https://exchange.prx.org/p/577832
This week we continue in the vein we started with last week, with sets from 1966 and 1967, before widening our focus to cover the entire psychedelic era. Included are artists' sets from the Rolling Stones (all from their 1967 album Between The Buttons) and Jimi Hendrix (but not the Experience) along with a seldom heard 1968 B side from the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
You Keep Me Hangin' On, a hit for the Supremes in 1967, was the first song recorded by Vanilla Fudge, who laid down the seven-minute plus track in a single take. Producer Shadow Morton then used that recording to secure the band a contract with Atco Records (an Atlantic subsidiary) that same year. Rather than to re-record the song for their debut LP, Morton and the band chose to use the original tape, despite the fact that it was never mixed in stereo. For single release the song was edited considerably, clocking in at around three minutes.
Artist: Everpresent Fullness
Title: Darlin' You Can Count On Me
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Johnson/Hand
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1967
The Everpresent Fullness was a band that appeared alongside such notables as Buffalo Springfield, Love and the Turtles at various Los Angeles venues. It was through their association with the latter that they landed a contract with White Whale Records. However, creative problems between the band and the label led to financial backing being pulled by White Whale before they could complete their first album. A single, Darlin' You Can Count On Me, was released in 1967, but the rest of the tracks remained in the vaults until 1970, when, in a reverse of the usual situation, White Whale released the LP under contractual obligation to the band.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Tin Soldier Man
Source: CD: Something Else
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Ray Davies's songwriting continued to move in new and unexpected directions on the 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks. A good example is Tin Soldier Man, a tune that has an almost ragtime feel to it, yet is unmistakably a rock song.
Artist: Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Title: Equestrian Statue
Source: British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: Gorilla)
Writer(s): Neil Innes
Label: Zonophone (Original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band occupies a unique place in British rock history. In fact, calling them a rock band is a bit of a stretch, as they incorporated a wide variety of elements in their music, including skiffle, dance hall and vaudeville. I personally see them as the 60s version of vaudeville, as can be seen in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film with their performance of a piece called Deathcab For Cutie. The Bonzos even had a tap dancer by the name of "Legs" Larry Larson in the band. Equestrian Statue, from their 1967 LP Gorilla, was the first serious attempt by the band's primary songwriter, Neil Innes, to write a hit record. As it turns out, the group would not get a single in the charts until I'm The Urban Spaceman made the British top 40 in 1968. Innes himself would go on to greater fame by working with Monty Python member Eric Idle on a Beatle parody called the Rutles. He also provided the soundtrack for the George Harrison-produced feature film Time Bandits.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Gloria)
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
For some reason I don't quite understand, I never paid much attention to current trends in popular entertainment other than as an outside observer. For example, when everyone else in my generation was tuned into the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, I was happily watching Car 54 Where Are You on a rival network. The same applies to the radio stations I listened to. KIMN was, by far, Denver's most popular top 40 station, yet I always managed to find myself listening to their rivals: first KDAB (until a flood took them off the air permanently), and then KBTR. For a short time in late 1966, however, KIMN had no rivals (KBTR had switched to an all-news format and KLZ-FM was still spending most of its broadcast day simulcasting the programming of its middle-of-the-road AM station). As a result, I found myself following KIMN's New Year's countdown of the year's top songs, which included a handful of tunes that I had never heard before. The highest ranked of these unfamiliar songs was one that immediately grabbed me: Gloria, as recorded by a Chicago area band called the Shadows Of Knight. It would be years before I even knew that this was actually a cover version of a song that had been released by Van Morrison's band, Them, but that had been banned in most US markets the previous year. All I knew is that it was a cool tune that would be one of the first songs I learned to play when I switched from violin to guitar the following summer.
