https://exchange.prx.org/p/618455
This week we have a long set from 1966 and an even longer one from 1969. In between we have an Advanced Psych segment and an artists' set from the Kinks among other things. But first, some tunes from 1967...
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Kenny Rogers has, on more than one occassion, tried to put as much distance between himself and the 1968 First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) as possible. I feel it's my duty to remind everyone that he was the lead vocalist on the recording, and that this song was the one that launched his career. So there.
Artist: Tom Northcott
Title: Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Tom Northcott
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Canadian folk singer Tom Northcott temporarily relocated to Los Angeles to record a handful of singles for Warner Brothers Records staff producer Lenny Waronker. Among those was his self-penned B side, Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden, which appeared in 1967.
Artist: Pride And Joy
Title: Girl
Source: CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dennis Dahlquist
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1967
When their single, I Call My Baby STP, failed to catch on with Chicago area radio listeners, the Del-Vetts decided to change their name to Pride And Joy and soften their approach somewhat with the melodic Girl, released in 1967. The song made the local charts, but once again failed to break nationally. After one more single released late in the year on the Acta label, Pride And Joy called it quits.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Rain On The Roof (instrumental version)
Source: LP: Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful
Writer(s): John Sebastian
Label: Sundazed/Kama Sutra
Year: 1966
The 1966 album Hums Of The Lovin' Spoonful was deliberately recorded in a variety of styles to give the impression of several different bands performing on the record. Among the hit singles from the LP was Rain On The Roof, a folky piece with a childlike quality to it. This instrumental version of the tune was included as a bonus track on the Sundazed reissue of the LP.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Steve's Song
Source: LP: The Best Of The Blues Project (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s): Steve Katz
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
The members of the Blues Project came from a variety of backgrounds, including jazz, rock, classical and of course, blues. Guitarist Steve Katz had the strongest connection to the Greenwich Village folk scene and was the lead vocalist on the Project's recording of Donovan's Catch The Wind on their first LP. For their second album Katz wrote his own song, entitled simply Steve's Song. Katz would write and sing simlarly-styled tunes, such as Sometimes In Winter, as a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Artist: Other Side
Title: Streetcar
Source: Mono British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Battey/Graham
Label: Rhino (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
Although not as popular as the Chocolate Watchband or Count Five, the Other Side had its share of fans in the San Jose, California area. Enough, in fact, to land a deal with Brent Records. Their single, Walking Down The Road, got some airplay on local radio stations, but it's the B side, Streetcar, that has stood the test of time to become recognized as a classic example of garage rock, heard here in its stereo version from the 1967 Mainstream album With Love-A Pot Of Flowers.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Who's Driving Your Plane
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1966
By 1966 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were writing everything the Rolling Stones recorded. As their songwriting skills became more sophisticated the band began to lose touch with its R&B roots. To counteract this, Jagger and Richards would occasionally come up with tunes like Who's Driving Your Plane, a bluesy number that nonetheless is consistent with the band's cultivated image as the bad boys of rock. The song appeared as the B side (mistitled on the label as Who's Driving My Plane) of Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow.
Artist: Premiers
Title: Get On This Plane
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Delgado/Uballez
Label: Rhino (original label: Faro)
Year: 1966
The Premiers were a band from San Gabriel, California best known for their 1964 hit Farmer John. After that national success, the group continued to record, cranking out a series of local L.A. hits for local latino label Faro, run by Max Uballez. The last of these was Get On This Plane, a song that Uballez co-wrote for the band in 1966.
Artist: Turtles
Title: You Baby
Source: CD: Battle Of The Bands Vol. Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sloan/Barri
Label: Era (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1966
After first hitting the charts with their version of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles released yet another "angry young rebel" song, P.F. Sloan's Let Me Be. Realizing that they needed to vary their subject matter somewhat if they planned on having a career last longer than six months, the band formerly known as the Crossfires went with another Sloan tune, You Baby, for their first single of 1966. Although the music was in a similar style to Let Me Be, the lyrics, written by Steve Barri, were fairly typical of teen-oriented love songs of the era. Almost without exception the Turtles would continue to record songs from professional songwriters for single release for the remainder of their existence, with their original compositions showing up mostly as album tracks and B sides.
Artist: Jimmy Gilbert
Title: Believe What I Say
Source: Mono LP: Highs In The Mid Sixties, Vol. 6-Michigan Part Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jimmy Gilbert
Label: Darn-L
Year: 1966
Sometimes you have to wonder if a record was made for the express purpose of getting even with an ex-girlfriend. Believe What I Say, the only single released by Jimmy Gilbert, is just such a record.
