Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2516 (starts 4/14/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/569132

    We have another three-way battle of the bands this week between two British bands (the Rolling Stones and the Who) and one American one, Jefferson Airplane, followed by an all San Francisco Bay Area set dominating our second hour. As for the first hour, there's a long progression through the years and sets from 1966 and 1968.

Artist:    Gentrys
Title:    Keep On Dancing
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: The Gentrys (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jones/Love/Shann
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1965
    It is a well known fact that, in order to have a decent chance to get played on the radio, a song had to have a running time of no longer than three and a half minutes. What is not as well known is the fact that there was also a minimum running time of about two minutes, with the average top 40 hit being somewhere between two and a half and three minutes long. This presented a problem for the Gentrys, whose Keep On Dancing, as originally recorded, ran a minute and a half. The solution was ingenious in its simplicity. Using two tape machines, the band simply added a repeat of the first minute to the end of the song, fading it out after about thirty seconds to make a final running time of slightly over two minutes. The song ended up being a huge hit for the band, and has appeared on several frat-rock and party-rock collections over the years.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes
Source:    Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s):    Blind Willie Johnson
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:    1966
    One lasting legacy of the British Invasion was the re-introduction to the US record-buying public to the songs of early Rhythm and Blues artists such as Blind Willie Johnson. This emphasis on classic blues in particular would lead to the formation of electric blues-based US bands such as the Butterfield Blues Band and the Blues Project. Unlike the Butterfields, who made a conscious effort to remain true to their Chicago-style blues roots, the Blues Project was always looking for new ground to cover, which ultimately led to them developing an improvisational style that would be emulated by west coast bands such as the Grateful Dead, and by Project member Al Kooper, who conceived and produced the first rock jam LP ever, Super Session, in 1968. As the opening track to their second (and generally considered best) LP Projections, I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes served notice that this was a new kind of blues, louder and brasher than what had come before, yet tempered with Kooper's melodic vocal style. An added twist was the use during the song's instrumental bridge of an experimental synthesizer known among band members as the "Kooperphone", probably the first use of any type of synthesizer in a blues record.
    
Artist:    Chocolate Watch Band
Title:    Let's Talk About Girls
Source:    LP: Nuggets (originally released on LP: No Way Out)
Writer(s):    Manny Freiser
Label:    Elektra (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    I find it sadly ironic that the first cut on the first album released by San Jose, California's Chocolate Watchband had a vocal track by Don Bennett, a studio vocalist under contract to Tower Records, replacing the original track by Watchband vocalist Dave Aguilar. Aguilar's vocals were also replaced by Bennett's on the Watchband's cover of Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour on the same album. In addition, there are four instrumental tracks on the album that are played entirely by studio musicians. Worse yet, the entire first side of the Watchband's second LP was done by studio musicians and the third Watchband LP featured an entirely different lineup. The final insult was when Lenny Kaye, who assembled the original Nuggets collection in the early 1970s, elected to include this recording, rather than one of the several fine tracks that actually did feature Aguilar on vocals.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Touch Me
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Robby Kreiger
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    The fourth Doors album was a departure from their previous work. No longer would the entire band be credited for all the tracks the band recorded. In addition, the group experimented with adding horns and other studio embellishments. Nowhere is this more evident than on Touch Me, the only hit single from the album.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Mona
Source:    LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Happy Trails
Writer(s):    Elias McDaniel
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    Most everyone familiar with Quicksilver Messenger Service agrees that the band's real strength was its live performances. Apparently the folks at Capitol Records realized this as well, since the band's second LP was recorded (mostly) live at Bill Graham's two Fillmore Auditoriums. The second side of the Happy Trails album starts with a Bo Diddly cover, Mona, which segues directly into a Gary Duncan composition, Maiden Of The Cancer Moon. For the band's 1973 Anthology compilation album they chose to fade out the recording after slightly over seven minutes of Mona.

Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Green-Eyed Lady
Source:    CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1970 (originally released on LP: Sugarloaf and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Corbetta/Phillips/Riordan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1970
    The unwritten rules of radio, particularly those concerning song length, were in transition in 1970. Take Sugarloaf's Green-Eyed Lady, for example. When first released as a single the 45 was virtually identical to the album version except that it faded out just short of the six-minute mark. This was about twice the allowed length under the old rules and it was soon replaced with an edited version that left out all the instrumental solos, coming in at just under three minutes. The label soon realized, however, that part of the original song's appeal (as heard on FM rock radio) was its organ solo, and a third single edit with that solo restored became the final, and most popular, version of Green-Eyed Lady. The song went into the top 5 nationally (#1 on some charts) and ended up being the band's biggest hit.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft
Source:    British import CD: Fairport Convention
Writer(s):    Hutchings/Thompson
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Cotillion)
Year:    1968
    Fairport Convention has long been known for being an important part of the British folk music revival that came to prominence in the early 70s. Originally, however, the band was modeled after the folk-rock bands that had risen to prominence on the US West Coast from 1965-66. Their first LP was released in June of 1968, and drew favorable reviews from the UK rock press, which saw them as 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. This 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, known as much for her habit of knitting sweaters onstage as for her vocals) was given a limited release on Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary. This album should not be confused with the first Fairport Convention LP released in the US (in 1969), which was actually a retitling of the band's second British album, What We Did On Our Holidays.

Artist:    Kingsmen
Title:    I Guess I Was Dreaming
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 8-The Northwest (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Weston/Rabbitt
Label:    Rhino (original label: Wand)
Year:    1968
    Formed in the late 1950s in Portland, Oregon, the Kingsmen came to national prominence in 1963, when their version of Richard Berry's Louie Louie went almost to the top of the charts, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Cashbox Top 100. At first known as a party band, they scored a second top 5 hit with a novelty number, The Jolly Green Giant, in 1964. None of their subsequent singles were able to crack the top 40, however, and in 1968 the band decided to take a break. The B side of their final single for the Wand label was a song called I Guess I Was Dreaming, that didn't much sound like any of their previous hits. Their management, working with the Kazenetz-Katz production team, released a song on a different label in late 1968 by an entirely different group of musicians, but it failed to chart. The real Kingsmen resurfaced in 1973 with a single on the Capitol label, but it also failed to chart. Over the years various former members of the Kingsmen have re-recorded some of the band's original songs, some of which were falsely marketed as Kingsmen recordings. This touched off a series of lawsuits brought by the band itself that ultimately saw the Kingment finally gaining ownership of their original recordings in 1998.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Ritual #1
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Ware
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Technically, Volume III is actually the fourth album by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. The first one was an early example of a practice that would become almost mandatory for a new band in the 1990s. The LP, titled Volume 1, was recorded at a home studio and issued in 1966 on the tiny Fifa label. Many of the songs on that LP ended up being re-recorded for their major label debut in 1967, which they called Part One. That album was followed by Volume II, released later the same year. In 1968 they released their final album for Reprise, which in addition to being called Volume III was subtitled A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. Included on that album were Ritual #1 and Ritual #2, neither of which sounds anything like the other.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Hey Friend
Source:    LP: Feelings
Writer(s):    Entner/Grill
Label:    ABC/Dunhill
Year:    1968
    The 1968 LP Feelings was an attempt by the Grass Roots to take control of their own artistic destiny with songs like Hey Friend, written by rhythm guitarist Warren Entner and bassist Rob Grill. Entner sings lead on the tune.

