Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1919 (starts 5/6/19)

    This time around we have a couple of album sides, an artists' set, a British set and trips both up and down through the years. Read on...

Artist:    Dave Clark Five
Title:    You Know You're Lying
Source:    Mono LP: I Like It Like That
Writer(s):    Clark/Smith
Label:    Epic
Year:    1965
    It's a well-known fact that in the 1960s the British and American versions of albums by British Invasion bands often had different song lineups and sometimes even different album titles. In the case of the Dave Clark Five, however, their album catalogs in the two nations were mutually exclusive. In fact, the DC5 actually released twice as many LPs in the US between 1964 and 1967 as they did in their native UK. As a result, there are several DC5 songs that were never availble to British record buyers, unless they were willing to buy a US-only LP such as I Like It Like That, which came out in 1965. Although the band eschewed psychedelia as a general rule, some of their songs, such as You Know You're Lying, have a definite garage-rock feel to them. The band's American popularity is underscored by one other interesting bit of trivia: they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show a total of 18 times, by far the most appearances by a British Invasion band.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Bringing Me Down
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    One of several singles released mainly to San Francisco Bay area radio stations and record stores, Bringing Me Down is an early collaboration between vocalist Marty Balin and guitarist/vocalist Paul Kantner. Balin had invited Kantner into the band without having heard him play a single note. It turned out to be one of many right-on-the-money decisions by the young bandleader.

Artist:     Monkees
Title:     The Door Into Summer
Source:     CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer:     Douglas/Martin
Label:     Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:     1967
     After playing nearly all the instrumental tracks on their third album themselves, the Monkees came to the painful conclusion that they would not be able to repeat the effort and still have time to tape a weekly TV show. As a result, the fourth Monkees LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD., used studio musicians extensively, albeit under the creative supervision of the Monkees themselves. The group also had the final say over what songs ended up on the album, including The door Into Summer, a tune by Bill Martin, a friend of band leader Michael Nesmith. For reasons that are too complicated to get into here (and probably wouldn't make much sense anyway), co-credit was given to the band's producer, Chip Douglas.

Artist:     Moby Grape
Title:     Can't Be So Bad
Source:     LP: Wow
Writer:     Jerry Miller
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1968
     Although the second Moby Grape album, Wow, is generally considered inferior to the first, it does have its moments of brilliance. One of these is the Jerry Miller song Can't Be So Bad. I guarantee this one will get stuck in your head after only one listen.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Some Velvet Morning
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lee Hazlewood
Label:    Real Gone/Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Most American listeners are probably unaware of Vanilla Fudge's 1969 cover of Lee Hazlewood's Some Velvet Morning, but the song actually made quite a big splash in the rest of the world, thanks to the band's live performance of the song at the International Music Festival in Venice that year. The performance, which led to the band becoming the first Americans to win the Golden Gondola award, was see by 40 million television viewers worldwide. In the US, the song was released as a mono single at a time when FM stereo was becoming the medium of choice for serious rock fans. That, taken with the fact that AM radio was not about to play a song that ran nearly eight minutes in length, pretty much doomed Some Velvet Morning as a potential US hit right from the start.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Valleys Of Neptune
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2010
    Even before the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1969, Hendrix was starting to work with other musicians, including keyboardist Steve Winwood and wind player Chris Wood from Traffic, bassist Jack Casidy from Jefferson Airplane and Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles among others. Still, he kept showing a tendency to return to the power trio configuration, first with Band of Gypsys, with Miles and bassist Billy Cox and, in 1970, a new trio that was sometimes referred to as the "new" Jimi Hendrix Experience. This trio, featuring Cox along with original Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell (with additional percussion added by Jumo Sultan), recorded extensively in the months leading up to Hendrix's death, leaving behind hours of tapes in various stages of completion. Among those recordings was a piece called Valleys Of Neptune that was finally released, both as a single and as the title track of a new CD, in 2010.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    One Of These Days
Source:    CD: Meddle
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Gilmour/Mason
Label:    Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    In their early years Pink Floyd was a band that was talked about more than heard, at least in the US. That began to change with the release of their 1971 LP Meddle and its opening track, One Of These Days, which got a significant amount of airplay on progressive FM radio stations.
   
