https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/493944-pe-2337
This time around we have a Donovan set, a couple short progressions through the years, a long 1968 set and an even longer live performance by Quicksilver Messenger Service. Although we only have two songs making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut this week, we have several more that haven't been heard on the show in years.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Good Times
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released in UK and Australia as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1968
The Easybeats were Australia's most popular band in the sixties. Formed in 1964 at a migrant hostel in Sidney (all the members came from immigrant families), the band's earliest British Invasion styled hits were written by rhythm guitarist George Young (older brother of AC/DC's Angus and Malcolm Young) and lead vocalist "Little" Stevie Wright. By 1966, however, lead guitarist Harry Vanda (originally from the Netherlands) had become fluent in English and with the song Friday On My Mind replaced Wright as Young's writing partner (although Wright stayed on as the band's frontman). Around that same time the Easybeats relocated to England, although they continued to chart hits on a regular basis in Australia. One of their most memorable songs was Good Times from the 1968 album Vigil, featuring guest vocalist Steve Marriott. Originally released in Australia as a B side, the song was later retitled Gonna Have A Good Time for its international release as an A side in 1969. Young and Vanda later moved back to Australia and recorded a series of records under the name Flash and the Pan that were very successful in Australia and Europe. Stevie Wright went on to become Australia's first international pop star. The song Good Times became a hit for another Australian band, INXS, in the 1980s when it was used in the film The Lost Boys.
Artist: United States Of America
Title: Coming Down
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The United States Of America)
Writer(s): Byrd/Moscowitz
Label: Sony Music (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
The United States Of America was an outgrowth of the experimental audio work of Joseph Byrd, who had moved to Los Angeles from New York in the early 1960s after studying with avant-garde composers Morton Feldman and John Cage. With lyricist/vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz, he founded The United States Of America in 1967 as a way of integrating performance art, electronic music and rock, with more than a little leftist political philosophy thrown into the mix. Much of the material on the band's only album was co-written by Moskowitz and Byrd, with Byrd writing the music and Moskowitz contributing to the lyrics. Moskowitz also helped with the melody line on a few tracks, such as Coming Down.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Friends Of Mine
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer: Bachman/Cummings
Label: Iconoclassic (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1968
On first listen, Friends Of Mine may appear to be a Doors ripoff, but the band members themselves claim it was inspired more by the Who's first mini-opera, A Quick One While He's Away. Regardless of the source of inspiration, this was certainly the most pyschedelic track ever released by a band known more for catchy pop ballads like These Eyes and No Sugar Tonight. Interestingly enough, RCA released a 45 RPM stereo promo of the song to radio stations, with the 10 minute track split across the two sides of the record. I first heard this cut on the American Forces Network (AFN) in Germany on a weekly show called Underground that ran at midnight on Saturday nights. I doubt any Generals were listening.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: My Sunday Feeling
Source: LP: This Was
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
For years my only copy of Jethro Tull's first LP, This Was, was a cassette copy I had made myself. In fact, the two sides of the album were actually on two different tapes (don't ask why). When I labelled the tapes I neglected to specify which tape had which side of the album; as a result I was under the impression that My Sunday Feeling was the opening track on the album. It turns out it was actually the first track on side two, but I still tend to think of it as the "first" Jethro Tull song, despite the fact that the band had actually released a single, Sunshine Day, the previous year for a different label (who got the band's name wrong, billing them as Jethro Toe).
Artist: Zombies
Title: I Want Her She Wants Me (mono version w/ backing vocals)
Source: Mono CD: Odessey And Oracle (bonus track)
Writer(s): Rod Argent
Label: Varese Sarabande
Year: Recorded 1967, released 2017
By 1967 the Zombies were having trouble finding work. Their latest records were not selling and they were considering disbanding, but instead decided to go all out and make a record they could be proud of. They managed to secure a contract with CBS Records (an offshoot of the US Columbia label that was just getting started in the UK) that gave them the freedom to produce themselves. The problem was that CBS, unlike EMI and Decca, did not have its own studios, so the band was forced to book time when and where they could. Much of the album, which came to be known as Odessey And Oracle, was recorded at EMI's Abbey Road studios, but a few tracks were instead recorded at Olympia Sound, a highly regarded studio where the Rolling Stones and Small Faces often recorded. In their last session at Olympic, the Zombies recorded I Want Her She Wants Me, a Rod Argent tune that had originally been recorded by the Mindbenders in 1966. Argent reportedly hated the Mindbenders version of the song and wanted to hear it done right. The mono mix of the song includes background vocals not heard on the stereo album, possibly added during the mixing process itself.
Artist: Cream
Title: Pressed Rat And Warthog
Source: CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer: Baker/Taylor
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
Pressed Rat And Warthog, from Cream's third LP, Wheels Of Fire, is one of those songs you either love or hate. I loved it the first time I heard it but had several friends that absolutely detested it. As near as I can tell, drummer Ginger Baker actually talks that way. Come to think of it, all the members of Cream had pretty heavy accents.
