https://exchange.prx.org/p/565497
This week we have three artists' sets, including an extra long one from Jimi Hendrix including tracks from both the original Experience and Band Of Gypsys. Also on tap: an entire album side from Eric Burdon And The Animals.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Mr. Tambourine Man
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Mr. Tambourine Man)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1965
The term "folk-rock" was coined by the music press to describe the debut single by the Byrds. Mr. Tambourine Man had been written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan, but it was the Byrds version that went to the top of the charts in 1965. Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark and David Crosby had begun work on the song in 1964, when their manager got his hands on an acetate of Dylan performing the song with Ramblin' Jack Elliott. The trio, calling themselves the Jet Set, were trying to develop a sound that combined folk-based melodies and lyrics with arrangements inspired by the British Invasion, and felt that Mr. Tambourine Man might be a good candidate for that kind of treatment. Although the group soon added bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke, producer Terry Melcher opted to use the group of Los Angeles studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew for the instrumental track of the recording, along with McGuinn's 12-string guitar. Following the success of the single, the Byrds entered the studio to record their debut LP, this time playing their own instruments.
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: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Kenny Rogers has, on more than one occassion, tried to put as much distance between himself and the 1968 First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) as possible. I feel it's my duty to remind everyone that he was the lead vocalist on the recording, and that this song was the one that launched his career. So there.
Artist: Cream
Title: Strange Brew
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Collins/Pappalardi
Label: Polydor.Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: Sundazed/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
Marty Balin says he came up with the title of the opening track of side two of Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow album by combining a couple of random phrases from the sports section of a newspaper. 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds works out to 216 MPH, by the way.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: My Obsession
Source: CD: Between The Buttons
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
My Obsession, from the 1967 album Between The Buttons, is the kind of song that garage bands loved: easy to learn, easy to sing, easy to dance to. The Rolling Stones, of course, were the kings of this type of song, which is why so many US garage bands sounded like the Stones.
Artist: Turtles
Title: You Don't Have To Walk In The Rain
Source: Mono CD: All The Singles (originally released on LP: Turtle Soup and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kaylan/Volman/Nichol/Pons/Seiter
Label: FloEdCo (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1969
You Don't Have To Walk In The Rain may well be the first charted single by a rock band to address the subject of a divorced man ending up with custody of the children. Although credited to the entire group, as were all the songs on the Turtle Soup album, the song was primarily the work of the Turtles' lead vocalist Howard Kaylan, who said it was entirely fictional, although somewhat inspired by his own experiences with divorce issues a few years earlier.
Artist: Turtles
Title: She's My Girl
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1967
A favorite among the Turtles' members themselves, She's My Girl is full of hidden studio tricks that are barely (if at all) audible on the final recording. Written by Gary Bonner and Al Gordon, the same team that came up with Happy Together, the song is a worthy follow up to that monster hit.
Artist: Turtles
Title: So Goes Love
Source: Mono CD: All The Singles (originally released on LP: Golden Hits)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: FloEdCo (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1967
Gerry Goffin and Carole King's So Goes Love was recorded by three different bands around the end of 1966, but the finished versions of the song by the Monkees, Dion And The Belmonts and the Turtles were all put on the shelf, even though at least one, the Turtles version, was slated to be released as a single. That version finally appeared on an album called The Turtles' Golden Hits in 1967, but only in stereo. The original mono mix finally got released in 2016 on a Turtles CD called All The Singles.