Artist:    John Wonderling
Title:    Man Of Straw
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Wonderling/Allane/Goldfluss
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US labels: Loma/Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Recorded on September 11, 1968, Man Of Straw was the B side of John Wonderling's debut single on two different (but closely related) labels in October of the same year. Wonderling, who produced the record himself, has called it "the only I've ever composed in over 35 years that was 'religious' in intent", a view contradicted by lyricist Edward Goldfluss, who claims "there was no religious intent whatsoever". Whatever the intent, it was the last single ever released on the Loma label, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers that had previously specialized in R&B artists such as Ike & Tina Turner.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    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. 40,000 Headmen, originally released in the UK as the B side to No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Section 43 (Original EP version)
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Rag Baby)
Year:    1966
    Rag Baby was an underground journal published by Country Joe McDonald in mid-60s Berkeley, California. In 1965 McDonald decided to do a "talking issue" of the paper with an extended play (EP) record containing two songs by McDonald's band, Country Joe and the Fish and two by singer Peter Krug. In 1966 McDonald published a second Rag Baby EP, this time featuring three songs by Country Joe and the Fish. Among those was the original version of Section 43, a psychedelic instrumental that would appear in a re-recorded (and slightly rearranged) stereo form on the band's first LP, Electric Music For The Mind And Body, in early 1967.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dreaming
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Jack Bruce
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were relatively few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.

Artist:    Golden Earrings
Title:    Daddy Buy Me A Girl
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Holland as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gerritson/Kooymans
Label:    Rhino (original label: Polydor)
Year:    1966
    Years before Radar Love made them international stars, Golden Earring had an 's' on the end of their name and was one of Holland's most popular beat bands, thanks to songs like Daddy Buy Me A Girl, which takes the usual "poor boy out to prove he's worthy of the rich girl" theme and turns it on its head, with the singer complaining that everyone just likes him for his money and not for himself. The song, released in 1966, was the group's fourth single for Polydor International.

Artist:    Bonniwell Music Machine
Title:    King Mixer
Source:    Mono CD: Ignition
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 1997
    According to Sean Bonniwell, King Mixer was recorded in New Mexico in 1969 in the dark, using a four-track reel to reel with everything plugged into the same wall socket. Since I didn't move to New Mexico until 1970 and the studio I eventually bought into used an eight-track reel to reel, I can safely say I had nothing to do with any of that.

And now for the aforementioned three-way battle of the bands...

Artist:    Who
Title:    My Generation
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1965
    In late 1965 the Who released a song that quickly became the anthem of a generation. As a matter of fact it's My Generation. Some of us, including Who drummer Keith Moon, did indeed die before we got old. The rest of us have to deal with the 21st century, but hey, that's life.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Somebody To Love
Source:    British import CD: Peace & Love-The Woodstock Generation (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s):    Darby Slick
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1967
    Over 40 years after the fact, it's hard to imagine just how big an impact Jefferson Airplane's fifth single had on the garage band scene. Whereas before Somebody To Love came out you could just dismiss hard-to-cover songs as being not worth learning, here was a tune that was undeniably cool, and yet virtually impossible for anyone but the Airplane to play well (and even they were unable to get it to sound quite the same when they performed it live).

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dandelion
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    If there was a British equivalent to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in terms of time and money spent on a single song, it might be We Love You, a 1967 single released by the Rolling Stones. To go along with the single (with its state-of-the-art production) the band spent a considerable sum making a full-color promotional video, a practice that would not become commonplace until the advent of MTV in the 1980s. Despite all this, US radio stations virtually ignored We Love You, choosing to instead flip the record over and play the B side, a tune called Dandelion. As to why this came about, I suspect that Bill Drake, the man behind the nation's most influential top 40 stations, simply decided that the less elaborately produced Dandelion was better suited to the US market than We Love You and instructed his hand-picked program directors at such stations as WABC (New York), KHJ (Los Angeles) and WLS (Chicago) to play Dandelion. The copycat nature of commercial radio being what it is, Dandelion ended up being a moderate hit in the US in the summer of '67.
        
Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    White Rabbit
Source:       British import CD: Peace & Love-The Woodstock Generation (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1967
    The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.

