https://exchange.prx.org/p/559546
This week we have an entire half hour of King Crimson in addition to artists' sets from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Strawberry Alarm Clock, and a long set from 1968 on a never before aired show recorded in 2018.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: I Just Want To Make Love To You
Source: CD: Gloria
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
When it became apparent that the Shadows Of Knight version of Van Morrison's Gloria was going to be a hit single, the group's label, Dunwich, rushed them into the studio to record an entire LP's worth of material. Much of what the band recorded was covers of songs by legendary Chicago blues artists such as Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters. In fact, the last three songs on the LP were all written by Willie Dixon, including I Just Want To Make Love To You, which closes out the album.
Artist: Love
Title: Alone Again Or
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Bryan MacLean
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Most of Love's songs were written by multi-instrumentalist and lead vocalist Arthur Lee. The most notable exception was Alone Again Or, the opening track of their 1967 album Forever Changes, which was written by rhythm guitarist Bryan MacLean. McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. Nonetheless, the recording was released not once, but twice as a single, first in 1968 and again in 1970 with a different B side. It was actually released a third time in 1971, this time on Elektra's Spun Gold oldies sublabel.
Artist: Fraternity Of Man
Title: Just Doin' Our Job
Source: LP: Fraternity Of Man
Writer(s): Fraternity Of Man
Label: ABC
Year: 1968
The Fraternity Of Man was an L.A. band with connections to the Mothers Of Invention. Their deliberately controversial songs included Don't Bogart That Joint, which was used in the film Easy Rider, and Just Doin' Our Job, a song that compares the LAPD to Hitler's Gestapo.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Leland Mississippi Blues
Source: German import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s): Johnny Winter
Label: Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Leland, Mississippi native John Dawson Winter Jr. was a guitarist/saxophonist who played and sang at churches, weddings and various other gatherings before moving to Beaumont, Texas, where he sired two albino sons, Johnny and Edgar. The two made their first professional appearance on a local children's TV show, with Johnny playing ukelele. At age 15, Johnny Winter entered a recording studio for the first time with his band Johnny And The Jammers, recording a pair of self-penned tunes for Houston's Dart label in 1960. He recorded several more singles over the next few years for a variety of labels, including MGM and Atlantic, but did not record his first LP until 1968 when he and his band, which included future Double Trouble member Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums, recorded The Progressive Blues Experiment for the Austin-based Sonobeat label in 1968. The album caught on so quickly that is was reissued nationally on the Imperial label the same year. That December he accepted an invitation from Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper to join them for an onstage jam as the Fillmore East. Reps from Columbia Records were present at the performance, and less than a week later Winter had signed with the label for a record $600,000. His first album for Columbia was made up mostly of cover songs. One of the three original tunes on the album was Leland Mississippi Blues, an obvious reference to his father's birthplace.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: The World's On Fire
Source: LP: Incense And Peppermints
Writer(s): King/Bunnell/Freeman/Weitz/Seal
Label: Sundazed/Uni
Year: 1967
So you think because you've heard Incense And Peppermints (the song, not the album) about a million times, you have a pretty good grip on what the Strawberry Alarm Clock was all about? Well, a listen to the opening track of their first LP (also titled Incense And Peppermints) will disabuse you of that notion in a hurry. Running well over eight minutes in length, The World's On Fire is essentially an extended jam showcasing the talents of the band itself, including guitarist Ed King, who would later become a member of Lynyrd Skynryd . The piece was also included in the 1968 film Psych-Out.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original labels: All-American/Uni)
Year: 1967
Thee Sixpence was a Los Angeles band that released four singles on the local All-American label, owned by the band's producer/manager Bill Holmes, in 1966. None of those records were written by band members, however. In fact, the B sides of the first three were covers of songs that had been recently released on fellow L.A. band Love's first album. One of those singles, a song called Fortune Teller, backed by My Flash On You, had even been reissued on the Dot label for national distribution, but had not charted. For their fifth single, Thee Sixpence worked with a new producer, Frank Slay, on The Birdman Of Alkatrash, a tune written by the band's keyboardist, Mark Weitz. The song was recorded in early 1967, along with an instrumental by Weiss and guitarist Ed King that was intended for the record's B side. Slay, however, brought in professional songwriters Tim Gilbert and John Carter to write lyrics and a melody line for the tune (giving the two sole credit for the finished song), which became Incense And Peppermints. The members of Thee Sixpence hated the new lyrics, and 16-year-old Greg Munford, a member of another local band called Shapes Of Sound, was hired to provide lead vocals for the tune. It was, after all, only a B side, right? Around this time, the band decided to change their name from the faux-British sounding Thee Sixpence to the more psychedelically-flavored Strawberry Alarm Clock. Whether The Birdman of Alkatrash was ever issued under the Thee Sixpence name is disputed (nobody seems to have actually seen a copy), but All-American most definitely released it as the first Strawberry Alarm Clock single in April of 1967. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side in May of 1967. By the end of November, Incense And Peppermints had become Uni's first #1 hit record, making it, to my knowledge the only instance of a hit single being played, but not sung, by the artists of record (the reverse being a fairly common occurence). Although the Strawberry Alarm Clock was never able to duplicate the success of Incense And Peppermints, the band did end up releasing a total of twelve singles and four LPs before disbanding in 1971, Following the breakup guitarist Ed King became a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd (who had been the Strawberry Alarm Clock's opening band when they toured the south in 1970-71), and wrote the opening guitar riff of that band's first major hit, Sweet Home Alabama. To my knowledge, neither King or Weitz ever saw a penny in royalties for Incense And Peppermints, although Weitz, as sole writer of The Birdman Of Alkatrash, was able to get a share of the royalties for the single itself.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Hummin' Happy
Source: LP: Incense And Peppermints
Writer(s): King/Bunnell/Freeman/Weitz/Seol
Label: Sundazed/Uni
Year: 1967
As soon as it became apparent that the song Incense And Peppermints was going to be a bit hit, the Strawberry Alarm Clock got to work on their first LP, also titled Incense And Peppermints. Most of the songs on the LP were band originals, with some, including the harmony-laden Hummin' Happy, co-credited to two of the band members, bassist George Bunnell and drummer Randy Seol, in addition to a group credit. I have no idea why they did it that way, but the 2009 reissue of the album lists all five individual members as songwriters.
Artist: King Crimson
Title: 21st Century Schizoid Man
Source: CD: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Writer: Fripp/McDonald/Lake/Giles/Sinfield
Label: Discipline Global Mobile (original US label: Atlantic)
Year: 1969
There are several bands with a legitimate claim to starting the prog-rock movement of the mid-70s. The one most musicians cite as the one that started it all, however, is King Crimson. Led by Robert Fripp, the band went through several personnel changes over the years. Many of the members went on to greater commercial success as members of other bands, including guitarist/keyboardist Ian McDonald (Foreigner), and lead vocalist/bassist Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) from the original lineup heard on In The Court Of The Crimson King. Additionally, poet Peter Sinfield, who wrote all King Crimson's early lyrics, would go on to perform a similar function for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, including their magnum opus Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends. Other original members included Michael Giles on drums and Fripp himself on guitar. 21st Century Schizoid Man, as the first song on the first album by King Crimson, can quite literally be cited as the song that got the whole thing started.
Artist: King Crimson
Title: Happy Family
Source: British import LP: Lizard
Writer(s): Fripp/Sinfield
Label: Polydor
Year: 1970
King Crimson may well hold the record for the most lineup changes by a rock band. By the time their third album, Lizard, was released, only guitarist Robert Fripp and lyricist Peter Sinfield remained from the lineup that had created the band's debut LP. New vocalist Gordon Haskell and drummer Andy McCulloch would only stick around long enough to record one album, and never performed with the band live. Haskell, in particular, found it difficult to make a connection with songs like Indoor Games, himself being more of a Motown afficianado.
Artist: King Crimson
Title: I Talk To The Wind/Epitaph
Source: CD: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Writer(s): Fripp/McDonald/Lake/Giles/Sinfield
Label: Discipline Mobile Global (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1969
During my years in Albuquerque, New Mexico I had a friend named Dave Meaden. It was Dave who first introduced me to King Crimson's first album, In The Court Of The Crimson King, featuring lyrics by poet Peter Sinfield. Dave was such a big fan of Sinfield's work that he had actually handwritten the entire lyrics to Epitaph on a flag that he had hanging in his living room. I usually don't pay all that much attention to lyrics, being more of an instrumentalist, but for this particular piece I have to make an exception. In fact, I'm posting the entire text of Epitaph right here:
The wall on which the prophets wrote is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death the sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart with nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath as silence drowns the screams?
