https://exchange.prx.org/p/552167
This week it's a series of shorter sets, each with its own mini-theme, including a pair of West Coast sets (one from a couple of big cities and the other from some smaller ones), a long all-LP track set from 1968, and Jimi Hendrix set and, to finish things off, a set of slower psych tunes.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Getting Better
Source: LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone/EMI (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
Following their 1966 North American tour, the Beatles announced that they were giving up touring to concentrate on their songwriting and studio work. Freed of the responsibilities of the road (and under the influence of mind-expanding substances), the band members found themselves discovering new sonic possibilities as never before (or since), hitting a creative peak with their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, often cited as the greatest album ever recorded. The individual Beatles were about to move in separate musical directions, but as of Sgt. Pepper's were still functioning mostly as a single unit, as is heard on the chorus of Getting Better, in which Paul McCartney's opening line, "I have to admit it's getting better", is immediately answered by John Lennon's playfully cynical "can't get no worse". The members continued to experiment with new instrumental styles as well, such as George Harrison's use of sitar on the song's bridge, accompanied by Ringo Starr's bongos.
Artist: Bee Gees
Title: Red Chair Fade Away
Source: CD: Bee Gees 1st
Writer(s): Barry & Robin Gibb
Label: Reprise (original label: Atco
Year: 1967
The album Bee Gees' 1st, released in 1967, is an eclectic mix of soft rock, experimental and downright psychedic material, all of which features the trademark harmonies of the Gibb brothers. Perhaps the most overtly psychedelic song on the album is Red Chair Fade Away, which features odd time signature changes that manage to work well. The tune was covered by the Cyrkle in 1968 as the B side of their final single.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)
Source: British import simulated stereo CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s): Hall/Erickson
Label: Charly (original US label: International Artists)
Year: 1967
The 13th Floor Elevators, following a tour of California, returned to their native Austin, Texas in early 1967 and got to work on their second LP, Easter Everywhere. There were problems brewing within the band itself, however, that led to two of its members, drummer John Ike Walton and bassist Ronnie Leatherman, returning to California without the rest of the band. Before they left, however, they, along with vocalist/guitarist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall and lead guitarist Stacy Sutherland, completed two songs for the album, one of which was She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own). The album itself was awarded a special "merit pick" by Billboard magazine, which described the effort as "intellectual rock". Easter Everywhere was not a major seller, but has since come to be regarded as one of the hidden gems of the psychedelic era.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: Piece Of My Heart
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer: Ragovoy/Burns
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
By 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company, with their charismatic vocalist from Texas, Janis Joplin, had become as popular as fellow San Francisco bands Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Somehow, though, they were still without a major label record deal. That all changed with the release of Cheap Thrills, with cover art by the legendary underground comix artist R. Crumb. The album itself was a curious mixture of live performances and studio tracks, the latter being led by the band's powerful cover of the 1966 Barbara Lynn tune Piece Of My Heart. The song propelled the band, and Joplin, to stardom. That stardom would be short-lived for most of the band members, however, as well-meaning but ultimately wrong-headed advice-givers convinced Joplin that Big Brother was holding her back. The reality was that Joplin was far more integrated with Big Brother And The Holding Company than anyone she would ever work with again.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Fields of Sun
Source: CD: Heavy
Writer(s): Ingle/DeLoach
Label: Rhino/Atco
Year: 1968
Before In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida there was Heavy. The debut LP from Iron Butterfly featured vocalist/tambourinist Darryl DeLoach, guitarist Danny Weis and bassist Jerry Penrod, all of whom would leave the band after the album was recorded, along with drummer Ron Bushy and keyboardist Doug Ingle, who would find themselves having to recruit two new members before recording the classic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album. One of the best-known tracks from Heavy is Fields of Sun, with its Baroque-influenced instrumental bridge played and sung (an octave higher) by Ingle.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Title: Rock Me Baby
Source: Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s): King/Josea
Label: Philips
Year: 1968
The first Blue Cheer LP, Vincebus Eruptum, is cited by some as the first heavy metal album, while others refer to it as proto metal. However you want to look at it, the album is dominated by the feedback-laden guitar of Leigh Stephens, as can be plainly heard on their version of B.B. King's classic Rock Me Baby. Although there seem to be very few people still around who actually heard Blue Cheer perform live, the power trio has the reputation of being one of the loudest bands in the history of rock music.