Artist:    Animals
Title:    I'm Crying
Source:    Mono LP: The Best Of The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Price/Burdon
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1964
    Like most groups in the early 1960s, the Animals started their studio career by recording a mixture of songs provided to their producer by professional songwriters and covers of tunes previously recorded by other artists. Their first self-penned single was I'm Crying, a tune by vocalist Eric Burdon and organist Alan Price that was released in September of 1964. The song made the top 10 in Canada and the UK, but stalled out in the lower reaches of the top 40 in the US, falling far short of their previous international hit, House Of The Rising Sun. Producer Mickie Most decided from then on that songs written by the band itself would only be released as album tracks and B sides, a policy that stayed in effect until the Animals changed producers in 1966.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source:    CD: Big Hits (High Tides & Green Grass) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1965
    Singles released in the UK in the 60s tended to stay on the racks much longer than their US counterparts. This is because singles were generally not duplicated on LPs like they were in the US. The Rolling Stones' 1965 hit (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was a good example. In the US the single had completely disappeared from most record racks by the end of the year, despite the fact that (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was the #1 song of the year. The song has, however, been continuously in print since its initial release due to it being added to the Out Of Our Heads album, which had a considerably different song lineup than the original UK version. On the other side of the Atlantic the song was unavailable as an LP track until Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) was released, but for several years the single could be found wherever records were sold throughout Europe.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sunny Afternoon
Source:    Mono LP: Face To Face
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    My family got its first real stereo (a GE console model with a reel-to-reel recorder instead of a turntable) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off). Of course, none of the few stereo FM stations were playing rock songs in 1966, but since the Kinks were still only mixing their songs in mono at that point it didn't really matter.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Baby, You're A Rich Man
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    Baby, You're A Rich Man was one of the last collaborations between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and addresses the Beatles' longtime manager Brian Epstein, although not by name. Lennon came up with the basic question "how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" (a popular term for the young and hip in late 60s London), which became the basis for the song's verses, which were combined with an existing, but unfinished, Paul McCartney chorus (Baby, You're A Rich Man, too). The finished piece was issued as the B side of the Beatles' second single of 1967, All You Need Is Love, and later remixed in stereo and included on the US-only LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.
         
Artist:     Status Quo
Title:     Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Source:     Simulated stereo CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Francis Rossi
Label:     K-Tel (original label: Cadet Concept)
Year:     1968
     The band with the most charted singles in the UK is not the Beatles or even the Rolling Stones. It is, in fact, Status Quo, quite possibly the nearest thing to a real life version of Spinal Tap. Except for Pictures of Matchstick Men, the group has never had a hit in the US. On the other hand, they remain popular in Scandanavia, playing to sellout crowds on a regular basis (yes, they are still together).

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Homeward Bound
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    Following the success of Sounds Of Silence, Paul Simon And Art Garfunkel set about making an album of all new material (Sounds Of Silence had featured several re-recorded versions of tunes from the 1965 British album The Paul Simon Songbook). The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, one of the finest folk-rock albums ever recorded. The album contained several successful singles, including Homeward Bound.

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

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Simon/Garfunkel
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    After the reunion of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel following the surprise success of an electrified remix of The Sound Of Silence, the duo quickly recorded an album to support the hit single. Sounds Of Silence was, for the most part, a reworking of material that Simon had recorded for 1965 UK LP the Paul Simon Songbook. The pressure for a new album thus (temporarily) relieved, the duo got to work on their first album of truly new material since their unsuccessful 1964 effort Wednesday Morning 3AM (which had in fact been re-released and was now doing well on the charts). In October the new album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, hit the stands. The title track was a new arrangement of an old English folk ballad, Scarborough Fair, combined with a reworking of a song from the Paul Simon Songbook, The Side Of A Hill, retitled Canticle. The two melodies and sets of lyrics are set in counterpoint to each other, creating one of the most sophisticated folk song arrangements ever recorded. After being featured in the film The Graduate, Scarborough Fair/Canticle was released as a single in early 1968, going on to become one of the duo's most instantly recognizable songs.