Between the iron gates of fate, the seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend when no-one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind, I see, is in the hands of fools.
Confusion will be my epitaph,
As I crawl a cracked and broken path.
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Epitaph is preceded on the album by a composition originally recorded in demo form by Fripp's previous group, Giles, Giles and Fripp called I Talk To The Wind.The song, written by Ian McDonald, with lyrics by Sinfield, is a quiet, reflective piece, highlighted by McDonald's classically-oriented flute solos. The two tracks are tightly-sequenced on the original LP, and really need to be heard as one continuous piece to be fully appreciated.
Artist: Doors
Title: People Are Strange
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
People Are Strange, the first single from the Doors' second LP, Strange Days, was also the shortest song on the album, barely breaking the two minute mark at a time when songs were getting longer and longer.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Purple Haze
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK as a single, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise got the rights to release the first Hendrix album, Are You Experienced?, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. The song next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which in Europe was on the Polydor label. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA (now Universal) acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced? with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced? is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that the song has now been released by all three of the currently existing major record companies.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: House Burning Down
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
The third Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Electric Ladyland, was the first to be produced entirely by Hendrix himself, rather than with Chas Chandler (with more than a little help from engineer Eddie Kramer). It was also the first to use state-of-the-art eight-track recording technology (not to be confused with the later 8-track tape cartridge), as well as several new tech toys developed specifically for Hendrix to play with. The result was an album with production standards far beyond anything else being attempted at the time. One song that showcases Hendrix's prowess as a producer is House Burning Down. Using effects such as phasing, double-tracking and stereo panning, Hendrix manages to create music that sounds like it's actually swirling around the listener rather than coming from a specific location. It's also the only rock song I can think of that uses a genuine tango beat (in the verses).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Fire
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener. In 1969, two years after its original UK appearance on the mono LP Are You Experienced, the stereo remix of Fire from the US version of the album (which had never been released outside of the US and Canada) was issued in the UK, along with a handful of European countries and New Zealand, as a single called Let Me Light Your Fire.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Two Heads
Source: CD: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer: Grace Slick
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1967
The third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, saw the group moving in increasingly experimental directions, as Grace Slick's two contributions to the LP attest. The more accessible of the two was Two Heads, which was the first part of Schizoforest Love Suite, the fifth and final "suite" on the album.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: All Sold Out
Source: CD: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
The Rolling Stones were on the verge of a transition period when they recorded Between The Buttons in August and September of 1966. Much of the album, including tracks like All Sold Out, were pretty much in the same vein as the songs on their previous album, Aftermath, yet Between The Buttons also marked the beginning of the band's brief flirtation with psychedelia as well. From a production standpoint the album suffered from the limitations of 4-track technology, which necessitated the use of "bouncing" (pre-mixing multiple tracks down to a single track to make room for overdubs on the original tracks), a process that often resulted in a loss of audio fidelity. In fact, Mick Jagger later referred to most of Between The Buttons as "more of less rubbish" because of the overall sound quality.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Naked If I Want To
Source: LP: Great Grape
Writer: Jerry Miller
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Although guitarist Jerry Miller's name appears in the credits for nearly half the material on the first Moby Grape album, more than any other band member, there was only one song credited to Miller as the sole songwriter. Ironically, Naked If I Want To was also the shortest track on the album, with a running time of less than a minute. A longer version of the song appeared on Moby Grape's second LP, Wow.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ron, Rudy and O'Kelley Isley
Label: LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol Records misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Within You Without You
Source: LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1967
George Harrison began to take an interest in the Sitar as early as 1965. By 1966 he had become proficient enough on the Indian instrument to compose and record Love You To for the Revolver album. He followed that up with perhaps his most popular sitar-based track, Within You Without You, which opens side two of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Harrison would record one more similarly-styled song, The Inner Light, in 1968, before deciding that he was never going to be in the same league as Ravi Shankar, whom Harrison had become friends with by that time. For the remainder of his time with the Beatles Harrison would concentrate on his guitar work and songwriting skills, resulting in classic songs such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something and Here Comes The Sun.