Artist:    Who
Title:    A Legal Matter
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    In early 1966 the Who parted company with their original UK record label, Brunswick, to hook up with the newly formed Reaction Records. This did not sit well with the people at Brunswick, who did their best to sabotage the band's Reaction releases. They did this by releasing single versions of songs from the band's only Brunswick album, My Generation, within days of each new Who single on Reaction. The first of these was The Kids Are Alright/A Legal Matter, which was released right after the first Who single on Reaction, Substitute. The strategy was for the most part unsuccessful, and all these songs ended up on the Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy album, released a couple years later. A Legal Matter was one of the first Who songs to feature Pete Townshend rather than Roger Daltry on lead vocals, possibly because Daltry was going through a divorce at the time and the song hit uncomfortably close to home.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Gomper
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco
Year:    1967
    Probably the most overtly psychedelic track ever recorded by the Rolling Stones, Gomper might best be described as a hippy love song with its references to nature, innocence and, of course, pyschedelic substances. Brian Jones makes one of his last significant contributions as a member of the band he founded, playing the dulcimer, as well as tablas, organ, pan flutes and various percussion instruments on the song.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    How Suite It Is
Source:    CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Kantner/Casady/Dryden/Kaukonen
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    The second side of After Bathing At Baxters starts off fairly conventionally (for the Airplane), with Paul Kantner's Watch Her Ride, the first third or so of something called How Suite It Is. This leads (without a break in the audio) into Spare Chaynge, one of the coolest studio jams ever recorded, featuring intricate interplay between Jack Casady's bass and Jorma Kaukonen's guitar, with Spencer Dryden using his drum kit as enhancement rather than as a beat-setter. In particular, Casady's virtuoso performance helped redefine what could be done with an electric bass.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    The Lantern
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones hit a bit of a commercial slump in 1967. It seemed at the time that the old Beatles vs. Stones rivalry (a rivalry mostly created by US fans of the bands rather than the bands themselves) had been finally decided in favor of the Beatles with the chart dominance of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that summer. The Stones' answer to Sgt. Pepper's came late in the year, and was, by all accounts, their most psychedelic album ever. Sporting a cover that included a 5X5" hologram of the band dressed in wizard's robes, the album was percieved as a bit of a Sgt. Pepper's ripoff, possibly due to the similarity of the band members' poses in the holo. Musically Majesties was the most adventurous album the group ever made in their long history, amply demonstrated by songs like The Lantern. The Stones' next LP, Beggar's Banquet, was celebrated as a return to the band's roots.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Things Go Better With Coke
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out (bonus track from Deluxe Edition)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Track/UMC/Polydor
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2009
    The Who recorded several faux commercials for use on their 1967 LP The Who Sell Out. Not all of them got used, however, and it's suspected that at least a few of them, such as Things Go Better With Coke, may have been intended to be used as actual commercials, but for whatever reason ended up on the shelf.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Call Me Lightning
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Magic Bus-The Who On Tour (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original US label: Decca)
Year:    1968
    Although it sounds more like their earlier "maximum R&B" recordings, the Who's Call Me Lightning was actually recorded in 1968. The song was released only in the US (as a single), while the considerably less conventional Dogs was chosen for release in the UK. These days the US single is better remembered for its B side, John Entwistle's Dr. Jeckle And Mr. Hyde. Both songs ended up being included on the Magic Bus album, which was only available in North America and has never been issued on CD in the US (although it is available as a Canadian import if you're willing to pay the tariff).

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Ball And Chain
Source:    CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Willie Mae Thornton
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Big Brother And The Holding Company electrified the crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 with their performance of Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball And Chain. The rest of the world, however, would have to wait until the following year to hear Janis Joplin's version of the old blues tune, when a live performance recorded at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium was included on the LP Cheap Thrills.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    Merciful Monks
Source:    LP: Mad River
Writer(s):    Lawrence Hammond
Label:    Sundazed/EMI (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Mad River was originally formed at Antioch College in Ohio in the spring of 1966, taking its name from an actual body of water nearby. The following March they relocated to San Francisco, where they came to the attention of poet Richard Brautigan. Brautigan was already a fixture on the hippie scene, and helped Mad River establish themselves as on of the area's scariest bands, sounding like an "extremely dark" version of Quicksilver Messenger Service. After releasing a limited edition EP in 1967 on the Wee label, the group signed with Capitol Records, releasing their first LP for the label in 1968. The LP, which opens with Merciful Monks, was dedicated to Brautigan himself.
    

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2516 (starts 4/14/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/569130 

    The free-form rock continues with contributions from Stephen Stills, Rory Gallagher, Elton John, Rick Wakemen and a whole bunch of bands this week, including our first-ever appearance of the New York Rock Ensemble.

Artist:     Stephen Stills
Title:     Love the One You're With
Source:     45 RPM single (stereo promo)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
     Depending on your point of view Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) have either split up several times over the years or have never actually split up at all. It was during one of these maybe split-ups that Stills recorded Love the One You're With, one of his most popular tunes. Presumably he and singer Judy Collins were no longer an item at that point.

Artist:    Mountain
Title:    Don't Look Around
Source:    CD: Nantucket Sleighride
Writer(s):    West/Palmer/Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1971
    One of Mountain's most popular tracks was Nantucket Sleighride, released on an album of the same name in 1971. The opening track of that album, Don't Look Around, is a power rocker that was considered good enough in its own right to make the band's greatest hits collection.

Artist:    National Lampoon
Title:    Music Perspective With Ron Fields (pt. 1)
Source:    CD: The Best Of The National Lampoon Radio Hour vol. 3
Writer(s):    unknown
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1974
    The National Lampoon Radio Hour was a weekly radio show that ran for slightly over a year, from November of 1973 to December of 1974. Created and originally produced by Michael O'Donoghue (best known as storyteller Mr. Mike on early seasons of NBC Saturday Night Live), the show featured several young performers who would go on to greater fame, including John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, who would all go on to become members of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players. Other familiar names associated with the Radio Hour include Harold Ramis, Richard Belzer, Brian Doyle-Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest and Douglas Kenney. Music Perspective With Ron Fields (pt. 1), features Guest and Doyle-Murray as a New York record promoter being interviewed by a laid-back FM radio jock.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Space Child/When I Touch You
Source:    CD: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Writer(s):    Locke/Ferguson
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1970
    Spirit keyboardist John Locke used a combination of piano, organ and synthesizers (then a still-new technology) to set the mood for the entire Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus recording sessions with his instrumental piece Space Child. The tune starts with a rolling piano riff that gives bassist Mark Andes a rare opportunity to carry the melody line before switching to a jazzier tempo that manages to seamlessly transition from a waltz tempo to straight time without anyone noticing. After a short reprise of the tune's opening riff the track segues into Jay Ferguson's When I Touch You, a song that manages to be light and heavy at the same time.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Love Or Confusion
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    A little-known fact is that the original UK version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and the rhythm section dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. It's actually kind of fun to listen to with headphones on, as I had to when I bought my first copy of the album on reel-to-reel tape, since the tape deck was in the same room as the TV.

Artist:    Rory Gallagher
Title:    Can't Believe It's True
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Rory Gallagher)
Writer(s):    Rory Gallagher
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1971
    In addition to his obvious prowess on guitar, Rory Gallagher was an accomplished saxophonist (although he largely abandoned the instrument in the mid-1970s). Excellent examples of both his guitar and saxophone work can be found on Can't Believe It's True, the final and longest track on Gallagher's first solo album, recorded in 1971. Accompanying Gallagher on the album were drummer Wilgar Campbell and bass guitarist Gerry McAvoy. Gallagher had set up practice sessions with Campbell and McAvoy, as well as former Jimi Hendrix Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding following the breakup of his original band, Taste, but ultimately decided to form a power trio with the two Belfast natives for his solo debut.
      
