Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2601 (starts 12/29/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/601228

    After two weeks of, shall we say, unusual programming, we get back to basics this time around with an all-new Advanced Psych segment and a mixture of old favorites with a handful of tunes that haven't been heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Rain
Source:    CD: Past Masters-volume two (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    The Beatles' B side to their 1966 hit Paperback Writer was innovative in more than one way. First off, the original instrumental tracks were actually recorded at a faster speed (and higher key) than is heard on the finished recording. Also, it is the first Beatles record to feature backwards masking (John Lennon's overdubbed vocals toward the end of the song were recorded with the tape playing in reverse). Needless to say, both techniques were soon copied and expanded upon by other artists.

Artist:      Richard And The Young Lions
Title:     Open Up Your Door
Source:      Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brown/Abounader/Bloodworth
Label:    Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year:     1966
     Open Up Your Door, despite sounding like a garage band from New Jersey, was actually a studio creation produced by Bob Crewe, who was the guiding force behind the highly successful 4 Seasons vocal group. Howie Tepp was the lead vocalist of a Newark, NJ band called the Original Counts, who had a chance encounter with Larry Brown, one of Crewe's staff songwriters. Brown saw potential in Tepp, but felt that his band was too young and inexperienced to go into the studio, so he had Tepp record Open Up Your Door backed by studio musicians. The record was released under the name Richard And The Young Lions. Although it failed to make an impression locally, it did hit the top 10 in Detroit and other places, which in turn led to gigs in the midwest opening for the Yardbirds, among others. Subsequent records failed to chart, however, and Richard And The Young Lions joined the ranks of one almost-hit wonders. 

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Fire Engine
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    In the summer of 1971 the band I was in, Sunn, did a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs as part of our regular repertoire. For the siren effect at the beginning of the song we used our voices, which always elicited smiles from some of the more perceptive members of the audience. Listening to Fire Engine, from The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators, has the same effect on me, for pretty much the same reason. The main difference is that the Elevators actually did it with the tape rolling on one of their own original songs, something Sunn never got the opportunity to do. 

Artist:    John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    Mono British import 45 RPM EP: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
Writer(s):    John Mayall
Label:    R&B
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2016
    John Mayall's Bluesbreakers included several talented musicians over the years, many of whom went on to become stars in their own right. Not every Bluesbreakers lineup saw the inside of a recording studio, however. In fact, the only known recording of Mayall's Little Girl, which includes Eric Clapton on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass and Hughie Flint on drums, is from a live radio broadcast in 1966 (possibly on one of the many pirate radio stations operating off the coast of England at the time). The recording sat on the shelf for 50 years, suffering some degradation before finally being released on a four song EP in the UK in 2016. 

Artist:    Aretha Franklin
Title:    Respect
Source:    Mono CD: Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-1974 Volume 6: 1966-1969 (orginally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Otis Redding
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1967
    So much has been written about Aretha Franklin's version of Respect, I really have nothing to add. Well, except to repeat the story that Otis Redding supposedly stole the song from Speedo Sims, who in turn had stolen it from an unnamed guitarist at Bobby Smith's recording studio in Macon, Georgia. 

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     No Expectations
Source:     CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     Abkco (original label: London)
Year:     1968
     After the heavy dose of studio effects on Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones took a back-to-basics approach for their next album, Beggar's Banquet, the first to be produced by Jimmy Miller (who had previously worked with Steve Winwood in Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group). No Expectations, the second track on the album, uses minimal instrumentation and places a greater emphasis on Mick Jagger's vocals and Brian Jones's slide guitar work. Sadly, it was to be Jones's last album as a member of the Rolling Stones, as heavy drug use was already taking its toll (and would soon take his life as well).

Artist:    Family
Title:    Second Generation Woman 
Source:    LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook (originally released on LP: Family Entertainment)
Writer(s):    Rick Grech
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    Family's original lineup of Roger Chapman, Rick Grech, Jim King, Rob Townsend and John Whitney was still intact for the recording of the band's second LP, Family Entertainment, although Grech soon left to join Blind Faith. Their debut LP had been well-received, but they had already dropped much of their early material from their live sets in favor of newer composition even before Family Entertainment was released. As a result, many of the songs on the new album, including Grech's Second Generation Woman, were already familiar to the band's fans by the time the LP was made available to the public. Grech's departure, though, was only the first in a series of personnel changes throughout Family's existence, and by 1973, when the group officially disbanded, only Chapman, Townsend and Whitney remained from the lineup that had recorded the first two LPs. 

Artist:    Full Tilt Boogie Band
Title:    Pearl
Source:    CD: The Pearl Sessions (originally released on CD: Pearl-Legacy Edition)
Writer(s):    Full Tilt Boogie Band
Label:    Columbia
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2005
    The Full Tillt Boogie Band was formed in the late 60s as a side project by New York studio guitarist John Till. All the members, including Till, pianist Richard Bell, bassist Brad Campbell, drummer Clark Pierson, and organist Ken Pearson were Canadian citizens, mostly hailing from the province of Ontario. In 1969, Till, along with several other studio musicians, were tapped to become Janis Joplin's Kozmic Blues Band, backing up the vocalist on her solo debut album. Joplin, however, was not entirely comfortable with all the members of this new band, and after the album itself got mostly negative reviews from critics and fans alike, Joplin decided to disband the group, keeping only Till. Till then convinced her to use the Full Tilt Boogie Band (dropped the second "L" in Tillt) for her next album. The new combo started touring in the spring of 1970, beginning work on the album itself that September. On October 4, 1970, the band recorded the backing track for the final song to be recorded for the album, A Nick Gravenites tune called Buried Alive In The Blues. That night Janis Joplin died from a lethal dose of heroin and alcohol. Six days later the band reconvened to put the finishing touches on the existing tracks, but soon found themselves breaking into a slow, somber jam that lasted close to fifteen minutes. They called the piece Pearl, after the nickname they had given her, and after editing it down to four and a half minutes assigned it a matrix number for potential release. Ultimately, the piece was shelved indefinitely, and the name Pearl was given to the album itself. The song was finally released in 2005 on the Legacy Edition of the Pearl album.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label:    Elektra (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively  small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.
    
Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    I Can Take You To The Sun
Source:    British import CD: Before The Dream Faded (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Cherry Red (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1966
    The story of the legendary band the Misunderstood actually started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most of the bands at the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock and roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, an Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were eventually joined by Ravencroft himself, who changed his name to John Peel and became arguably the most famous DJ in the history of British rock radio. Ravencroft's brother Alan got the band a deal with Fontana Records, resulting in a single in late 1966, I Can Take You To The Sun, that took the British pop scene by storm. Problems having nothing to do with music soon derailed the Misunderstood, who found themselves being deported back to the US, and in one case, drafted into the US Army. 

Artist:    Easybeats
Title:        Friday On My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Battle Of The Bands-Vol. Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Era (original label: United Artists)
Year:        1966
       Considered by many to be the "greatest Australian song" ever recorded, the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, released in late 1966, certainly was the first (and for many years only) major international hit by a band from the island continent. Technically, however, Friday On My Mind is not an Australian song at all, since it was recorded after the band had relocated to London. The group continued to release records for the next year or two, but were never able to duplicate the success of Friday On My Mind. Ultimately vocalist Stevie Wright returned to Australia, where he had a successful solo career. Guitarists Harry Vanda and George Young, who had written Friday On My Mind, also returned home to form a band called Flash And The Pan in the early 1970s. Later in the decade Young would help launch the careers of his two younger brothers, Angus and Malcolm, in their own band, AC/DC. 

Artist:     Troggs
Title:     Wild Thing
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Chip Taylor
Label:     Atco
Year:     1966
    Due to a bit of confusion about distribution rights, the Troggs' Wild Thing came out on two different competing labels in the US, but with different B sides. How that came about is beyond me.

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:    Doors
Title:    Take It As It Comes
Source:    LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's hottest bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening in early August Jack Holzman, president of Elektra Records, and producer Paul Rothchild were among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band to record for Elektra (although the Butterfield Blues Band is considered by some to be the first, predating Love by several months). By the end of the month the Doors were in the studio recording songs like Take It As It Comes for their debut LP, which was released in January of 1967.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    I Can Hear The Grass Grow
Source:    LP: Nuggets vol. 11- Pop part four (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s):    Roy Wood
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1968
    After their second LP, Electric Comic Book, made the top 10 on the Billboard albums chart the Blues Magoos had enough clout to start producing their own music. Their original producers, Art Polhemus and Bob Wyld, were not giving up their most successful clients without a fight, however, and ended up producing four of the 13 tracks on the 1968 album Basic Blues Magoos. It was probably not a coincidence that these included all three singles released from the album, including a cover version of the Move's I Can Hear The Grass Grow. All three singles, as well as the album itself, failed to chart, leading to the band changing membership, record labels and musical direction within a year.

Artist:    Tales Of Justine
Title:    Monday Morning
Source:    Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    David Daltrey
Label:    EMI (original label: His Master's Voice)
Year:    1967
    Tales Of Justine started off in 1965 as the Court Jesters, an instrumental trio consisting of Paul Myerson on guitar, Chris Woodisse on bass, and Paul Hurford on drums. The lineup was completed with the addition of multi-instrumentalist David Daltrey, a cousin of the Who's Roger Daltrey, on lead vocals. Two years later the band signed with EMI, largely due to support from trainee producer Tim Rice and arranger Andrew Lloyd Webber, who helped the band with their debut single. Rice soon departed company with EMI and the band did not release any more records. Rice and Webber, however, went on to greater fame with their rock musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph And The AmazingTechnicolor Dreamcoat, the second of which starred Daltrey himself.

Artist:     Barry McGuire
Title:     Eve of Destruction
Source:     45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:     P.F. Sloan
Label:     MCA (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. Sloan, on the other hand, would tone it down a bit after forming a songwriting/producing partnership with Steve Barri. The two came up with the idea for a band called the Grass Roots to record their songs and then set about finding musicians pliable enough to make that idea a reality. After a false start or two they succeeded. 

Artist:    Petals
Title:    Dreamtime
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Kern/Wolf
Label:    November Rain
Year:    1989
    A few weeks ago I received a package from Cary Wolf of the Petals containing all of that band's early singles, most of which preceded the release of their first LP in 1992. The earliest of these was Just Another Flower Song, released in 1989. The flip side of that single was Dreamtime, a tune co-written by keyboardist Laurie Kern, who also sings on the tune.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    49 Songs
Source:    CD: California
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    2004
    Having finally had the opportunity to record "the third album we never got to make", the members of the reunited Electric Prunes got to work on an album built around the members' own memories of the Summer of Love, "a time when people still believed you could find gold in California". I usually don't pay all that much attention to lyrics, but it's hard not to smile when you hear 49 Songs, with its story of a musician who lost his pants in France. 

