https://exchange.prx.org/p/500667
Four some reason, almost every set this week has four songs. Befour you accuse me of trying to be too clever, let me assure you that thiis was completely unplanned; no foursight involved. [Enough already!] The exception is our Advanced Psych segment, which features three tracks that have never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before this week, all three from groups with female vocalists. To make up for the shortage our final set consists of five tracks that take up an entire thirty minutes between them.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Rain
Source: LP: Hey Jude (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
The Beatles' B side to their 1966 hit Paperback Writer was innovative in more than one way. First off, the original instrumental tracks were actually recorded at a faster speed (and higher pitch) than is heard on the finished recording. Also, it is the first Beatles record to feature backwards masking (John Lennon's overdubbed vocals toward the end of the song were recorded with the tape playing in reverse). Needless to say, both techniques were soon copied and expanded upon by other artists.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s): Capaldi/Wood/Winwood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's Dear Mr. Fantasy from Traffic's 1967 debut LP Mr. Fantasy. The album was originally released in a modified version in the US in early 1968 under the title Heaven Is In Your Mind, but later editions of the LP, while retaining the US track order and running time, were renamed to match the original British title.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Beggar's Farm
Source: LP: This Was
Writer(s): Abrahams/Anderson
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1968
Although Jethro Tull would eventually come to be considered almost a backup band for flautist/vocalist/songwriter Ian Anderson, in the early days the group was much more democratically inclined, at least until the departure of guitarist and co-founder Mick Abrahams. In addition to providing a more blues-based orientation for the band, Abrahams shared songwriting duties with Anderson as well, including collaborations such as Beggar's Farm from the band's 1968 debut LP, This Was.
Artist: Pentangle
Title: Light Flight (Theme From "Take Three Girls")
Source: LP: Basket Of Light
Writer(s): Cox/Jansch/McShea/Renbourne/Thompson
Label: Reprise (promo copy)
Year: 1969
The folk-rock supergroup Pentangle continued to have major chart success in the UK in 1969 with their Basket Of Light LP, which peaked at the #5 spot on the British album charts. Two singles from the album also made the charts. The first of these, Light Flight, which opens the album, is notable for being used as the theme song for the first color (or colour) drama series ever broadcast on BBC-1, Take Three Girls.
Artist: Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title: Fire
Source: British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label: Polydor (original US label: Atlantic)
Year: 1968
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was unusual for their time in that they were much more theatrical than most of their contemporaries, who were generally more into audio experimentation than visual. I have a video of Fire being performed (or maybe just lip-synched). In it, all the members are wearing some sort of mask, and Brown himself is wearing special headgear that was literally on fire. There is no doubt that The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown sowed the seeds of what was to become the glitter-rock movement in the early to mid 70s.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: CD: Flowers (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
The Rolling Stones second LP of 1967 was Flowers, one of a series of US-only albums made up of songs that had been released in various forms in the UK but not in the US. In the case of Flowers, though, there were a couple songs that had already been released in the US-but not in true stereo. One of those was Let's Spend The Night Together, a song intended to be the A side of a single, but that was soon banned on a majority of US radio stations because of its suggestive lyrics. Those stations instead flipped the record over and began playing the B side. That B side, a song called Ruby Tuesday, ended up in the top 5, while Let's Spend The Night Together barely cracked the top 40. The Stones did get to perform the tune on the Ed Sullivan Show, but only after promising to change the lyrics to "let's spend some time together." Later the same year the Doors made a similar promise to the Sullivan show to modify the lyrics of Light My Fire, but when it came time to actually perform the song Jim Morrison defiantly sang the lyrics as written. The Doors were subsequently banned from making any more appearances on the Sullivan show.
