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This week's show takes you back to 1969 for about half an hour before moving forward, one year at a time, ending up at chapter five of the Firesign Theatre's Tale Of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Oh Well
Source: Mono LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: Then Play On)
Writer(s): Peter Green
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
Fleetwood Mac had already established themselves as one of Britain's top up-and-coming blues bands by the time Then Play On was released in 1969. The band had just landed a deal in the US with Reprise, and Then Play On was their American debut LP. At the same time the album was released in the UK, a new non-LP single, Oh Well, appeared as well. The song was a top pick on Radio Luxembourg, the only non-BBC English language top 40 station still operating in Europe in 1969 (not counting the American Forces Network, which was only a top 40 station for an hour or two a day), and Oh Well soon shot all the way to the # 2 spot on the British charts. Meanwhile the US version of Then Play On (which had originally been issued with pretty much the same song lineup as the British version) was recalled, and a new version with Oh Well added to it was issued in its place. The song itself has two distinct parts: a fast blues-rocker sung by lead guitarist Peter Green lasting about two minutes, and a slow moody instrumental that runs about seven minutes. The original UK single featured about a minute's worth of part two tacked on to the end of the A side (with a fadeout ending), while the B side had the entire part two on it. Both sides of the single were added to the US version of the LP, which resulted in the first minute of part two repeating itself on the album.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Can't Be Too Long
Source: CD: On Time
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
Never has there been a band as univerally hated by the rock press as Grand Funk Railroad (although Uriah Heep in their early years came close). Apparently, someone decided that between Hendrix and Cream, everything good that could possibly be done with a power trio had been done, and there was really no reason for another one to ever exist. Or so it seemed in 1969, when Grand Funk Railroad's first LP, On Time, hit the racks. A funny thing happened, though. The band built a following, despite the critics disdain. In fact, they built a bigger following than any other band had built at that point in time. How big were they? Consider this: In 1970 the first two Grand Funk Railroad albums, which had been released the previous year, achieved gold record status. As did their live album, released in 1970. As did their third studio album, Closer To Home, which was also released in 1970. That's right. Four gold record awards in the same year. That's a pretty big following, especially when you consider just how primitive tracks like Can't Be Too Long, from their first album, really are. But then, that's what rock music is really all about. Primitive, and loud. Really, really loud. Which is how this track should be listened to.
Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Sea Of Joy
Source: LP: Blind Faith
Writer(s): Steve Winwood
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
At the time Blind Faith was formed there is no question that the biggest names in the band were guitarist Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, having just come off a successful three-year run with Cream. Yet the true architect of the Blind Faith sound was actually Steve Winwood, formerly of the Spencer Davis Group and, more recently, Traffic. Not only did Winwood handle most of the lead vocals for the group, he also wrote more songs on the band's only album than any other member. Among the Winwood tunes on that album is Sea Of Joy, which opens side two of the LP.
Artist: Santana
Title: Soul Sacrifice
Source: European import CD:Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Woodstock)
Writer(s): Brown/Malone/Rolie/Santana
Label: Sony Music (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1969
The producers of the original Woodstock movie soundtrack album were less concerned with presenting faithful renditions of the various live performances seen in the movie than they were with making the best sounding album possible. Accordingly, they edited some of the performances and, in some cases, subsitituted other non-Woodstock versions of songs heard in the movie. One of the edits that actually worked pretty well was cross-fading the crowd singing a wordless refrain that has come to be known as the Crowd Rain Chant into Santana's Soul Sacrifice, the instrumental piece that lifted Santana into the upper echelon of rock royalty. What many don't realize is that over three minutes of Santana's actual performance is edited out of the track entirely. I usually play the full eleven and a half minute version of the performance, but, just for a change of pace, here is the track as initially released on the Woodstock soundtrack album, rain chant and all.