Artist: The Ban
Title: Place Of Sin
Source: Mono British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (bonus track)
Writer(s): Tony McGuire
Label: Big Beat
Year: Recorded 1965, released 2010
The Ban was a garage band from Lompoc, California, consisting of vocalist/guitarist Tony McGuire, organist Oilver McKinney, bassist Frank Strait and drummer Randy Gordon. They made a handful of recordings for the Brent label in 1965, with the song Bye Bye being released as a single. Among the other McGuire compositions the Ban recorded was Place Of Sin, a song that was probably too far ahead of its time to be released in 1965. Unfortunately, before the Ban could generate interest in their single, McGuire was drafted, and the Ban moved to San Bernadino, adding a new member and changing their name to the Now. Later, they relocated to San Francisco, where they were snagged by the infamous manager Matthew Katz, who renamed them the Tripsichord Music Box.
Artist: Premiers
Title: Get On This Plane
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Delgado/Uballez
Label: Rhino (original label: Faro)
Year: 1966
The Premiers were a band from San Gabriel, California best known for their 1964 hit Farmer John. After that national success, the group continued to record, cranking out a series of local L.A. hits for local latino label Faro, run by Max Uballez. The last of these was Get On This Plane, a song that Uballez co-wrote for the band in 1966.
Artist: Collectors
Title: Looking At A Baby
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vickberg/Henderson
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Valiant)
Year: 1967
Formed as the Classics in 1961, the Collectors hailed from Vancouver, British Columbia. By 1966 they had managed to secure a contract with Valiant Records, releasing Looking At A Baby as a single in January of 1967. Although the record was not a hit in the US, it did get the attention of engineer/producer Dave Hassinger, who was having problems completing David Axelrod's Mass In F Minor using the Electric Prunes. As the Collectors were musically more adept than the Prunes, Hassinger hired them to provide the instrumental tracks for the album, which nonetheless came out under the Electric Prunes name (which Hassinger virtually owned at that time). Eventually the Collectors would change their name to Chilliwack and release a series of moderately successful records on the A&M label in the early to mid 1970s.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Gimme Some Lovin'
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label: United Artists
Year: 1966
The movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becoming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear on the FM dial in major markets as well. Ironically, most of those stations are now playing 80s oldies.
Artist: Doors
Title: Unhappy Girl
Source: CD: 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: 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: Led Zeppelin
Title: How Many More Times
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Led Zeppelin)
Writer(s): Page/Jones/Bonham
Label: Cotillion (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1969
Like many early Led Zeppelin songs, How Many More Times was originally credited to the band members (except, for contractual reasons, singer Robert Plant). More recent releases of the song, however, list Chester Burnett (Howlin' Wolf) as a co-writer, despite the fact that he and the members of Led Zeppelin had never met. This is because of the similarity, especially in the lyrics, to a 1951 Howlin' Wolf record called How Many More Years. The band reportedly tried to trick radio programmers into playing the eight and a half minute song by listing it on the album cover as being three minutes and thirty seconds long. I doubt anyone was fooled.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Astronomy Domine
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (originally released in UK and Canada)
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: EMI Columbia)
Year: 1967
When the US version of the first Pink Floyd LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, was released on the Tower label, it was missing several tracks that had appeared on the original British version of the album. Among the most notable omissions was the original album's opening track, Astronomy Domine, which was replaced by the non-LP single See Emily Play. Astronomy Domine is a Syd Barrett composition that was a popular part of the band's stage repertoire for several years. The piece is considered one of the earliest examples of "space rock", in part because of the spoken intro (by the band's manager Peter Jenner) reciting the names of the planets (and some moons) of the solar system through a megaphone.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Overs
Source: LP: Bookends
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Originally written for (but not used in) the film The Graduate, Overs is the middle part of a series of songs on side one of the Bookends album that follow the cycle of life from childhood to old age. The song deals with a long relationship that is coming to an end after years of slow stagnation. Musically the tune is quiet and contemplative, with a loose structure that has more in common with the cool jazz of Miles Davis than either folk or rock.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: Sacrifice Of The Moon
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer(s): Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
Ultimate Spinach was one of several Boston area bands signed by M-G-M's Alan Lorber and marketed as representative of a "Bosstown Sound" that didn't actually exist. In fact, Ultimate Spinach, led by multi-instrumentalist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote all the group's material (and liner notes as well), sounded a lot like Country Joe and the Fish, especially on instrumentals like Sacrifice Of The Moon from their self-titled debut LP. The LP, released in January of 1968, did fairly well on the charts, hitting the #34 spot, leading to a second LP, Behold And See, later the same year. Bruce-Douglas left the band he founded after that second LP, and although there were more Ultimate Spinach albums, none of them sounded anything like the original band.