Artist: Surprise Package
Title: Out Of My Mind
Source: LP: Nuggets vol.8-The Northwest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Zeufeldt/Beck/Eggers/Rogers
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Like many other Pacific Northwest bands, the Surprise Package started off as an instrumental group. Formed as the Viceroys, the band, The band consisting of Greg Beck (guitar, vocals), Kim Eggers (lead vocals & Sax), Michael Rogers (piano, organ, bass, vocals) and Fred Zeufeldt (drums, vocals) had a regional hit called Granny's Pad, released on the local Seafair Bolo label and picked up nationally by Dot Records in 1963. Several more singles followed, and after doing several "Where the Action Is" tours with their friends Paul Revere and the Raiders signed with Columbia in 1966, changing their name to the Surprise Package. Raiders producer Terry Melcher worked with the band for their first Columbia release, a band original called Out Of My Mind. Two more singles followed, but a lack of promotion from the label doomed the Surprise Package pretty much from the start. In 1968 they released an album on Lee Hazelwoods LHI label before once again changing their name, this time to American Eagle, releasing one album on the Decca label in 1971.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Eight Miles High (RCA Studios version)
Source: 45 RPM single (originally released on LP: Never Before)
Writer(s): McGuinn/Crosby/Clark
Label: Columbia/Sundazed (original label: Re-Flyte)
Year: Recorded 1965, released 1987
In December of 1965, while Turn! Turn! Turn! was the number one song in the nation, the Byrds booked time at RCA Studios in Los Angeles to record a pair of songs, Eight Miles High and Why, which were intended to the be the band's next single. Columbia Records, however, had a policy prohibiting the use of a rival's studios (especially RCA's) and insisted that the Byrds re-record both songs, which were then issued as a single and included on the album Fifth Dimension. Meanwhile, the original recorded version of Eight Miles High remained unreleased until 1987, when it was included on an album of early unreleased Byrds recordings on the Re-Flyte label called Never Before. Both David Crosby and Roger McGuinn have said that they actually prefer the earlier version to the well-known Columbia recording.
Artist: Janis Ian
Title: I'll Give You A Stone If You Throw It (Changing Tymes)
Source: LP: Janis Ian
Writer: Janis Ian
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year: 1967
Janis Ian got her first poem published in a national magazine at age 12. Not content with mere literary pursuits, the talented Ms. Ian turned to music. After being turned down by several major labels, Ian finally got a contract with the tiny New Sounds label and scored her first major hit with Society's Child, a song about interracial dating that was banned on several stations in the southern US. This led to her self-titled debut album at age 15, and a contract with M-G-M subsidiary Verve Folkways. I'll Give You A Stone If You Throw It (Changing Tymes) is taken from that first LP.
Artist: Hollies
Title: King Midas In Reverse
Source: British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Clarke/Hicks/Nash
Label: Uncut (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1967
One of the last Hollies singles to include original member Graham Nash, King Midas In Reverse combines pop and psychedelia in a purely British way. The problem was that, with the exception of Nash, the Hollies had no desire to embrace psychedelia, and Nash soon found himself banding with David Crosby and Stephen Stills instead.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
Source: CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer: McGannahan Skjellyfetti
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
I once knew someone from San Jose, California who had an original copy of the single version of The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), the opening track from the first Grateful Dead album. It was totally worn out from being played a few hundred times, though.
Artist: Pasternak Progress
Title: Flower Eyes
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pasternak/Branca
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1967
In 1967 Jeff Pasternak became one of thousands of young people to catch the Doors at L.A.'s famous Whisky-A-Go-Go club on the Sunset Strip. Like many others, Pasternak was inspired to make music himself. Unlike most, Pasternak was son of a famous Hollywood movie producer/director (Joe Pasternak, whose credits included Please Don't Eat The Daisies and Where The Boys Are), and was able to take advantage of his father's connections to get a record made. That record was Flower Eyes, released later the same year on the Original Sound label.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Bad Luck And Trouble
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer: Johnny Winter
Label: United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year: 1968
Johnny Winter first started getting attention while playing the Texas blues circuit. His first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the regional Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who got caught up in the whole glam rock thing, Johnny Winter remained a respected blues artist for his entire career.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: Hush
Source: LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer: Joe South
Label: Tetragrammaton
Year: 1968
Deep Purple scored a huge US hit in 1968 with their rocked out cover of Hush, a tune written by Joe South that had been an international hit for Billy Joe Royal the previous year. Oddly enough, the song was virtually ignored in their native England. The song was included on the album Shades Of Deep Purple, the first of three LPs to be released in the US on Tetragrammaton Records, a label partially owned by actor/comedian Bill Cosby. When Tetragrammaton folded shortly after the release of the third Deep Purple album the band was left without a US label, and went through some personnel changes, including adding new lead vocalist Ian Gilliam (who had sung the part of Jesus on the original Jesus Christ Superstar album) before signing to Warner Brothers and becoming a major force in 70s rock. Meanwhile, original vocalist Rod Evans hooked up with drummer Bobby Caldwell and two former members of Iron Butterfly to form Captain Beyond before fading from public view.
