Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2032 (starts 8/17/20)

    This week it's back to pure free-form rock, mixing well-known artists like the Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin with lesser-known (but not less talented) bands like Spirit, Moby Grape and Savoy Brown for a total of 13 tracks from 13 bands.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Strange Days
Source:    CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: Strange Days)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    One of the first rock albums to not picture the band members on the front cover was the Doors' second LP, Strange Days. Instead, the cover featured several circus performers doing various tricks on a city street, with the band's logo appearing on a poster on the wall of a building. The album itself contains some of the band's most memorable recordings, including the title tune, which tends to show up on just about every "best of" collection of Doors tracks ever released, despite having never been issued as a single.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    All Along The Watchtower
Source:    LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them are considered improvements over Dylan's original versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Street Corner Talking
Source:    LP: Street Corner Talking
Writer(s):    Kim Simmonds
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1971
    Following the release of the sixth Savoy Brown LP, Looking In, bandleader and lead guitarist Kim Simmonds dismissed the rest of the band over differences of opinion concerning the future direction the band would take musically. Simmonds himself wanted to maintain a strong connection to the band's blues roots, while the other members wanted to go in more of a hard rock direction (which they did by forming Foghat). Meanwhile, Simmonds recruited three former members of Chicken Shack, Paul Raymond on keyboards and occasional second guitar, Andy Silvester on bass and Dave Bidwell on drums, along with vocalist David Walker, to be the new Savoy Brown. Their first LP together was Street Corner Talking, an album that continued to build up their American following. The title track of the album is built around one of the most recognizable riffs in rock history.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Never
Source:    LP: Grape Jam
Writer(s):    Bob Mosley
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    For their second album, Moby Grape decided to do something different. In addition to the LP Wow, there was a second disc called Grape Jam included for a minimal extra charge. For the most part Grape Jam is exactly what you'd expect: a collection of after-hours jam sessions with guest guitarist/keyboardist Michael Bloomfield. The opening track of Grape Jam, however, is actually a composition by Bob Mosley. The song features Mosley on bass and vocals, Jerry Miller and Skip Spence and guitars and Don Stevenson on drums, all of whom were actual members of Moby Grape.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Moby Dick/Bring It On Home
Source:    German import LP: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s):    Page/ Bonham/Jones/Dixon
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    By 1969 drum solos had become pretty much mandatory for rock bands, and Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick, from their second LP, is one of the better ones. Many years later the song got a radical remix that all but obliterated John Bonham's actual solo with special effects. As interesting as that may sound, I still prefer the original, which leads directly into the third and final of the band's Willie Dixon cover songs from 1969, Bring It On Home. Unlike You Shook Me and I Can't Quit You Baby, which were both credited to Dixon on the first Zep LP, Bring It On Home was originally credited to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant rather than Dixon, despite the fact that the song's beginning and end were a close copy of Sonny Boy Williamson's original 1963 recording of the song. Newer pressings of the album credit the entire song to Willie Dixon, despite the fact that the main body of the song itself (except for the lyrics) is unquestioningly a Page composition.

Artist:    Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Title:    Where Am I Going
Source:    LP: Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Writer(s):    Mike Hugg
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    In 1999, after several years of making hit records as part of the British Invasion, South African organist Manfred Mann and pianist Mike Hugg decided to disband their popular group and form a new, more jazz-oriented combo. Taking their cue from Miles Davis and John Coltrane, the band took a "time, no changes" approach to the project, which included, in addition to Mann and Hugg, several distinguished jazz soloists as well as a five piece horn section. Whereas Mann's compositions for the band were somewhat spacey, Hugg's contributions, such as Where Am I Going, are shorter and more melodic, centered on Hugg's electric piano. The group disbanded after a second LP, and Mann went on to form his more successful Manfred Mann's Earth Band in the 1970s.

Artist:    War
Title:    Why Can't We Be Friends
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    War/Goldstein
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1975
    One of the most popular songs of 1975, War's Why Can't We Be Friends, from the album of the same title, repeats the title line over forty times in under less than four minutes. The song even made it into outer space that summer, when NASA beamed it up to the world's first international space mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in July.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Preservation
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1974
    The Kinks' Preservation was a song that served as a summation of the band's 1974 concept album, Preservation-Act 1. Oddly enough, the song itself was not included on either that album or its followup, Preservation-Act 2, instead being released as a non-album single in 1974. There were two versions of the song, the longer of which is heard here. My copy is a bit on the scratchy side, but given the fact that the single failed to chart, I consider myself lucky to have a copy of it at all.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Fresh Garbage
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Spirit)
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Ode)
Year:    1968
    Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a rather bouncy rock tune and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Rock & Roll Stew
Source:    CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys)
Writer(s):    Grech/Gordon
Label:    Island
Year:    1971
    Bassist Ric Grech (Family, Blind Faith) and drummer Jim Gordon (Derek and the Dominos) were only members of Traffic for one album, 1971's The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, but their main contribution was a memorable one. Whereas most Traffic songs at this point in time were written by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi and sung by Winwood, Rock & Roll Stew, which opens side two of the original LP, is a Grech/Gordon compostion that is sung by Capaldi rather than Winwood. Rock & Roll Stew was also the only single released from the album, and has been included on multiple greatest hits compilations such as Smiling Phases.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Love Like A Man
Source:    CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1970
    Cricklewood Green was Ten Years After's fourth studio effort and fifth album overall. Released in 1970, the album is considered by critics to be the apex of Ten Years After's studio work. The best known track from the album is Love Like A Man, which became the group's only single to chart in the UK (in an edited version), peaking at the #10 spot. The band was still considered an "underground" act in the US, despite a successful appearance at Woodstock the year before. However, Love Like A Man was a favorite among disc jockeys on FM rock radio stations, who almost universally preferred the longer album version of the song heard here.

Artist:    Alice Cooper
Title:    Under My Wheels
Source:    LP: Killer
Writer(s):    Bruce/Dunaway/Ezrin
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Under My Wheels was the first single released from Alice Cooper's Killer album, generally considered to be the high point of the band's creativity. Producer Bob Ezrin shares a rare writing credit for the song.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Emmaretta
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Purple Passages (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lord/Blackmore/Evans
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1969
    The original Deep Purple lineup, which included vocalist Rod Evans, recorded three albums that were released in the US on the Tetragrammaton label. Unfortunately, the label went out of business within days of the last of these three, an album entitled simply Deep Purple. After the band hit the big time in the early 70s with a new vocalist their new label, Warner Brothers, decided to issue a compilation of their earlier material with Evans. Included on the double LP Purple Passages was Emmaretta, a non-album single that shows a heavy Jimi Hendrix influence.