Artist:    Chesterfield Kings
Title:    Next One In Line
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Babiuk/Prevost
Label:    Mirror
Year:    1987
    Formed in the late 1970s in Rochester, NY, the Chesterfield Kings (named for an old brand of unfiltered cigarettes that my grandfather used to smoke) were instrumental in setting off the garage band revival of the 1980s. Their earliest records were basically a recreation of the mid-60s garage sound, although by the time their 1987 album, Don't Open Til Doomsday, was released they had gone through some personnel changes that resulted in a harder-edged sound on songs like Look Around. Between 1982 and 1997 the Kings released seven LPs on the Mirror label affiliated with the House Of Guitars, along with several singles. The last of these had an original tune, Next One In Line, on the A side backed by two cover songs, Talk Talk and You Drive Me Nervous, making it almost an EP.  

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1966
     If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, who might be considered the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.

Artist:    What's Left
Title:    Girl Said No
Source:    Mono German import LP: Sixties Rebellion Vol. 5: The Cave (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Tony Montalbano
Label:    Way Back (original US label: Capri)
Year:    1966
    When it comes to obscurity, What's Left may well be the all-time champion. From what I can tell, they were from the Houston area, since their only single was recorded in Pasadena, Texas, a Houston suburb, and released on a label located in Conroe, about 15 miles north of Houston. Both sides of the single were written by a Tony Montalbano. At first I thought this might be the drummer from San Jose, California,, as the song starts with thundering tom-toms, but am now convinced it was Tony A. Montalbano, whose obituary appeared in the Houston Chronicle in May of 2005. This Tony Montalbano had been a member of a group called the Saints in the mid-1950s and was credited with writing both gospel and pop songs for a variety of artists. Whether someone who wrote gospel songs could have also penned the punkish Girl Said No is subject for speculation.

Artist:     Knickerbockers
Title:     One Track Mind
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Linda and Keith Colley
Label:     Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year:     1966
     After successfully fooling many people into thinking that they were the Beatles recording under a different name with their 1965 hit Lies, the Los Angeles-based Knickerbockers went with a more R&B flavored rocker, One Track Mind, for their 1966 follow up single. 
    
Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Uncle John's Band
Source:    CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: Workingman's Dead)
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    For many people who only got their music from commercial radio, Uncle John's Band was the first Grateful Dead song they ever heard. The tune, from the 1970 LP Workingman's Dead, was the first Dead song to crack the top 100, peaking at #69, and got significant airplay on FM rock radio stations as well. The close harmonies on the track were reportedly inspired by Crosby, Stills and Nash, whose debut album had come out the previous year. 

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    Woodstock
Source:    LP: So Far (originally released on LP: déjà vu)
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    It's somewhat ironic that the most famous song about the Woodstock Music and Art Festival was written by someone who was not even at the event. Joni Mitchell had been advised by her manager that she would be better off appearing on the Dick Cavett show that weekend, so she stayed in her New York City hotel room and watched televised reports of what was going on up at Max Yasgur's farm. Further inspiration came from her then-boyfried Graham Nash, who shared his firsthand experiences of the festival with Mitchell. The song was first released on the 1970 album Ladies Of The Canyon, and was made famous the same year when it was chosen to be the first single released from the Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young album déjà vu. The CSNY version peaked just outside of the Billboard top 10.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Hippo Stomp
Source:    LP: Rest In Peace (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf 7)
Writer(s):    Kay/Byrom
Label:    Dunhill/ABC
Year:    1970
    Steppenwolf had gone through a series of lineup changes by the time they released the album Steppenwolf 7 in November of 1970. Bassist Rushton Moreve, who co-wrote one of their biggest hits, Magic Carpet Ride, had been fired for not showing up for gigs in Los Angeles after his girlfriend convinced him that California was about the experience "the big one". His replacement, Nick St. Nicholas, was in turn fired for his outrageous stage attire (including one legendary gig in which he appeared wearing only rabbit ears and a jock strap). Michael Monarch, the band's lead guitarist, had left because of personality conflicts with John Kay. His replacement, Larry Byrom, would leave before work began on the band's next album due to conflicts with keyboardist Goldy McJohn, but not before co-writing several tunes for Steppenwolf 7, including the album's final track, Hippo Stomp. Steppenwolf's next album, For Ladies Only, would be their last before the group disbanded, temporarily as it turned out.

Artist:    Blood, Sweat & Tears
Title:    The Battle
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Katz/Halligan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    One of the more overlooked vocalist/guitarists in rock history is Steve Katz. Already an established member of the Greenwich Village folk community in 1965, Katz was working as a guitar teacher when he auditioned to become a temporary fill-in rhythm guitarist for the Danny Kalb Group. The position became permanent before the band changed its name to the Blues Project, making Katz a founding member of that legendary group. When the Blues Project broke up following a sub-par performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival, Katz, along with Al Kooper (who had left the group prior to that performance), bassist Jim Fielder and drummer Bobby Colomby, worked up a set of tunes for a benefit concert to raise money for Kooper to move to London. When the concert failed to raise enough cash for even a single plane ticket, the group, which had added Fred Lisius on alto sax, decided to stay together and form a new band called Blood, Sweat & Tears. Kooper would leave the band after their first album, but Katz remained a member of the group for the next five years. Katz's tenure as lead guitarist in Blood, Sweat & Tears was much like George Harrison's in the Beatles. He generally got to write and sing on one song per album, such as The Battle, from Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, which was also issued as the B side of the hit single Hi-De-Ho. In 1972 Katz met Lou Reed, and ended up producing his two most successful albums, Sally Can't Dance and Rock 'n' Roll Animal. Katz would go on to become a record company executive, including a stint as managing director of Green Linnet Records, producing traditional Irish music for an American audience. Katz eventually left the music business to become a professional photographer.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Bald Headed Woman
Source:    LP: You Really Got Me
Writer(s):    Shel Talmy
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1964
    Although it was a traditional American blues song dating back at least to the earliest part of the 20th century, British record producer Shel Talmy took advantage of copyright laws (the song being in the public domain) to claim writing credit for Bald Headed Woman not once, but twice, in order to collect royalties on the song. The first time was in 1964, when he persuaded the Kinks to include the song on their debut LP. Later that same year Talmy did the same thing with the Who, with the song appearing as the B side of their first top 10 single, I Can't Explain.

Artist:    Hysterics
Title:    Everything's There
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    David Donaghue
Label:    Rhino (original label: Bing)
Year:    1965
    Much as San Jose, California had its own thriving teen-oriented music scene within the greater San Francisco media market, the San Bernardino/Riverside area of Southern California, sometimes called the Inland Empire, was home to several local bands that were able to score recording contracts with various small labels in the area. Among those were the Hysterics, who recorded four songs for two separate labels in 1965. The best of those was Everything's There, which appeared as the B side of the second single issued by the band. At some point, Everything's There was reissued (along with the A side of the first record, That's All She Wrote) on yet a third label, but this time credited to the Love Ins. According to lead vocalist Don Dismukes, this was done without the knowledge or permission of the band itself. Such was the state of the indy record business in 1965.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Signed D.C.
Source:    German import CD: Love
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Warner Strategic Marketing
Year:    1966
    The only acoustic track on the first Love album was Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions due to (you guessed it) heroin addiction.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Janis
Source:    LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released on LP: I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967 
    It is not well-known (yet hardly a secret, either) that in early 1967, Country Joe McDonald and Janis Joplin had a live-in relationship. As might be expected given the strong personalities involved, the affair didn't last long, but apparently had a profound enough effect on McDonald that he wrote a song about it. That song, Janis, appears on the second Country Joe And The Fish LP, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    If You Feel
Source:    CD: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s):    Blackman/Balin
Label:    BMG/RCA
Year:    1968
    Although Marty Balin's contributions as a songwriter to Jefferson Airplane's third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, were minimal (he co-wrote one song), he was back in full force on the band's next LP, Crown Of Creation. One of his lesser-known songs on the album is If You Feel, co-written with non-member Gary Blackman, which opened side two of the LP.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2601 (starts 12/29/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/601223

    Although on first glance it may seem that     all the song titles in the first set (and part of the second) have some sort of subliminal messaging going on, really it's just a lot of good music.

Artist:    Three Dog Night
Title:    Liar
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Russ Ballard
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1971
    Before the Beatles came along a typical pop group consisted of three or more vocalists backed by studio musicians and performing material provided by professional songwriters. In a sense Three Dog Night was a throwback to that earlier model, as the group was formed around a nucleus of three vocalists: Chuck Negron, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton. Unlike the early 60s groups, however, Three Dog Night chose to hire a fixed set of instrumentalists to both play on their records and perform live material (most of which did indeed come from professional songwriters). One of their many hit singles was Liar, a song written by Argent's lead vocalist Russ Ballard and originally released on that group's 1970 debut LP. The Three Dog Night version went into the US top 10 in 1971.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Student Demonstration Time
Source:    LP: Surf's Up
Writer(s):    Lieber/Stoller/Love
Label:    Brother/Reprise
Year:    1971
    The 1970 album Sunflower was the worst-selling album in Beach Boys history. To rectify their falling popularity the group brought in a new manager, Jack Riely, aka KPFK DJ John Frank. Riely immediately set about making changes, including the appointment of Carl Wilson as the band's official leader and the abandonment of the group's long-standing practice of dressing alike on stage. He also worked with the band creatively, encouraging them to write more relevant songs. Mike Love responded by adapting Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's Riot In Cell Block 9, originally released by the Robins in 1954, updating the lyrics to reflect the political activism taking place on many US college campuses in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Back In NYC/Hairless Heart/Counting Out Time
Source:    CD: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Atco)
Year:    1974
    The 1974 album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway marked the beginning of the many changes Genesis would undergo as the band evolved from an art-rock band with a loyal cult following to one of the most popular mainstream bands of the 1980s. It was the band's first double-LP studio album and the first to appear on the Atco label in the US, becoming the band's highest charting album up to that point in time, both in the US and Britain. There were two singles released from the album, the second of which was actually the final part of a three song sequence that begins with one of the group's hardest rocking pieces to date, Back In NYC, proceeds to a quiet instrumental featuring acoustic guitar from Steve Hackett intertwined with Tony Banks's keyboards and concludes with Counting Out Time, the aforementioned single. Not long after the release of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, lead vocalist Peter Gabriel announced his departure from the group, a move that eventually resulted in drummer Phil Collins becoming the band's front man. The rest is history.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Gonna Run
Source:    CD: Watt
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:    1970
    The fifth Ten Years After album, Watt, was somewhat unfairly criticized by the rock press for being "more of the same" from the British blues-rock band. When "the same" refers to an album of the calibur of Cricklewood Green, however, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, some tracks, such as Gonna Run, are at least the equal of any song on the previous album, and show a growing awareness on the part of the band of how to use the recording studio creatively. 

Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    IV...(The Emperor)
Source:    LP: Mahogany Rush IV
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1976
    Although still a power trio, Mahogany Rush began to incorporate other instruments such as synth bass, and on the title track of their fourth album, mellotron. All these were played by Frank Marino, who also played guitars, sang and wrote all the band's material.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Simon The Bullet Freak
Source:    British import CD: Salisbury (bonus track originally released only on US version of LP)
Writer(s):    Ken Hensley
Label:    Sanctuary (original US label: Mercury)
Year:    1971
    Uriah Heep combined elements of progressive rock and heavy metal to create a sound that was uniquely their own. The band had two main songwriting sources: the team of vocalist David Byron and guitarist Mick Box, who wrote most of the band's early material, and keyboardist Ken Hensley, whose writing dominated the band's most popular period. The group' second LP, Salisbury, was in many senses a transition album, with the songwriting split about evenly between the two. One of Hensley's compositions, Simon The Bullet Freak, was released in Germany as a B side and included on the US version of the Salisbury album in early 1971. The song made its first UK appearance as the B side of the single version of the title track of the band's third LP, Look At Yourself.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    No One To Depend On
Source:    Mexican import LP: Los Grandes Exitos de Santana (originally released on LP: Santana)
Writer(s):    Carabella/Escobida/Rolie
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Santana's third LP (which like their debut LP was called simply Santana), was the last by the band's original lineup. Among the better-known tracks on the LP was No One To Depend On, featuring a guitar solo by teen phenom Neal Schon (who would go on to co-found Journey). The song was left off the band's first Greatest Hits album in most countries, but was included on the Mexican version of the LP, Los Grandes Exitos de Santana. It was, at the time, the only time the single version of the song was issued in stereo without the fade in from Batuka, which precedes it on the original LP.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    A Song For Jeffrey
Source:    LP: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull's second single (and first European hit) was A Song For Jeffrey from their debut LP, This Was. The Jeffrey in the song title is Jeffrey Hammond, who, according to the liner notes, was "one of us, though he doesn't play anything". The notes go on to say he "makes bombs and stuff". In fact, Hammond would replace bassist Glen Cornick a few albums later and remain with the group for several years. The song itself proved popular enough that when the band compiled their first Anthology album, Living In The Past, A Song For Jeffrey was chosen to open the album.

Artist:    Triumvirat
Title:    Dimplicity
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Fritz/Batherlt
Label:    Harvest
Year:    1974
    Formed by keyboardist  Hans-Jürgen Fritz in Cologne, Germany in 1969, Triumvirat started off doing mostly cover songs in a style heavily influenced by that of Keith Emerson's bands the Nice and later, Emerson, Lake & Palmer. By the early 1970s Triumvirat was doing original material, but still heavily influenced by Emerson. They released their first LP, Mediterranean Tales, in 1972, following it up with Illusions On A Double Dimple in 1974, the same year they did their first US tour, opening for Fleetwood Mac. Dimplicity was the only single from the album released in the US.

Artist:     Neil Young
Title:     Heart Of Gold
Source:     CD: Decade (originally released on LP: Harvest)
Writer:     Neil Young
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1972
     In the liner notes of his 1977 compilation album Decade, Neil Young had this to say about his hit single Heart Of Gold from the 1972 LP Harvest: "This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there." As a longtime resident of the ditch myself, I say thankya, Neil.
    
Artist:    Paul Simon
Title:    Kodachrome
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    Paul Simon's Kodachrome was actually banned on some stations, but not for copyright infringement (Kodachrome being a registered trademark of Kodak). Rather, it was banned for the first line of the song: "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all." Apparently "crap" offended some programmers, to the point that one station (New York's WABC) even edited the offending line to "When I think back it's a wonder I can think at all" when they played the song. Not only does that line not make any sense, I can only imagine how that must have sounded with almost four measures edited out (but with one beat left in, just to totally throw off the rhythm of the song). Apparently, though, this kind of censorship is what used to make America great, if current political thought is to be believed.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2552 (starts 12/22/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/600434

    Bob Dylan probably had an even more profound effect on the psychedelic era as a songwriter than he did as a performer, and this week we feature an entire hour of Bob Dylan songs performed by artists who were not named Bob Dylan. There are the obvious ones like the Byrds, who had multiple hit singles with Dylan songs, but also some you may not immediately think of, such as the Chocolate Watchband and blues legend Taj Mahal. For our second hour we lighten things up a bit by focusing on the instrumentalists who laid the groundwork for countless garage bands to build on, including a set of alternating tracks from the three most influential guitarists of the pre-psychedelic era. 

Artist:    Peter, Paul And Mary
Title:    Blowin' In The Wind
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1963
    Just as knowing the chords for Van Morrison's Gloria was pretty much a prerequisite for being in a garage band, being able to play Bob Dylan's Blowing In The Wind was a must for anyone attempting to play folk music at a party in the mid-1960s. If there was more than one of you singing, you most likely used the Peter, Paul and Mary arrangement of the tune, with its three-part harmony. Their version was by far the most popular recording of the song, going all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts in the summer of '63.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Mr. Tambourine Man
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Mr. Tambourine Man)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
           The term "folk-rock" was coined by the music press to describe the debut single by the Byrds. Mr. Tambourine Man had been written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan, but it was the Byrds version that went to the top of the charts in 1965. Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark and David Crosby had begun work on the song in 1964, when their manager got his hands on an acetate of Dylan performing the song with Ramblin' Jack Elliott. The trio, calling themselves the Jet Set, were trying to develop a sound that combined folk-based melodies and lyrics with arrangements inspired by the British Invasion, and felt that Mr. Tambourine Man might be a good candidate for that kind of treatment. Although the group soon added bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke, producer Terry Melcher opted to use the group of Los Angeles studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew for the instrumental track of the recording, along with McGuinn's 12-string guitar. Following the success of the single, the Byrds entered the studio to record their debut LP, this time playing their own instruments.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    All I Really Want To Do
Source:    LP: Mr. Tambourine Man
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The Byrds scored a huge international hit with their interpretation of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, which made it to the top of the charts in 1965. The group's next single was another Dylan cover, All I Really Want To Do. Although it did well in the UK, making it all the way to the # 4 spot, the song was not a major hit in the US, where it stalled out at # 40. Ironically, the Byrds' next single, Pete Seeger's Turn Turn Turn, bombed in the UK while hitting # 1 in the US.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    My Back Pages
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the items of contention between David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the latter's insistence on continuing to record covers of Bob Dylan songs when the band members themselves had a wealth of their own material available. Indeed, it was reportedly an argument over whether or not to include Crosby's Triad on the next album that resulted in Crosby being fired from the band in October of 1967 (although other factors certainly played into it as well). Nonetheless, the last Dylan cover with Crosby still in the band was perhaps their best as well. Although not as big a hit as Mr. Tambourine Man, My Back Pages from the Younger Than Yesterday album did respectably well on the charts, becoming one of the Byrds' last top 40 hits.
 
Artist:    Turtles
Title:    It Ain't Me Babe
Source:    Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1965
    The Turtles started out as a local high school surf band called the Crossfires. In 1965 they were signed to a record label that technically didn't exist yet. That did not deter the people at the label (which would come to be known as White Whale) from convincing the band to change its name and direction. Realizing that surf music was indeed on the way out, the band, now called the Turtles, went into the studio and recorded four songs. One of those was Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe. The Byrds had just scored big with their version of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and the Turtles took a similar approach with It Ain't Me Babe. The song was a solid hit, going to the #8 spot on the national charts and leading to the first of many Turtles albums (not to mention hit singles) on the White Whale label. 

Artist:    Association
Title:    One Too Many Mornings
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Valiant)
Year:    1965
    The Association is a name that will always be associated (sorry) with soft-pop hits like Cherish, Never My Love and Windy. Originally, though, they had a hard time getting a record deal, due to their somewhat unconventional approach to pop music (co-founder Terry Kirkman had played in a band with Frank Zappa prior to forming the Association, for instance). Eventually they got a deal with Jubilee Records but were unable to get decent promotion from the label. Finally producer Curt Boettcher took an interest in the group, convincing Valiant Records (which had a distribution deal with Warner Brothers) to buy out the Association's contract. The first record the group recorded for Valiant was a single version of Bob Dylan's One Too Many Mornings. Unlike many of their later records, which used studio musicians extensively, One Too Many Mornings featured the band members playing all their own instruments. Boettcher would go on to produce the Association's debut LP in 1966, which included the hits Along Comes Mary and Cherish, before moving on to other projects. 

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Love Minus Zero
Source:    Mono CD: Hey Joe (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    One Way (original label: Mira)
Year:    1965
    Of all the various covers of Bob Dylan songs over the years, one of the most obscure has to be the Leaves' version of Love Minus Zero, released as a B side in 1965. It is suggested that the song may have been intended to be the A side of the band's debut single, since folk-rock was the hot thing in Los Angeles in 1965, but even before the record was officially released local radio stations were instead playing Too Many People, a Leaves original on the other side of the record that is now recognized as a garage-rock classic. This set the stage for the national success of their 1966 fuzztone-drenched fast version of Hey Joe, which has since appeared on several anthology albums.
        
Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1965
    In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that the existing L.A. band calling itself the Grass Roots had no interest in recording for Sloan and Barri. Angered by being treated rudely by one of the band members, Sloan and Barri did a little research and came to the realization that the existing Grass Roots had not legally copyrighted the name, so Sloan and Barri did so themselves and then found another band to record as the Grass Roots. This of course forced the existing band to come up with a new name, but that's a story for another time. Meanwhile, the band Sloan and Barri recruited was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man). The band soon got to work promoting the single to Southern California radio stations, but with both the Byrds and the Turtles already on the charts with Dylan covers it soon became obvious that the market was becoming saturated with folk-rock. After a period of months the band, who wanted more freedom to write and record their own material, had a falling out with Sloan and Barri and it wasn't long before they moved back to San Francisco, leaving drummer Joel Larson in L.A. The group, with another drummer, continued to perform as the Grass Roots until Dunhill Records ordered them to stop. Eventually Dunhill would hire a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor (not to be confused with Austin, Texas's 13th Floor Elevators) to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots; that group would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. The Bedouins never had the opportunity to record again.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    Daddy You Been On My Mind
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1965
    Although I had heard songs like Where Have All The Flowers Gone and Blowin' In The Wind on the radio and around campfires, I did not actually own a folk record until early 1966, when I picked up a brown paper "grab bag" of four singles at a discount price at the Post Exchange at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. Among the records in the bag was a single by Joan Baez that featured a cover of Phil Ochs's There But For Fortune on one side and a Bob Dylan song called Daddy You Been On My Mind on the other. Being a twelve-year-old kid, I had never heard of Baez or Ochs, although the name Bob Dylan was vaguely familiar to me. Still, I was intrigued by this new kind of music, that was a bit similar to songs I had heard on the radio like Where Have All The Flowers Gone, but yet had a kind of exotic strangeness that set it apart. Although the Baez single had been released in 1965, Dylan's own original version of Mama, You Been On My Mind, recorded in 1964, was not made available to the public until 1991, when it appeared as part of The Bootleg Series.

Artist:    Rising Sons
Title:    Walkin' Down The Line
Source:    CD: Rising Sons featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 1993
    The Rising Sons had their roots in both the East and West Coast underground music scenes. The genesis of the band can be traced to a 1964 hootenanny in Cambridge, Mass.organized by a young bluesman named Taj Mahal. One of the performers was a 12-string guitarist named Jesse Lee Kincaid, who had learned his technique from his uncle Fred Gerlach, a West Coast based recording artist for Folkways Records. Kincaid persuaded Mahal to relocate to Los Angeles, where they hooked up with another Gerlach student, Ryland Cooder to form the Rising Sons. With the addition of bassist Jeff Marker and drummer Ed Cassidy the group began to hit the local club scene, making enough of a name for themselves to get signed to Columbia Records in 1965. Before they can actually get into the studio, however, Cassidy hurt his wrist, forcing the band to find another drummer, Kevin Kelley (Cassidy, by the way, would go on to become a founding member of Spirit with his stepson Randy California). Although the Rising Sons did write some of their own songs, much of what they recorded was their own arrangements of blues classics, and even a Bob Dylan tune, Walkin' Down The Line. Columbia never really had a handle on how to market an inter-racial underground folk-rock-blues band like the Rising Sons, and, with the exception of one single, the band's recordings ended up on the shelf until 1993. 

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Baby Blue
Source:    British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Tower)
Year:    1966
    The Chocolate Watchband originally released their version of Bob Dylan's (It's All Over Now) Baby Blue as a B side in 1966. The recording was remixed in stereo for the band's 1968 album The Inner Mystique. So many overdubs were added to the album version of the song that it has to be considered an entirely different track (and a far more psychedelic one at that). This time around we're presenting the original mono B side version, to contrast with the next track...

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    (It's All Over Now) Baby Blue
Source:    CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1967
    When the 13th Floor Elevators left their native Texas to do a series of gigs on the West Coast, the local media's reaction was basically "good riddance". After the band's successful California appearances (and a hit record with You're Gonna Miss Me), they returned to a hero's welcome by that same media that had derided the Elevators as a bunch of degenerate drug addicts just weeks before. Buoyed by this new celebrity, the band set out to record its masterpiece, Easter Everywhere. Although much of the album featured original material, there were a couple of cover tunes. Most notable was the inclusion of (It's All Over Now) Baby Blue, a Bob Dylan tune that had been recently recorded by both the Byrds and the Chocolate Watchband. 

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Like A Rolling Stone
Source:     LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer:     Bob Dylan
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     The first great rock festival was held in Monterey, California, in June of 1967. Headlined by the biggest names in the folk-rock world (the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel), the festival also served to showcase the talent coming out of the nearby San Francisco Bay area and introduced an eager US audience to several up and coming international artists, such as Ravi Shankar, Hugh Masakela, the Who, and Eric Burdon's new Animals lineup. Two acts in particular stole the show: the soulful Otis Redding, who was just starting to cross over from a successful R&B career to the mainstream charts, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, formed in England in late 1966 by a former member of the US Army and two British natives. The recordings sat on the shelf for three years and were finally released less than a month before Hendrix's untimely death in 1970. Because of time limitations only portions of each performance were included on the album Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival, with the Hendrix side of the album opening with a live version of Like A Rolling Stone that actually exceeded the Dylan orginal's six-minute running time. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    All Along The Watchtower
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Electric Ladyland)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them have become better known than the original Dylan versions. Probably the most notable of these is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself. 

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Highway 61 Revisited
Source:    LP: Second Winter
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    As good as the original Bob Dylan version of Highway 61 Revisited is, most would agree that Johnny Winter has managed to do it even better, to the point of making it his own signature song. His first recorded version of the song was on his 1969 album Second Winter, which was actually his third LP, but his second for Columbia. About a third of the tracks on the three-sided album were cover tunes, but Highway 61 Revisited blows the rest of them out of the water.

Artist:    Surfaris
Title:    Wipe Out
Source:    Mono CD: Surfin' Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Berryhill/Connolly/Fuller/Wilson
Label:    Rhino (original label: DFS/Princess/Dot)
Year:    1963
    Wipe Out is generally considered one of the all-time greatest rock and roll instrumentals, having hit the top 20 on more than one occasion. Ironically, the track was originally considered a throwaway, recorded quickly as a B side to the Surfaris 1962 recording of Surfer Joe. Although Surfer Joe eventually charted, it was Wipe Out that got the most airplay, going all the way to the #2 spot in 1963 and then recharting in 1966, hitting the #16 spot (it also bubbled under the Hot 100 in 1970). The song was originally released on the tiny DFS label in January of 1963 and the reissued on the Princess label the following month. In April, Dot Records picked up the record for national distribution. Surfer Joe was still considered the A side for the DFS and Princess releases, but by the time Dot got ahold of the rights it was obvious that Wipe Out was the real hit. To this day, Wipe Out is the song of choice for tabletop (or countertop or just about any flat surface) drummers all over the world. 

    The next nine songs feature three of the most influential guitarists of the pre-Beatles era. Duane Eddy is the top-selling rock 'n' roll guitar instrumentalist of all time, selling 12 million records in the period covering 1958 through 1963. Link Wray has the distinction of recording the only instrumental ever to be banned on top 40 radio stations, and pioneered the use of distortion and tremelo effects on his records. Dick Dale was rightly hailed as the King of the Surf Guitar, and is credited with releasing the very first surf record, Let's Go Trippin', in 1961. And now, let the battle begin!

Artist:    Duane Eddy
Title:    Peter Gunn
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Henry Mancini
Label:    Jamie
Year:    1963
    Duane Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood went out to a junkyard and bought a 2000 gallon steel water tank to get the deep reverb effect used on Eddy's hit single cover of Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme. A year later musical instrument and amplifier manufacturer introduced the Fender Reverb Unit to do the same thing electronically.

Artist:    Link Wray And The Wray Men
Title:    Rumble
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Grant/Wray
Label:    Cadence
Year:    1958
    Once upon a time there was a band called the Ray Men that featured brothers Link (guitar), Doug (drums) and Vernon (vocals) Wray, along with bassist Shorty Horton. One night, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the Ray Men were asked by local DJ Milton Grant, who had sponsored the gig, to play The Stroll, a current hit that Link Wray was unfamiliar with. Drummer Doug, who Link later described as " the loudest drummer in the world" started pounding out the song's basic beat and Link started playing a series of chords on his guitar as loudly as he possibly could, creating the "power chord" in the process. The audience loved it so much that they ended up playing it four more times before the night was over. Grant, who had connections in the record industry, paid to have the song, originally called Oddball. recorded in return for a co-writing credit. The recording got picked up by Cadence Records, home of the Everly Brothers. In fact, it was Phil Everly that came up with the song's final title, Rumble, saying the recording sounded like a street fight. Apparently he wasn't the only one, as disc jockeys and New York and Boston refused to play the song, worried that's its gutteral grungy sound would inspire violence (keep in mind this was around the same time West Side Story was one of the hottest shows on Broadway and the entire nation was going through a period of paranoia about gang violence). Despite not being heard in two of the nation's largest markets, the song made the top 20 nationally.

Artist:    Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title:    Banzai Washout
Source:    CD: The Best Of Dick Dale And His Del-Tones (originally released on LP: Summer Surf)
Writer(s):    Steve Douglas
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1964
    Instrumental surf music had already gone underground by 1964, eclipsed in popularity first by vocal surf groups like the Beach Boys and then by the British Invasion. Still, the talented Dick Dale, who had created the genre with his song Let's Go Trippin', was still warming up the beaches on the US west coast with tracks like Banzai Washout from his Summer Surf LP. Dale finally left the music business when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1966, but resurfaced in the 1980s in the film Back To The Beach and, thanks in part to filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, has finally gotten the recognition he deserves for his role as "King of the surf guitar" in recent years. 

Artist:    Duane Eddy
Title:    Rebel-'Rouser
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Eddy/Hazelwood
Label:    Jamie
Year:    1958
    Duane Eddy's first top 40 hit was Rebel-'Rouser, a tune that also featured overdubbed saxophone by L.A. session man Gil Bernal and background yells (and handclaps) from the Rivingtons, who would eventually go on to have a hit of their own with Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow.

Artist:    Link Wray And His Wray Men
Title:    Jack The Ripper
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Wray/Cooper
Label:    Swan (original label: Rumble)
Year:    1961
    In 1961 guitarist Link Wray decided to start his own record label, calling it Rumble, after his first major hit single. The first record released on the Rumble label was Jack The Ripper, which managed to chart in places like Syracuse, NY and Worcester, Mass, but due to a lack of a distribution deal was not heard elsewhere until the song was reissued on the Swan label in 1963. Jack The Ripper ended up peaking in the #5 slot nationally.

Artist:    Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title:    Miserlou
Source:    Mono CD: Surfin' Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nick Rubanis
Label:    Rhino (original label: Del-Tone)
Year:    1962
    When the term "surf music" comes up, most people think of vocal groups such as the Beach Boys or Jan & Dean. Some even mention the Ventures, who released well over a hundred instrumental LPs in their existence, most of which are considered surf records. Those truly in the know, however, will tell you that Dick Dale, the man who was asked by Fender Instruments to road test their new Reverb guitar amplifiers in the early 60s, was the true King Of The Surf Guitar. Although he did record a few vocal singles, Dale is mostly known for his high-energy instrumental tracks such as Miserlou, a 1962 recording that released locally on Dale's own Del-tone label then picked up for national distribution by Capitol Records. The song was given new life in 1994 when Quentin Tarantino included it in the film Pulp Fiction, leading to a new generation's interest in Dale's music. 