Artist: Del-Vetts
Title: Last Time Around
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dennis Dahlquist
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The Del-Vetts were from Chicago's affluent North Shore. Their gimmick was to show up at a high school dance by driving their matching corvettes onto the gymnasium dance floor. Musically, like most garage/punk bands, they were heavily influenced by the British invasion bands. Unlike most garage/punk bands, who favored the Rolling Stones, the Del-Vetts were more into the Jeff Beck incarnation of the Yardbirds. The 'Vetts had a few regional hits from 1965-67, the biggest being this single issued on the Dunwich label, home of fellow Chicago suburbanites the Shadows of Knight. In retrospect, considering the song's subject matter (and overall loudness), Last Time Around may well qualify as the very first death metal rock song ever recorded.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Thru The Rhythm
Source: CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s): Sutherland/Hall
Label: Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1966
The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators was reportedly recorded while the entire band was tripping on LSD, making it the first known example of acid rock to be released on vinyl. The album was also (arguably) the first rock album to include the word psychedelic in its title. The 13th Floor Elevators were formed by vocalist Roky Erickson, guitarist Stacy Sutherland and electric juggist Tommy Hall, who also provided lyrics for the group's original compositions such as Thru The Rhythm. Hearing is believing.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: A Hazy Shade Of Winter/At The Zoo
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966 (first stereo release: 1968)
Originally released as a single in late 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs slated to be used in the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold in most of the country. It is immediately followed on the album by At The Zoo, the first single released by the duo in 1967.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Something Happened To Me Yesterday
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
The final track on the 1967 Rolling Stones album Between The Buttons is notable for several reasons. Most signficantly, it is the first officially-released Stones tune to feature Keith Richards on lead vocals (on the chorus; Mick Jagger sings lead on the verses). Second, at just a second under five minutes, Something Happened To Me Yesterday is the longest track on Between The Buttons. The third point is illustrated by a quote from Mick Jagger himself: "I leave it to the individual imagination as to what happened." According to one critic, that "something" was an acid trip, making this one of the band's more obscure drug songs.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Miss Amanda Jones
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
The only thing I have to say about Miss Amanda Jones is that it is one of my favorite tracks on the 1967 Rolling Stones album Between The Buttons. Come to think of it, that kind of says it all anyway.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Complicated
Source: CD: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
The Rolling Stones' 1967 album Between The Buttons was made amidst growing problems for the band, both with their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and guitarist Brian Jones, whose heavy drug use was beginning to take its toll. Exascerbating the problem was the band's increasing frustration with the limitations of four-track technology, which often necessitated bouncing tracks from one machine to another to make room for overdubs, resulting in a loss of overall quality. In fact, Mick Jagger has called the entire album "garbage" (with the exception of one song that was only included on the British version of the LP), due to the poor audio quality of the finished product. Still, some of the songs, like Complicated, are good representations of where the band was musically at the time the album was recorded.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Positively 4th Street
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
Recorded during the same 1965 sessions that produced the classic Highway 61 Revisited album, Positively 4th Street was deliberately held back for release as a single later that year. It would not appear on an LP until Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits was released two years later.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Go To Her (version two)
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track originally released on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Kantner/Estes
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage (original label: Grunt)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
Nearly every major artist acquires a backlog of unreleased songs over a period of time, usually due to lack of space on their official albums. Eventually many of these tracks get released on compilation albums or (more recently) as bonus tracks on CD versions of the original albums. One of the first of these compilation albums was Jefferson Airplane's Early Flight LP, released in 1974. Of the nine tracks on Early Flight, five were recorded during sessions for the band's first two LPs, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off and Surrealistic Pillow. One song originally intended for Surrealistic Pillow was Go To Her, an early Paul Kantner collaboration. At four minutes, the recording was longer than any of the songs that actually appeared on the album, which is probably the reason it didn't make the final cut, as it would have meant that two other songs would have to have been deleted instead.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Indifference
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Skip Spence only wrote two of the songs on Moby Grape's debut LP, but they were among the best tracks on the album. The first, Omaha, was the band's only charted single, while the second, Indifference, was, at over four minutes, the longest track on the album, and was chosen to close out side two of the LP. An edited version of the song was also issued as a B side of another single that did not chart.