Artist: Dinks
Title: Nina-Kocka-Nina
Source: Mono LP: Also Dug-Its (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Waddell/Bergman
Label: Elektra (original label: Sully)
Year: 1965
The Ragging Regattas were a fairly typical regional band from the early 1960s, playing mostly instrumental rock songs at venues throughout the Great Plains states of Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. In 1965 Ray Ruff, proprietor of Sully Records of Oklahoma City, hired the band to record a song he had co-written called Penny A Tear Drop. Ruff had recently relocated Sully to Texas, and the band ended up going to Amarillo to record the song. After spending several hours perfecting the tune, everyone realized they still needed a B side for the record, so the band members themselves quickly came up with a couple minutes of insanity (or maybe just inanity) they ended up calling Nina-Kocka-Nina (perhaps inspired by the Trashmen hit Surfin' Bird). The resulting recording was so unique they ended up making it the A side, and even changed their name to The Dinks to better fit the song itself. Ruff promoted the record heavily, taking out ads in various music industry publications, including one that contained a quote from none other than Bill Gavin, publisher of the Gavin Report and considered by many to be the most powerful man in radio. In the ad, Gavin called Nina-Kocka-Nina "My Personal Pick-Worst record I ever hear...people will buy it because they don't believe it". Whether many people actually did by Nina-Kocka-Nina is questionable, but in 2023 was included on an album called Also Dug-Its, a kind of addendum to Lenny Kaye's Nuggets collection that was included in the 50th anniversary edition of the original Nuggets album.
Artist: Weeds
Title: It's Your Time
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets vol. 8-The Northwest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bowen/Wynne
Label: Rhino (original label: Teenbeat Club)
Year: 1966
The Weeds were formed in La Vegas in 1966 by Fred Cole (lead vocals), Eddie Bowen (guitar), Ron Buzzell (guitar), Bob Atkins (bass guitar), and Tim Rockson (drums). Cole had already established himself as a recording artist with other local bands that played at the Teenbeat Club (thought to be the first teens-only club in the US) in Paradise, a Las Vegas suburb, and it wasn't long before the Weeds released It's Your Time on the club's own record label. Not long after the single was released the band drove to San Francisco, where they had been promised a gig at the Fillmore Auditorium, but when they arrived they discovered that no one there knew anything about it. Rather than return to Las Vegas, the Weeds decided to head north for Canada to avoid the draft, but they ran out of gas in Portland, Oregon, and soon became part of that city's music scene. Cole would eventually become an indy rock legend with his band Dead Moon, co-founded by his wife Toody, herself a Portland native.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Baby Please Don't Go (7" single version)
Source: Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joe Williams
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1967
The Amboy Dukes were a garage supergroup formed by guitarist Ted Nugent, a Chicago native who had heard that Bob Shad, head of jazz-oriented Mainstream Records, was looking for rock bands to sign to the label. Nugent relocated to Detroit in 1967, where he recruited vocalist John Drake, guitarist Steve Farmer, organist Rick Lober, bassist Bill White and drummer Dave Palmer, all of whom had been members of various local bands. The Dukes' self-titled debut LP was released in November of 1967. In addition to seven original pieces, the album included a handful of cover songs, the best of which was their rocked out version of the old Joe Williams tune Baby Please Don't Go. The song was released as a single in January of 1968, where it got a decent amount of airplay in the Detroit area, and was ultimately chosen by Lenny Kaye for inclusion on the original Nuggets compilation album. Unlike the other tracks on Nuggets, Kaye used the stereo album version of Baby Please Don't Go rather than the edited mono single version heard here.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Sookie Sookie
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 6-Punk Pt. 2 (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s): Covay/Cropper
Label: ABC (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Not every song on the first Steppenwolf album was an original composition. In fact, some of the best songs on the LP were covers, from Hoyt Axton's The Pusher to Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man. A third cover, Sookie Sookie, was actually released as a follow-up single to Born To Be Wild, but failed to chart. The song had been an R&B hit a couple years earlier for Don Covay and was co-written by the legendary MGs guitarist Steve Cropper.
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: Love
Title: Andmoreagain
Source: LP: Love Revisited (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
If there is any one song that validates comparisons of Johnny Mathis and Love's Arthur Lee, it's Andmoreagain, from the third Love album, Forever Changes. Oddly enough, the song has also drawn comparisons to the music of Burt Bacharach, particularly for its soft melody and use of major 7th chords. This is somewhat ironic, given Bacharach's adverse reaction to Love's version of My Little Red Book, a song he wrote for the soundtrack of the film What's New, Pussycat. Speaking of which...
