https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/357348-pe-2107
This week we have what amounts to two shows in one. The first is somewhat free-form, beginning and ending in 1966, while the second is all about artists, with sets from Country Joe And The Fish, the Rolling Stones and Cream, with an extra long Procol Harum track to finish things out.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Back Door Man
Source: LP: Tommy Flanders, Danny Kalb, Steve Katz, Al Kooper, Andy Kuhlberg, Roy Blumenfeld Of The Blues Project (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
By all accounts, Tommy Flanders, the original lead vocalist for the Blues Project, was quite a character. He was known to wear the latest London fashions while walking the streets of New York's Greenwich Village and would even occasionally affect a British accent. He was also the one, according to guitarist Danny Kalb, who came up with the band's name in the fall of 1965. It was around that time that the band made its first trip to the recording studio, recording a pair of tunes for Columbia that the label rejected, meeting studio keyboardist and subsequent band member Al Kooper in the process. Around that time the band landed a steady gig at a place called the Cafe-Au-Go-Go and the club owner, Howard Solomon, decided to put on a show for Thanksgiving weekend called the "Blues Bag", featuring a mix of established artists like John Lee Hooker and younger artists like Geoff Muldaur, with the Blues Project as one of the main attractions. Solomon managed to get Verve Folkways Records to record the whole thing, which led to the band getting a contract with the experimental Verve Forecast label. The band had been allowed to keep the master tapes of the Columbia session, and the two tracks, a folk song called Violets Of Dawn written by fellow Greenwich Village denizen Eric Anderson and a sped up cover of Howlin' Wolf's Back Door Man, were released as the first Blues Project single on the Verve Forecast label in January of 1966. At around that same time, the people at Verve's parent company, M-G-M, decided that the Blues Project was America's answer to the Rolling Stones, and flew the entire band out to Los Angeles for a huge sales conference. After the conference, however, in a scene right out of Spinal Tap, Tommy Flanders's girlfriend had an all-out blowup with the rest of the band members that resulted in her announcing that Flanders was quitting the band to become a Star. The album was quickly reworked to minimize Flanders's contributions (although there were not enough non-Flanders songs available to leave him entirely off the LP) and hit the racks in March of 1966, leaving the Violets Of Dawn/Back Door Man single as the only record released by the Blues Project while Flanders was still a member of the band.
Artist: We The People
Title: Mirror Of Your Mind
Source: Mono CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Thomas Talton
Label: Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year: 1966
We The People was formed when an Orlando, Florida newspaper reporter talked members of two local bands to combine into a garage/punk supergroup. The result was one of the most successful regional bands in Florida history. After their first recording got airplay on a local station, they were signed to record in Nashville for Challenge Records (a label actually based in Los Angeles) and cranked out several regional hits over the next few years. The first of these was Mirror Of Your Mind. Written by lead vocalist Tom Talton, the song is an in-your-face rocker that got played on a number of local stations and has been covered by several bands since.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Mr. Farmer
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: A Web Of Sound)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
With two tracks (Can't Seem To Make You Mine and Pushin' Too Hard) from their first album getting a decent amount of airplay on L.A. radio stations in 1966 the Seeds headed back to the studio to record a second LP, A Web Of Sound. The first single released from the album was Mr. Farmer, a song that once again did well locally. The only national hit for the Seeds came when Pushin' Too Hard was re-released in December of 1966, hitting its peak the following spring.
Artist: Beatles
Title: For No One
Source: European import LP: Revolver
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
With the predominance of the keyboards and french horn (played by Alan Civil) in the mix, For No One (essentially a Paul McCartney solo number) shows just how far the Beatles had moved away from their original image as a "guitar band" by the time they recorded the Revolver album in 1966. John Lennon considered For No One to be one of Paul's best songs.