Artist: Mops
Title: I'm Just A Mops
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Japan on LP: Psychedelic Sounds In Japan)
Writer(s): Suzuki/Hoshi
Label: Rhino (original label: Victor)
Year: 1968
Popular rock in the mid-60s UK was known collectively as beat music, which was basically inspired by the Beatles and other Merseybeat bands and taken to its greatest success by London bands such as the Rolling Stones. The rest of the world soon followed suit with their own British-inspired movements such as garage rock in the US and something called group sounds, or GS, in Japan. Among the more successful GS bands was a group called the Mops. Formed in 1966, the band followed in the footsteps of the Animals, who had taken a decidedly psychedelic turn in early 1967. By the time the Mops released their first single in November of 1967 they were being billed as the "First Psychedelic Band in Japan." Six months later they cemented this reputation with the release of their first LP, Psychedelic Sounds In Japan. Mixed in among their own arrangements of such standards as San Franciscan Nights and Somebody To Love were a handful of original tunes, the most notable of which was the grammatically weird I'm Just A Mops, which served as a kind of theme song. With the arrival of Led Zeppelin on the international music scene, the Mops took on a heavier sound, releasing eight more albums before disbanding in 1974.
Artist: Ventures
Title: Out Of Limits
Source: LP: In Space
Writer(s): Michael Z. Gordon
Label: Dolton/Sundazed
Year: 1964
Although most of the Ventures albums are relatively generic, a few do stand out from the rest. One of these is The Ventures In Space, which came out in 1964. The album features a variety of "otherworldly sounds", all of which were made by electronically altering the sounds of the band's instruments, including their new Mosrite guitars. Among the most popular tracks on the album was their own version of Out Of Limits, a song that had been a national hit for the Marketts the previous year. The Ventures version of the song also received a fair amount of airplay, especially on the US West Coast.
Artist: Romeo Void
Title: Nothing For Me
Source: LP: itsacondition
Writer(s): Iyall/Zincavage
Label: 415
Year: 1981
Formed in 1979 at the San Francisco Art Institute by vocalist Deborah Iyall and bassist Frank Zincavage, Romeo Void also included saxophonist Benjamin Bossi, guitarist Peter Woods, and a (shades of Spinal Tap!) succession of drummers. Their first LP, Itsacondition (sometimes referred to as It's A Condition) was released in 1981. I first ran across this album while doing a contemporary alternative rock show called Rock Nouveaux on KUNM in Albuquerque in the early 1980s. Nothing For Me is a fairly typical example of the Romeo Void sound.
Artist: Sugar Candy Mountain
Title: Eye On You
Source: LP: 666
Writer(s): Reiter/Halsey
Label: People In A Position To Know
Year: 2016
It's easy to read something into both the band name and album title of the 2016 release 666 by Sugar Candy Mountain. It's better, however, to not do any of that and instead simply listen to any of the album's 10 tracks for what they are: good music. Sugar Candy Mountain was officially formed on 2011 by guitarist/vocalist Ash Reiter and multi-instrumentalist Will Halsey, natives of Oakland, California who relocated to Joshua Tree not long after the band was formed. They are joined on Eye On You by guitarist Bryant Denison and keyboardist Jason Quever (who also mixed the album).
Artist: Ace Of Cups
Title: Grandma's Hands
Source: LP: Ace Of Cups
Writer(s): Bill Withers
Label: High Moon
Year: 2018
Over 50 years after their formation, San Francisco's Ace Of Cups finally got the opportunity to record their first album. A double LP, Ace Of Cups is made up almost entirely of original tunes. The sole exception is a cover of Bill Withers' Grandma's Hands, sung by drummer Diane Vitalich.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Brave New World
Source: LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1969
It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the movie itself.
Artist: Nazz
Title: Open My Eyes
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Nazz)
Writer: Todd Rundgren
Label: Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year: 1968
Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, among others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a newly recorded version would become a solo hit for Rundgren five years later).
Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: Plastic People
Source: LP: Mothermania (originally released on LP: Absolutely Free)
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Zappa (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
For his final project for Verve Records before converting Bizarre from a production company to an actual record label in 1969, Frank Zappa put together a Mothers compilation album called Mothermania. Zappa remixed and sequenced the album, including tunes like Plastic People, which previously had been the opening track from the second Mothers album, Absolutely Free. After Verve timed the release of Mothermania to eclipse the release of Uncle Meat (on Bizarre), Zappa officially disowned the compilation album, but his estate now considers it part of the Zappa cannon and reissued the LP in 2019 as #7 in the Zappa Official Release series.
