Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2033 (starts 8/10/20)

<script id='prx-p334458-embed' src='https://exchange.prx.org/p/334458/embed.js?size=full'></script>
 
    This week it's another one of those "a bit of this, a bit of that" kinds of show. We have an Advanced Psych segment, an artists' set (Jefferson Airplane), set from specific years, and sets that progress through the years one at a time. Read on...

Artist:     Bob Dylan
Title:     Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     Bob Dylan
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     "Everybody must get stoned." 'Nuff said.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Here Right Now
Source:    LP: Gimme Some Lovin' (originally released in UK on LP: Their First LP)
Writer(s):    Steve Winwood    
Label:    United Artists (original UK label: Fontana)
Year:    1965
    The Spencer Davis Group was formed in 1963 by Welsh guitarist Spencer Davis, who recruited the Winwood brothers, Muff (on bass) and Steve (on organ and lead vocals), along with drummer Pete York for his new band. Originally known as the Rhythm And Blues Quartette, the band changed its name in 1964 when they signed with Chris Blackwell's Island Records. Muff Winwood came up with the band's new name, saying "Spencer was the only one who enjoyed doing interviews, so I pointed out that if we called it the Spencer Davis Group, the rest of us could stay in bed and let him do them." The group released their first LP, entitled Their First LP, in 1965. One of the standout tracks on that album was a Steve Winwood tune called Here Right Now that was later chosen for inclusion of their first American LP, Gimme Some Lovin', in 1967.
        
Artist:    Count Five
Title:    The Morning After
Source:    Mono LP: Psychotic Reaction
Writer(s):    John Byrne
Label:    Bicycle/Concord (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    Following the success of the single Psychotic Reaction, San Jose, Calfornia's Count Five headed for Los Angeles to record an entire album's worth of material. With the exception of two Who covers, all the songs on the album (also called Psychotic Reaction) were written or co-written by John Byrne, the Irish-born rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist for the band. They were also quite short. The Morning After, for instance, runs less than two minutes total.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    How Suite It Is
Source:    CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Kantner/Casady/Dryden/Kaukonen
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    The second side of After Bathing At Baxters starts off fairly conventionally (for the Airplane), with Paul Kantner's Watch Her Ride, the first third or so of something called How Suite It Is. This leads (without a break in the audio) into Spare Chaynge, one of the coolest studio jams ever recorded, featuring intricate interplay between Jack Casady's bass and Jorma Kaukonen's guitar, with Spencer Dryden using his drum kit as enhancement rather than as a beat-setter. In particular, Casady's virtuoso performance helped redefine what could be done with an electric bass.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Lather
Source:     LP: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Crown Of Creation)
Writer:     Grace Slick
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1968
     One of Grace Slick's most memorable tunes was Lather, with its eerie instrumental bridge played on a tissue-paper covered comb (at least that's what I think it was). The song, which opens the fourth Jefferson Airplane album, Crown Of Creation, was reportedly about drummer Spencer Dryden, the band's oldest member, who had just turned 30. A popular phrase of the time was "don't trust anyone over 30", making it a particularly bad time to have that particular birthday.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Two Heads
Source:     CD: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer:     Grace Slick
Label:     RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:     1967
     The third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, saw the group moving in increasingly experimental directions, as Grace Slick's two contributions to the LP attest. The more accessible of the two was Two Heads, which was the first part of Schizoforest Love Suite, the fifth and final "suite" on the album.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Time Is On My Side
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Here They Come!
Writer(s):    Norman/Meade
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The first album Paul Revere and The Raiders released after signing with Columbia was Here They Come! The LP, released in 1965, was made up almost entirely of cover songs such as Time Is On My Side, originally recorded by Irma Thomas and made famous by the Rolling Stones.
    