Artist: Kinks
Title: David Watts
Source: LP: Something Else
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The song David Watts is about two different people, but is really not about either of them. On the surface, it's sung from the point of view of a schoolboy who is envious of the most popular boy in his class. Songwriter Ray Davies later said, however, that there actually was a real David Watts who was a gay concert promoter who had a crush of Dave Davies, the Kinks' lead guitarist. The song first appeared as the opening track on the 1967 LP Something Else, and was one of the first songs to be produced by Ray Davies instead of Shel Talmy.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Two Sisters
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The Kinks have had a long, productive recording career since their vinyl debut in 1964, but not all of their records have been major commercial successes. Among the least successful saleswise, yet one of the best in terms of pure quality, was the 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks. It was the band's first LP to be mixed in stereo, and contained several of Ray Davies's finest tunes, as well as strong contributions by his brother Dave. 1966 had seen Ray Davies perfect his slice-of-life songwriting with a satirical edge style with songs like A Well Respected Man, Dedicated Follower Of Fashion and Sunny Afternoon. The compositions on Something Else, while still rooted in daily life, were not quite as satirical, as can be heard on Two Sisters. The song manages, in just two minutes, to tell the story of a married woman coming to terms with her feelings of envy for her single sister.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Waterloo Sunset
Source: LP: Something Else
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the most beautiful tunes ever recorded by the Kinks is Waterloo Sunset, a song that was a hit single in the UK, but was totally ignored by US radio stations. The reason for this neglect of such a stong song is a mystery, however it may have been due to the fear that American audiences would not be able to relate to all the references to places in and around London in the song's lyrics. The fact that the American Federation Of Musicians refused to issue permits for the Kinks to play concerts in the US between 1965 and 1969 (in all fairness due mainly to the band members' onstage behavior) probably had something to do with it as well.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Queen Jane Approximately
Source: CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
The thing that stands out to me about Bob Dylan's Queen Jane Approximately from his Highway 61 Revisited album is the fact that somebody's guitar is badly out of tune throughout the song. Yes, the song has sufficiently deep, meaningful lyrics (it is Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan, after all), and the rhyming structure is unique, but all I can hear is that out of tune guitar.
Artist: Janis Ian
Title: Society's Child
Source: Mono CD: Songs Of protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Janis Ian
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1966
Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one (Now Sounds) to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record got picked up and re-issued in 1966 by M-G-M's experimental label Verve Forecast, a label whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations the song became a major hit when re-released yet another time in early 1967. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement. Ironic, considering that Society's Child ends with the protagonist backing down and giving in to society's rules.
Artist: Lemon Pipers
Title: Green Tambourine
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock 'n' Roll Hits-1968 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Leka/Pinz
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah
Year: 1967
Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label with Green Tambourine, released in November of 1967. Unfortunately for the band, the song's success led to them being typecast as a bubble-gum group, despite their roots as a bar band in a college town.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Everybody's Next One
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kay/Mekler
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
We all knew someone in high school who had trouble differentiating between lovemaking and casual sex. We also knew people who would take advantage of that person, usually bragging about it to their friends afterward. Thus was the stage set for Everybody's Next One, the B side of Steppenwolf's 1968 hit single Born To Be Wild. The song, written by Steppenwolf's lead vocalist John Kay and producer Gabriel Mekler, originally appeared on the band's debut LP.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Miss Attraction
Source: LP: The Best Of The Strawberry Alarm Clock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Weitz/Pitman/King/Freeman/Gunnels
Label: Sundazed/Uni
Year: 1969
The Strawberry Alarm Clock had always had a bit of a fluid lineup, having been formed in the first place by the merger of two local Los Angeles bands, Waterfyrd Traene and Thee Sixpence. Their biggest hit, Incense and Peppermints, featured lead vocals from a member of yet another local band, and one of their main songwriters on the first album (who also played flute on several tracks) was not credited as a band member at all. Such confusion continued to plague the band throughout its existence. In 1968, for instance, their former manager recruited two ex-members to form a second Strawberry Alarm Clock to tour and play the band's songs while the current group was working on their fourth and final LP, Good Morning Starshine. A court injunction stopped the new group from using the name, but by the time it took effect the damage had already been done. Promoters refused to book the band, not knowing who would actually show up. The group's sound had changed a bit by then as well, as can be heard on Miss Attraction, the first single released from Good Morning Starshine. Founding member and co-leader Ed King, the band's lead guitarist, had already been playing many of the bass lines on the group's studio recordings. For Good Morning Starshine he officially switched to bass, although he also provided some of the guitar tracks on the album as well. Following the breakup of the Strawberry Alarm Clock King would take a similar role in his new group, Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Naked If I Want To
Source: LP: Great Grape (originally released on LP: Moby Grape)
Writer: Jerry Miller
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Although guitarist Jerry Miller's name appears in the credits for nearly half the material on the first Moby Grape album, more than any other band member, there was only one song credited to Miller as the sole songwriter. Ironically, Naked If I Want To was also the shortest track on the album, with a running time of less than a minute. A longer version of the song appeared on Moby Grape's second LP, Wow.