Artist: Love
Title: My Little Red Book
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Bacharach/David
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
The first rock record ever released by Elektra Records was a single by Love called My Little Red Book. The track itself (which also opens Love's debut LP), is a punked out version of a tune originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the What's New Pussycat movie soundtrack. Needless to say, Love's version was not exactly what composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David had in mind when they wrote the song.
Artist: Love
Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: LP: Love Revisited (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
Arthur Lee's transition from angry punk (on songs like 7&7 Is and My Little Red Book) to a softer, more introspective kind of singer/songwriter was evident on Love's second LP, Da Capo. Although there were still some hard rockers, such as Stephanie Knows Who, the album also includes songs like She Comes In Colors, which was released ahead of the album as the band's third single in late 1966. The song was one of Lee's first to inspire critics to draw comparisons between Lee's vocal style and that of Johnny Mathis. Lee may indeed have been, as many assert, a musical genius, but his reference to "England town" shows his knowledge of geography to be somewhat lacking.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I'm Looking Through You
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1965
Although John Lennon is generally thought of as the Beatle who wore his heart on his sleeve, it was Paul McCartney who came up with the song I'm Looking Through You for the Rubber Soul album. The lyrics refer to Jane Asher, who McCartney had been dating for about five years when he wrote the song. They split up soon afterward.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono LP: Psychotic Reaction (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label: Concord/Bicycle (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
Although San Jose, Ca. is a rather large city in its own right (the 10th-largest city in the US in fact), it has always had a kind of suburban status, thanks to being within the same media market as San Francisco. Nonetheless, San Jose had its own very active music scene in the mid-60s, and Count Five was, for a time in late 1966, at the top of the heap, thanks in large part to Psychotic Reaction tearing up the national charts.
Artist: Colin Blunstone
Title: Say You Don't Mind
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Denny Laine
Label: Sony Music (original label: Epic)
Year: 1972
After the Zombies broke up in 1968 vocalist Colin Blunstone left the music business to become an insurance clerk, but resumed his career in 1969, releasing three singles under the name Neil MacArthur. He finally achieved success as a solo artist in 1972 with the release of Say You Don't Mind, a song that Denny Laine had written and recorded as his own solo debut single in 1967 after leaving the Moody Blues. While Laine's original version had failed to chart, Blunstone's cover went as high as #15 in the UK singles chart. Because of a poorly-written publishing contract, however, Laine did not receive any royalties from Blunstone's recording, however he did perform the song again in the early 1970s as a member of Wings, and recorded a new version of the song for his Japanese Tears solo album in 1980.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: One Rainy Wish
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
In the summer of 1967 my dad (who was an Air Force NCO), got transferred to Lindsay Air Station in Weisbaden, Germany. The housing situation there being what it was, it was several weeks before the rest of us could join him, and during that time he went out and bought an Akai X-355 reel to reel tape recorder that a fellow GI had picked up in Japan. The Akai had small speakers built into it, but the best way to listen to it was through headphones. It would be another year before he would pick up a turntable, so I started buying pre-recorded reel to reel tapes. Two of the first three tapes I bought were Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love, both by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. As I was forced to share a bedroom with my little brother I made it a habit to sleep on the couch in the living room instead, usually with the headphones on listening to Axis: Bold As Love. I was blown away by the stereo effects on the album, which I attributed (somewhat correctly) to Hendrix, although I would find out years later that much of the credit belongs to engineer Eddie Kramer as well. One Rainy Wish, for example, starts off with all the instruments in the center channel (essentially a mono mix). After a few seconds of slow spacy intro the song gets into gear with vocals isolated all the way over to the left, with a guitar overdub on the opposite side to balance it out. As the song continues, things move back and forth from side to side, fading in and out at the same time. It was a hell of a way to drift off to sleep every night.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title: Machine Gun
Source: LP: The Esssential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Band Of Gypsys)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