Artist:    New York Rock Ensemble
Title:    Kiss Your Future
Source:    LP: Freedomburger
Writer(s):    Nivison/Barber/Kamen
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble was one of the first bands to combine rock and classical music. Intially made up of three Juilliard students and two rock musicians, the group was known for using rock instrumentation on classical pieces and classical instruments on rock songs. They made several appearances on various TV shows, including one of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts and the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. They eventually abandoned their originally approach, shortening their name to the New York Rock Ensemble and becoming a more or less straight rock band by the time their fifth and final album, Freedomburger, was released in 1972. Both multi-instrumentalist Michael Kamen and percussionist Marty Fulterman went on to have successful careers as soundtrack writers for movies and TV. Fulterman, now known as Mark Snow, famously scored the X-Files, while Kamen has worked with dozens of well-known artists (the orchestral arrangements on Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb being just one example).

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Magic Carpet Ride
Source:    LP: Vintage  Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s):    Moreve/Kay
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Wicked World
Source:    LP: Black Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    The Secret Origin of Heavy Metal-Part One: After a short (one month) stint as Mick Abrahams's replacement in Jethro Tull, guitarist Tony Iommi rejoined his former bandmates Ozzy Osborne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward in the blues-rock band Earth in January of 1969. Later that year they realized that there was already another English band called Earth and decided to change their name. Taking inspiration from a playbill of a movie theater showing classic Boris Karloff horror films across the street from where they were rehearsing, they started calling themselves Black Sabbath in August of 1969 and began to forge a new sound for the band in keeping with their new name. Three months later Black Sabbath got their first record contract, releasing a cover of Crow's Evil Woman in November. They followed the (UK only) single up with their self-titled debut LP, recorded in just two days, on Friday, February 13th, 1970. The album was released three months later in the US, and spent over a year on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. Although Evil Woman was included on the UK version of the LP, Warner Brothers chose to instead include the B side of the band's British single, a song called Wicked World that was not on the UK version of the album. Most Black Sabbath fans, it turns out, consider Wicked World a stronger track, as it shows a trace of the band's original blues-rock sound, especially on its fast paced intro and closing sections.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Going To California
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin IV
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    The fourth Led Zeppelin album is known for the band's return to a harder rock sound after the acoustic leanings of Led Zeppelin III. There were, however, a couple of acoustic songs on LZ IV, including Going To California, a song that vocalist Robert Plant has since said was about Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. The tune features Plant on vocals, Jimmy Page on acoustic guitar and John Paul Jones on Mandolin.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Honky Cat
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    Uni
Year:    1972
    Elton John hit the top of the US charts with his fifth LP, Honky Chateau, in 1972. It was the first of seven consecutive #1 albums for the singer/songwriter and included two major hit singles. The second of these was the album's opening track, Honky Cat, which made the top 10 that same year, despite having a length of over five minutes at a time when most radio stations still observed the three and a half minute standard for top 40 singles.

Artist:    Rick Wakeman
Title:    Anne Boleyn 'The Day Thou Gavest Lord Hath Ended'
Source:    LP: The Six Wives Of Henry VIII
Writer(s):    Rick Wakeman
Label:    A&M
Year:    1973
    Rick Wakeman left the band Strawbs in 1971 to replace keyboardist Tony Kaye in the more successful Yes. Kaye had been asked to leave Yes over his reluctance to use synthesizers. By the end of the year Wakeman had signed a five-year deal with A&M Records as a solo artist, although he continued to perform as a member of Yes as well. His first album for A&M, released in 1973, was The Six Wives Of Henry VIII, a series of instrumental pieces that Wakeman described as "my personal conception of their characters in relation to keyboard instruments." In addition to Wakeman, Anne Boleyn 'The Day Thou Gavest Lord Hath Ended' features Yes drummer Bill Bruford and bassist Chris Squire, along with guitarist Mike Egan, percussionist Ray Cooper and several vocalists.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2515

https://exchange.prx.org/p/568281

    It's hard to believe that after nearly 15 years' worth of weekly shows we still manage to find plenty of stuff that's never been played on the show before, but sure enough, over a quarter of this week's tunes are making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut. And half of those come from artists we've never featured on the show before.

Artist:     Who
Title:     Underture
Source:     CD: Tommy
Writer:     Pete Townshend
Label:     MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:     1969
    One of the great rock instrumentals was the Underture from Tommy. Some of the musical themes used in the piece had appeared on the previous album, The Who Sell Out, as part of the song Rael. Here those themes are fleshed out considerably (the track runs a full ten minutes).

Artist:     Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:     Fire
Source:     Stereo British import 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label:     Track (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:    Unrelated Segments
Title:    Where You Gonna Go?
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 6-Punk, part two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mackavich/Stults
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1967
    The Unrelated Segments were a Detroit band that had most of its success regionally. Their nearest brush with national fame came when Story Of My Life was picked up for national distribution by Hanna-Barbera, the record label associated with such well-known TV stars as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and (later) Scooby-Doo. Hannah-Barbera not being known for its hit records, it's probably no surprise that the song did not climb too high on the national charts, although it did do well in several midwestern cities. A followup single, Where You Gonna Go, was released later that year on the Liberty label. Although not a national hit, it garnered the band enough local popularity to get bookings as the opener for the likes of Spirit, the Who and the Jeff Beck group.