Artist:    Link Wray
Title:    Slinky
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Grant/Wray
Label:    Epic
Year:    1959
    The head of Cadence Records was never particularly fond of Link Wray's music, so it wasn't long before Wray changed labels to Epic, a CBS-owned label that was more friendly to rock 'n' roll music than the parent Columbia label. One of Wray's many hits on Epic was Slinky, which was reissued on Record Store Day 2014.

Artist:    Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title:    Hava Nagila
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Traditional, arr. Dale
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1963
    Dick Dale, whose father was owner of Deltone Records, signed with Capitol Records in early 1963. His first single for the label was the appropriately labeled King Of The Surf Guitars. Unfortunately, King Of The Surf Guitars is an absolutely horrid song by someone named Alonzo B. Willis (or possibly two people named Alonzo and Willis), with vocals that sound like they were sung by a junior high school girls' glee club. Luckily, the B side of the single is classic Dale, doing his own version of Hava Nagila. The label itself contains several mistakes. In addition to the questionable writing credits on the A side, Dale is given full writing credit for Hava Nagila, which I'm sure raised a few eyebrows among the Jewish community. Also, the song title of the A side appears as King Of The Surf Guitars (plural) on the original picture sleeve and some copies of the single, and King Of The Surf Guitar (singular) on others. Poor quality control on someone's part.

Artist:    Duane Eddy
Title:    Rebel Walk
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Eddy/Hazelwood
Label:    Jamie
Year:    1960
    Sometime around 1960 guitarist Duane Eddy made a cameo appearance in a film called Because They're Young. He also co-wrote and played guitar on the theme song from the film and it became his biggest hit. Because They're Young is one of those songs you either love or hate, depending on your feelings about using lush strings on a rock 'n' roll record. Personally I identify with the second group, which is why I'm playing the B side of that single, Rebel Walk.

Artist:    Dick Dale
Title:    Grudge Run
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Paxton/Nuckles
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1964
    For reasons that escape me, some of Dick Dale's Capitol singles are credited solely to Dale, without any mention of the Del-Tones, a practice that continued beyond his Capitol years. Some of those are instrumentals, but a few are vocals by Dale himself. Probably the coolest of these is Grudge Run, a track taken from the first of Dale's two "hot rod" oriented albums, Checkered Flag. The song itself is built on a classic blues rift that is instantly recognizable.

Artist:    Jørgen Ingmann
Title:    Apache (excerpt)/Echo Boogie
Source:    45 RPM single (A&B sides)
Writer(s):    Lorean/Ingman
Label:    Atco
Year:    1961
    Inspired by Les Paul, Danish guitarist Jørgen Ingmann set up his own studio in Copenhagen in the mid-1950s to further his interest in multi-tracking, distortion and other effects that he could apply to his recordings. Using those techniques, he had an international hit in 1961 under the name Jørgen Ingmann & His Guitar with the song Apache, which had been originally released the previous year by the Shadows, a British instrumental group. The B side of Apache was an Ingmann original called Echo Boogie that better demonstrates his accomplishments with a technology that was still in its infancy. 

Artist:    Chantays
Title:    Pipeline
Source:    CD: Surfin' Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Spickard/Carman
Label:    Rhino (original label: Downey)
Year:    1962
    Bob Spickard, Brian Carman, Bob Welch, Warren Waters and Rob Marshall were all students at Santa Ana High School in California who were inspired by a local group called the Rhythm Rockers to form their own rock and roll band. The surf craze was just getting under way on the California coast, and the new group, calling themselves the Chantays, soon found themselves recording for the local Downey label, which was actually owned by a music publishing company. In December of 1962 they recorded and released what would become one of the most popular instrumental surf songs ever committed to vinyl: the classic Pipeline. The song was quickly picked up an re-released on the Dot label in early 1963, eventually going all the way to the #4 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. The Chantays have the distinction of being the only rock 'n' roll band to ever perform on TV's Lawrence Welk Show.

Artist:    Pyramids
Title:    Penetration
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Steve Leonard
Label:    Best
Year:    1964
    The last instrumental surf record to hit the top 20 charts was a tune called Penetration from a Long Beach, California band called the Pyramids. Other than that, the group is notable for appearing in the 1964 film Bikini Beach wearing Beatle wigs, removing them during their performance to reveal shaved heads underneath. Well, I guess there are worse things to be remembered for.

Artist:    Trashmen
Title:    Bad News
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Church Key
Label:    Garrett
Year:    1963
    The Trashmen were a group from Minneapolis that came up with the idea of taking two Rivingtons hits from the 1950s, Papa Oom Mow Mow and Bird Is The Word, and combining them, speeding up the tempo to insane levels in the process. The result was a huge hit in 1963 called Surfin' Bird. They weren't done yet, however. In 1964 they followed it up with Bad News, a song that isn't quite as outrageous as Surfin' Bird, but is still decidedly over-the-top. Songwriting credit on the label went to Church Key, which I'm guessing is one of those fictional entities created to obscure just who would be getting royalties for the song.

Artist:    Ventures
Title:    Walk-Don't Run
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Johnny Smith
Label:    Silver Spotlight (original labels: Blue Horizon/Dolton)
Year:    1960
    The Ventures first released their cover of jazz guitarist Johnny Smith's Walk-Don't Run in May of 1960 as their second single for the Seattle-based Blue Horizon label. It was picked up a month later and reissued by Dolton Records, then an independent label, also out of Seattle. In July Dolton issued the single yet again, this time with a different B side. 

Artist:    Johnny And The Hurricanes
Title:    Sheba
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    King/Mack/Kelly/Emerson
Label:    Big Top
Year:    1959
    Similar in style to the Ventures, Johnny And The Hurricanes, from Toledo, Ohio, specialized in doing modernized versions of old standards such as Red River Valley (which they retitled Red River Rock), Down Yonder (with Way and In New Orleans dropped from the title) and You Are My Sunshine. Overall, they were kinda cheesy and don't hold up too well these days, but their B sides, such as Sheba, are another story. Sheba was, in fact, taken from their first album for the Big Top label (their third overall), The Big Sound of Johnny and the Hurricanes, released in 1959.

Artist:    Ramrods
Title:    Ghost Riders In The Sky
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Stan Jones
Label:    Amy
Year:    1960
    The Ramrods hailed from Stamford, Connecticut. Formed in 1956 by vocalist/drummer/arranger Claire Lane and her brother, saxophonist Rich Litke, the band also included guitarists Vinny Lee and Gene Morro. Their first single, a rocked out version of Vaughan Monroe's 1948 hit Ghost Riders In The Sky, was released in 1960 and peaked out in the #30 spot in the US while hitting the top 10 in the UK. There was no doubt that Lane was the Ramrods' main attraction, as the drum set had her name, rather than the band's, on the face of the bass drum.

Artist:    Viscounts
Title:    Night Train
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jimmy Forrest
Label:    Madison
Year:    1960
    Formed in New Jersey in 1958, the Viscounts, led by saxophonist Harry Haller, first hit the charts with their 1959 update of Earle Hagen's Harlem Nocturne. Their next charted single was an updated version of Jimmy Forrest's Night Train, released in 1960. Both songs, originally released on the Madison label, were re-released in 1965 on the Amy label after Madison's owner, Larry Uttal, bought Amy's parent label, Bell Records. Trivia fact that has absolutely nothing to do with the Viscounts: Uttal left Bell in 1974 and was replaced by Clive Davis, who changed the label's name to Arista Records.

Artist:    Bill Justis
Title:    Raunchy
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Justis/Manker
Label:    Phillips International
Year:    1957
    Ever wonder what was the first rock 'n' roll instrumental to hit the top 10? Well, wonder no more, as it was Raunchy, released in September of 1957 by saxophonist Bill Justis. The song went all the way to the #2 spot on the charts. Justis never hit the top 40 again. 

Artist:    Royaltones
Title:    Poor Boy
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    David Sanderson
Label:    Virgo (original label: Jubilee)
Year:    1958
    The Royaltones were an instrumental rock 'n' roll band from Dearborn, Michigan. Any other information I was able to dig up on them is suspect, including anything credited to them after their first three singles, all of which were written by David Sanderson, whose name doesn't appear anywhere on later releases.

Artist:    Virtues
Title:    Guitar Boogie Shuffle
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Arthur Smith
Label:    Hunt
Year:    1959
    Guitar Boogie, released in 1945 by The Rambler Trio Featuring Arthur Smith was one of the first boogie-woogie records to feature a guitar as lead instrument rather than the usual piano. The song first appeared on the country charts and was the first guitar instrumental of its type to also become a mainstream hit, eventually selling nearly three million copies. Smith's original version is now considered a link between Western Swing and Rockabilly. In the 1950s the song was updated with a rock 'n' roll beat and renamed the Guitar Boogie Shuffle by the Virtues, a Philadelphia band that took the song into the top 5 in 1959.

Artist:    Surfaris
Title:    Scatter Shield
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    The Surfaris
Label:    Decca
Year:    1963
    Instrumental surf music was only popular in the US for a relatively short time, from around 1961 until vocal groups like Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys eclipsed it just a few months later. In Japan, however, instrumental surf records remained popular, and in some cases such as the Surfaris' Scatter Shield, a song that was originally issued in the US as a B side would end up being a Japanese hit. In fact, the Surfaris released over 20 singles (and several EPs) in Japan from 1964 to 1966. Personally I consider Scatter Shield to be one of the best instrumental surf songs ever recorded.

 

 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2552 (starts 12/22/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/600430

    It was 50 years ago this week that 1975 was coming to a close. The peace and love themes of the late 1960s had given way to the self-indulgence of the 1970s. Old bands had either disappeared or radically changed musical direction. New ones were making their presence known. Complicating it all were technological advances being made in the field of recording, not all of which were perfected before being put into use (See the Steely Dan entry for more on that). And to top it off the spectre of disco was already starting to make itself known. This week we take a sampling of what was being played on FM rock radio in 1975. Some of the tunes were big hits and are still heard on modern radio, while others were popular at the time, but have since drifted off into obscurity. We start with a set of album tracks, none of which were released as singles, then move on to some better-known tunes, finishing the week with a band that had been around for nearly ten years, but had completely reinvented itself by 1975.