Artist: Sound Sandwich
Title: Tow Away
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (released to radio stations as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Johnny Cole
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1968
Sound Sandwich was a young (as in high school age) Los Angeles band that came under the wing of producer Johnny Cole, who wrote both of the band's singles. The second of these, Tow Away, does not show up in the database I usually use, leading me to believe the record was only released as a promo to L.A. area radio stations shortly before Viva Records closed its doors permanently.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Eighteen Is Over The Hill
Source: LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
The contributions of guitarist Ron Morgan to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band are often overlooked, possibly due to the fact that Morgan himself often tried to distance himself from the band. Nonetheless, he did write some of the group's most memorable tunes, including their best-known song, Smell Of Incense (covered by the Texas band Southwest F.O.B.) and the opening track of what is generally considered their best album, A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. Unfortunately, the somewhat senseless lyrics on Eighteen Is Over The Hill (not to mention the title itself) added by Bob Markley detract from what is actually a very tasty piece of music.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: What's Become Of The Baby
Source: CD: Aoxomoxoa
Writer(s): Hunter/Garcia
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1969
Aoxomoxoa is generally considered to be the most psychedelic Grateful Dead album ever released. It was also the first album to be produced entirely by the band itself, and the most expensive as well. The main reason for its high cost was the fact that midway through recording the album the band gained access to one of the first 16-track recorders ever made, and scrapped everything they had recorded up to that point. They spent several months experimenting with the new technology, and showed a tendency to crowd as many different things as they could fit into each song on the album. This is especially noticeable on tracks like What Has Become Of The Baby, which includes sounds that nobody seems to be able to identify, thanks in large part to the participation of avant-garde keyboardist Tom Constantin, who was a member of the band from November of 1968 through January of 1970. In 1971 band members Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh remixed the entire album, removing several of those difficult-to-identify sounds from What Has Become Of The Baby. The original tapes were then misplaced, and not relocated until 2010, when they were used for the Warner Bros. Studio Albums vinyl box set. As a result, most CD issues of Aoxomoxoa use the 1971 remix.
Artist: Traffic
Title: (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM B side and on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s): Capaldi/Winwood
Label: United Artists
Year: 1968
The second Traffic album saw the band taking in a broader set of influences, including traditional English folk music. (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released as the B side to the Dave Mason tune No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: South End Incident (I'm Afraid)
Source: British import CD: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union/The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens (originally released in US on LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union)
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: See For Miles (original US label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
The Beacon Street Union's South End Incident (I'm Afraid) was reportedly based on a real incident. According to the story, bassist Wayne Ulaky witnessed a mugging in one of Boston's seedier neighborhoods and spent the rest of that evening looking over his shoulder, worried that the muggers might have seen him. He then wrote a song about it that got recorded by the band and released on their debut LP, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. market in 1965 was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, its local success predating that of the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.
Artist: Mojo Men
Title: She's My Baby
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stewart/Alaimo/Curcio
Label: Rhino (original labels: Autumn/Reprise)
Year: 1965/1966
Although generally considered to be one of the early San Francisco bands, the Mojo Men actually originated in Rochester, NY. After spending most of the early 60s in Florida playing to fraternities, the band moved out the West Coast in 1965, soon falling in with Autumn Records producer Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone), for a time becoming his backup band. Stewart produced several singles for the Mojo Men, including She's My Baby, a song that had originally been recorded in 1962 as a song to do the mashed potato (an early 60s dance) to by Steve Alaimo, brother of Mojo Men bassist/lead vocalist Jim Alaimo and co-host (with Paul Revere and the Raiders) of the nationally distributed dance show Where The Action Is. The Mojo Men version of She's My Baby has more of a blues/garage-rock sound than the Steve Alaimo original, prompting its inclusion on several compilation albums over the past forty years. The original single, released in 1965 on the Autumn label, had different vocals than the 1966 Reprise reissue heard here, although both use the same instrumental backing track.
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