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:     Barry McGuire
Title:     Eve of Destruction
Source:     LP: Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     P.F. Sloan
Label:     Original Sound (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1965
     P.F. Sloan had already established a reputation for writing songs that captured the anger of youth by the time he wrote Eve Of Destruction, which Barry McGuire took into the top 10 in 1965. It would be McGuire's only major hit, and represented folk-rock at the peak of its popularity.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    The Sound Of Silence
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The Sound Of Silence was originally an acoustic piece that was included on Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. The album went nowhere and was soon deleted from the Columbia Records catalog. Simon and Garfunkel themselves went their separate ways, with Simon moving to London and recording a solo LP, the Paul Simon Songbook, and Art Garfunkel going back to college in New York. While Simon was in the UK, something unexpected happened. Radio stations along the east coast began playing the song, getting a strong positive response from college students, particularly those on spring break in Florida. On June 15, 1965 producer Tom Wilson, who had been working with Bob Dylan on Like A Rolling Stone earlier in the day, pulled out the master tape of The Sound Of Silence and, utilizing some of the same studio musicians, added electric instruments to the existing recording. The electrified version of the song was released to local radio stations, where it garnered enough interest to get the modified recording released as a single. It turned out to be a huge hit, prompting Paul Simon to move back to the US and reunite with Art Garfunkel.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    You Really Got Me
Source:    Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1964
    Although the Beatles touched off the British Invasion, it was the sheer in-your-face simplicity of You Really Got Me, recorded by an "upstart band of teenagers" from London's Muswell Hill district named the Kinks and released in August of 1964 that made the goal of forming your own band and recording a hit single seem to be a viable one. And sure enough, within a year garages and basements all across America were filled with guitars, amps, drums and aspiring high-school age musicians, some of whom would indeed get their own records played on the radio.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Get Me To The World On Time
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: The Electric Prunes and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Jones
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for several more tracks to include on their debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Castles Made Of Sand
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, and stands in direct contrast to the usual goal-oriented American attitude.

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:    Human Instinct
Title:    Death Of The Seaside
Source:    Mono British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Hall/Christie
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Deram)
Year:    1967
    Formed in Tauranga, New Zealand in 1958, the Four Fours were, by the mid-1960s, one of the most popular bands in the island nation. Early in 1966 the band added Maurice Greer, a drummer who had modified his drum kit so that he could stand and sing while playing. That same year the Rolling Stones toured Australia and New Zealand, and the Four Fours, with Greer on vocals, were their opening act. Not long after that the band decided to relocate to London, changing their name to the Human Instinct in the process. The band cut three singles for Mercury before recording their most successful British single, a song called A Day In My Mind's Mind for the Deram label. The B side of that single, which came out in December of 1967, was Death Of The Seaside. Within a few months, after declining an offer to join the Jeff Beck Group, Greer and most of the other members of the Human Instinct returned to New Zealand and recorded several albums there before temporarily disbanding in 1982. 20 years later Greer reactivated the Human Instinct with a new lineup that is still active.

Artist:    Blood, Sweat & Tears
Title:    I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know
Source:    LP: Child Is Father To The Man
Writer(s):    Al Kooper
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Ever since he was a teenager, Al Kooper had wanted to start a rock band that had a horn section. After making his name as a session musician with Bob Dylan, Kooper joined the Blues Project in 1965 as the band's keyboardist. He left that group in early 1967 and began the slow process of assembling his dream band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, which made its vinyl debut in February of 1968. One of the best remembered songs on the album was I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know. Although not released as a single, the tune became one of the core songs heard on the new FM rock stations popping up across the country in the late 1960s. Kooper himself ended up leaving the band he founded later that same year, moving on to producing and appearing on albums like Super Session and The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, as well as continuing to work as an in-demand studio keyboardist and producer.

Artist:    Them
Title:    The Moth
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Lane/Pulley
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    After Van Morrison left Them to pursue a career as a solo artist, his old band decided to head back to Ireland and recruit Kenny McDowell for lead vocals. Them then moved out to Texas and hooked up with producer Ray Ruff, who got them a contract with Tower Records, Capitol's subsidiary label specializing in releasing already produced recordings from outside sources such as Ed Cobb's Green Grass Productions (Standells, Chocolate Watchband) and soundtrack albums for teen exploitation flicks such as Riot on Sunset Strip and Wild in the Streets from Mike Curb's Sidewalk Productions. The 1968 LP Time Out! Time In! For Them was the second of two psychedelic albums the group cut for Ruff and released onTower before moving into harder rock and another label.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    The Ostrich
Source:    Canadian CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    John Kay
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill/ABC)
Year:    1968
    Although John Kay's songwriting skills were still a work in progress on the first Steppenwolf album, there were some outstanding Kay songs on that LP, such as The Ostrich, a song that helped define Steppenwolf as one of the most politically savvy rock bands in history.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Harvey's Tune
Source:    CD: Super Session
Writer(s):    Harvey Brooks
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Probably the most overlooked track on the classic Super Session LP is the album's closer, a two-minute instrumental called Harvey's Tune. The piece was written by bassist Harvey Brooks, who, along with Mike Bloomfield, had been a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and later, the Electric Flag. Although credited as guitarist for the entire second side of the Super Session album, it is doubtful that Stephen Stills actually participated in the recording of Harvey's Tune.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Black Sabbath
Source:    LP: Black Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    This track has to hold some kind of record for "firsts". Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath, from the album Black Sabbath is, after all, the first song from the first album by the first true heavy metal band. The track starts off by immediately setting the mood with the sound of church bells in a rainstorm leading into the song's famous tri-tone (often referred to as the "devil's chord") intro, deliberately constructed to evoke the mood of classic Hollywood horror movies. Ozzy Osborne's vocals only add to the effect. Even the faster-paced final portion of the song has a certain dissonance that had never been heard in rock music before, in part thanks to Black Sabbath's deliberate use of a lower pitch in their basic tuning. The result is something that has sometimes been compared to a bad acid trip, but is unquestionably the foundation of what came to be called heavy metal.

Artist:    Jean Jacques Burnel
Title:    Do The European
Source:    EP: The Stranglers (included as bonus disc with Stranglers LP: IV)
Writer(s):    Jean Jacques Burnel
Label:    IRS
Year:    1980
    The fourth Stranglers album, The Raven, was not released in North America. Instead, an album called IV came out a year later in the US and Canada. Early pressings of the album included a free four-song EP; three of the songs had previously been issued, while the fourth, a J.J. Burnel solo live track that was unavailable anywhere else until 1992, when it appeared on Burnel's first solo LP.

Artist:    Love
Title:    7&7 Is (2005 live version)
Source:    CD: California 66
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    Recorded 2005, released 2009
    After disbanding the original Love in 1968, Arthur Lee continued to use the Love name with various different lineups until 1974. Despite several attempts at reuniting the band's classic lineup, Lee remained relatively inactive until 1992, when a new album called Five String Serenade was released under the name Arthur Lee & Love. Lee then returned to live performing, usually backed by a band called Baby Lemonade, until 1995, when he began serving a six-year prison term for firearms offenses. In 2003 original Love guitarist Johnny Echols joined Lee's latest version of Love for a Forever Changes 35th Anniversary performance in the spring of 2003 and again for tours in 2004 and 2005. Lee himself, however, was not present on the 2005 tour due to an ongoing battle (that the rest of the band knew nothing about) with acute myeloid leukemia. A live performance of Love's most well-known song, 7&7 Is, by that version of Love was included on the 2009 compilation album California 66 on the Electric Prunes' PruneTwang label.