Artist: Max Frost And The Troopers (aka 13th Power)
Title: It's Wrong
Source: CD: Shape Of Things To Come
Writer(s): Hector/Wibier
Label: Captain High (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
The first thing you need to know about Max Frost And The Troopers is that they were a fictional rock band featured in the film Wild In The Streets. Sort of. You see, in the movie itself the band is never actually named, although Max (played by Christopher Jones) does refer to his followers as his "troops" throughout the film. The next thing you need to know is that Shape Of Things To Come was a song used in the film that became a hit record in 1968. The song itself was written by the Brill building songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (who also wrote Kicks and Hungry for Paul Revere and the Raiders and several hit songs for the Animals, among others) and was recorded by studio musicians, with vocals by Paul Wibier. The song, along with several other Mann/Weil tunes used in the film, was credited not to Max Frost and the Troopers, but to the 13th Power on the film's soundtrack LP, which was released on Capitol's Tower subsidiary label. After Shape Of Things To Come (the song) became a hit, producer Mike Curb commissioned an entire album by Max Frost And The Troopers called, naturally, Shape Of Things To Come. The band on this album was actually Wibier's own band, the 13th Power, who had previously released songs for Curb's own Sidewalk label, both as the 13th Power and under their original name, Mom's Boys. This album was also released in 1968 on the Tower label, and featured mostly songs written (or co-written) by Wibier himself, such as It's Wrong. The name Max Frost And The Troopers popped up in a couple more film soundtracks before being permanently retired by the end of the year.
Artist: Book Of Changes
Title: I Stole The Goodyear Blimp
Source: Mono CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Frank Smith
Label: Zonophone (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
San Francisco's Vejtables underwent several personnel changes (a total of 14 members!) over a period of about three years, ultimately changing their name to Book Of Changes for their final single, I Stole The Goodyear Blimp, released in 1967 on the Tower label. The only member to last the entire span of the group was bandleader Bob Bailey, although Frank Smith, who was the Vejtables bassist from 1965-66, returned as guitarist for the Book Of Changes single.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Wanderin' Kind
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Howard Kaylan
Label: White Whale
Year: 1966
White Whale Records, being a typical L.A. label, insisted on using professional songwriters for almost all the Turtles' A sides. The band was allowed to write its own material for the B sides, however. One of the earliest was Wanderin' Kind, which had already been released as the opening track on the Turtles' 1965 debut LP, It Ain't Me Babe. The song was written by lead vocalist Howard Kaylan, who was then still in his teens. Kaylan would end up co-writing many more Turtles tracks, as well as most of Flo & Eddie's material a few years later. That's OK, though, since Kaylan is Eddie (fellow Turtle Mark Volman is Flo).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Somewhere
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2013
Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience did not officially disband until 1969, Hendrix himself was spending more and more time working with musicians outside the band as early as mid-1968. The Electric Ladyland album itself features guest appearances by the likes of Steve Winwood, Buddy Miles and Chris Wood, among others, and for years there have been even more recordings by non-Experience members rumored to exist. Among those legendary tracks is Somewhere, a piece that features Miles on drums, and unusually, Stephen Stills on bass. In addition to a special 45 RPM single release, Somewhere is available on the 2013 album People, Hell and Angels. According to engineer Eddie Kramer, this was the final collection of unreleased studio tracks to be issued by the Hendrix family estate. Turns out he was wrong, as another collection, Both Sides Of The Sky, was released in 2018.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Gypsy Sun & Rainbows
