https://exchange.prx.org/p/511826
Actually, Rockin' in the Days of Confusion is ALWAYS free. But since this week's opening track is called Introduction (plus the fact that nearly every track on the show has been heard on previous editions of Rockin' in the Days of Confusion), we figured we'd just call it Free Introductory Offer anyway.
Artist: Chicago
Title: Introduction
Source: CD: The Chicago Transit Authority
Writer(s): Terry Kath
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
When living in Germany in 1969 I bought a copy of an album called Underground in a local record store. The album itself was on purple vinyl that glowed under a black light and featured a variety of artists that had recently released albums in the US on the Columbia label (since the name Columbia was trademarked by EMI in Europe and the UK, US albums from the American Columbia label were released on the CBS label instead). The opening track of the album was appropriately called Introduction and was also the opening track of the first Chicago (Transit Authority) album. Written by guitarist Terry Kath, the piece effectively showcases the strengths of the band, both as an extremely tight ensemble and as individual soloists, with no one member dominating the song.
Artist: Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title: Really
Source: LP: Super Session
Writer: Bloomfield/Kooper
Label: Columbia/Sundazed
Year: 1968
Al Kooper and Michael Bloomfield first met when they were both members of Bob Dylan's band in 1965, playing on the classic Highway 61 Revisited album and famously performing at the Newport Folk Festival, where Kooper's organ was physically assaulted by angry folk purists. After a stint with seminal jam band The Blues Project, Kooper became a staff producer for Columbia Records in New York, where he came up with the idea of an album made up entirely of studio jams. He recruited Bloomfield, who had in the intervening years played with the Butterfield Blues Band and the Electric Flag, along with bassist Harvey Brooks (also from Butterfield's band) and studio drummer Eddie Hoh and came up with the surprise hit album of 1968, Super Session. Although Bloomfield bowed out of the project halfway through, he plays on all the tracks on side one of the album, including Really, which utilizes a classic blues progression.
Title: Down By The River
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
Down By The River is one of four songs on the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere that Neil Young wrote while running a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 39.5 degrees for people in civilized nations that use the Celsius, aka centrigrade, scale). By some strange coincidence, they are the four best songs on the album. I wish I could have been that sick in my days as a wannabe rock star.
Artist: Graham Nash
Title: Prison Song
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Graham Nash
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1973
Graham Nash's Prison Song is one of those songs that by all rights should have been a huge hit. It was by a name artist. It had a catchy opening harmonica riff and a haunting melody. I can only surmise that once again Bill Gavin (whose Gavin Report was considered by many in the industry to be the top 40 "bible") decided that the lyrics were too subversive for AM radio and had the song blacklisted, much as he had done with the Byrds Eight Miles High a few years earlier. Those lyrics center on a subject that is unfortunately still relevant today: the utter absurdity of drug laws and the disproportionate sentences for violation of those laws in various part of the United States.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s): Bredon/Page/Plant
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1968
It is the nature of folk music that a song often gets credited to one writer when in fact it is the work of another. This is due to the fact that folk singers tend to share their material liberally with other folk singers, who often make significant changes to the work before passing it along to others. Such is the case with Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You, which was originally conceived by UC-Berkeley student Anne Johannsen in the late 1950s and performed live on KPFA radio in 1960. Another performer on the same show, Janet Smith, developed the song further and performed it at Oberlin College, where it was heard by audience member Joan Baez. Baez asked Smith for a tape of her songs and began performing the song herself. Baez used it as the opening track on her album, Joan Baez In Concert, Part One, but it was credited as "traditional", presumably because Baez herself had no knowledge of who had actually written the song. Baez eventually discovered the true origins of the tune, and later pressings gave credit to Anne Bredon, who had divorced her first husband, Lee Johannsen and married Glen Bredon since writing the song. Jimmy Page had an early pressing of the Baez album, so when he reworked the song for inclusion on the first Led Zeppelin album, he went with "traditional, arranged Page" as the writer. Robert Plant, who worked with Page on the arrangement, was not originally given credit for contractual reasons, although current editions of the album credit Page, Plant and Bredon as the songwriters.