Artist:    Static Cling
Title:    Just The Facts
Source:    CD EP: Infrarad Radiation Orchestra: Mad Dog Sullivan (originally released on cassette: Timbimboo)
Writer(s):    Kim Draheim
Label:    GTG
Year:    Recorded late 1980s, released 2024
    Static Cling was a punk/new wave band from west-central New York State led by guitarist/vocalist Kim Draheim that was active from the 1980s through the early 2000s. In addition to a mini album and a pair of singles, the group released an album called Timbimboo that was only available as a cassette tape. After the dissolution of Static Cling Draheim formed the Infrared Radiation Orchestra. One of the more recent releases by IRO is an EP called Mad Dog Sullivan that includes a Static Cling song originally released on Timbimboo called Just The Facts.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Ticket To Ride
Source:    LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    The late 1940s saw the beginning of a revolution in the way people consumed recorded music. For decades, the only available recorded media had been the brittle 78 RPM (revolutions per minute) discs made of a material known as shellac. These discs, officially known as gramophone records, generally came in three sizes: 7" (for children's records), 12" (used mostly for classical recordings) and the standard 10" discs, which held about three minutes' worth of material per side. The high revolution speed meant that even the 12" discs could only hold a maximum of five minutes' worth of music per side, making it necessary to spread out longer pieces such as operas and symphonies over several discs, severely disrupting the listening experience. Following the end of World War II the two largest record companies, RCA Victor and Columbia, each separately began working on replacements for the 78 RPM discs. RCA's replacement was pretty much one on one; the 10" 78s were replaced by the 7" 45 RPM singles with about the same running time. Columbia, on the other hand, concentrated their efforts on long playing 12" records that, revolving at 33 1/3 RPM, could contain over 20 minutes' worth of music per side. Naturally, the LPs were far more expensive than 45s, and were marketed to a more affluent class of consumer than their shorter counterparts. This in turn led to popular music being dominated by 45 RPM singles, especially among American teenagers, while albums tended to be favored by fans of jazz and classical music. This dichotomy persisted well into the 1960s, with relatively few pop stars, such as Elvis Presley and later, the Beatles, selling a signficant number of LPs. By 1967, however, teenagers were buying enough LPs to make it feasable to a youth-oriented act to be considered a success without the aid of a hit single. One of the first of these new types of rock bands was Vanilla Fudge, whose debut LP did not contain any hit singles when it was first released. It did, however, contain a pair of Beatles covers, including the album's opening track, Ticket To Ride. A year later, another cover song from the album, You Keep Me Hangin' On, which had been a hit for the Supremes around the same time that the Vanilla Fudge album first came out, began to get significant airplay and was re-released as a single.

Artist:    Mojo Men
Title:    Sit Down, I Think I Love You
Source:    LP: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Stephen Stills
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The Mojo Men started off in Rochester, NY in the early 60s. After a stint in south Florida playing mostly frat houses, the band moved to San Francisco, where they scored a contract with Reprise Records and recorded the garage-rock classic She's My Baby. Around late 1966-early 1967 the Mojo Men picked up a new drummer. Jan Errico, formerly of the Vejtables, brought with her a softer, more folky kind of sound, as well as the high vocal harmonies that are evident in this recording of the Buffalo Springfield tune Sit Down I Think I Love You, a minor hit during the summer of love.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Rock And Roll Woman
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth) while they were together. Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock And Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 50 years after it was recorded.

Artist:    Frank Zappa
Title:    Road Ladies
Source:    LP: Chunga's Revenge
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Bizarre/Reprise
Year:    1970
    Possibly the nearest thing to a straight blues number ever recorded by Frank Zappa is Road Ladies, a track from his 1970 LP Chunga's Revenge. In addition to Zappa on guitar and lead vocals, the song features Ian Underwood on rhythm guitar, Jeff Simmons on bass guitar, George Duke on organ, Aynsley Dunbar on drums and, making their debut on a Zappa album, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan as the Phlorescent Leech and Eddie on backup vocals.

Artist:    Beau Gentry
Title:    Black Cat Blues
Source:    Mono CD: If You're Ready-The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume 2
Writer(s):    Beau Gentry
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    unknown, probably 1968
    There is not a whole lot of info out there on a band (not an individual) called Beau Gentry, but here is what I was able to find out: The Beau Gentry originated in the Space Coast region of southern Florida in the mid-1960s and relocated to the midwest a couple years later. While living in Wisconsin they recorded the self-penned Black Cat Blues for Dunwich Records, which was transitioning from a functioning label to a production company that farmed out recordings to larger labels. As a result, Black Cat Blues got lost in the shuffle, and most of the band members ended up relocating to San Francisco in late 1968. Early in 1969 they recorded a song called Spirit In The Sky with vocalist Norman Greenbaum, and appeared with him on American Bandstand in April of 1970 (miming to the record, no doubt).

Artist:    Crow
Title:    Cottage Cheese
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Weigand/Waggoner
Label:    Amaret
Year:    1970
    In late 1970 I found myself living in Alamogordo, NM, which was at the time one of those places that still didn't have an FM station (in fact, the only FM station we could receive was a classical station in Las Cruces, 60 miles away). To make it worse, there were only two AM stations in town, and the only one that played current songs went off the air at sunset. As a result the only way to hear current music at night (besides buying albums without hearing them first) was to "DX" distant AM radio stations. Of these, the one that came in most clearly and consistently was KOMA in Oklahoma City. My friends and I spent many a night driving around with KOMA cranked up, fading in and out as long-distance AM stations always do. One of those nights in 1970 we were all blown away by Cottage Cheese, Crow's follow-up to their 1969 hit Evil Woman, Don't Play Your Games With Me, which, due to the conservative nature of the local daytime-only station, was not getting any local airplay. It turns out that Cottage Cheese was originally released as the B side of their version of Larry Williams' Hold On, but the single was quickly withdrawn, with Cottage Cheese becoming the A side, and an earlier B side called Busy Day reissued as the single's B side.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Think
Source:    CD: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:    1966
    The 1966 album Aftermath marked a turning point for the Rolling Stones, as it was the first Stones album to be entirely made up of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Although, as with all the early Stones releases, there were differences between the US and UK versions of the album, both releases included Think, a song that is fairly representative of the mid-60s Rolling Stones sound.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Goldwatch Blues
Source:    Mono LP: Hear Me Now (originally released on LP: Catch The Wind)
Writer(s):    Mick Softly
Label:    Janus (original label: Hickory)
Year:    1965
    Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan was often compared to Bob Dylan when he made his first recordings in late 1964. Both were influenced by legendary American folksingers Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Woody Guthrie and performed solo, accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar supplemented by harmonica. Donovan, however, had British influences as well, including the English folksinger Mick Softly, whose Goldwatch Blues opens the second side of Donovan's debut LP, What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid, which was issued in the US under the title Catch The Wind.