Title: Isabella
Source: CD: Woodstock Two
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year: Recorded 1969, released 1972
After disbanding the Experience in June of 1969, Jimi Hendrix retreated to the eight-bedroom 'Ashokan House' in the hamlet of Boiceville near Woodstock in upstate New York, where he found himself jamming with a larger group of musicians (including a rhythm guitarist, Jerry Lee) than he had previously had the opportunity to work with. He took this group (which he referred to onstage as Gypsy Sun and Rainbows) with him to the Woodstock Festival in June, where they performed several new numbers Hendrix was working on, including a song called Isabella. A studio version of the song was recorded the following year, and is now considered to be part of a double LP Hendrix planned to release in 1971. Meanwhile the live recording, which was not included on the Woodstock soundtrack album, ended up being released on the album Woodstock Two in 1972.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title: Power Of Soul
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1970, released 2013
1969 was a strange year for Jimi Hendrix. For one thing, he did not release any new recordings that year, yet he remained the top money maker in rock music. One reason for the lack of new material was an ongoing dispute with Capitol Records over a contract he had signed in 1965 as a session player. By the end of the year an agreement was reached for Hendrix to provide Capitol with one album's worth of new material. At this point Hendrix had not released any live albums, so it was decided to tape his New Year's performances at the Fillmore East with his new Band Of Gypsys (with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox), playing songs that had never been released in studio form. As it turns out, however, studio versions of many of the songs on that album did indeed exist, but were not issued until after Hendrix's death, when producer Alan Douglas put out a pair of LPs (Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning), that had some of the original drum and bass tracks (and even some guitar tracks) re-recorded by musicians that had never actually worked with Hendrix. One of those songs is Power Of Soul, which has finally been released in its original Band Of Gypsys studio version, recorded just a couple of weeks after the Fillmore East gig with background vocals provided by Cox and Miles.
Artist: Mockingbirds
Title: You Stole My Love
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Rhino (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1965
After writing two consecutive hit songs for the Yardbirds (For Your Love and Heart Full Of Soul), you would think that the next record released by Graham Gouldman's own band would be a sure thing. That was not the case, however, for the Mockingbirds, who released You Stole My Love in October of 1965. The single, the third for the band, was co-produced by Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith and features backup vocals by Julie Driscoll, who would become well-known as vocalist with Brian Augur's Trinity. Nonetheless, despite such a pedrigree the song failed to chart, and although Gouldman would continue to have success as a songwriter with songs for bands such as Herman's Hermits (Listen People, No Milk Today) and the Hollies (Look Through Any Window, Bus Stop), he would not find himself in a successful band until the 1970s, when he (along with Mockingbirds drummer Lol Creme) was an integral part of 10cc.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Shapes Of Things
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label: Epic
Year: 1966
The earliest Yardbirds singles were either covers of blues classics or new tunes written by outside songwriters such as Graham Gouldman. The first hit song for the group that was actually composed by band members was Shapes Of Things, which made the top 5 in the UK and the top 10 stateside. The song was officially credited to vocalist Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, who later said that Jeff Beck deserved a songwriting credit as well for his distinctive lead guitar solo that was a major factor in the record's success.