Artist: Love
Title: Laughing Stock
Source: CD: Love Story (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1968
The last record by the classic Love lineup was a single released in June of 1968. While Your Mind And We Belong Together is one of the band's most overlooked and underrated tracks, the B side of that single comes across as a sardonic epitaph for the group, with it's intro reminiscent of one of their best tunes, Alone Again Or and sly references to their first hit, My Little Red Book. Lee would soon fire the entire band (except Bryan MacLean, who left voluntarily), reemerging with an entirely new lineup the following year, but he was never able to duplicate the magic of the original Love.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: It's All Over Now
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bobby & Shirley Womack
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1964
During a 1964 on-air interview with the Rolling Stones, New York DJ Murray the K played a copy of a song called It's All Over Now by Bobby Womack's band, the Valentinos. The song had been a minor hit earlier in the year, spending two weeks in the top 100, and the Stones were reportedly knocked out by the record, calling it "our kind of song." Less than two weeks later the Stones recorded their own version of the song, which became their first number one hit in the UK. At first, Womack was reportedly against the idea of a British band recording his song, but changed his mind when he saw his first royalty check from the Stones' recording.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Set Me Free
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
After scoring international success with a series of R&B influenced rockers in 1964, the Kinks started to mellow a bit in 1965, releasing more melodic songs such as Set Me Free. The band would continue to evolve throughout the decade, eventually becoming one of the first groups to release a concept album, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), in 1969.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in late 1966 and hitting the charts in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation and Rhino's first Nuggets LP.
Artist: Balloon Farm
Title: A Question Of Temperature
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1967
It's not entirely clear whether the Balloon Farm was an actual band or simply an East Coast studio concoction. Regardless, they did manage to successfully cross garage rock with bubble gum for A Question Of Temperature, originally released on the Laurie label in 1967. Band member Mike Appel went on to have greater notoriety as Bruce Springsteen's first manager.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: Down On Me
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Joplin In Concert)
Writer: Trad. Arr. Joplin
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1972
Big Brother And The Holding Company's first album, featuring the single Down On Me, was recorded in 1967 at the studios of Mainstream Records, a medium-sized Chicago label known for its jazz recordings. At the time, Mainstream's engineers had no experience with a rock band, particularly a loud one like Big Brother, and vainly attempted to clean up the band's sound as best they could. The result was an album full of bland recordings sucked dry of the energy that made Big Brother and the Holding Company one of San Francisco's top live attractions. Luckily we have this live version of the tune recorded in Detroit in early 1968 and released on the 1972 album Joplin In Concert that captures the band at their peak, before powerful people with questionable motives convinced singer Janis Joplin that the rest of the group was (ahem) holding her back.
Artist: Mamas And The Papas
Title: California Dreamin'
Source: LP: If You Believe Your Eyes And Ears (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John and Michelle Phillips
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1965
California Dreamin' was written in 1963 by John and Michelle Phillips, who were living in New York City at the time. The two of them were members of a folk group called the New Journeymen that would eventually become The Mamas And The Papas. Phillips initially gave the song to his friend Barry McGuire to record, but McGuire's version failed to chart. Not long after that McGuire introduced Philips to Lou Adler, president of Dunhill Records who quickly signed The Mamas And The Papas to a recording contract. Using the same instrumental backing track (provided by various Los Angeles studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew), The Mamas And The Papas recorded new vocals for California Dreamin', releasing it as a single in late 1965. The song took a while to catch on, but eventually peaked in the top five nationally.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Tried To Hide
Source: CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s): Hall/Sutherland
Label: Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
The first known use of the word "psychedelic" in an album title by a rock band was The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators, released on the Houston-based International Artists label in August of 1966. The album itself is notable for its inclusion of electric jug (played by Tommy Hall), and for the band's only charted single, You're Gonna Miss Me. The B side of that single was Tried To Hide, written by Hall and guitarist Stacy Sutherland.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Conquistador
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Deram
Year: 1967
For reasons that are lost to history, the first Procol Harum album was released five months earlier in the US than it was in the UK. It also was released with a slightly different song lineup, a practice that was fairly common earlier in the decade but that had been (thanks to the Beatles) pretty much abandoned by mid-1967. One notable difference is the inclusion of A Whiter Shade Of Pale on the US version (the British practice being to not include songs on LPs that had been already issued on 45 RPM records). The opening track of the UK version was Conquistador, a song that would not become well-known until 1972, when a live version with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra backing up the band became a hit single.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: Season of the Witch (pt. 1)
Source: Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released on LP: Renaissance and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Real Gone/Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
The Vanilla Fudge are generally best remembered for their acid rock rearrangements of hit songs such as You Keep Me Hangin' On, Ticket To Ride and Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). Their third album, Renaissance, while actually featuring more original material that their previous albums, still included a couple of these cover songs. The best-known of these was this rather spooky (and a little over-the-top) version of Donovan's Season Of The Witch, a song that was also covered by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills the same year on the first Super Session album. A mono single version of the song saw the track broken up into two pieces (with some sections left out entirely), one on each side of the 45 RPM record.
