Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2015 (starts 4/6/20)

    This week we feature the entire first side of the first Steve Miller Band album, Children Of The Future, in our final half hour. On the way there we have a Simon and Garfunkel set, a couple of tunes that feature Neil Young's lead guitar work, and an Advanced Psych segment made up of tunes never played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Twentieth Century Fox
Source:    Mono LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    There's no getting around it: there are no bad songs on the first two Doors albums. Pick one at random, say Twentieth Century Fox. Great song. They all are.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    I'll Give You A Stone If You Throw It (Changing Tymes)
Source:    LP: Janis Ian
Writer:    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Now Sounds, reissued nationally on Verve Forecast)
Year:    1967
    Janis Ian got her first poem published in a national magazine at age 12. Not content with mere literary pursuits, the talented Ms. Ian turned to music. After being turned down by several major labels, Ian finally got a contract with the tiny New Sounds label and scored her first major hit with Society's Child, a song about interracial dating that was banned on several stations in the southern US. This led to her self-titled debut album at age 15, and a contract with M-G-M subsidiary Verve Forecast. I'll Give You A Stone If You Throw It (Changing Tymes) is taken from that first LP.

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Mike Settle
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    The First Edition was formed by Mike Settle and Kenny Rogers, both members of the New Christy Minstrels, a group that made more appearances on TV variety shows than on the record charts (imagine a professional version of a high school madrigal choir). The two wanted to get into something a little more hip than watered-down choral versions of Simon and Garfunkel songs and the like, and recorded an album that included folk-rock, country-rock and even the full-blown psychedelia of Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), which ended up being their first single. For the B side of that single one of Settle's songs, Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind, was selected. The song, a decent piece of folk-rock with reasonably intelligent lyrics, might have been hit record material itself if it weren't for the fact that by 1968 folk-rock had pretty much run its course.

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:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Richard Cory
Source:    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 a pillar of society, known and envied by many. Too bad most high school English classes weren't that interesting.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    The Dangling Conversation
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The first Simon and Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM, originally tanked on the charts, causing Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to temporarily pursue solo careers. Simon went to England, where he wrote and recorded an album's worth of material. Meanwhile, producer Tom Wilson, fresh from producing Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, went into the studio with the original recording of the song Sound of Silence and added electric instruments to it. The result was a surprise hit that led Paul Simon to return to the US, reuniting with Art Garfunkel and re-recording several of the tunes he had recorded as a solo artist for a new album, Sounds of Silence. The success of that album prompted Columbia to re-release Wednesday Morning, 3AM, which in turn became a bestseller. Meanwhile, Simon and Garfunkel returned to the studio to record an album of all new material. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme was yet another success that spawned several hit songs, including The Dangling Conversation, a song Simon described as similar to The Sound Of Silence, but more personal. The song was originally released as a single in fall of 1966, before the album itself came out.

Artist:    Association
Title:    Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Renaissance)
Writer(s):    Gary Alexander
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Valiant)
Year:    1966
    Following up on their monster hit Cherish, the Association released their most overtly psychedelic track, Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies, in late 1966, in advance of their second LP, Renaissance. The group had wanted to be more involved in the production process, and provided their own instrumental tracks for the tune, written by band member Gary Alexander. Unfortunately for the band, the single barely made the top 40, peaking at # 35, which ultimately led to the band relying more on outside songwriters and studio musicians for their later recordings such as Never My Love and Windy.

Artist:     Seeds
Title:     A Faded Picture
Source:     LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer:     Saxon/Hooper
Label:     GNP Crescendo
Year:     1966
     The Seeds second LP showed a much greater range than the first. A Faded Picture, perhaps the nearest thing to a ballad the Seeds ever recorded, has a slower tempo than most of the other songs in the Seeds repertoire and, at over five minutes in length, a longer running time as well.

Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source:     Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:     1966
     One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
   
Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Last Train To Clarksville
Source:    Mono LP: Then And Now-The Best Of The Monkees (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Arista (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1966
    The song that introduced the world to the Monkees, Last Train To Clarksville, was actually a bit of an anomaly for the group. For one thing, most of the early Monkees recordings utilized the services of various Los Angeles based studio musicians known collectively as the Wrecking Crew. Last Train To Clarksville, however, was recorded by the Candy Store Prophets, a local band that included Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote and produced the song (Boyce and Hart originally had hopes of being members of the Monkees themselves, but had to wait until the 1980s to see that happen). The song was released as a single on August 16, 1966,  two months in advance of the first Monkees album, and hit the #1 spot on the charts in early November. Last Train To Clarksville was also included in seven episodes of the Monkees TV show, the most of any song.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Lady Friend
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    One of the least-known Byrds recordings is David Crosby's Lady Friend. The song was released as a non-album single in 1967, after Younger Than Yesterday was on the racks but before Crosby's falling out with the other members of the band during the recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers. The single did not chart, and with Crosby no longer a member of the Byrds by 1968, it is not surprising that Lady Friend was not included on any subsequent Byrds albums or greatest hits anthologies. The song is now available as a bonus track on the remastered version of Younger Than Yesterday.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Glass Onion
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    John Lennon decided to have a little fun with Beatles fans when he wrote the lyrics to Glass Onion, the third song on the 1968 album The Beatles (aka the White Album). The song contains references to many earlier Beatles tunes, such as Strawberry Fields Forever, The Fool On The Hill and Lady Madonna. Glass Onion even contains a tongue-in-cheek reference to the whole "Paul is dead" rumor with the lines "Here's another clue for you all, the walrus was Paul". The track is notable for being the first song on the album to feature the entire band, as Paul played drums on Back In The USSR and Dear Prudence, which precede Glass Onion on the album's first side.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    It Must Be Love
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Although it did not contain anything like the monster hit In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, the third Iron Butterfly LP, Ball, was probably a better album overall. The first single released from the album was In The Time Of Our Lives, backed with It Must Be Love, a tune that features some nice guitar work from Eric Brann, who would soon be leaving the band for an unsuccessful solo career. Thanks to something called CSG mastering, that guitar work tends to overpower everything else in this mono mix.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    Almost Cut My Hair
Source:    LP: déjà vu
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Almost Cut My Hair could have been the longest track on the Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young album déjà vu. As originally recorded it ran about 10 minutes in length. However, it was decided to fade the cut out starting at around the four-minute mark, leaving Neil Young's Country Girl (which was actually a suite of song fragments) as the longest track on the LP. Nonetheless, even at its shorter-than-recorded released length, David Crosby's counter-cultural anthem stands out as one of the band's most memorable recordings, and is arguably the single track that best incorporates Neil Young's unique lead guitar style into a group that is known mostly for its vocal harmonies.

And speaking of Neil Young...

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Cowgirl In The Sand
Source:    CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer:    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    It has been said that adverse conditions are conducive to good art. Certainly that truism applies to Neil Young's Cowgirl In The Sand, written while Young was running a 102 degree fever. Almost makes you want to get sick yourself, doesn't it?

Artist:     Five Americans
Title:     I See The Light
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Durill/Ezell/Rabon
Label:     Rhino (original label: Abnak)
Year:     1965
     For years I was under the impression that the Five Americans were a Texas band, mainly due to Abnak Records having a Texas address. It turns out, though, that the band was actually from Durant, Oklahoma, although by the time they had their biggest hit, Western Union, they were playing most of their gigs in the Dallas area. I See The Light is an earlier single built around a repeating Farfisa organ riff that leads into a song that can only be described as in your face.
   
Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Frozen Winter
Source:    CD: WaS
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    2014
    By the second decade of the 21st century, the Electric Prunes had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that as long as you maintain the right attitude you are never too old to rock out. Sadly, 2011 brought the demise on bassist Mark Tulin, who was one-half of the key songwriting team that kept coming up with new psychedelic classics for the group's later albums. In 2014 the remaining members of the band, led by James Lowe, released one final album of tunes from the Lowe/Tulin fountain of creativity. The album is full of tunes like Frozen Winter, which, as far as I'm concerned, more than holds its own against anything else released that year.
   
Artist:    Splinter Fish
Title:    True Stories
Source:    LP: Splinter Fish
Writer(s):    Chuck Hawley
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    I make no secret of the fact that I am a huge fan of Albuquerque's late-1980s alternative rock band Splinter Fish, and of the songwriting skills of Chuck Hawley, who provided most of the band's material. Although songs like True Stories don't come off immediately as psychedelic, a closer listen reveals a connection to the original San Francisco music scene of the late 1960s, particularly in Deb-O's vocals.
   
Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    Scream Loud
Source:    CD: Fuzzy Organs
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    2018
    Rochester NY's Darren Brennessel has been keeping the garage rock (psych-punk?) spirit alive for decades, as can be heard on Scream Loud, from the 2018 McFadden's Parachute album Fuzzy Organs. Listening to the track for the first time you'd swear the lyrics were written by an angry teenager.

Artist:    Joint Effort
Title:    The Third Eye
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Callins/Mathis/Ullareal
Label:    Rhino (original label: The Joint Effort)
Year:    1967
    The Joint Effort somehow managed to release three or four singles to the Los Angeles market, no two of which were on the same record label. In fact, The Third Eye, from 1967, was actually released on a label called The Joint Effort. All of the band's singles, from what I can tell, were recorded at the same place with the same producer, making the whole thing seem somewhat suspicious.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Skip Softly (My Moonbeams)
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1968
    Procol Harum is not generally thought of as a novelty act. The closest they ever came was this track from the Shine On Brightly album that steals shamelessly from a classical piece I really should know the name of but don't. Even then, Skip Softly (My Moonbeams) ends up being as much a showcase for a then-young Robin Trower's guitar work as anything else.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Fortunate Son
Source:    LP: More Creedence Gold (originally released on LP: Willy And The Poor Boys)
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1969
    John Fogerty says it only took him 20 minutes to write what has become one of the iconic antiwar songs of the late 1960s. But Fortunate Son is not so much a condemnation of war as it is an indictment of the political elite who send the less fortunate off to die in wars without any risk to themselves. In addition to being a major hit single upon its release in late 1969 (peaking at #3 as half of a double-A sided single), Fortunate Son has made several "best of" lists over the years, including Rolling Stone magazine's all-time top 100. Additionally, in 2014 the song was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
   