In 1965 Jimi Hendrix sat in on a recording session with R&B vocalist Curtis Knight, signing what he thought was a standard release contract relinquishing any future claim to royalties on the recordings. Three years later, after Hendrix had released a pair of successful albums on the Reprise label with his new band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Capitol records issued the Knight sessions as an LP called Get That Feeling, giving Hendrix equal billing with Knight. Additionally, Capitol claimed that the guitarist was under contract to them. Eventually the matter was settled by Hendrix promising to provide Capitol with an album of new material by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, although it was not specified whether the album be made up of studio or live recordings. While all this was going on, the Experience disbanded, leaving Hendrix bandless and under pressure to come up with new material for his regular label, Reprise, as well as the Capitol album. The solution was to record a set of concerts at the Fillmore East on December 31st, 1969 and January 1st, 1970, and release the best of these recordings as a live album on the Capitol label, freeing Hendrix up to concentrate on a new studio album for Reprise. Hendrix was still working on the studio album when he died, making the live album, Band Of Gypsys, the last new material to be released during the guitarist's lifetime. It features bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles on Hendrix originals such as Machine Gun, as well as material written by Miles.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Bold As Love
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
When working on the song Bold As Love for the second Jimi Hendrix Experience album in 1967, Jimi reportedly asked engineer Eddie Kramer if he could make a guitar sound like it was under water. Kramer's answer was to use a techique called phasing, which is what happens when two identical sound sources are played simultaneously, but slightly (as in microseconds) out of synch with each other. The technique, first used in 1958 but seldom tried in stereo, somewhat resembles the sound of a jet plane flying by. This is not to be confused with chorusing (sometimes called reverse phasing), a technique used often by the Beatles which electronically splits a single signal into two identical signals then delays one to create the illusion of being separate tracks.
Artist: Mothers of Invention
Title: Who Are The Brain Police?
Source: CD: Freak Out
Writer: Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1966
In 1966, Los Angeles, with its variety of all-ages clubs along Sunset Strip, had one of the most active underground music scenes in rock history. One of the most underground of these bands was the Mothers of Invention, led by musical genius Frank Zappa. In 1966 Tom Wilson, who was already well known for producing Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Blues Project, brought the Mothers into the studio to record the landmark Freak Out album. To his credit he allowed the band total artistic freedom, jeopardizing his own job in the process (the album cost somewhere between $20,000-30,000 to produce). The second song the band recorded was Who Are The Brain Police, which reportedly prompted Wilson to get on the phone to M-G-M headquarters in New York, presumably to ask for more money.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: Sky Pilot/We Love You Lil/All Is One
Source: LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Twain Shall Meet was the second album from Eric Burdon and the Animals, the new group formed in early 1967 after Eric Burdon changed his mind about embarking on a solo career. Produced by Tom Wilson (who had also produced Bob Dylan's first electric recordings and the Blues Project's Projections album), The Twain Shall Meet was an ambitious work that shows a band often reaching beyond its grasp, despite having its heart in the right place. For the most part, though, side two of the album works fairly well, starting with the anti-war classic Sky Pilot and continuing into the instrumental We Love You Lil. The final section, All Is One, is a unique blend of standard rock instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards) combined with strings, horns, sitar, bagpipes, oboe, flute, studio effects, and drone vocals that builds to a frenetic climax, followed by a spoken line by Burdon to end the album.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Born On The Bayou
Source: LP: Bayou Country
Writer(s): John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1968
If there is any single song that sums up what Creedence Clearwater Revival was all about, it could very well be Born On The Bayou, the opening track of CCR's second LP, Bayou Country. The song, which was written by John Fogerty late at night, became the opening for nearly every Creedence concert over the next few years, and is considered by many to be the band's signature song. Oddly enough, John Fogerty had never set foot on a bayou in his life when he wrote the song, but had always been a fan of the movie Swamp Fever, as well as having a fascination with "every other bit of southern bayou information that had entered my imagination from the time I was born."
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