Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1913 (starts 3/25/19)

    This week's show is a musical journey from 1968 to 1974 and back again, one year at a time. That's a total of 13 tracks, the most ever on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion. And just to make it more interesting, the two 1971 tracks are manifestations of the most messy divorce in rock and roll history. Read on...

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Sitting On Top Of The World
Source:     CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:     Vinson/Chatmon (original) Chester Burnett (modern version)
Label:     Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:     1968
     Throughout their existence British blues supergroup Cream recorded covers of blues classics. One of the best of these is Sitting On Top Of The World from the album Wheels Of Fire, which in its earliest form was written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon and recorded by the Mississippi Shieks in 1930. Cream's version uses the lyrics from the 1957 rewrite of the song by Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin' Wolf.

Artist:    Kak
Title:    Trieulogy
Source:    British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released in US on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Yoder/Grelecki
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    The story of Kak is one of the strangest in rock history. Guitarists Gary Yoder and Dehner Patton had both been members of the Oxford Circle, the legendary East (San Francisco) Bay area band that broke up in early summer of 1967. Not long the breakup Yoder was approached by a guy named Gary Grelecki, who introduced himself as a fan of the band and offered to get Yoder a deal with Columbia, then the second largest record label in the country. Yoder figured that he didn't have anything to lose by saying yes; sure enough, two months later he got a call from Grelecki saying the contract was a done deal. It turned out that Grelicki's father was with the CIA and had been using Columbia as a front for agency activities in East Asia, and actually had legitimate contacts at the label. Yoder got into contact with Dehner, who had been playing in a band called Cherry Jam since the Oxford breakup, performing original material in the Davis area. One of the other members of Cherry Jam was percussionist/harpsichordist Chris Lockheed, who had previously played in a band called the Majestics. The lineup was completed with the addition of bassist Joe-Dave Damrill, who had been playing with another Davis band called Group B. The new band, calling itself Kak, was signed to Columbia's Epic subsidiary, releasing their only LP in 1969. Although neither the band (which played fewer than a dozen gigs in its entire existence) or the album was a commercial success at the time, Kak gained a cult following that exists to this day. The most ambitious track on the album, Trieulogy, is made up of three originally unrelated pieces, Golgotha, Mirage and Rain, that Yoder later said "blended well together", adding that "it's a logical pattern, lyrically and musically." The third part of Trieulogy, Rain, was also released as a single in 1969.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    There I Go Again
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer(s):    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    The two sides of James Gang Rides Again sound like two entirely different albums. As it turns out, this was somewhat intentional. According to bassist Dale Peters, guitarist Joe Walsh had written a set of acoustic tunes while the band was recording what would become side one of the album. Rather than try to hastily come up with another side's worth of tunes, the band decided just to let Walsh record the songs he had already written with a minimum of accompaniment. Among those tunes on side two of James Gang Rides Again is There I Go Again, a catchy number that features Walsh on both acoustic and steel guitar.

Artist:    John Lennon
Title:    How Do You Sleep
Source:    CD: Lennon (box set) (originally released on LP: Imagine)
Writer(s):    John Lennon
Label:    Capitol (original label: Apple)
Year:    1971
    When it comes to pure vitriol, few, if any, songs in the history of rock can compare with John Lennon's How Do You Sleep. Released in 1971 on the Imagine album, How do You Sleep is nothing short of a full-scale attack on Lennon's former bandmate, Paul McCartney, in response to what Lennon perceived as a series of personal attacks included on Paul and Linda McCartney's album Ram, released earlier the same year. Musically, it's one of Lennon's most powerful pieces as a solo artist, and was singled out as one of the three best tracks on Imagine by Rolling Stone magazine at the time the album was released.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Sunrise
Source:    British import CD: The Magician's Birthday
Writer(s):    Ken Hensley
Label:    Sanctuary (original US label: Mercury)
Year:    1972
    The 1972 album Demons And Wizards catapulted Uriah Heep into the ranks of first-tier rock bands. The sucess of the album, however, brought with it pressure from the band's record label to get a follow-up LP on the market as soon as possible. This resulted in their next LP, The Magician's Birthday, sounding a bit rushed in places, with the band not having the time to fully develop all the material. At the same time internal friction was developing between band members, particularly vocalis David Byron and keyboardist Ken Hensley, who at this point was writing almost all of the band's material. Nonetheless, the album contains some of Uriah Heep's most memorable songs, including sunrise, which opens the LP.    

