as a single in March of 1966. Later that year, for reasons that are still unclear, Crosby insisted the band record a third version of Why, and that version was used for the band's next LP, Younger Than Yesterday.

Artist:    Sound Sandwich
Title:    Tow Away
Source:    Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (released to radio stations as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Johnny Cole
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year:    1968
    Sound Sandwich was a young (as in high school age) Los Angeles band that came under the wing of producer Johnny Cole, who wrote both of the band's singles. The second of these, Tow Away, does not show up in the database I usually use, leading me to believe the record was only released as a promo to L.A. area radio stations shortly before Viva Records closed its doors permanently.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Miss Attraction
Source:    LP: The Best Of The Strawberry Alarm Clock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Weitz/Pitman/King/Freeman/Gunnels
Label:    Sundazed/Uni
Year:    1969
    The Strawberry Alarm Clock had always had a bit of a fluid lineup, having been formed in the first place by the merger of two local Los Angeles bands, Waterfyrd Traene and Thee Sixpence. Their biggest hit, Incense and Peppermints featured lead vocals from a member of yet another local band, and one of their main songwriters on the first album (who also played flute on several tracks) was not credited as a band member at all. Such confusion continued to plague the band throughout its existence. In 1968, for instance, their former manager recruited two ex-members to form a second Strawberry Alarm Clock to tour and play the band's songs while the current group was working on their fourth and final LP, Good Morning Starshine. A court injunction stopped the new group from using the name, but by the time it took effect the damage had already been done. Promoters refused to book the band, not knowing who would actually show up. The group's sound had changed a bit by then as well, as can be heard on Miss Attraction, the first single released from Good Morning Starshine. Founding member and co-leader Ed King, the band's lead guitarist, had already been playing many of the bass lines on the group's studio recordings. For Good Morning Starshine he officially switched to bass, although he also provided some of the guitar tracks on the album as well. Following the breakup of the Strawberry Alarm Clock King would take a similar role in his new group, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Apeman
Source:    Canadia import CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection. (originally released on LP: Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneyground Part One)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Polygram/Polytel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    The Kinks, whose commercial success had been on the decline for a number of years, scored a huge international hit in 1970 with the title track from their album Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneyground Part One. They followed it up with the 1971 single Apeman, taken from the same album. The song was a top 10 single in the UK, although it was only moderately successful elsewhere.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Dark Star (single version)
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Garcia/Hunter
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Studio recording. Single version. Shortest Dark Star ever.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    We've Got A Groovey Thing Going
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM B side and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    In late 1965, producer Tom Wilson decided to perform an experiment. He took the original recording of a song from Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's 1964 album, Wednesday Morning 6AM, and added electric instruments to it (using the same musicians that had played on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album), essentially creating a whole new version of the song and, for that matter, a whole new genre: folk-rock. The Sound of Silence, backed by We've Got a Groovey Thing Going, became a huge national hit, going all the way to #1 on the top 40 charts. The only problem was that by the time all this happened, Simon and Garfunkel had gone their separate ways, briefly reuniting to record We've Got a Groovey Thing Going in 1965, but not releasing it at the time. Paul Simon, who was by then living in England, returned to the states in early 1966, got back together with Art Garfunkel and quickly recorded a new album, Sounds Of Silence. The album included a new stereo mix of We've Got A Groovey Thing Going made from the original 4-track master tape. By the way, this is the only instance I know of of the word "groovy" being spelled "groovey".

Artist:    Love
Title:    Colored Balls Falling
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The first Love album is rooted solidly in both folk-rock and garage rock. A solid example of this blend is Colored Balls Falling, written by Arthur Lee. To my knowledge, Colored Balls Falling has never been included on any anthology albums, making this mono mix of the song somewhat of a rarity.

Artist:    Love
Title:    7&7 Is
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    The first rock band signed to Elektra Records was Love, a popular L.A. club band that boasted two talented songwriters, Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean. On the heels of their first album, which included the single My Little Red Book and one of the first recordings of the fast version of Hey Joe, came their most successful single, the manic 7&7 Is, released in July of 1966.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Signed D.C.
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The only acoustic track on the first Love album was Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions due to (you guessed it) heroin addiction.

Artist:    Rabbit Habit
Title:    Angel Angel Down We Go
Source:    CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wylde Psych (originally released as stereo 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Tower)
Year:    1969
    I don't have the slightest clue who plays on this record (although the fictional band that performs it on film is called Rabbit Habit). What I do know is that is was the title track of an American International Pictures film called Angel Angel Down We Go. Unfortunately I had never seen or even heard of a movie called Angel Angel Down We Go before hearing this track, so I have no idea what is was about (other than a band called Rabbit Habit). But that's OK, because I strongly suspect I wouldn't be interested in watching a 1969 film from American International Pictures anyway. Then again, if it's cheesy enough, I just might. I actually did like Wild In The Streets the first time I saw it, after all (I was fifteen). Speaking of which, the theme from both that movie and Angel Angel Down We Go were written by Barry Mann and his wife Cynthia Weil, who also wrote (among other things) Kicks and Hungry for Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Waiting
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Santana (band)
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Possibly the most successful (in the long term) of the musicians to emerge from late 60s San Francisco was Carlos Santana, a Mexican-born guitarist who still plays to sellout crowds worldwide. Santana's band originally got lukewarm reviews from the rock press, but after their legendary performance at Woodstock found themselves among rock's royalty. Waiting, from the group's first LP, is an instrumental that was also released as the B side of the band's first single, Evil Ways.