Artist: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Title: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Source: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer: Stephen Stills
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
After the demise of Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills headed for New York, where he worked with Al Kooper on the Super Session album and recorded several demo tapes of his own, including a new song called Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (reportedly written for his then-girlfriend Judy Collins). After his stint in New York he returned to California, where he started hanging out in the Laurel Canyon home of David Crosby, who had been fired from the Byrds in 1967. Crosby's house at that time was generally filled with a variety of people coming and going, and Crosby and Stills soon found themselves doing improvised harmonies on each other's material in front of a friendly, if somewhat stoned, audience. It was not long before they invited Graham Nash, whom they heard had been having problems of his own with his bandmates in the Hollies, to come join them in Laurel Canyon. The three soon began recording together, and in 1969 released the album Crosby, Stills and Nash. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was chosen as the opening track for the new album and was later released (in edited form) as a single.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunny South Kensington
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1966 (remixed 1998)
Donovan followed up his 1966 hit single Sunshine Superman with an album of the same name. He then repeated himself with the song and album Mellow Yellow. The B side of the Mellow Yellow single was Sunny South Kensington, a tune done in much the same style as Superman. The song was also included on the Mellow Yellow album, and in 1998 was mixed in stereo for the first time.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Colours
Source: CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Legacy (original label: Hickory)
Year: 1965
Having been introduced to Donovan's music through exposure to Sunshine Superman, Mellow Yellow and later songs, I was always a bit puzzled by references to the Scottish singer/soingwriter as Britain's poor Bob Dylan knockoff. Then I heard Colours and all was made clear. Donovan himself, however, credits Derroll Adams, a songwriter from the Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger school, as the song's direct influence.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunshine Superman
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Up until the early 1970s there was an unwritten rule that stated that in order to get played on top 40 radio a song could be no more than three and a half minutes long. There were exceptions, of course, such as Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, but as a general rule the policy was strictly adhered to. Sometimes an artist would record a song that exceeded the limit but nonetheless was considered to have commercial potential. In cases like these the usual practice was for the record company (or sometimes the record's own producer) to create an edited version of the master recording for release as a single. Usually in these cases the original unedited version of the song would appear on an album. In the case of Donovan's Sunshine Superman, however, the mono single version was used for the album as well, possibly because the album itself was never issued in stereo. In fact, it wasn't until 1969 that the full-length original recording of Sunshine Superman was made available as a track on Donovan's first Greatest Hits collection. This was also the first time the song had appeared in stereo, having been newly mixed for that album. An even newer mix was made in 1998 and is included on a British anthology album called Psychedelia At Abbey Road. This version takes advantage of digital technology and has a slightly different sound than previous releases of the song.
Artist: Peter Howell & John Ferdinando
Title: Jabberwocky
Source: Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released on LP: Alice Through The Looking Glass)
Writer(s): Carroll/Howell
Label: Grapefruit (original label: Sound News Productions)
Year: 1969
Once upon a time, somewhere south of London, there was (and still is) a village called Ditchling. This village was home to a theatre group known as the Ditchling Players. In 1968 the Ditchling Players decided to put on an ambitious adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass. In addition to elaborate costumes and stage props, the production used original music provided by two local teenagers, Peter Howell and John Fernando. The two had played together in various amateur bands since the pre-Beatle days and Howell, in particular, had taken an interest in the recording process. Using a primitive version of track bouncing, the two composed complex musical pieces that were soon collected for a soundtrack album. Only 50 copies of the album were made, most of which were sold to members of the Ditchling Players themselves, along with interested audience members. In addition to the music from the stage production, the album included four "bonus" tracks based on the same concept. One of those was Jabberwocky, which combines music by Howell with Carroll's words. Howell would eventually become known for his work on Doctor Who as a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop from 1974-1997.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Let's Go Away For Awhile
Source: Mono CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s): Brian Wilson
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
After spending six months and a record amount of money making Good Vibrations, Brian Wilson and Capitol Records decided to use an existing track for the B side of the single rather than take the time to record something new. The chosen track was Let's Go Away For Awhile, a tune from the Pet Sounds album that Wilson described as the most satisfying instrumental piece he had ever written.
Artist: Animals
Title: Don't Bring Me Down
Source: LP: Animalization
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Who Do You Love
Source: LP: Happy Trails
Writer(s): Elian McDaniel
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
Quick, what was the last rock album released by Capitol using its iconic "rainbow" label before switching over to that horrid light green one that all the early Grand Funk Railroad albums used? If you answered Quicksilver Messenger Service's Happy Trails album, you'd be wrong...but just barely (actually the answer is Gandalf, which was the very next album released after Happy Trails). Happy Trails is dominated by a 25 minute long rendition of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love recorded live at either the Fillmore East or Fillmore West, or maybe even a combination of both. The performance is divided into continuous sections, each of which is a variation on the song's basic riff as interpreted by (in order), guitarist Gary Duncan, drummer Greg Elmore, guitarist John Cipollina and bassist David Freibereg, although Elmore's segment is more of an audience participation piece. Quicksilver was one of the most popular live acts during the heyday of the late 1960s San Francisco music scene, and this recording demonstrates why.
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