Artist:    4 Seasons
Title:    Searching Wind
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: Born To Wander)
Writer(s):    Crewe/Gaudio
Label:    Philips
Year:    1964
    In 1964 the word "rock" was not considered a musical term. Rock 'n' Roll, which had flourished in the mid 1950s, had given way to what was generally known as "pop" music (short for popular, I assume). Stars like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis had been replaced by "safer" stars like Frankie Avalon and Chubby Checker. The original doo-wop groups, nearly all of which had been black, had been replaced as well by groups like New Jersey's 4 Seasons. Fronted by high tenor Frankie Valli and powered by the songwriting team of Bob Gaudio and producer Bob Crewe, the 4 Seasons were one of the most successful vocal groups of the mid-1960s, with hits like Sherry, Rag Doll and Big Girls Don't Cry being mainstays of top 40 radio. Like most pop stars, they concentrated mainly on singles, but, being as popular as they were, also recorded several albums. Not all of these albums were hit-oriented, however. Folk music was still going strong in 1964, and, in addition to the hard-core folk artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Phil Ochs, there were several "safer" folk-oriented groups like the Lamplighters and the New Christy Minstrels recording albums for a more mainstream audience. Additionally, an occasional pop star would do an album of "folky" material as well; on such album was Born To Wander, by the 4 Seasons. I have to admit that I have never heard Born To Wander, and would never go out of my way to find a copy of it. I did, however, pick up a copy of the 1965 hit Bye Bye Baby in what was known back in the day as a "grab bag": a random set of 45s, usually cut-outs that were no longer on the charts, the identity of which were obscured by the packaging itself; often just a brown paper bag, but sometimes displaying the first and/or last record in the set. The B side of Bye Bye Baby was Searching Wind, a Gaudio/Crewe composition from Born To Wander that grabbed me (sorry about the pun there) far more than Bye Bye Baby ever did. I recently found a pristine copy of that single, so here, in all its monoraul glory, is Searching Wind.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    I'm A Man
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Elias McDaniel
Label:    Epic
Year:    1965
    For many, the Yardbirds version of I'm a Man is the definitive version of the Bo Diddley classic. Oddly enough, the song was released as a single only in the US, where it made it into the top 10 in 1965.

Artist:      Mothers of Invention
Title:     The M.O.I. American Pageant
Source:       LP: Absolutely Free
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:     Verve
Year:     1967
     Following up on their debut double-LP Freak Out, the Mothers came up with one of the first concept albums with Absolutely Free, which consisted of two "rock oratorios", each taking up one side of the album. Included in side two's M.O.I. American Pageant is Brown Shoes Don't Make It, which composer Frank Zappa described as a two-hour musical in condensed form (it runs slightly less than 7 minutes). The Pageant itself starts with Status Back Baby, which leads into Uncle Bernie's Farm, followed by Son Of Suzy Creamcheese before getting into Brown Shoes Don't Make It. As a coda, the piece ends with American Drinks And Goes Home. The entire oratoria runs about 18 and a half minutes total.

Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Breakaway
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    James/Vail
Label:    Roulette
Year:    1969
    From a modern perspective it seems obvious that the only thing keeping Roulette Records going in the late 60s was the string of hits on the label by Tommy James and the Shondells. Oddly enough, Tommy James was one of many acts that initially tanked on the label. It was only when a Pittsburgh DJ began playing a two year old copy of Hanky Panky he had rescued from the throwaway pile in 1966 that the band's career took off. By then, however, the original Shondells had long-since disbanded and James found himself suddenly in demand with no band to back him up. He soon found a new group of Shondells and began cranking out an amazing streak of hits, including I Think We're Alone Now, Mony Mony, Crystal Blue Persuasion and Crimson and Clover. By 1969, however, the streak was coming to an end, with Sweet Cherry Wine being one of the group's last top 40 hits. The B side of that record was the decidedly psychedelic Breakaway. James would continue as a solo artist after the Shondells split up, scoring his last hit in 1971 with Draggin' The Line. Roulette Records pretty much faded away at that point, eventually to become part of EMI (which is now part of Universal, one of the three remaining major record conglomerates).