Artist: Aretha Franklin
Title: (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Source: CD: Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-1974, Volume 6 1966-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Goffin/King/Wexler
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1967
Producer Jerry Wexler didn't actually participate in the writing of Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit single (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, but he did receive a writing credit for it. This was not an uncommon practice in the 1960s; producers often gave themselves credit for songs so they could claim a share of the royalties for themselves. In this instance, however, that was not the case. Wexler himself was a major figure in the development of rhythm & blues. In fact, Wexler himself invented the term when working as an editor/writer/reporter for Billboard magazine in 1949. Before then, recordings aimed at an African-American audience had appeared on Billboard's Race Records chart; Wexler later said that the term had never sit well with him and he got them to change the name of the chart to Rhythm & Blues Records in June of 1949. In 1953 Wexler joined Atlantic Records, and, along with the Ertagan brothers, built it into a major record label. One day, while driving around the streets of New York ruminating about the cultural significance of the "natural man" he spotted Carole King walking on the sidewalk and shouted to her that he wanted a "natural woman" song for Aretha Franklin's next album. King told her husband Gerry Goffin about the encounter, and together they came up with (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, which was released in September of 1967 as a single ahead of the Lady Soul LP. Goffin and King themselves insisted that Wexler receive a writing credit for the song, which hit #8 on the Billboard singles chart and #2 on the Rhythm & Blues chart that Wexler himself had named so many years before.
Artist: Them
Title: Square Room
Source: British import CD: Now And Them
Writer(s): Armstrong/Elliot/Harley/Henderson/McDowell
Label: Rev-Ola (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
With new lead vocalist Kenny McDowell replacing the departed Van Morrison, Them relocated to the US and recorded a single for Sully Records, a label based in Amarillo, Texas and co-owned by Ray Ruff. The B side of that single was a three-minute long tune called Square Room. Not long after the single was released Ruff and the band all relocated to Los Angeles, where Ruff produced two Them albums for Capitol's Tower subsidiary. The first of these, Now And Them, features a nearly ten minute long version of Square Room that has come to be regarded as one of the finest examples of raga-rock to come out of the psychedelic era. Jim Armstrong in particular turns in a strong performance on lead guitar.
Artist: Rabbit Habit
Title: Angel, Angel, Down We Go
Source: CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wylde Psych (originally released as stereo 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Tower)
Year: 1969
I don't have the slightest clue who plays on this record (although the fictional band that performs it on film is called Rabbit Habit). What I do know is that is was the title track of an American International Pictures film called Angel Angel Down We Go. The 1969 film is one of those movies that tends to show up on several "worst of" lists, despite having some interesting cast members, including Roddy McDowall, Lou Rawls, Jordan Christopher, and Davey Davison as the band itself. With a lineup like that you might expect Lou Rawls to sing on the title track (which has the distinction of being the last single ever released on the Tower label), but apparently all the vocals in the film are by Jordan Christopher, who had been a member of The Wild Ones, a band that released an album called The Arthur Sound for United Artists in 1965. Angel, Angel, Down We Go was written by the songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who had also written songs for another AIP film, Wild In The Streets, that had provided Tower with the hit single Shape Of Things To Come the previous year.
Artist: Donovan
Title: The Trip
Source: Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sundazed/Epic
Year: 1966
Donovan had already established a reputation in his native Scotland as the UK's answer to Bob Dylan, but had not had much success in the US, where his records were being released on the low-distribution Hickory label. That all changed in 1966, however, when he began to move beyond his folk roots and embrace a more electric sound. Unlike Dylan, who basically kept the same style as his acoustic songs, simply adding electic instruments, Donovan took a more holistic approach. The result was a body of music with a much broader range of sounds. The first of these new electric tunes was Sunshine Superman, sometimes cited as the first top 10 psychedelic hit. The B side of Sunshine Superman was a song called The Trip, which managed to be even more psychedelic than its A side. Both songs soon appeared on Donovan's major US label debut, an album that was not even released in the UK due to a contractual dispute between the singer/songwriter and Pye Records.