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Razor Boy
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    ABC
Year:    1973
    Countdown To Ecstasy is the second Steely Dan album and the first to feature Donald Fagen as the group's sole lead vocalist. It is also the first of a trilogy of albums by the band that expose the seamy underside of Southern California culture in the 1970s. Razor Boy, for instance, targets the twin vices of materialism and complacency, asking the question: "Will you still have a song to sing when the razor boy comes and takes your fancy things away?" The album was not initially a major commercial success, but proved durable enough to attain gold status over a period of years. 

Artist:    Gentle Giant
Title:    Playing The Game
Source:    CD: The Power And The Glory
Writer(s):    Shulman/Shulman/Minnear
Label:    Alucard (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1974
    Following the departure of founding member Phil Shulman in 1973, the remaining members of Gentle Giant, after a period of soul-searching, decided to carry on as a five-piece group with the album In A Glass House. Their US label however, decided not to release the album. Despite this, In A Glass House sold well in the US as an import, leading to a new contract with a different label. The first Gentle Giant to be released on Capitol was The Power And The Glory, which hit the racks in 1974. One of the tracks that got a lot of airplay on FM rock radio was Playing The Game, which closes out the first side of the original LP. For those who might be interested in such things, a special edition of The Power And The Glory has been released on the Alucard label which features not only the original album remastered (plus bonus tracks), but a DVD containing animated video versions of every track on the album, all of which enhance the album's original concept concerning how power can corrupt even those with the best of intentions.

Artist:    Little Feat
Title:    Two Trains
Source:    CD: Dixie Chicken
Writer(s):    Lowell George
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Lowell George's band, Little Feat, truly found their sound, a brand of rock flavored with New Orleans spice, on their third LP, Dixie Chicken. That sound can be heard clearly on tracks like Two Trains, the second song on the album.

Artist:    Edgar Winter Group
Title:    Frankenstein (edited version)
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: They Only Come Out At Night. Edited version released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Edgar Winter
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Epic)
Year:    1973
    A real monster hit (sorry, couldn't resist).

Artist:    Paul And Linda McCartney
Title:    Too Many People
Source:    LP: Ram
Writer(s):    Paul McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1971
    Over the years, Paul McCartney has tried to downplay the animosity between himself and former bandmate John Lennon following the breakup of the Beatles in 1970. However, Too Many People, the opening track of his 1971 LP Ram, has several lines that Lennon took rather personally, including the repeated chorus line "that was your big mistake", referring the the breakup itself. Lennon's response, in the song How Do You Sleep, however, makes McCartney's lines look like soft ribbing by comparison.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Friend Of The Devil
Source:    CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: American Beauty)
Writer(s):    Garcia/Dawson/Hunter
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    The Grateful Dead spent three years and four albums trying to capture the energy of their live performances on vinyl. Having finally succeeded with the 1969 Live Dead album the group began to focus more on their songwriting capabilities. The result was two outstanding studio albums, both released in 1970: Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. Of the two, American Beauty is made up almost entirely of songs played on acoustic instruments, including pedal steel guitar, which was played by Jerry Garcia. One of the best-known tracks on American Beauty is Friend Of The Devil, which lyricist Robert Hunter referred to as "the closest we've come to what may be a classic song."

Artist:    Albert King/Steve Cropper/Pop Staples
Title:    Homer's Theme
Source:    LP: Jammed Together
Writer(s):    Banks/Jackson
Label:    Stax
Year:    1969
    Continuing a tradition established by such legendary Chicago artists as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon, the Memphis-based Stax Records brought three legends of its own, Albert King, Steve Cropper and Roebuck "Pop" Staples, together for an album's worth of, well, mosty jams such as the instrumental Homer's Theme. The LP, Jammed Together, generally does not make anyone's top albums list, nor is it considered historically essential. Nonetheless, it is interesting to hear how the three guitarists' styles blend and occasionally clash with each other.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    The Incredible Gnome Meets Jaxman
Source:    LP: Getting To The Point
Writer(s):    Kim Simmonds
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1968
    Savoy Brown, perhaps more than any other band in rock history (except Fleetwood Mac), was famous for its constantly changing lineup. Besides founder and bandleader Kim Simmonds on lead guitar, only one musician (pianist Bob Hall) that played on the first Savoy Brown LP, Shake Down, was around for the group's sophomore effort, 1968's Getting To The Point. New members included Chris Youlden (vocals), Dave Peverett (guitar), Rivers Jobe (bass) and Roger Earl (drums). With the change in lineup came a change in focus as well. While Shake Down was made up almost entirely of blues covers, Getting To The Point had seven originals, including the instrumental The Incredible Gnome Meets Jaxman.