Artist: Love Sculpture
Title: I Believe To My Soul
Source: British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s): Ray Charles
Label: EMI (original label: Rare Earth)
Year: 1968
Most people know the name Dave Edmunds from an early 70s cover of the song I Hear You Knockin' (But You Can't Come In), which still gets played on oldies stations from time to time. What a lot of people don't realize, however, is that Edmunds is one of the hottest blues guitarists ever to emerge from the British blues scene of the late 1960s. A listen to the album Blues Helping, however, will erase any doubts about his abilities. Many of the tracks on Blues Helping are cover songs, including a blistering rendition of Ray Charles' I Believe To My Soul, a song that includes one of the most famous lyrical lines ever: "I heard you say 'Oh, Johnny', when you know my name is Ray" (or in this case, Dave).
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Dr. Slingshot
Source: British import CD: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Mainstream/Repertoire
Year: 1968
The original idea behind the second Amboy Dukes album was for Ted Nugent to write all the songs on side one of the LP and Steve Farmer to write side two. It didn't quite work out that way, however, as the two guitarists ended up collaborating on three of the album's tracks. One song in particular, Dr. Slingshot (which closes out side one of the LP), is a truly collaborative effort in that the music was written by Nugent, while two different sets of lyrics came from the pen of Farmer. One of those sets is sung by Farmer himself, while the other is sung by keyboardist Andy Solomon, who had only recently joined the Dukes, replacing Rick Lober.
Artist: Fairport Convention
Title: Portfolio
Source: British import CD: Fairport Convention
Writer(s): Dyble/Hutchings
Label: Polydor
Year: 1968
Fairport Convention is well known as one of the premier British folk bands of the 1970s. The band did not, however, start off that way. The original lineup, consisting of Ian McDonald (lead vocals), Judy Dyble (lead vocals, autoharp, recorder, piano), Richard Thompson (guitars, vocals, mandolin), Simon Nicol (guitars, vocals), Ashley Hutchings (bass), and Martin Lamble (percussion, violin), were an eclectic bunch with eclectic tastes that included the written works of Spike Milligan and James Joyce and the music of John Coltrane, Doc Watson, and the Butterfield Blues Band, among others. Their own music was a synthesis of folk, rock, jazz, blues and the avant-garde, and was hailed as Britain's answer to the Jefferson Airplane. The first self-titled Fairport Convention album was only released in the UK (which in later years would lead to some confusion, since the band's next LP, 1969's What We Did On Our Holidays, was released in the US in 1970 with no other name than Fairport Convention). Not every track on the original Fairport Convention LP had vocals. One of the strongest tracks, in fact, was an instrumental written by Dyble and Hutchings called Portfolio that manages, in just two minutes, to give a strong impression of where the band was at musically in 1968. As much as I like the much better known Sandy Denny version of Fairport Convention, I would have loved to have heard more from this original lineup of the band.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1965
The Standells were not from Boston (they were a Los Angeles club band). Ed Cobb, who wrote and produced Dirty Water, was. The rest is history.