Artist: Mountain
Title: Mississippi Queen
Source: CD: Electric 70s (originally released on LP: Mountain Climbing)
Writer(s): West/Laing/Pappalardi/Rea
Label: Warner Special Products/JCI (original label: Windfall)
Year: 1970
One of the most overlooked bands of the mid-1960s was the Vagrants. Based on Long Island, the group made a specialty of covering popular R&B and rock songs, often slowing them down and featuring extended solos by guitarist Leslie Weinstein, inspiring fellow Long Islanders Vanilla Fudge to do the same. Although the Vagrants never were able to gain much national attention, Weinstein himself had established quite a reputation by the time the group disbanded. Meanwhile, keyboardist/producer/songwriter Felix Pappalardi had been working with the members of Cream as a producer, but with the demise of that band was looking for a new project to sink his teeth into. That new project turned out to be a solo album by Weinstein, who by then had shortened his last name to West. The album was called Mountain, and soon after its release West and Pappalardi decided to form a band of the same name. The group first got national attention performing at Woodstock, and in 1970 released the album Mountain Climbing, featuring the hit single Mississippi Queen.
Artist: Crazy Horse
Title: Beggar's Day
Source: LP: Crazy Horse
Writer(s): Nils Lofgren
Label: Reprise
Year: 1971
The band that would come to be known as Crazy Horse actually started their recording career in 1968 as the Rockets. In 1969 they were hired by Neil Young to be his backup band on his second LP, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, changing their name at Young's suggestion. While working with Young on his next album, After The Gold Rush, the band added teen guitar prodigy Nils Lofgren, who appeared with the group on their 1971 LP Crazy Horse. Lofgren wrote some of the songs on the album as well, including Beggar's Day, which was later covered by the Scottish group Nazareth on their Hair Of The Dog LP.
Artist: Curtis Mayfield
Title: Pusherman
Source: CD: Curtis Mayfield And The Impressions-The Anthology 1961-1977 (originally released on LP: Super Fly)
Writer(s): Curtis Mayfield
Label: MCA (original label: Curtom)
Year: 1972
Curtis Mayfield's soundtrack album for the 1972 film Super Fly is considered one of the landmark achievements of 1970s music. For one thing, it is one of the few soundtrack albums to end up making more money than the film itself. More importantly, Super Fly, along with Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, was one of the first R&B concept albums, with its harsh condemnation of the inner city drug dealing trade paired with a call for self-liberation, and is considered one of the pioneering works of the funk revolution. Pusherman, with its emphasis on heavy bass and African rhythms, is one the album's standout tracks.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Sabbra Cadabra
Source: LP: Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1973
The last great Black Sabbath album (according to vocalist Ozzy Osbourne), was Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, released in December of 1973, when the band was at its peak as a functional unit before creative and personality issues began interfering with the quality of the music itself. The band, following an exhausting tour promoting their previous album that got cut short following a performance at the Hollywood Bowl that ended with guitarist Tony Iommi walking off stage and collapsing, began trying to come up with new material during the summer of '73, but soon decided to take a break and return to England, where they ended up renting Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The band found the atmosphere there inspiring, if somewhat sinister (they used a dungeon as rehearsal space) and soon were in the process of creating the music that became Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. At this time the band members' fondness for playing practical jokes on each other, combined with rumors of the castle being haunted, began to get out of hand, leading to the band leaving the place before their alloted time there had expired. The band soon got to work recording their new material at Morgan Studios in London, where Yes was working on an album called Tales From Topographic Oceans in the next studio. Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman ended up sitting in on the instrumental Sabbra Cadabra, which finishes out side one of the original LP.
Artist: Firesign Theatre
Title: Part Two: Chicago; Chapter 5-Pickles Down The Rat Hole
Source: LP: The Tale Of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra
Writer(s): Procter/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1974
So where were we? Oh yes, Chicago. Chapter five of The Tale Of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra takes place at the Mobius Dick, a speakeasy frequented by known criminals. Hemlock Stones, accompanied by Dr. Flotsam, Violet Dudley and Frank Acme, Jr. are on the trail of the missing Jonas Acme, who has been kidnapped by the mysterious Electrician. Next week, the mystery is solved...or is it? This is, after all, an album by the Firesign Theatre, who previously had the great reveal of Nick Danger's greatest adventure interrupted by Roosevelt's surrender to the Japanese following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
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