Artist:    Paul Rever And The Raiders
Title:    Let Me
Source:    CD: The Legend Of Paul Revere
Writer(s):    Mark Lindsay
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    In 1965-66, Paul Revere And The Raiders were at the peak of their popularity, cranking out major hit records and fronting a daily Dick Clark produced TV series called Action. Things started going downhill for the group, however, in 1967. For one thing, their audience was maturing too fast for the band to keep up with. For another, Mark Lindsay had become the focus of the group, and, along with producer Terry Melcher, had begun using studio musicians rather than band members on the Raiders' records. This led to most of the original members being gone by the end of 1967, along with Melcher himself, whose departure was, in retrospect, the final nail in the band's coffin, as he had been crucial to the group's success in the first place. Still, Lindsay and Revere, with new Raiders, carried on, releasing several singles and LPs in 1968 and 1969, none of which had any significant presence on the charts. Typical of this period is the tune Let Me, which was, in all honesty, a sexual tease song for teenyboppers. It went nowhere. Oddly enough, the Raiders would rise from the dead long enough to get their first and only #1 hit with a cover of Don Fardon's cover of J.D. Loudermilk's politically inaccurate Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian) in 1971.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me
Source:    CD: Benefit
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    All three of Jethro Tull's early albums contained one track with the name Jeffrey in the song title. The reference was to Jeffrey Hammond, who was not yet a member of the band, but was closely associated with them. The Benefit track, For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me, is probably the darkest of the three, reflecting the sound of the album itself. Hammond would soon replace Glenn Cornick on bass, while Michael Collins would remain an American astronaut for a few more years.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    St. Stephen/The Eleven
Source:    LP: Live Dead
Writer:    Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    In 1969, after going way over budget on the LP Aoxomoxoa, the Grateful Dead decided to release a double-LP live album, essentially giving Warner Brothers three albums for the price of one. Unlike the studio LP, which attempted to combine live material with studio overdubs, Live Dead was a documentation of two nights' worth of recent performances at the Fillmore West. At the time the band pretty much stuck to the same setlist for each performance and the songs were generally played as one continuous piece in concert. For the album, the best performance of each song was chosen and then arranged in the same order that they had been performed. Side two picks up the first nights' performance of St. Stephen (which had also appeared on Aoxomoxoa) and continues into the second night's version of The Eleven, a performance that rock critic Robert Christian called at the time "the finest rock improvisation ever recorded." Within a couple years St. Stephen would be dropped from the band's setlist and a performance of the piece in the band's later decades was considered by fans to be a special treat.

Artist:     Traffic
Title:     Pearly Queen
Source:     CD: Traffic
Writer:     Winwood/Capaldi
Label:     Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:     1968
     The second Traffic LP was less overtly psychedelic than the Mr. Fantasy album, with songs like Pearly Queen taking the band in a more funky direction. When the band reformed in 1970 without Dave Mason (who had provided the most psychedelic elements) the songwriting team of Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, who had written Pearly Queen, continued the trend.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    I'm A Man
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Winwood/Miller
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1967
    The Spencer Davis Group, featuring brothers Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer. The group itself continued on for several years, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes. As for Steve Winwood, he quickly faded off into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Except as the leader of Traffic. And a member of Blind Faith. And Traffic again. And some critically-acclaimed collaborations in the early 1980s with Asian musicians. Oh yeah, and a few major solo hits like Higher Love and Roll With It in the late 80s. Other than that, nothing.