Artist:    Frank Zappa/Mothers Of Invention
Title:    San Ber'dino
Source:    CD: Strictly Commercial-The Best Of Frank Zappa (originally released on LP: One Size Fits All)
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Ryko (original label: Discreet)
Year:    1975
    Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention continued in the same vein as the albums Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe (') with the 1975 LP One Size Fits All. One of the highlights of the album is San Ber'Dino, a slice of life song that features "flambe vocals" toward the end of the track from one of Zappa's musical heroes, Johnny "Guitar" Watson.

Artist:    Hot Tuna
Title:    Funky #7
Source:    LP: Final Vinyl (originally released on LP: America's Choice)
Writer(s):    Kaukonen/Casady
Label:    Grunt
Year:    1975
    Originally formed in 1969 as an offshoot of Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna started off as a mainly acoustic band doing mostly blues standards, and had performed as an opening act for the Airplane itself in 1970. In the early 1970s, with the Airplane winding down, Hot Tuna emerged as a fully electric band independent of the Airplane. In 1974 the band, which at that point consisted of guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady and drummer Bob Steeler, decided that it would be "just fun to be loud" for a while, recording three albums in 1975-76 as a power trio that have come to be known as the Rampage Trilogy. The first of these three was America's Choice. With the exception of a Robert Johnson cover, all the tracks on America's Choice are Kaukonen compositions, including one, Funky #7, co-written by Casady.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Your Gold Teeth II
Source:    CD: Katy Lied
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1975
    In 1974, following a somewhat disappointing tour to promote the Pretzel Logic album, keyboardist/vocalist Donald Fagen and bassist Walter Becker decided to disband the original Steely Dan, retaining the name as a duo and using studio musicians on all their subsequent albums. The first of these albums was Katy Lied, released in 1975. Although the album received mixed reviews from the rock press, it was a commercial success, achieving gold record status and hitting the #13 spot on both the US and UK charts. One of the songs on Katy Lied, Your Gold Teeth II, is a kind of sequel to a song from the 1973 album Countdown To Ecstacy. Because of a defect in the then-new DBX sound reduction system, Becker and Fagen refused to listen to the completed album, even though engineers claimed to have corrected the problem.

Artist:    Joan Armatrading
Title:    Cool Blue Stole My Heart
Source:    LP: Back To The Night
Writer(s):    Joan Armatrading
Label:    A&M
Year:    1975
    Joan Armatrading was born in 1950 in the British colony of Saint Christoper and Nevis (now known as the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis), the third of six children. After her parents moved to Birmingham in 1953 she stayed with an aunt on the island of Antigua until reuniting with her parents at the age of seven. She began writing her own songs at a young age, first on piano, then later on a guitar she would take to work with her after she left school at age 15 to help support her family. At her older brother's request, she made her stage debut in 1966 at Birmingham University, performing the only song she knew that she had not written herself, Paul Simon's The Sound Of Silence. From that point on she performed only her own compositions, playing bass and guitar at local clubs. With lyricist Pam Nestor, she recorded her debut LP, Whatever's For Us, in 1972. The two considered themselves a duo, with Nestor playing and singing on many of the songs they recorded, but their record label, Cube, deliberately chose to promote Armatrading as a solo artist instead and did not include any of the songs sung of played by Nestor on the album. This of course led to the duo splitting up. After a 1973 single failed to chart, Armatrading was able to get out of her contract with Cube and eventually signed with A&M Records, releasing her first album for the label, Back To The Night, in 1975. Armatrading still considered herself primarily a songwriter at this time, and was not yet committed to performing her songs as a full time career. The songs themselves are based on personal experience and cover a range of styles, including an early example of jazz-rock fusion on Cool Blue Stole My Heart, a song about her visit to Amsterdam. Armatrading continues to both write and perform, and in 2022 wrote her first classical piece, Symphony No. 1. The piece has been performed by Britain's Chineke! Orchestra, but to my knowledge has not yet been recorded.

Artist:    Queen
Title:    The Prophet's Song
Source:    LP: A Night At The Opera
Writer(s):    Brian May
Label:    Virgin (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1975
    When Queen's landmark LP, A Night At The Opera, was released in 1975, much attention was focused on the album's penultimate track, Freddy Mercury's Bohemian Rhapsody, which went all the way to the top of the British top 40 charts and is one of the most recognizable recordings of the 20th century. With all this attention focused on one song (albeit deservedly), several other outstanding tracks on the album have been somewhat neglected. Perhaps the best of these overlooked tracks is The Prophet's Song, a Brian May composition that opens side two of the vinyl LP. At over eight minutes in length, The Prophet's Song is Queen's longest song with vocals, and, like Bohemian Rhapsody, features layered overdubs by Mercury, including a fairly long acappella section in the middle of the track. The song also has powerful dynamics, ranging from the almost inaudible acoustic guitar and toy koto introduction to high volume electric lead guitar work set against a heavy metal background. As if that were not enough, The Prophet's Song also has a powerful message, making it one of Queen's most important works.

Artist:    Heart
Title:    Magic Man
Source:    LP: Dreamboat Annie
Writer(s):    Ann & Nancy Wilson
Label:    Mushroom
Year:    1975
    I've always had a soft spot for Heart's first album, Dreamboat Annie. Maybe it's because the album's history parallels my entry into the world of college radio. Released in late 1975 in Canada, the album did not appear in the US until mid-1976. I had first started volunteering at KUNM in Albuquerque in late 1975. By the time Dreamboat Annie was released in the US, KUNM had moved into new facilities (with a significant power boost) and I had a regular daytime slot at the station. One day when I was on the air, the program director brought in a stack of new albums. The cover of Dreamboat Annie caught my attention, and I ended up playing Magic Man. I was so blown away by the tune I went out and bought a copy of the album as soon as it hit the record racks. If you hear a few ticks and pops, it's because it's the same copy I bought in 1976.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Have A Cigar
Source:    CD: Wish You Were Here
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1975
    One of the most recognizable songs in the entire Pink Floyd catalog, Have A Cigar is an indictment of the hypocrisy, greed and general sleaziness that drives the modern music industry. Recorded in Abbey Road's studio 3, the song featured guest vocalist Roy Harper, who was working on an album of his own in studio 2 at the time. Both David Gilmour and Roger Waters attempted to sing the song (which was written by Waters), but were unhappy with the results. Gilmour had already contributed some guitar parts to Harper's album, and decided to ask Harper to return the favor. The song appears on the album Wish You Were Here, which both Waters and Gilmour have said is their favorite Pink Floyd album.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Source:    LP: Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    MCA
Year:    1975
    I always considered Someone Saved My Life Tonight to be sort of a typical Elton John song, but gained a new appreciation for the tune when it was referenced in Stephen King's Wolves Of The Calla, the fifth book of his Dark Tower series. Still, it took several more years before I finally scored a copy of Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy, the 1975 album that the song originally appeared on. The song itself is a very personal one, about a time in the singer's life when he was contemplating giving up his music career and getting married. Luckily his friend Long John Baldry ("Sugar Bear") talked him out of it, thus saving his musical life. 

Artist:    Pavlov's Dog
Title:    Julia
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Pampered Menial)
Writer(s):    Davic Surkamp
Label:    Sony Music (original label: ABC)
Year:    1975
    During my first couple of years living in Albuquerque, NM, I met quite an assortment of strange and unusual people. Among them were a guy who would eventually come to be known as Carlos the Ragman and his roommate, Clint. Clint was, as near as I can tell, possessed of a genius IQ, enhanced by far too many acid trips. He seemed to be in possession of some sort of telepathic powers as well, as was made apparent on more than one occasion. In addition to (or maybe because of) all these things, Clint had somewhat unusual tastes in music. I remember him showing up one evening with an album he had just bought called Pampered Menial, by a band from St. Louis, Mo. called Pavlov's Dog. The opening track, Julia, was truly like nothing I had ever heard before, probably due to the unique vocals of David Surkamp, the writer of Julia. In addition to Surkamp, the band included Steve Scorfina, Mike Safron, Rick Stockton, David Hamilton, Doug Rayburn and Siegfried Carver. 

Artist:    Jefferson Starship
Title:    Miracles
Source:    CD: Jefferson Starship-The Box Set Series (originally released on LP: Red Octopus)
Writer(s):    Marty Balin
Label:    RCA/Legacy (original label: Grunt)
Year:    1975
    After leaving Jefferson Airplane in 1971, vocalist Marty Balin attempted to put some distance between himself and his former bandmates. His first project was to produce an album by a band called Grootna in 1972. The following year he recruited two Grootna members, guitarist Vic Smith and drummer Greg Dewey, to form a new band, Bodacious DF. They were soon joined by bassist Mark Ryan and keyboardist Charlie Hickox, releasing a self-titled album in 1973. Not long after the album was released the group disbanded, with Balin becoming a member of Jefferson Starship in 1975, and writing and singing lead on the new band's first major hit, Miracles, which went all the way to the #3 spot on the top 40 charts. The album Red Octopus, which featured the much longer LP version of the song heard here, topped the Billboard album charts for four non-consecutive weeks in 1975.
 

Stuck With A Hermit At Yuletide v2.0 (starts 12/15/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/599518

    It's common knowledge that not many garage bands or psychedelic rockers recorded Christmas songs, so for our annual Yuletide bash we had to stretch out a bit in both time and genre. During these two hours you will hear a sixteen minute long version of the Nutcracker Suite with lyrics, some B sides of holiday classics, a couple of short artists' sets, 3 entirely different versions of the same song, a couple of tunes that have Santa operating out of his usual element, and, to top it off, Jingle Bells like you've never heard it before! 

We start the show off, however, with an old favorite...

Artist:      John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Title:     Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Source:      CD: Now That's What I Call Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/Ono
Label:     Zomba (original label: Apple)
Year:     1971
     Originally intended as an anti-Vietnam War song, John and Yoko's Happy Xmas (War Is Over) has long since acquired classic status and is now one of the most familiar songs of the season. It was first released in the US in December of 1971, but due to a problem with the publisher did not appear in the rest of the world until November of 1972.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Another Beatles Christmas Record
Source:    LP: Christmas Album (originally released on flexi-disc)
Writer(s):    Tony Barrow, with plenty of ad-libbing from the Beatles
Label:    Apple (original label: Lyntone)
Year:    1964
    Every year around Christmastime, starting in 1963, the Beatles sent out copies of a flexi-disc to members of their fan club that included a combination of skits, short bits of music and spoken messages. The 1964 edition was mostly made up of the latter, written by publicist Tony Barrow, and was only sent to the British fans of the group (US fans had to settle for an edited version of the 1963 disc). Barrow's script was apparently handwritten, as the Fab Four repeatedly stumbled over words, usually making a joke out of their mistakes. The band would continue to send out similar discs to their British fan club through 1969, although the last two (which were also sent to US fan club members) were not actually recorded as a group.