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    It's Not Easy
Source:    British import LP: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:    1966
    The Rolling Stones' Aftermath, along with the Beatles' Rubber Soul, began a revolution in rock music that was felt for several decades. Prior to those two releases, albums were basically a mix of original and cover songs meant to provide a little supplemental income for popular artists who had hit singles. Aftermath, however, was full of songs that could stand on their own. Even songs like It's Not Easy, which could have been hit singles for lesser artists, were completely overlooked in favor of tracks like Under My Thumb, which is arguably the first true rock classic not to be released as a single. Within the short span of two years, rock would find itself in a place where an artist could be considered a success without having a hit single, something that was completely unheard of when Aftermath was released.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Unhappy Girl
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    After the success of their first album and the single Light My Fire in early 1967, the Doors quickly returned to the studio, releasing a second LP, Strange Days, later the same year. The first single released from the new album was People Are Strange. The B side of that single was Unhappy Girl, from the same album. Both sides got played a lot on the jukebox at a neighborhood gasthaus known as the Woog in the village of Meisenbach near Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where I spent a good number of my evening hours.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    As The World Rises And Falls
Source:    CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Morgan
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's third album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is generally considered their best, and for good reason. The album includes some of guitarist Ron Morgan's finest contributions, including the gently flowing As The World Rises And Falls. Even Bob Markley's lyrics, which could run the range from inane to somewhat disturbing, here come across as poetic and original. Unfortunately for the band, Morgan was by this time quite disenchanted with the whole thing, and would often not even show up to record. Nonetheless, the band continued on for a couple more years (and two more albums) before finally calling it quits in 1970.

Artist:    Andromeda
Title:    I Can Stop The Sun
Source:    British import CD: Definitive Collection (originally released in UK on LP: Andromeda)
Writer(s):    John Du Cann
Label:    Angel Air (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1969
    One of the most sought after albums of the late 1960s, Andromeda was the brainchild of guitarist John Du Cann, who, along with bassist Mick Hawksworth and drummer Ian McLane, recorded the LP in 1969. Most of the tracks are hard rock, with an acoustic piece called I Can Stop The Sun tossed in as a change of pace. A lack of support from the band's label led to Du Cann accepting an offer to join Atomic Rooster the following year.
    
Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:    Everybody I Love You
Source:    LP: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Stills/Young
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    The last track on the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album déjà vu is a Stephen Stills/Neil Young collaboration that sets the stage for the Stills/Young band a couple of years later. Stylistically it's pretty easy to figure out which part of Everybody I Love You was written by Stephen Stills and which part was written by Neil Young. What's interesting is how well the two parts actually fit together. As far as I know this is actually the first songwriting collaboration between the two, despite being bandmates in Buffalo Springfield since 1966 (and knowing each other even longer).

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Rock And Roll Woman
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth) while they were together. Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Neil Young, Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Stephen Stills. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock And Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 50 years after it was recorded.

Artist:    Glass Family
Title:    Nightwrap For Dee
Source:    Mono LP: Electric Band (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Glass Family
Label:    Maplewood
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2015
    In early 60s West Los Angeles, a young man named Jim Callon and his friends David Capilouto and Gary Green decided to form a band to play surf music at parties and maybe make a little money in the process. They couldn't come up with a permanent band name, and would end up using whatever name suited them at the time. Several years later, while attending grad school at Cal State L.A., they finally decided on the Glass Family, and established a local reputation as the "perpetual opening band" for groups like the Doors, Vanilla Fudge, and the Grateful Dead. They signed a contract with Warner Brothers in 1967 to record an album with producer Richard Podolor, who had previously worked with bands like Steppenwolf and the Chocolate Watchband, among others. They presented the album to the shirts at Warner Brothers, who promptly rejected it and told them to go back into the studio and come up with something more commercially viable. The result was an album called Electric Band that was released in early 1969. In 2015, a new lable called Maplewood Records decided to reissue Electric Band as a double LP that included both the previously released LP and the rejected original album. I personally prefer the original 1967 tracks like Nightwrap For Dee, which is a classic example of instrumental psychedelia.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Medac/Relax
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    Entwistle/Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    The Who's most psychedelic album was The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. In addition to a wealth of outstanding songs, the album contained several short faux commercials such as the song Medac, written by bassist John Entwistle, which runs 57 seconds. The piece tells the story of a boy whose acne is out of control until he tries a new product, Medac, which makes his face as smooth as "a baby's bottom". The tune is immediately followed by one of the Who's most underrated tracks, Pete Townshend's Relax, which (unlike the rest of the album) was recorded in New York.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    The Witch
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Gerald Roslie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1964
    The #1 selling single in the history of the Pacific Northwest was this tune by one of the founding bands of the Seattle music scene. The Sonics were as raw as any punk rock band of the seventies, as The Witch proves beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Artist:    Ace Of Cups
Title:    We Can't Go Back Again
Source:    CD: Ace Of Cups
Writer(s):    Kaufman/Shae
Label:    High Moon
Year:    2018
    According to Ace Of Cups founder Mary Gannon, Denise Kaufman wrote We Can't Go Back Again on keyboards rather than her usual guitar and first presented it to the group at their rehearsal space in Sausalito. Producer Dan Shae helped update the song for inclusion of the 2018 Ace Of Cups album. The lyrics are at once a caution about squandering what little time we have on this planet and an invitation to reach out to others while we still can.
    
Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Analog Life
Source:    British import LP: Artifact
Writer(s):    Harris/Smith
Label:    Heartbeat
Year:    2001
    The Electric Prunes, like many other bands, recorded, in addition to their own compositions, material from professional songwriters such as Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz. Unlike many groups, however, the Prunes shied away from recording covers of popular tunes, instead going with songs they could rearrange to their own liking. Such was the case with their first single, Ain't It Hard, which had been released as a B side in 1965 by the Gypsy Trips, as well as their biggest hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), written by the aforementioned Tucker/Mantz team. Some of the songs they recorded, such as Toonerville Trolley and Dr. Do-Good, were a total departure from the band's usual style. The group continued this trend with Analog Life, from their 2001 comeback album, Artifact. The song is credited to Harris and Smith (no first names given), but I have been unable to find any other references to the song other than the Prunes' recording.

Artist:    Tol-Puddle Martyrs
Title:    Call Up The Queen
Source:    CD: Flying In The Dark
Writer(s):    Peter Rechter
Label:    Secret Deals
Year:    2011
    The original Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of farmers in the English village of Tolpuddle who had the temerity to try organizing what amounts to a union in the 19th century. For their efforts they found themselves deported to the penal colony now known as Australia. But that doesn't really concern us. What I wanted to talk about was the original Tol-Puddle Martyrs (note the hyphen), the legendary Australian band that evolved from a group called Peter And The Silhouettes. Well, not exactly. What I really wanted to talk about is the current incarnation of the Tol-Puddle Martyrs. Still led by Peter Rechter, the Martyrs have released a series of CDs since 2007 (including a collection of recordings made by the 60s incarnation of the band). Among those CDs is the 2011 album Flying In The Dark, which contains several excellent tunes such as Call Up The Queen, which opens the album itself.
        
Artist:    Lothar And The Hand People
Title:    Ha (Ho)
Source:    CD: Presenting…Lothar And The Hand People
Writer(s):    Conly/Emelin/Ford/Flye/King
Label:    Microwerks (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Lothar and the Hand People was a band formed in Denver, Colorado in 1965 that relocated, not to California as would be expected, but to the wilds of Manhattan, where they quickly became favorites of the avant-garde crowd. One of the reasons was Lothar itself. Yes, I did say "it" self. You see, Lothar was a theremin, one of those weird sounding things heard in vintage science fiction movies and on the Beach Boys hit Good Vibrations. It resembled nothing more than a box with a pair of antennae sticking out of the top. Lothar made just one sound, a tone created by an oscillator. That tone was varied by someone waving their hands around in the general vicinity of the antennae, thus the "hand people". Unfortunately for the band, the very thing that made them popular in New York was the one thing that could not be translated into an audio medium, and neither of the groups two albums sold particularly well. One of their more commercial tunes was Ha (Ho), from their debut LP. Try to imagine someone flailing their arms wildly above a box as you listen to it.
    
Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Don't Pass Me By
Source:    Mono LP: Rarities (mono version originally released in UK on LP: The Beatles)
Writer(s):    Richard Starkey
Label:    Capitol/EMI (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 most of the major American record labels had phased out monoraul LPs in favor of "stereo, also playable on today's monoraul phonographs" releases. This was not the case, however, in the UK, where stereo equipment was still considered a luxury beyond the means of a significant portion of the record buying public. Certain British artists, notably the Beatles, still made separate mono mixes for their records. Sometimes those mixes were significantly different than their stereo counterparts. Don't Pass Me By, the only Beatles song credited solely to Ringo Starr, has an entirely different violin solo on the fadeout ending of the two versions. Most US listeners were unaware of even the existence of the mono version until 1981, when Capitol released it on an album called Rarities.

Artist:     Sly and the Family Stone
Title:     Everyday People
Source:     CD: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single, hit #1 on both Top 40 and R&B charts)
Writer:     Sylvester Stewart
Label:     Epic
Year:     1968
     Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone, is of course known for his band, the Family Stone, that is recognized as one of the first "funk" bands. But Sly Stone was far more influential on the San Francisco music scene than most people realize. As a staff producer for Autumn Records, he worked with a variety of up and coming artists, including the Beau Brummels, Bobby Freeman and a group called Great Society that featured a fashion model turned vocalist named Grace Slick. He was also a popular disc jockey on KSOL (which he identified as "K-Soul"), where he acted as sort of a reverse Allan Freed, bringing the music of white bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones to a black audience. He also played keyboards behind a variety of touring artists (a common practice of the time being to hire local musicians to back up pop stars rather than have them bring their own band on the road), including Dionne Warwick, Marvin Gaye, the Righteous Brothers, Freddy Cannon and a host of others. In 1966 Stewart formed his own band, the Stoners, which evolved into Sly And The Family Stone the following year. The band's first three albums were moderate successes at best, but they sold well enough for the band to continue to develop its sound. In November of 1968, Sly And The Family Stone had their commercial breakthrough with the release of Everyday People, a song that topped both the mainstream and R&B charts in early 1969, going on to become the fifth most popular song of the entire year. The song's repeated line "Different strokes for different folks" became a catchphrase of the younger generation and eventually inspired a popular TV show. For that matter, so did the line "And so on, and so on and scooby dooby doo".

Artist:    Gun
Title:    Rupert's Travels
Source:    German import CD: Gun
Writer(s):    Adrian Curtis (Gurvitz)
Label:    Repertoire
Year:    1968
    The Gun made a huge splash in Germany and the UK with their debut single Race With The Devil in 1968. They followed it up with a self-titled LP that same year. The shortest track on that LP was an instrumental track called Rupert's Travels that has been compared to the Mason Williams hit Classical Gas.
    
Artist:    Zombies
Title:    Tell Her No
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Rod Argent
Label:    London (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1965
    Rod Argent was responsible for writing four well-known hit songs, which were spread out over a period of eight years (and two bands). The second of these was the Zombies' Tell Her No, released in 1965. The song got mixed reviews from critics, all of which measured the tune against Beatles songs of the same period.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    You Can't Be Trusted
Source:    LP: The Seeds
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    Sky Saxon is at his snarling punkiest on You Can't Be Trusted, a track from the first Seeds album that shows that the group's "flower power" image was more of a marketing ploy on the part of their manager, the infamous Lord Tim,  than any actual association with the peace and love crowd.