Artist: Pentangle
Title: Pentangling
Source: LP: Superecord. Contemporary (originally released on LP: The Pentangle)
Writer(s): Cox/Jansch/McShea/Renbourne/Thompson
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Once in a while an album comes along that is so consistently good that it's impossible to single out one specific track for airplay. Such is the case with the debut Pentangle album from 1968. The group, consisting of guitarists John Renbourne and Bert Jansch, vocalist Jacqui McShea, bassist Terry Cox, and drummer Danny Thompson, had more talent than nearly any band in history from any genre, yet never succumbed to the clash of egos that characterize most supergroups. A slightly edited version of Pentangling appeared on a special promotional album for JBL speakers (priced at less than a dollar!) called Superecord Contemporary in 1971.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Albatross
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: English Rose
Writer(s): Peter Green
Label: Sony Music (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1968
Albatross was the third single released by Fleetwood Mac. Released in November of 1968, it hit the #1 spot on the UK Single Chart in January of 1969. The song, which is said to have been inspired by a series of notes in an Eric Clapton guitar solo (but slowed down considerably) had been in the works for some time, but left unfinished until the addition of then 18-year-old guitarist Danny Kirwan to the band, who, unlike the band's second guitarist Jeremy Spencer, was more than willing to help bandleader Peter Green work out the final arrangement. Although Spencer was usually the group's resident slide guitarist (as is seen miming the part on a video clip), Kirwan actually played the slide guitar parts behind Green's lead guitar work, with Mick Fleetwood using mallets rather than drumsticks on the recording. John McVie, of course, played bass on the tune.
Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: The Park
Source: European import CD: Salisbury
Writer: Ken Hensley
Label: Sanctuary/BMG (original US label: Mercury)
Year: 1971
Uriah Heep's second album, Salisbury, saw the band shifting in a more progressive direction, thanks in large part to the input of keyboardist Ken Hensley, who wrote half the songs on the album. As the band's career progressed, Hensley would become the group's primary songwriter. One of the early Hensley tunes was the Park, a relatively quiet piece that gives David Byron a chance to exercise the higher end of his vocal range.
Artist: Pavlov's Dog
Title: Julia
Source: LP: Pampered Menial (promo copy)
Writer(s): David Surkamp
Label: Columbia
Year: 1975
During my first couple of years living in Albuquerque, NM, I met quite an assortment of strange and unusual people. Among them were a guy who would eventually come to be known as Carlos the Ragman and his roommate, Clint. Clint was, as near as I can tell, possessed of a genius IQ, enhanced by far too many acid trips. He seemed to be in possession of some sort of telepathic powers as well, as was made apparent on more than one occasion. In addition to (or maybe because of) all these things, Clint had somewhat unusual tastes in music. I remember him showing up one evening with an album he had just bought called Pampered Menial, by a band from St. Louis, Mo. called Pavlov's Dog. The opening track, Julia, was truly like nothing I had ever heard before, probably due to the unique vocals of David Surkamp, the writer of Julia. In addition to Surkamp, the band included Steve Scorfina, Mike Safron, Rick Stockton, David Hamilton, Doug Rayburn and Siegfried Carver.
Artist: Firesign Theatre
Title: Excerpt from Part One: London; Chapter 2: An Outrageously Disgusting Disguise
Source: LP: The Tale Of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra
Writer(s): Procter/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1974
The Firesign Theatre never passed up an opportunity to make a good (or bad) pun, and on this short excerpt from The Tale Of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra they make a whole series of them, all of which are dog related. The entire piece is a parody of Sherlock Holmes, taking place during England's Victorian Era.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Made Up My Mind
Source: British import CD: A Step Further
Writer: Chris Youlden
Label: Polygram/Deram (original US label: Parrot)
Year: 1969
To coincide with a US tour, the fourth Savoy Brown album, A Step Further, was actually released in North America several months before it was in the UK, with Made Up My Mind (a Chris Youlden tune that borrowed heavily from Arthur Gunter's mid-50s classic Baby Let's Play House) being simultaneously released as a single. Luckily for the band, 1969 was a year that continued the industry-wide trend away from hit singles and toward successful albums instead, at least among the more progressive groups, as the single itself tanked. Aided by a decent amount of airplay on progressive FM radio, however, the album (the last to feature Youlden on lead vocals) peaked comfortably within the top 100 in the US.
Artist: Mahogany Rush
Title: Once Again
Source: Canadian import CD: Strange Universe
Writer(s): Frank Marino
Label: Just A Minute! (original US label: 20th Century)
Year: 1975
Jimi Hendrix didn't often play in a jazz style, but when he did, he did it well. Case in point: Up From The Skies, from the album Axis: Bold As Love. In the mid-1970s Canadian guitarist Frank Marino and his band Mahogany Rush channeled that energy with the song Once Again on their Strange Universe album. The song reflects the same sort of ironic humor that Hendrix showed in songs like 51st Anniversary, yet stands out as an example of Marino's talent as a singer, songwriter and guitarist.
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