Artist:      Beatles
Title:     Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
Source:      CD single: Free As a Bird
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey)
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:     Recorded 1966 and 1967, released 19671997
     Every year the Beatles would record a special Christmas message to go out to members of their fan club, and mail it out on what was then known as a floppy disc. This was not the same as a computer floppy disc, however. In fact, the medium the Beatles used eventually came to be known as a flexi-disc, just to keep things from getting any more confusing. Regardless of what you called it, the things tended to wear out after just a few plays and I doubt there are many playable copies of these discs left in the universe. Luckily for us, George Martin had the foresight to hang on to everything the Beatles ever recorded, including this tune, which was chopped up and used for the 1967 Christmas Greeting. When the Beatles Anthology was released in 1997, the piece was included on the Free As a Bird CD single, and we got to hear the song in its uninterrupted entirety for the first time. Included at the end are Christmas greetings from the 1966 fan club disc and a bit of poetry read by John Lennon. 

Artist:      Beach Boys
Title:     Little Saint Nick (stereo single version)
Source:      CD: Beach Boys Ultimate Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol
Year:     1963
     When the Beach Boys first recorded Little Saint Nick they were the hottest surf music band in the country. A year later Beatlemania had set in, and a new version of Little Saint Nick was recorded for the Beach Boys Christmas Album. The new version put a greater emphasis on the vocals, and much of the original instrumentation was deleted from the arrangement. That is the version that usually gets heard on commercial radio every year. In the mid-70s, Carl Wilson, who by then had stepped into the leader's role formerly held by older brother Brian, pulled out the original 1963 tapes and created a new stereo mix of the song. The instruments have greater prominence in this version and include the distinctive sound of sleighbells that were completely exorcised from the 1964 version. 

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Santa's Beard
Source:    LP: The Beach Boys' Christmas Album
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1964
    Here's a little known fact. Brian Wilson played piano on a song for the 1963 LP A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records, but was dismissed by producer Phil Spector for his "substandard" piano playing. But Wilson got even with Spector in a big way the following year by producing The Beach Boys' Christmas Album, which continued to chart year after year at Christmastime, long after Spector's album had gone out of print. The Beach Boys' Christmas Album was made up of several traditional holiday songs sung by members of the group with orchestral accompaniment, along with five original tunes performed by the band itself. Among those five was Santa's Beard, a song originally credited solely to Wilson, but as of 1994 now credits Mike Love as a co-writer. I can't help but wonder if Santa's Beard is based on a true story; if so, my money's on Dennis as the "little brother" who pulled the beard off the department store Santa.

Artist:      Charles Brown
Title:     Please Come Home For Christmas
Source:      CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brown/Redd
Label:    Rhino (original label: King)
Year:     1960
     By now just about everyone is familiar with the Eagles version of Please Come Home For Christmas. Not everyone, however, knows the song was written by blues great Charles Brown. Even fewer have actually heard Brown's 1960 original, which is a shame, as it blows the Eagles version clean out of the water.

Artist:    Amos Milburn
Title:    Christmas (Comes But Once A Year)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Milburn/Shubert
Label:    King
Year:    1960
    It's debatable whether this one should be considered a B side or half of a double A side. It appeared in 1960 as the other side of Charles Brown's original version of Please Come Home For Christmas. Two classics for the price of one!

Artist:    Bobby Helms
Title:    Captain Santa Claus (And His Reindeer Space Patrol)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Reid/Altman
Label:    Decca
Year:    1957
    UFOs were a big deal in the 1950s, and the entertainment industry took advantage of it in a big way. One of the odder entries was Captain Santa Claus (And His Reindeer Space Patrol) the B side of Bobby Helms's classic Jingle Bell Rock. For obvious reasons, this one doesn't get played on your local Christmas Music station.

Artist:    Brenda Lee
Title:    Papa Noel
Source:    CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ray Botkin
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1958
    Just about everyone is familiar with Brenda Lee's 1958 hit Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. Not as well known is the flip side of that single, a song called Papa Noel. Lee, known as "Little Miss Dynamite" was first discovered by country legend Red Foley when still in her teens. 

Artist:    Jose Ferrer
Title:    Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Barrett/Baker
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1960
    Jose Ferrer was one of the most respected film and Broadway stars of the 1950s, appearing in starring roles in Cyrano de Bergerac, The Caine Mutiny and Moulin Rouge on film and both directing and starring in several successful Broadway productions. For the 1960 Christmas season he recorded this abridged version of Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus, originally published as a newspaper editorial in 1897 by Francis Pharcellus Church. Ferrer's reading is supplemented by singing from "The Ferrers", a group of children that presumably included five-year-old Miguel Ferrer, the oldest of his five children with actress Rosemary Clooney.

Artist:      Drifters
Title:     White Christmas
Source:      Mono CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Irving Berlin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:     1955
     The Drifters were a kind of early R&B doowop supergroup made up of ex-members of other R&B groups such as Billy Ward's Dominoes. The most distinctive voice of the original Drifters was high tenor Clyde McPhatter (for whom Ray Stevens's famous camel was named), which is heard prominently on their version of Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Over the years the group's lineup changed many times and led to several former members forming competing groups, all using the Drifters name. Over time, members of these offshoots would in turn form their own Drifters, despite having virtually no connection to the original group. This is why it sometimes seems that half the doowop singers in the world claim to be former members of the Drifters.

Artist:      Marquees
Title:     Christmas In the Congo
Source:      Mono CD: Cool Yule (Originally released as 45 RPM single, possibly promo only)
Writer(s):    Masten/Botkin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:     1959
     I recently saw a signed publicity photo of the Marquees taken sometime in the late 1950s. One of the signatures is Marvin Gaye's. What I have not been able to find is any evidence that this record was actually released commercially, although at least one promo copy is known to exist. 

Artist:      Jimmy McCracklin
Title:     Christmas Time
Source:      Mono CD: Blue Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Jimmy McCracklin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Art-Tone)
Year:     1961
     Jimmy McCracklin recorded one of the catchiest, yet underplayed, tunes of the 50s when he did The Walk. Christmas Time, from a few years later, actually sounds to me like Carolina beach music. Go figure.

Artist:      Solomon Burke
Title:     Presents For Christmas
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Burke/Burke/Burke
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:     1966
     Solomon Burke was a staple artist for the Atlantic label at a time when Atlantic itself was being overshadowed by the Stax/Volt labels that it distributed. Nonetheless, Burke had several R&B hits throughout the sixties and was highly respected by his fellow artists. Presents For Christmas captures Burke at his peak in 1966.

Artist:      James Brown
Title:     Santa Claus, Santa Claus
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released on LP: Soulful Christmas)
Writer(s):    Bobbitt/Jones
Label:     Rhino (original label: King)
Year:     1968
     Few people would ever accuse James Brown of being a blues artist, but this recording of Santa Claus, Santa Claus (sometimes called just Santa Claus) from 1968 shows what it would have sounded like if he was.

Artist:      Clarence Carter
Title:     Back Door Santa
Source:      CD: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carter/Daniel
Label:     Wicked Cool (original label: Atlantic)
Year:     1969
     Clarence Carter is an icon of the beach music (for you non-Carolinians, beach music has nothing to do with surf music) crowd. For everyone else, he is a moderately successful soul artist known mostly for his mid-70s hit Slip Away. Regardless of where you might know him from, his Back Door Santa will surprise you with its down and funky energy.

Artist:      Rufus Thomas
Title:     I'll Be Your Santa Baby
Source:      Mono CD: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Thomas/Roberts
Label:     Wicked Cool (original label: Stax)
Year:     1973
     Rufus Thomas had a long and storied career going back to the 1950s, first with Bear Cat, an answer song to Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's Hound Dog, and later with his own series of "dog" hits (Walking the Dog being the most famous). By the mid-1960s he was an important member of the Stax/Volt stable of artists, where his daughter Carla was making a name for herself with hits like B-A-B-Y and (with Otis Redding) Tramp. After Stax severed its distribution deal with Atlantic Records Rufus Thomas stayed with the now fully independent Stax, releasing I'll Be Your Santa Baby in 1973.

Artist:      Ray Stevens
Title:     Santa Claus Is Watching You
Source:      45 RPM single
Writer:    Ray Stevens
Label:     Mercury
Year:     1962
     I've mentioned something called the Grab Bag before. Basically, it was a sealed paper bag (sometimes with a clear plastic front) containing four 45 RPM records, generally "cut-outs" that were no longer in print. The one my family bought for Christmas of 1964 had a Sing Along With Mitch Christmas EP in the front. By far the oddest record in the bag was Santa Claus Is Watching You by Ray Stevens, although I seem to remember that version being slightly different than the one heard here. One thing that both versions had in common was the presence of Clyde the Camel from Stevens's first hit, Ahab the Arab.

Artist:      Ed "Cookie" Byrnes
Title:     Yulesville
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Galanoy/Olafson/Barker
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:     1959
     The ABC TV network was a perennial also-ran that was just starting to find a winning formula in the late 50s with shows targeted toward a younger audience. The most popular of these was 77 Sunset Strip, starring Ed "Cookie" Byrnes. He and co-star Connie Stevens, staying in character, cut a hit novelty record called Cookie, Cookie, which played on Cookie's propensity for combing his hair. Byrnes, again in character, followed it up with this hip retelling of the classic poem Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Artist:      Cadillacs
Title:     Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Source:      45 RPM single
Writer:    Johnny Marks
Label:    Josie
Year:     1956
     Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been recorded by a lot of different artists over the years, but this version by the Cadillacs stands out for its pure sense of fun. Doo-wop was at the peak of its popularity in 1956 and the Cadillacs, led by Earl "Speedoo" Carroll, were among the best of the bunch. New Jersey rock band The Smithereens would use this arrangement for their 1992 CD single distributed exclusively to radio stations. 

Artist:      King Curtis
Title:     The Christmas Song
Source:      45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Mel Torme
Label:    Atco
Year:     1966
     King Curtis was one of the most in-demand saxophone players of the first wave of rock and roll. His best known work was on the song Yakety Yak by the Coasters in 1958. In the sixties he became the music director for the Atlantic Records group, appearing on a variety of recordings by artists such as Solomon Burke and occassionally releasing material on the Atco label under his own name. Tragically, his life was cut short when he was the victim of a stabbing when he attempted to stop junkies from shooting up on his front steps in New York.