Artist: Doors
Title: Moonlight Drive
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
Much of the second Doors album consisted of songs that were already in the band's repertoire when they signed with Elektra Records but for various reasons did not record for their debut LP. One of the earliest was Jim Morrison's Moonlight Ride. As was the case with all the Doors songs on their first three albums, the tune was credited to the entire band.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Codine
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Revolution soundtrack)
Writer: Buffy Sainte-Marie
Label: Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
Buffy St. Marie's Codine was a popular favorite among the club crowd in mid-60s California. In 1967, L.A. band The Leaves included it on their second LP. Around the same time, up the coast in San Francisco, the Charlatans selected it to be their debut single. The suits at Kama-Sutra Records, however, balked at the choice, and instead released a cover of the Coasters' The Shadow Knows. The novelty-flavored Shadow bombed so bad that the label decided not to release any more Charlatans tracks, thus leaving their version of Codine gathering dust in the vaults until the mid 1990s, when the entire Kama-Sutra sessions were released on CD. Meanwhile, back in 1968, Quicksilver Messenger Service were still without a record contract, despite pulling decent crowds at various Bay Area venues, including a credible appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. Not long after that the producers of the quasi-documentary film Revolution decided to include footage of three as-yet unsigned Bay Area bands, one of which was Quicksilver Messenger Service, who performed Codine in the film. Rather than use that performance for the soundtrack album, the producers chose to have the band re-record the song, making Codine the group's first officially released studio recording.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: An Angry Young Man
Source: LP: The Best Of The Strawberry Alarm Clock (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): B Stone
Label: Sundazed/Uni
Year: 1967
The story of the Strawberry Alarm Clock almost seems like a "best of" (or maybe "worst of") collection of things that could have happened to a band during the psychedelic era. Signed with a local label: check. Released single: check. Started getting airplay on local radio stations: check. Record picked up by major label for national distribution: check. Record becomes hit: check. Band gets to record an entire album: check. Album does reasonably well on charts, mostly due to popularity of single: check. Band gets to record second album, but with more creative freedom, thanks to previous successes: check. Single from second album does OK, but nowhere near as OK as first hit single: check. Second album fails to chart: check. Second single from second album charts lower than either previous single. Producers decide they know more than the band members when it comes to making hit records and bring in several outside songwriters for third album: check. Key members of band quit following release of third album: check. Band soldiers on for a while longer, but never manages to duplicate success of first single: check. Band disbands: check. One of those outside songwriters brought in by the producers for the 1968 LP The World in a Sea Shell was someone named Bob Stone. To this day I have no idea who Bob Stone is/was, but his song, An Angry Young Man, somehow made the band's greatest hits album, despite being relegated to the B side of a low charting (#67) band original, Barefoot In Baltimore.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: River Deep, Mountain High
Source: CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals 1966-1968 (originally released on LP: Love Is)
Writer(s): Spector/Barry/Greenwich
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
The final album by Eric Burdon And The Animals was Love Is, a double-LP released in 1968. By this time the band's lineup had changed considerably from the group Burdon and drummer Barry Jenkins had formed in 1967, with guitarist/violinist John Weider the only other original member to still be with them. Joining the three originals were bassist/keyboardist Zoot Money and guitarist Andy Summers, both of whom had been with Dantalian's Chariot (Summers of course would eventually attain star status as a member of the Police). Additionally, the Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt provided background vocals on the album's first track, a seven and a half minute long cover of Ike & Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High.
Artist: Moody Blues
Title: Question
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Justin Hayward
Label: Threshold
Year: 1970
By 1970 the Moody Blues had developed their own unique brand of orchestral rock, and had even started their own label, Threshold (inspired by their 1969 LP On The Threshold Of A Dream). Due to the complexity of their songs, however, they were having difficulty making them sound right when performed live. In an effort to remedy the problem they tried a more stripped-down approach with their 1970 single, Question, and the subsequent LP A Question Of Balance. It worked, too, as Question became their second biggest hit single in the UK, going all the way to the #2 spot. In the long run, the band realized that their best approach was to perform with a full orchestra, which they have been doing regularly since the early 1970s.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Turn On Your Love Light
Source: CD: Skeletons From The Closet (edited version originally released on LP: The Big Ball; full version originally released on LP: Live Dead)
Writer(s): Scott/Malone
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1969
After two years' (and three albums) worth of trying to capture their live sound in the studio, the Grateful Dead decided just to cut to the chase and release a live album. The result was the double LP Live Dead, one of the most successful releases in Grateful Dead history. The album itself is one continuous concert, with each side fading out at the end, with a bit of overlap at the beginning of the next side. Most of the material on Live Dead was written by the band itself, the sole exception being a fifteen-minute long rendition of Bobby Bland's 1961 hit Turn On Your Love Light, featuring vocals by organist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. This six and a half minute long excerpt from the album first appeared on the Warner Brothers "Loss Leaders" album The Big Ball, a two-disc sampler album that could only be bought directly from the record company. The same excerpt was later included on the 1972 Grateful Dead compilation album Skeletons From The Closet.
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