Artist: The Raik's Progress
Title: Prisoner Of Chillon
Source: Mono LP: Sewer Rat Love Chant
Writer(s): Krikorian/Shapazian/van Maarth/Olson
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2003
"A bunch of 17-year-old quasi-intellectual proto-punks" was how Steve Krikorian, later to be known as Tonio K, described his first band. Krikorian, along with friends Alan Shapazian, Steve Olson, Nick van Maarth, and Duane Scott, formed The Raik's Progress in 1966 in Fresno, California. By the end of the year they had already cut a single for a major label (Liberty) and would soon find themselves opening for Buffalo Springfield at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium. The Raik's Progress was best known for their stage show, which included sitting down and playing a game of poker between songs and other strange antics. Their music was equally eccentric, in that it combined influences from the more blues oriented British Invasion bands like the Animals and Them with an avant-garde sensibility more in line with what Frank Zappa's Mothers were doing at the time. Although they only released one single, the band did manage to record an album's worth of material before disbanding. Those tunes, including band original Prisoner Of Chillon, were finally released on an LP called Sewer Rat Love Chant in 2003.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Desolation Row
Source: CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
The last track on Bob Dylan's groundbreaking 1965 LP, Highway 61 Revisited, is also the only non-electric track on the album. With a running time of over eleven minutes, it is also the longest song on the album, and contains some of the bleakest imagery. If you're in the right frame of mind, Desolation Row is a fascinating journey to some pretty dark places. If not, you probably won't be able to listen to the entire piece in one sitting.
And speaking of things you may find it hard to listen to...
Artist: Merry Pranksters, featuring Ken Kesey & Ken Babbs
Title: One-Way Ticket (A Classic)
Source: Mono LP: The Acid Trip
Writer(s): Babbs/Kesey
Label: Jackpot (originally released independently)
Year: 1966
As a general rule, Americans in 1966 had a limited number of options when it came to buying recorded music, and nearly all of those options involved record companies. In San Francisco, however, something different was happening. People like Country Joe McDonald were putting out their own recorded works in various forms, such as a music and arts magazine (although perhaps "underground newspaper" is a better description) called Rag Baby. New, independent recording studios were opening up as well, including Sound City, which invited Ken Kesey and his fellow Merry Pranksters to come over and record whatever they wanted to. Kesey, his friend Ken Babbs and the gang showed up on January 29, 1966 and spent the next 14 hours tripping their brains out and recording everything they did. The results were edited down to LP length and circulated independently on the streets of San Francisco as an album called The Acid Test. The second track on the LP, Ken Babbs And Harmonica, is exactly what the title implies. Babbs, in his recent book Cronies, says that the Pranksters were too young to be beatniks, but too old to be hippies". One-Way Ticket certainly has a Beatnik vibe to it, albeit tinged with the contents of a sugar cube as well.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: The Black Plague
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Repertoire (original US label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
One of the most interesting recordings of 1967 was Eric Burdon And The Animals' The Black Plague, which appeared on the Winds Of Change album. The Black Plague is a spoken word piece dealing with life and death in a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague (natch), set to a somewhat gothic piece of music that includes Gregorian style chanting and an occasional voice calling out the words "bring out your dead" in the background. The album itself had a rather distinctive cover, consisting of a stylized album title accompanied by a rather lengthy text piece on a scroll against a black background, something that, to my knowledge, has never been done before or since on an album cover.
Artist: Fairport Convention
Title: It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft
Source: CD: Spirit of Joy (originally released on LP: Fairport Convention)
Writer(s): Hutchings/Thompson
Label: Polydor (original US label: Cotillion)
Year: 1968
Fairport Convention has long been known for their role in the British folk music revival that came to prominence in the early 70s. Originally, however, the band was modeled after the folk-rock bands on the US West Coast that took the world by storm in 1965 and 1966. Their first LP was released in early 1968, and drew favorable reviews from the UK rock press, which saw them at Britain's answer to Jefferson Airplane. One of the LP's highlights is It's Alright, It's Only Witchcraft, which features electric guitar work by Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol that rivals that of Jorma Kaukonen. The album was not initially released in the US. Two years later, following the success of Fairport Convention's later albums with vocalist Sandy Denny on the A&M label, the band's first LP (with Judy Dyble) was given a limited release on Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Oh Well
Source: Mono LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: Then Play On)
Writer(s): Peter Green
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 1969, 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.
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