Artist:    Royal Guardsmen
Title:    Snoopy's Christmas
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Hugo & Luigi/Weiss
Label:    Laurie
Year:    1967
    Like many American bands, the Ocala, Florida based Posmen decided to change their name to something more Anglo sounding in the wake of the British invasion of 1964. As the Royal Guardsmen they had their first regional hit in 1966 with a song called Baby Let's Wait. It was their next release, however, that established the direction the group's career would take from that point on. Snoopy vs. the Red Baron was a huge national hit, going all the way to the #2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1966. Several more Snoopy themed songs followed, including Snoopy's Christmas, released in 1967. The most recent of these is Snoopy vs. Osama, which came out in 2006. 

Artist:    Spike Jones And His City Slickers
Title:    The Nutcracker Suite
Source:    45 RPM Extended Play
Writer(s):    Tchaikovsky/Washburne/Carling
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1945 (EP release year 1952)
    In 1945 virtually all recordings were made on phonograph records made from a shellac compound and rotated at 78 revolutions per minute. The most common of these were 7" in diameter and could only accomodate about three minutes' worth of sound per side. Some classical recordings used records with a 12" diameter, and could hold around five minutes of music per side, but they were generally targeted toward wealthier record buyers. Spike Jones And His City Slickers had already established themselves as masters of the parody song with hit singles such as Der Fuerhrer's Face and Cocktails For Two during World War II, and in 1945 decided to take on a much bigger project: their own unique take on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, with lyrics by Foster Carling and additional music by Country Washburn. The entire work ran nearly 16 minutes in length and was spread out over three 7" 78 RPM records. The cover of this album (as multiple record sets were known) proclaimed "Spike Jones presents for the Kiddies The Nutcracker Suite" with the added line "with apologies to Tchaikovsky " scrawled across the bottom of the cover. The album proved popular enough to be among the first 45 RPM box sets released in 1949 and was released yet again as a single 45RPM Extended Play record in 1952. With a running time of nearly eight minutes per side, this remains one of the lengthiest 45s ever released. 

Artist:      Chuck Berry
Title:     Merry Christmas, Baby
Source:      Mono CD: The Chess Box (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Baxter/Moore
Label:     Chess/MCA
Year:     1958
     Chuck Berry did not record too many cover tunes, as he was a prolific songwriter himself. However, for his 1958 Christmas single he cut this tasty version of Charles Brown's "other" Christmas song, Merry Christmas, Baby, originally recorded by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers (with Brown on lead vocal). The B side of Berry's single, Run Rudolph Run, was also a cover song, although the tune has come to be almost exclusively associated with Berry himself. 

Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    Merry Christmas Baby
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Baxter/Moore
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Merry Christmas Baby was originally released by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, which featured Charles Brown on guitar and vocals, in 1947. Several different versions of the song have been recorded over the years by such diverse artists as Chuck Berry, Ike & Tina Turner, Hansen, Christina Aguilara, Bruce Springsteen and Brown himself. Otis Redding's version of the song was released in 1968, almost a year after the plane crash that killed the singer and most of his band.

Artist:    Ike And Tina Turner
Title:    Merry Christmas Baby
Source:    CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Baxter/Moore
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1964
    Ike Turner was a talent scout for Chess Records that formed a band called the Kings Of Rhythm in the early 50s, immediately scoring a #1 R&B hit backing Jackie Brenston on a song called Rocket 88. By 1964 he had married Anna Mae Bullock, who changed her name to Tina Turner and began receiving co-billing on Ike's records, such as the 1964 B side, Merry Christmas Baby. Although technically the same as the Charles Brown song of the same name, the track is musically worlds away from Brown's slow blues number.

Artist:    Fred Waring And His Pennsylvanians
Title:    Jingle Bells
Source:    45 RPM Extended Play: Christmas Songs With Fred Waring And His Pennsylvanians (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    James Lord Pierpont
Label:    Decca
Year:    1950, EP released 1959
    In 1970 the Beatles released a tune called You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) as the B side of Let It Be. The piece, played somewhat for humor, was a John Lennon creation that had been sitting on the shelf for a couple years. It presented a simple, one verse tune several times, each time in a completely different style. Lennon did something similar for the verses of the song I Want You (She's So Heavy) on the Abbey Road album. Knowing how Lennon often drew inspiration from records he had heard growing up I have to wonder if the original 1950 version of this record, spread out over two sides and running a total of seven minutes, may have been one of them. Like the aforementioned Beatles tracks, Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians take a simple tune, Jingle Bells, and present it multiple times in totally different styles. Definitely a fun ride!

Artist:    Greg Lake
Title:    Humbug
Source:    Stereo British import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Lake/Sinfield
Label:    Manticore
Year:    1975
    For the B side of I Believe In Father Christmas, Greg Lake and lyricist Peter Sinfield came up with a rather silly semi-instrumental track called Humbug. I hope Sinfield didn't get paid by the word on this one.

Artist:      Ventures
Title:     Scrooge
Source:     LP: The Ventures Christmas Album
Writer:    Wilson/Taylor/Edwards/Bogle
Label:    Dolton
Year:     1965    
    The classic lineup of the Ventures,  Don Wilson (rhythm guitar), Bob Bogle (bass), Nokie Edwards (lead guitar), and Mel Taylor (drums), were best known for interpreting existing songs such as Walk Don't Run and Hawaii Five-O rather than writing them themselves. They did manage to sneak in an original composition or two on each of the albums, however, including Scrooge, from their 1965 Christmas album.

Artist:      Ventures
Title:     Sleigh Ride
Source:     LP: The Ventures Christmas Album
Writer:    Leroy Anderson
Label:    Dolton
Year:     1965   
        The Ventures are by far the most successful instrumental rock group in history, with over 100 albums released over several decades. One of the most successful of these was their 1965 Christmas album, which featured this surfinated version of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride, a piece usually associated with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Artist:    Johnny And The Hurricanes
Title:    Molly-O
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    King/Mack
Label:    Big Top
Year:    1960
    Similar in style to the Ventures, Johnny And The Hurricanes, from Toledo, Ohio, specialized in doing modernized versions of old standards such as Red River Valley (which they retitled Red River Rock), Down Yonder (with Way and In New Orleans dropped from the title) and You Are My Sunshine. In fact, it was the B side of the latter that caught my attention, because, in spite of the fact that it's officially credited to "King/Mack" (actually Harry Balk and Irving Micahnik, the band's managers), Molly-O is a rocked out version of none other than the traditional English folk tune Greensleeves. Since that tune was also used for the Christmas song What Child Is This, I decided it deserved a spot on the Yule show.

Artist:    Gene Autry
Title:    Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Johnny Marks
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1949
    Throughout the Great Depression the Chicago-based department store chain Montgomery Ward had been buying and giving away booklets for Christmas, but in 1939 they decided to save money by producing one of their own. They assigned advertising copywriter Robert L May to write a "cheery children's book", suggesting he come up with something similar to Walt Disney's Ferdinand the Bull. After a trip to the zoo with his four-year-old daughter May decided to make his main character a reindeer with a nose bright enough to cut through the Chicago fog. At first his bosses rejected the story (written in the same poetic style as A Visit From Saint Nick) due to the general perception of a red nose being an indication of inebriation, but after getting a co-worker to come up with drawings of "cute reindeer" (based on actual deer in the Chicago Zoo rather than reindeer in Norway), management relented, and the booklet was published in time for Christmas. It was an instant hit, and ten years later May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, turned May's poem into a song, publishing it in May of 1939. Less than two months later, at his wife's insistence, Gene Autry recorded the song, releasing it in September of 1949. It went on to become the number one song that Christmas, and has since gone on to sell (including various cover versions) over 150 million copies, a number exceeded only by White Christmas.

Artist:    Gene Autry
Title:    Santa's Comin' In A Whirlybird
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ashley Dees
Label:    Republic
Year:    1959
    Gene Autry was literally a five star performer, and is the only person to have stars on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in all five categories: film, radio, television, music and live performance. He started performing while still in high school in southern Oklahoma and managed to get himself fired from a job as an overnight telegraph operator for singing and playing guitar while on duty. One of the customers, a guy named Will Rogers, heard him singing one night and told him he ought to try going pro. He did, and at age 21 was billed as "Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy" on a Tulsa radio station. This led to a contract with Columbia Records and a four-year stint on Chicago station WLS's National Barn Dance. He made his first film as The Singing Cowboy in 1934; he would appear in 92 more, and in the early 1950s had his own television show. Many of these films were for Republic Pictures. He continued to make records through the end of the 1950s, with no less than three of his hits, Here Comes Santa Claus, Frosty The Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, becoming Christmas standards. His last new single was Santa's Comin' In A Whirlybird, released on Republic's own record label in 1959. In the 1960s Autry became known for his business interests, including L.A.'s powerhouse independent TV station KTLA and the Los Angeles Angels baseball team. He also served as vice-president of baseball's American League from 1983 until his death in 1997.

Artist:    Buchanan And Goodman with Paul Sherman
Title:    Santa And The Satellite-parts one and two (including an excerpt from Stan Freberg's Green Christmas)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Buchanan/Goodman
Label:    Luniverse
Year:    1957
    In 1956 musician/record producer Dickie Goodman, in partnership with songwriter Bill Buchanan, created what came to be known as the "break-in" by interspersing short snippets of hit songs with dialogue for comedic effect. Buchanan and Goodman's first hit was The Flying Saucer, which capitalized on the UFO craze of the mid-1950s and went to the #3 spot on the national charts. For the next couple of years the pair continued to create new collages, the most successful of which was Santa And The Satellite, released in November of 1957. Unfortunately, lawsuits brought by the copyright holders of some of the songs they sampled ate up all their profits, and Buchanan and Goodman went their separate ways in 1959. Since Santa And The Satellite is actually spread out over two sides of the same record, I used the Tyn-E-Tim™ Chestnuts commercial from Stan Freberg's 1956 Green Christmas single to fill in while I turned the record over.

Artist:    King Curtis
Title:    What Are You Doing New Year's Eve
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Frank Loesser
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    King Curtis (born Curtis Ousley) was a saxophonist who could play jazz, R&B and rock 'n' roll equally well, and was considered a master of the tenor, alto and soprano saxophone. His playing was heard on dozens of recordings in the 50s and 60s, including the Coasters' Yakety Yak, Aretha Frankin's Respect and his own Memphis Soul Stew. After signing with Atlantic in the mid-1960s, Curtis's singles consisted mainly of instrumental versions of hit songs such as Ode To Billie Joe and A Whiter Shade Of Pale. In 1968 he released his own version of The Christmas Song, backed with What Are You Doing New Year's Eve.