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    I Don't Love You Anymore
Source:    CD: Groovin'
Writer(s):    Gene Cornish
Label:    Warner Special Products (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1967
    For many teenagers in the 1960s the most necessary social skill (at least when dealing with members of the opposite sex) was not a verbal skill at all; rather, it was the ability to get out onto the dance floor and gyrate. It didn't really matter if you knew the latest steps; nobody was watching you anyway. What counted was the willingness to risk making a fool of one's self for the sake of impressing the girl (or boy) of your choice. Your first time out with a particular partner was always when a fast song was playing. This was usually followed by at least one more up tempo tune before you got to the real payoff: the slow dance. A good band could always sense when it was time for a slow song, and the Young Rascals, in their early days, was among the best at keeping a dance floor filled. This ability was still evident on their third album, Groovin', which was released in early 1967. While the band's usual songwriting team of Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati provided an ample supply of danceable fast tunes, it was bassist Gene Cornish that came up with songs ideally suited to slow dancing. One such tune was I Don't Love You Anymore, which, despite its anti-romantic lyrical stance, appears at just the right place on side two of the original LP.

Artist:    Fever Tree
Title:    San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native)
Source:    LP: Fever Tree
Writer(s):    Holtzman/Holtzman/Knust
Label:    Uni
Year:    1968
    A minor trend in 1968 was for producer/songwriters to find a band to record their material exclusively. A prime example is Houston's Fever Tree, which featured the music of husband and wife team Scott and Vivian Holtzman. San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native) was the single from that album, peaking in the lower reaches of the Hot 100 charts.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    LP: Your Saving Grace
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    The fourth Steve Miller Band album, Your Saving Grace, was the lowest charting of the band's first five albums (generally considered their "psychedelic" period). Despite this lack of chart success, Your Saving Grace managed to provide four solid tracks, including Little Girl, for the band's 1972 Anthology album, released while Miller was recovering from a broken neck suffered in a 1971 car accident. Miller would reboot the band with the 1973 album The Joker, which touched off a string of chart toppers for the group.

Artist:    Crow
Title:    Cottage Cheese (long version)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Weigand/Waggoner
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2013
    In late 1970 I found myself living in Alamogordo, NM, which was at the time one of those places that still didn't have an FM station (in fact, the only FM station we could receive was a classical station in Las Cruces, 70 miles away). To make it worse, there were only two AM stations in town, and the only one that played current songs went off the air at sunset. As a result the only way to hear current music at night (besides buying albums without hearing them first) was to "DX" distant AM radio stations. Of these, the one that came in most clearly and consistently was KOMA in Oklahoma City. My friends and I spent many a night driving around with KOMA cranked up, fading in and out as long-distance AM stations always do. One of those nights we were all blown away by this track, which, due to the conservative nature of the local daytime-only station, was not getting any local airplay. Years later I was lucky enough to find a copy in a thrift store in Albuquerque. More recently I picked up a copy of The Best Of Crow, a 2013 CD collection that includes the original unissued long version of the song as it was usually performed live, including a drum solo from Denny Craswell.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    We've Got A Groovy Thing Going
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    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 Groovy 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 Groovy 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 the rest is history.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Wrong
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of The Music Machine-Turn On
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    Sean Bonniwell was a member of the mainstream (i.e. lots of appearances on TV variety shows hosted by people like Perry Como and Bob Hope) folk group the Lamplighters in the early 60s. By 1966 he had morphed into one of the more mysterious figures on the LA music scene, leading a proto-punk band dressed entirely in black. Bonniwell himself wore a single black glove (Michael Jackson was about seven years old at the time), and was one of the most prolific songwriters of the day. His recordings, often featuring the distinctive Farfisa organ sound, were a primary influence on later L.A. bands such as Iron Butterfly and the Doors. A classic example of the Music Machine sound was the song Wrong, which was issued as the B side of the group's most successful single, Talk Talk.

Artist:    One In A Million
Title:    Man In Yellow
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution
Writer(s):    Alan Young
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2013
    One In A Million is known for two things: a pair of highly collectable British singles from 1967 and the recording debut of then 13-year-old James McCulloch, who would go on to be a member of Thunderclap Newman, Stone The Crows and Paul McCartney's band, Wings, before his untimely death at age 26. Man In Yellow was an unreleased track recorded during the same sessions as One In A Million's second single, Fredereek Hernando.