Artist:    Impressions
Title:    I've Been Trying
Source:    CD: Curtis Mayfield And The Impressions-The Anthology 1961-1977 (originally released on LP: Keep On Pushing and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC Paramount)
Year:    1964
    The Impressions first hit the big time with the 1958 single For Your Precious Love, sung by the group's original lead vocalist Jerry Butler. The song was so successful, in fact, that Butler soon left the group for a solo career, leaving the Impressions floundering for the next few years. Although the Impressions were primarily a vocal group, they did have one member, 16-year-old Curtis Mayfield, who played guitar. It was Mayfield who eventually stepped up to fill Butler's shoes, getting the Impressions a contract with ABC Paramount Records and recording their first single, Gypsy Woman, in 1961. As time went on, the Impressions would trim down to a trio, with all three members sharing both lead and harmony vocal parts, supplemented by Mayfield's guitar work, on tunes like I've Been Trying, which was included on the group's most successful LP, Keep On Pushing, and later released as the B side of the classic People Get Ready single.

Artist:    Majority
Title:    One Third
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Barry Graham
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    Originally known as Barry Graham and the Mustangs, the Majority moved south from Hull to London after signing with the British Decca label in 1965. A highly adaptable group, the Majority recorded a total of eight singles for Decca without achieving any chart success. Among the best of these tracks was One Third, a song from July of 1966 that was sadly relegated to being a B side. The group did manage to pick up a following on the European continent, and after their contract with Decca expired in 1968 the band packed their bags and moved overseas. After a moderately successful run in Europe using the name Majority One, the group disbanded in the mid-1970s.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Soul Kitchen
Source:    CD: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Every time I hear the opening notes of the Doors' Soul Kitchen, from their first album, I think it's When The Music's Over, from their second LP. I wonder if they did that on purpose?

 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion #2515 (starts 4/7/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/568280

    This week we start out rockin' hard and slowly work our way to more acoustical stuff by the end of the show. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsys
Title:    Changes
Source:    LP: Band Of Gypsys
Writer(s):    Buddy Miles
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Jimi Hendrix must have had some sort of sense of irony (at least in the back of his mind) when he worked out a deal to settle a lawsuit for breach of contract brought against him by Capitol Records in 1969. A few years earlier, in 1965, he had sat in on some sessions for Capitol with Curtis Knight, and had signed a generic management contract that covered his participation in the recordings. What he didn't realize at the time is that the contract also covered future recordings, even though he was only a session man for the Knight tracks. After Hendrix became famous, someone at Capitol pulled out their copy of that old contract and used it to leverage the guitarist into doing another album for them. As Hendrix had no studio material anywhere near being ready for release, he instead provided Capitol with a live album, recorded over a period of days at Madison Square Garden. Since the Jimi Hendrix Experience was no longer a viable entity at that time, Hendrix put together a three-piece band consisting of himself, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, who had already established himself as a member of the Electric Flag and leader of the Buddy Miles Express. This was reflected in the fact that of the six songs that appeared on the album Band Of Gypsys, three (including Changes) were written (and sung) by Miles, rather than Hendrix, just as all of the songs from the 1965 sessions had been penned by Curtis Knight.

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. The uncannily prescient 21st Century Schizoid Man, as the first song on the first album by King Crimson, can quite accurately be cited as the song that got the whole thing started.

Artist:     Guess Who
Title:     American Woman
Source:     European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: American Woman)
Writer:     Bachman/Cummings/Peterson/Kale
Label:     Sony Music (original US label: RCA Victor)
Year:     1970
     American Woman is undoubtably the most political song ever recorded by the Guess Who, a generally non-political Canadian band. My family was living on Ramstein AFB, which was and is a huge base in Germany with enough Canadian personnel stationed there to justify their own on-base school. From early 1969 until mid-1970 (when we moved back to the States) I found myself hanging out with the Canadian kids most of the time and I gotta tell you, they absolutely loved this song. They also loved to throw it in my face as often as possible. I guess that's what I got for being the "token American" member of my peer group.
 
Artist:    Crow    
Title:    Heading North
Source:    CD: The Best Of Crow (originally released on LP: Crow By Crow)
Writer(s):    Larry Wiegand
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Amaret)
Year:    1969
    Crow is a classic example of a band that came up the honest way, through hard work and steady gigging, but still got screwed in the long run. It started in late 1966, when seven local Minneapolis musicians (many of whom were already veterans on the local music scene) formed a band called South Forty. The band proved popular enough to release an album and a pair of singles on the local Metrobeat label before winning first place in a battle of the bands in September of 1968. The prize was a recording session with Columbia Records in Chicago the following January. South Forty recorded five songs that day. Although Columbia decided not to sign the band, the recordings caught the ear of Bob Monaco of Dunwich Productions, which by then had shut down their own record label in favor of shopping bands to major labels such as Atlantic Records (which had distributed Dunwich) and Capitol (which had always had a strong presence in the industrial cities of the Great Lakes region). It was the people from Dunwich that added horns to some of the tunes before taking the tapes to reps from the major labels. At the same time, the band members themselves decided that South Forty sounded too much like the name of a country band, and came up with the name Crow. Eventually the band had to choose between signing with Atlantic (their preference) or Amaret, a new label distributed by Capitol. The Dunwich people felt that the band might by overlooked as just one of many rock bands in the Atlantic stable and talked the band into signing with  Amaret instead, where Crow was indisputably the biggest name on the label. The band released their first LP, Crow Music, in 1969, with Time To Make A Turn as their first single. It was their second single, however, that made the band internationally famous. Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me) was a major success, spawning cover versions by Black Sabbath (their first UK single) and Ike and Tina Turner. The success of the song, however, showed the drawbacks of Dunwich's decision to sign Crow to Amaret, as the label's distribution deal with Capitol was found to be inadequate; the band often played places that did not have any of their records available for sale. Spotty distribution and the lack of a solid hit song hurt the sales of their second LP, Crow By Crow, despite the presence of several fine songs such as Heading North.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Soul Sacrifice (live at Woodstock)
Source:    CD: Santana (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Brown/Malone/Rolie/Santana
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Although this is the original recording of Santana performing Soul Sacrifice at Woodstock, it does not sound quite the same as what you may have heard on the Woodstock original movie soundtrack album. That's because they doctored the recording a bit for the original soundtrack album, adding in audience sounds, including the crowd rain chant that seques into the piece on the original LP, and leaving out about five minutes' worth of the actual performance. More recent copies of the movie itself sound even more different because the people doing the remastering of the film decided to record new versions of some of the percussion tracks.