Artist: Cream
Title: N.S.U.
Source: LP: Fresh Cream
Writer: Jack Bruce
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
The US version of Fresh Cream starts off the with powerful one-two punch of I Feel Free and N.S.U. Although I Feel Free was a purely studio creation that never got performed live, N.S.U. became a staple of the band's concert performances, and was even performed by various other bands that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce was a member of over the years.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Bass Strings (original EP version)
Source: Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
A lot of songs released in 1966 and 1967 got labeled as drug songs by influential people in the music industry. In many cases, those labels were inaccurate, at least according to the artists who recorded those songs. On the other hand, you have songs like Bass Strings by Country Joe and the Fish that really can't be about anything else.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: The Wind Cries Mary
Source: The Ultimate Experience (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original labels: Track (UK), Reprise (US))
Year: 1967
The US version of the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, was significantly different than its UK counterpart. For one thing, the original UK album was originally only available in mono. For the US version, engineers at Reprise Records, working from the original multi-track masters, created all new stereo mixes of about two-thirds of the album, along with all three of the singles that the Jimi Hendrix Experience had released in the UK. The third of these singles was The Wind Cries Mary, which had hit the British charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience (MkII)
Title: Freedom
Source: CD: First Rays of the New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
Jimi Hendrix was working on a new double album when he died, but nobody else seemed to be sure where he was going with it. As there were several tracks that were unfinished at the time, Reprise Records gathered what they could and put them together on an album called The Cry Of Love. Freedom, a nearly finished piece (the unfinished part being a short "placesetter" guitar solo that Hendrix never got around to replacing with a final take), is the opening track from the album. Soon after that, a new Hendrix concert film called Rainbow Bridge was released along with a soundtrack album containing most of the remaining tracks from the intended double album. Finally, under the auspices of the Hendrix family in 1997, MCA (with the help of original engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell) pieced together what was essentially an educated guess about what would have been that album and released it under the name First Rays of the New Rising Sun.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience II
Title: Angel
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1971
Shortly after the untimely death of Jimi Hendrix in September of 1970, Reprise released the first of many posthumous Hendrix albums, The Cry Of Love. Like millions of other Hendrix fans, I immediately went out and bought a copy. I have to say that there are very few songs that have ever brought tears to my eyes, and even fewer that did so on my very first time hearing them. Of these, Angel tops the list. The song features the second Jimi Hendrix Experience lineup with Billy Cox on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. Mitchell and Eddie Kramer mixed the song posthumously.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: People Get Ready
Source: LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer: Curtis Mayfield
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The first Vanilla Fudge LP was all cover songs, done in the slowed-down Vanilla Fudge style that some say was inspired by fellow Long Islanders The Vagrants. People Get Ready, originally recorded by Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, is one of the better ones.
Artist: H.P. Lovecraft
Title: Electrollentando
Source: CD: Two Classic Albums from H. P. Lovecraft (originally released on LP: H.P. Lovecraft II)
Writer(s): George Edwards
Label: Collector's Choice (original label: Philips)
Year: 1968
The second album by H.P. Lovecraft (the band, not the author) is sometimes referred to as the ultimate acid rock album. In fact, it has been rumoured to be the first album made entirely under the influence of LSD (although the same has been said of the 1967 Jefferson Airplane LP After Bathing At Baxter's and both albums by the 13th Floor Elevators as well). This may in part because the band had relocated from their native Chicago to Marin County, California, where they shared billing with established Bay Area bands like Big Brother and the Holding Company and the aforementioned Jefferson Airplane. The album also featured more original material than the band's debut LP, including the easier to listen to than pronounce the title of Electrollentando.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Nature's Way
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Randy California
Label: Epic
Year: 1970
Nature's Way is one of the best-known and best-loved songs in the Spirit catalog. Originally released on the 1970 LP The Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, the song was finally issued as a single in 1973, long after lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes had left the band. The single mix is a bit different from the album version, particularly at the end of the song, which originally ended with a tympani roll by drummer Ed Cassidy. The single version ends with the chord immediately preceding that roll.