Artist:    Bubble Puppy
Title:    Hurry Sundown (remix)
Source:    Mono CD: A Gathering Of Promises
Writer(s):    Prince/Cox
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1969
    The Bubble Puppy came into existence in 1967, when two former members of the legendary Corpus Christie,Texas garage band the Bad Seeds, guitarist Rod Prince and keyboardist/bassist Roy Cox, relocated to San Antonio, recruiting guitarist Todd Potter and drummer Craig Root to form the new band. Success came quickly in the form of the band's very first gig, opening for the Who at the San Antonio Colosseum. After David Fore replaced Root in the band, the group relocated to Austin, where they got a steady gig at the Vulcan Gas Company. By 1968 the Bubble Puppy was traveling all over Texas for gigs, and late in the year got a contract with Houston-based International Artists, a label that had already gained notoriety by signing the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. After releasing a surprise top 40 hit, Hot Smoke And Sassafras in December of 1968, the band got to work on a full album, A Gathering Of Promises. International Artists failed to get the album, which was full of fine tunes like Hurry Sundown, out quickly enough to capitilize of the popularity of Hot Smoke And Sassafras, and further hurt the band's chance of success by refusing to grant licensing rights on the single to Apple Records for European release. By 1970 the band and the label had parted company, with the Bubble Puppy relocating to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian.

Artist:    Move
Title:    Message From The Country
Source:    LP: Message From The Country
Writer(s):    Jeff Lynne
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1971
    The Move was one of those bands that was extremely popular in its native UK without having any success whatsoever in the US. Although primarily a singles band, they did manage to release four albums over a period of years, the last of which was Message From The Country. Even as the album was being recorded, several members, including Jeff Lynne, were already working on the first album by the Move's successor, the Electric Light Orchestra. A conscious effort was made, however, to keep the two projects separate, with the Move album getting the more psychedelic material (such as the title track), while ELO took a more progressive rock approach. 

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Children Of The Future (suite)
Source:    Czech Republic import LP: Children Of The Future
Writer(s):    Miller/Peterman
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    The Steve Miller Band was on tour in England when they recorded their debut LP, Children Of The Future, at London's Olympic Studios. The first side of the album, which plays as a single continuous track, was described by Rolling Stone magazine as being "constructed like Sgt. Pepper". Personally, I don't see much of a resemblance. In fact, if I had to compare it to another album of the time I would go with Pink Floyd's second LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets. Of course, since neither of those albums hit the US album charts, it is probable that making such a comparison at the time would have left everyone scratching their heads wondering what they were talking about. The album side itself is a suite, opening and closing with the main Children Of The Future theme (although the final section is actually titled The Beauty of Time Is That It's Snowing [Psychedelic B.B.]). In between are two short song fragments, Pushed Me To It and You've Got The Power, that total about a minute and a half in length between them. Like the opening and closing sections of the suite, these were written by Miller himself. The longest (and most Pink Floyd sounding) section of the suite is the seven and a half minute long instrumental In My First Mind, co-written by Miller and keyboardist Jim Peterman. The entire album was the first to be produced entirely by Glyn Johns, who would go on to become one of the most successful producers in rock history.
   
Artist:    Tyrannosaurus Rex
Title:    Evenings Of Damask
Source:    CD: Unicorn
Writer(s):    Marc Bolan
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    Yes, that is indeed Marc Bolan doing the vocals on this 1969 recording. You didn't think the band was always called T. Rex, did you? Of course it was a shortening of their original name, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and if you had to spell that name out as many times as Marc Bolan probably did, you'd shorten it too. Back in 1969 Tyrannosaurus Rex consisted of just two guys, Bolan (who wrote and sang all the songs as well as playing the guitar, organ and other stuff, and Steve Peregrin Took (not his birth name), who obviously took (ouch) the band's fantasy motif even further than Bolan himself, and played all manner of percussive instruments, as well as bass guitar. Took apparently wrote songs too, but Bolan refused to record any of them, which led to Took's departure from Tyrannosaurus Rex shortly after Unicorn, their third album together, was released. Although it would be easy to dismiss Took's contributions to the group's overall sound, it is hard to ignore the difference in styles between tracks like Evenings Of Damask, with it's extensive percussion work, and Get It On (Band A Gong), which would be released only two years later than the Unicorn album.