Artist: Love
Title: The Red Telephone
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
Love's Forever Changes album, released in late 1967, is known for its dark imagery that contrasted with the utopian messages so prevalent in the music associated with the just-passed summer of love. One of the tracks that best illustrates Arthur Lee's take on the world at that time is The Red Telephone, which closes out side one of the album. The title, which refers to the famous cold war hotline between Washington and Moscow, does not actually appear in the song's lyrics. Instead, the most prominent line of the song is a chant repeated several times that refers to the repression of youth culture in the US, particularly in Los Angeles, where the city had enacted new ordinances that had virtually destroyed the vibrant club scene that had given rise to such bands as the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Doors and of course Love. The chant itself: "They're locking them up today, they're throwing away the key; I wonder who it'll be tomorrow, you or me?" expresses an idea that would be expanded on by Frank Zappa the following year on the landmark Mothers Of Invention album We're Only In It For The Money.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the psychedelic era itself.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone
Source: Mono LP: Midnight Ride
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Before the Monkees, there was Paul Revere And The Raiders. Like the latter group, the Raiders found success on TV as well as vinyl, and scored several top 10 hits. Unlike the Monkees, however, Paul Revere And The Raiders had a long history as a performing group that predated their commercial success by several years. One more thing the two groups had in common, however, was a song by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart called (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone. The Raiders recorded the song first, including it on their album Midnight Ride, released in May of 1966, and as the B side of their hit version of Kicks. The Monkees included the song on their debut LP later the same year, and released it as the B side of I'm A Believer as well. Although the original Raiders version was not originally included on the band's greatest hits album, it has been added to the CD reissue of Paul Revere And The Raiders' Greatest Hits as a bonus track.
Artist: Harbinger Complex
Title: Sometimes I Wonder
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label: Rhino (original label: Amber)
Year: 1966
The city of San Francisco had a well-documented music scene in the 1960s that brought bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Santana to national prominence. Across the bay, however, was a more typical mid-60s scene centered around teen-oriented bands that would play high school dances, shopping center parking lots and of course participate in various "battle of the bands" competitions. Among the best of these was Fremont's Harbinger Complex. Formed in 1963 by guitarists Ron Rotarius and Bob Hoyle III, who had playing together since they were in the eighth grade, the group was first known as the Norsemen. When Hoyle was called to active duty in Vietnam in 1965 the band brought in vocalist Jim Hockstaff and soon changed its name to Harbinger Complex. Hoyle returned from 'Nam in 1966, and he and Hockstaff soon formed a writing partnership. The band's first single, Sometimes I Wonder, was recorded and released in April of 1966 on the local Amber label at around the same time that Harbinger Complex had one of their most high-profile gigs, opening for Paul Revere And The Raiders at Oakland Colisseum.
Artist: Leaves
Title: Dr. Stone
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Hey Joe)
Writer: Beck/Pons
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
The Leaves were a solid, if not particularly spectacular, example of a late 60s L.A. club band. They had one big hit (Hey Joe), signed a contract with a major label (Capitol), and even appeared in a Hollywood movie (the Cool Ones). This tune, from their first album for Mira Records, is best described as folk-rock with a Bo Diddly beat.
Artist: Mungo Jerry
Title: In The Summertime
Source: LP: Golden Days Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ray Dorset
Label: Sire (original label: Janus)
Year: 1970
Mungo Jerry is not your typical rock band. Multi-instrumentalist Ray Dorset and and pianist Colin Earl were members of a group called the Good Earth that fell apart when their bassist quit to join another band. The Good Earth still had one booking to fulfill, the Oxford University Christmas Ball, in December 1968, so they recruited a new bassist and performed as a three-piece, playing a mixture of blues, skiffle and American-style folk and jug band music. The group, still known as the Good Earth, built up a following over the next year, eventually ending up with a lineup consisting of Dorset, Earl, Mike Cole, who played double bass, and Paul King, who played banjo and jug. The band soon got a contract with Pye Records and scored big with their first single, a song called In The Summertime that Dorset later said took about ten minutes to write. The song was an international smash, going to the #1 spot in sixteen countries (including the UK) and hitting #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. Although the group, with an ever-changing lineup, never again had a hit as big as In The Summertime they continued to perform and release records for decades, with the most recent being Cool Jesus, which was released in 2012.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Section 43 (EP version)
Source: Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Big Beat (original label: Rag Baby)
Year: 1966
Rag Baby was an underground journal published by Country Joe McDonald in mid-60s Berkeley, California. In 1965 McDonald decided to do a "talking issue" of the paper with an extended play (EP) record containing two songs by McDonald's band, Country Joe and the Fish and two by singer Peter Krug. In 1966 McDonald published a second Rag Baby EP, this time featuring three songs by Country Joe and the Fish. Among those was the original version of Section 43, a psychedelic instrumental that would appear in a re-recorded (and slightly changed) stereo form on the band's first LP, Electric Music For The Mind And Body, in early 1967.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Rock And Soul Music
Source: LP: Woodstock
Writer(s): McDonald/Melton/Cohen/Barthol/Hirsch
Label: Cotillion
Year: 1969
Country Joe and the Fish actually performed Rock and Soul Music twice at Woodstock. The first instance was a short intro that led directly into the next song. This is the piece used on the original Woodstock soundtrack album.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Bass Strings
Source: Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Big Beat (original label: Rag Baby)
Year: 1966
One of the more original ways to get one's music heard is to publish an underground arts-oriented newspaper and include a record in it. Country Joe and the Fish did just that; not once, but twice. The first one was split with another artist and featured the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The second Rag Baby EP, released in 1966, was all Fish, and featured two tracks that would be re-recorded for their debut LP the following year. In addition to the instrumental Section 43, the EP included a four-minute version of Bass Strings, a track with decidedly psychedelic lyrics.