Artist:    Journey
Title:    Nickel & Dime
Source:    LP: In The Beginning (originally released on LP: Next)
Writer(s):    Valory/Schon/Rolie/Tickner
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1977
    Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Los Angeles was home to several studio musicians known collectively as the Wrecking Crew that played on literally hundreds of hit records by almost as many featured artists. In San Francisco, however, the emphasis was more on live performances than studio work, and in 1973 and group of former members of Santana and Frumious Bandersnatch formed the Golden Gate Rhythm Section to back up various Bay Area musicians. After just one gig, however, with drummer Prarie Prince, they decided that being a backup band wasn't going to work for them, and they ended up developing their own jazz-rock fusion style and taking the name Journey. Prarie Prince soon rejoined his former band, the Tubes, and the remaining members of Journey held auditions for a permanent drummer, finally settling upon Ainsley Dunbar, who was already well established as a former member of the Mothers Of Invention as well as leader of his own group, the Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation. Although bassist George Tickner left the band after their first album, he is listed as co-writer of Nickel & Dime, the only fully instrumental track on Journey's third LP, Next. For their next LP, Infinity, Journey would add vocalist Steve Perry. The rest is history.

Artist:    Bad Company
Title:    Movin' On
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Mick Ralphs
Label:    Swan Song
Year:    1974
    It's pretty much a given that there are no guarantees in the entertainment industry, but there have been artists that seemed destined to hit it big right out of the box. One of the most successful was the British rock group Bad Company. It had a lot going for it; vocalist Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke had been members of Free, while guitarist Mick Ralphs was a veteran of Mott the Hoople. Even the bass player, Boz Burrell, had a stint with King Crimson under his belt. The band was the first group signed to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label, even before they began work on their debut album. And sure enough, their debut album went right to the top of the US charts, going on to become the 46th best selling album of the 1970s. The first single from the album, Can't Get Enough, peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is a staple of classic rock radio to this day. Although not as big a hit as Can't Get Enough, Bad Company's followup single, Movin' On, made it into the top 20 in early 1975.

Artist:    ZZ Top
Title:    Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers
Source:    LP: Tres Hombres
Writer(s):    Gibbons/Hill/Beard
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: London)
Year:    1973
    The second single released from ZZ Top's 1973 breakthough album, Tres Hombres, could well qualify as a Texas state anthem, although a majority of the state's politicians no doubt would never allow that to happen. The title says it all: Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers.

Artist:    Hot Tuna
Title:    Water Song
Source:    LP: Final Vinyl (originally released on LP: Burgers)
Writer(s):    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    Grunt
Year:    1972
    Hot Tuna was originally formed as a side project by Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady in 1969, while Grace Slick was recovering from surgery and was unable to perform. By late 1971 Hot Tuna was a fully functional band that included violinist Papa John Creach (who was also a member of the Airplane) and drummer Sammy Piazza. Although they had already released a pair of live albums, Burgers was the group's first studio effort. The instrumental Water Song, was written by Kaukonen specifically for the album, and has gone on to become one of Hot Tuna's most popular numbers.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Factory Girl
Source:    CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    One of the more overlooked tunes in the Rolling Stones catalog, Factory Girl features an odd assortment of instruments (including Tabla, Violin, Congo and Mellotron) on what is essentially an Appalachian kind of song. Guest musicians include Rick Grech on violin and Dave Mason on either guitar or mellotron (simulating a mandolin).

Artist:    Duane and Gregg Allman
Title:    Well I Know Too Well
Source:    LP: Duane & Greg Allman
Writer(s):    Steve Alaimo
Label:    Bold
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1972
    Sometime after the breakup of Hour Glass, brothers Duane and Gregg Allman returned to Jacksonville, Florida, where they soon joined forces with a band called the 31st Of February that had released their debut LP in early 1968. In September, the new lineup began work on what was meant to be their second album, working with engineer/producer Steve Alaimo, who wrote Well I Know Too Well. The band submitted the tapes to the shirts at Liberty Records, who promptly rejected the recordings. This prompted Gregg Allman to go back to California to record a contractual obligation album in order to release the other members of Hour Glass from their contract with Liberty. The 31st Of February tapes sat on the shelf until 1972, when, following the phenomenal success of the 1971 double LP Allman Brothers At Fillmore East, they appeared as an album called Duane & Greg Allman on the Bomb label. I can't say for sure that the album qualifies as a bootleg exactly, but it has several of the earmarks of one, the most obvious being the fact that they misspelled Gregg Allman's first name.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Like Crying
Source:    LP: Then Play On
Writer(s):    Danny Kirwan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Danny Kirwan was only 17 and fronting his own band, Boilerhouse, when he came to the attention of Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green. Green invited the band to play a few opening gigs for Fleetwood Mac and before long the two guitarists were participating in after hours jams together. Drummer Mick Fleetwood invited Kirwan to join the band, and Kirwan became the group's fifth official member (Christine McVie still having guest artist status at that point). After making his debut sharing lead guitar duties with Green on an instrumental single, Albatross, Kirwan settled in as a songwriting member of the band in time for their 1969 LP Then Play On, contributing as many songs to the album as Green himself (although the US version left two of those songs off the LP). Another two Kirwan tunes were deleted from the US version when the album was revised to include the eight-minute track Oh Well. Among the few Danny Kirwan songs to be included on every version of Then Play On was the low-key Like Crying, which appears toward the end of the album.