Artist:      Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     Mr. Limousine Driver
Source:      CD: Grand Funk
Writer:    Mark Farner
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1969
     When Grand Funk Railroad first appeared on the scene they were universally panned by the rock press (much as Kiss would be a few years later). Despite this, they managed to set attendance records across the nation and were instrumental to establishing sports arenas as the venue of choice for 70s rock bands. Although their first album, On Time, was not an instant hit, their popularity took off with the release of their second LP, Grand Funk (also known as the Red Album). One of the many popular tracks on Grand Funk was Mr. Limousine Driver, a song that reflects the same attitude as their later hit We're An American Band.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Simon The Bullet Freak
Source:    LP: Salisbury
Writer(s):    Ken Hensley
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1971
    Uriah Heep combined elements of progressive rock and heavy metal to create a sound that was uniquely their own. The band had two main songwriting sources: the team of vocalist David Byron and guitarist Mick Box, who wrote most of the band's early material, and keyboardist Ken Hensley, whose writing dominated the band's most popular period. The group' second LP, Salisbury, was in many senses a transition album, with the songwriting split about evenly between the two. One of Hensley's compositions, Simon The Bullet Freak, was released in Germany as a B side and included on the US version of the Salisbury album in early 1971. The song made its first UK appearance as the B side of the single version of the title track of the band's third LP, Look At Yourself.

Artist:     Savoy Brown
Title:     Made Up My Mind
Source:     British import CD: A Step Further
Writer:     Chris Youlden
Label:     Polygram/Deram (original US label: Parrot)
Year:     1969
     To coincide with a US tour, the fourth Savoy Brown album, A Step Further, was actually released in North America several months before it was in the UK, with Made Up My Mind being simultaneously released as a single. Luckily for the band, 1969 was a year that continued the industry-wide trend away from hit singles and toward successful albums instead, at least among the more progressive groups, as the single itself tanked. Aided by a decent amount of airplay on progressive FM radio, however, the album (the last to feature lead vocalist Chris Youlden) peaked comfortably within the top 100.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Lazy Poker Blues
Source:    LP: Vintage Years (originally released in UK on LP: Mr. Wonderful)
Writer(s):    Green/Adams
Label:    Sire (original label: Blue Horizon)
Year:    1968
    The only thing the original Fleetwood Mac and the superstar band of the 1980s had in common was the presence of Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass. Stylistically, the two were worlds apart. Instead of the slick pop-rock of the later version of the band, the original lineup featured British blues-rock tunes such as Lazy Poker Blues written and sung by guitarist Peter Green. The original lineup recorded two LPs for Blue Horizon that were never issued in the US. Once Fleetwood Mac became a household name, Sire Records issued a double-LP compilation album called Vintage Years that included cuts from both albums as well as several UK-only single tracks.

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

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Dirty Water
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
    Dirty Water has long since been adopted by the city of Boston (and especially its sports teams), yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes in the early 60s. Lead vocalist/drummer Dickie Dodd, incidently, was a former Mouseketeer who had played on the surf-rock hit Mr. Moto as a member of the Bel-Airs.

Artist:    Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:    Steppin' Out (stereo remix)
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits
Writer(s):    Revere/Lindsay
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
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 true rock band signed by the label. 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. The song was originally mixed only in mono, but in the 1990s a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track master tape.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dreaming
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Jack Bruce
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were a few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released in UK on LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1966
    When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the band's original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1970 soundtrack album for the movie Homer that the studio version was finally released in the US. Unfortunately the compilers of that album left out the last 25 seconds or so from the original recording.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Cat's Squirrel
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. S. Splurge
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    One of the few instrumentals in the Cream repertoire, Cat's Squirrel was something of a blues standard whose origins are lost in antiquity. Unlike the 1968 Jethro Tull version, which emphasises Mick Abrahams's guitar work, Cream's Cat's Squirrel is heavy on the harmonica, played by bassist Jack Bruce. Arranger credits for the recording were given to S. Splurge, a pseudonym for the band itself, in the tradition of Nanker Phelge.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Food
Source:    CD: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands
Writer(s):    The Turtles
Label:    Sundazed (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the Turtles' relationship with their label, White Whale, had deteriorated to the point that the group was starting to consider the possibility of disbanding in order to get out of their contract. They had self-produced several songs earlier in the year that the label had rejected and were under constant pressure to come up with another monster hit like Happy Together. Against this backdrop the group released one of the most unique albums in rock history. Entitled The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands, the album contained a dozen tunes, each done in a different style and credited to a different band. Food, for instance, was credited to the Bigg Brothers, and sounded like one of the more whimsical tracks from the Association. The song also included the following recipe within its lyrics, which I am presenting here as a public service:

Two thirds cups of flour
A teaspoon full of salt
A quarter pound of butter
Add an egg and blend it out
Two squares of dark chocolate
Walnuts, pot and sugar
A teaspoon of bakin' powder
Thirty minutes in the heat and it's over

Although The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands peaked at only the #128 spot, it is now considered one of the band's best efforts.