Artist: Cream
Title: Four Until Late
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Robert Johnson
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
By the time Cream was formed, Eric Clapton had already established himself as one of the world's premier blues-rock guitarists. He had not, however, done much singing, as the bands he had worked with all had strong vocalists: Keith Relf with the Yardbirds and John Mayall with the Bluesbreakers. With Cream, however, Clapton finally got a chance to do some vocals of his own. Most of these are duets with bassist Jack Bruce, who handled the bulk of Cream's lead vocals. Clapton did get to sing lead on a few Cream songs, however. One of the earliest ones was the band's updated version of Robert Johnson's Four Until Late, from the Fresh Cream album.
Artist: Cream
Title: Badge
Source: CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s): Clapton/Harrison
Label: Polydor
Year: 1969
Famously co-written by Eric Clapton and a psuedononomous George Harrison, Badge remains one of the best-loved songs in Clapton's repertoir. Both guitarists are featured prominently on this recording. Felix Pappaliardi (the unofficial 4th member of Cream and co-founder of Mountain) plays the tinkly piano.
Artist: Cream
Title: Cat's Squirrel
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Trad., arr. S. Splurge
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
One of the few instrumentals in the Cream repertoire, Cat's Squirrel was something of a blues standard whose origins are lost in antiquity. Unlike the 1968 Jethro Tull version, which emphasises Mick Abrahams's guitar work, Cream's Cat's Squirrel is heavy on the harmonica, played by bassist Jack Bruce.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Going Up The Country
Source: Mono Italian import 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Alan Wilson
Label: Liberty
Year: 1968
Canned Heat built up a solid reputation as one of the best blues-rock bands in history, recording several critically-acclaimed albums over a period of years. What they did not have, however, was a top 10 single on the US charts. The nearest they got was Going Up The Country from their late 1968 LP Living The Blues, which peaked in the #11 spot in early 1969 (although it did hit #1 in several other countries). The song was written and sung by guitarist Alan "Blind Own" Wilson, who died at age 27 on September 3, 1970. This Italian pressing, for some reason, cuts off the song's 20 second-long coda.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Dear Doctor
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The term Anglophile is usually used to describe Americans with a fascination for all things British. Just what is the term for the opposite situation? Whatever it might be, the Stones have always been an example, from their open idolization of Chuck Berry and other Chess Records artists to songs like Dear Doctor, which sounds more like Appalachian folk music than anything British.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Prodigal Son
Source: CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Robert Wilkins
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones always had a fondness for American roots music, but by 1967 had largely abandoned the genre in favor of more modern sounds such as pychedelia. The 1968 album Beggar's Banquet, however, marked a return to the band's own roots and included such tunes as Prodigal Son, which at first was credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. In reality the song was written by the Reverend Robert Wilkins, and has since been acknowledged as such.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Street Fighting Man
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: In Held Twas In I
Source: CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer: Brooker/Fisher/Reid
Label: A&M/Rebound
Year: 1968
Although the idea of grouping songs together as "suites" was first tried by Jefferson Airplane on their 1967 album After Bathing At Baxter's, Procol Harum's 17-minute long In Held Twas In I, from their 1968 album Shine On Brightly, is usually cited as the first progressive rock suite. The title comes from the first word of each section of the piece that contains vocals (several sections are purely instrumental). The work contains some of the best early work from guitarist Robin Trower, who would leave the group a few years later for a solo career. Shine On Brightly was the last Procol Harum album to include organist Matthew Fisher, who came up with the famous opening riff for the group's first hit, A Whiter Shade Of Pale.
No comments:
Post a Comment