Artist: Barbarians
Title: Moulty
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Greenberg/Morris/Baer/Schwartz)
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1966
The Barbarians were originally formed in Cape Cod in 1963, and were known as much for their noncomformity as for their music. They were the first Boston area band to grow out their hair and wear leather sandals; To top it off their drummer, Vic "Moulty" Moulton, had lost his left hand in an accident when he was younger and wore a prosthetic hook. In 1966, after the band had moderate national success with a semi-novelty song called Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl, the band's producer, Doug Morris, talked Moulton into recording a faux-autobiographical song called Moulty, using New York studio musicians from a group called Levon and the Hawks (who had backed up such notables as Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan on tour and would, in a few years, become superstars in the own right after changing their name to The Band). Moulton, upon finding out that the recording had been released, was incensed, and went to the New York offices of Laurie Records, chasing the label's president around the office and breaking copies of the record over his head. Moulty was the last Barbarians record to appear on the Laurie label.
Artist: Big Red Ball
Title: She Ran Away From The World
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Lisa Raye
Label: Prospective
Year: 1992
Big Red Ball was a Minneapolis band that consisted of Lisa Raye (vocals), Mike Reiter (drums), David Fee Jr. (bass), Jimmy Swan (guitar), Jeff Blitz (bass), Tom Cook (drums), Tom Lischmann (guitar) and Cindy Lawson (vocals). They released three singles and one EP from 1991 through 1995. She Ran Away From The World was their second single, released in 1992.
Artist: Vertacyn Arc Materializer
Title: El Dorado
Source: LP: Tasting The Sea
Writer(s): Vertacyn Arc Materializer
Label: 10 GeV
Year: 2018
The city of San Francisco seems to produce more than its share of bands that go out of their way to maintain their anonymity. In the early 1970s the Residents even recorded an album called Not Available, intending to not release it until all of the band members had forgotten about its existence (it eventually got released in 1978 during a creative dry spell). These days the San Francisco anonymous band torch is carried by Vertacyn Arc Materializer, a band that is just as hard to describe as the Residents themselves. Their second LP, Tasting The Sea, is only available on Vinyl, and it's packaging is nothing less than spectacular. The front cover is the famous Rolling Stones "mouth" logo dissected by an actual zipper, mimicking the Stones' own Sticky Fingers cover, against a stark white background. Opening the zipper reveals a "circle c" copyright symbol. The back cover featuring "portraits" of each of the four band members: the Starbucks logo (bass, guitar), the US $20 bill version of President Andrew Jackson (drums, trumpet), Marilyn (guitar, bass, keyboards) and Homeland Security, represented by a snarling wolf (vocals, keyboards, guitar). There's even more fun stuff on the inside of the gatefold cover, but I'll let you find your own copy to check it out yourself (if you can find one; apparently there were only 500 pressed). Musically, Tasting The Sea is harder to describe; I'd put it with bands like Killing Joke and Nine Inch Nails, with a little Pere Ubu thrown in, but even that comparison falls short of the reality of Vertacyn Arc Materializer. Perhaps the most accessible track on the album is El Dorado, that has a bit of an early Pink Floyd (and slightly later King Crimson) vibe to it, supplemented by what sounds like actual recordings of either a walkie-talkie or a remote speaker at a gas pump. Enjoy!
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Beauty Queen
Source: CD: WaS
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: PruneTwang
Year: 2014
After the passing of bassist/keyboardist Mark Tulin in 2011, the Electric Prunes went on hiatus, returning to touring in 2013. The following year they released WaS, an album of new material featuring the last recordings made with Tulin. Among those tunes is Beauty Queen, best described as hard rock, Prunes style.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: The Fool (live version)
Source: CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service (bonus track originally released on CD: Unreleased Quicksilver: Lost Gold And Silver)
Writer(s): Duncan/Freiberg
Label: Rock Beat (original label: Collector's Choice)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2000
There are differing opinions on just how serious legendary San Francisco singer/songwriter and general iconoclast Dino Valenti was being when, at a jam session with guitarist John Cippolina one night, he suggested that the two of them form a band. Since Valenti was busted for drugs the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in San Quentin), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love. In one way this actually worked to the band's advantage, since by 1968 record companies were more willing to include lengthy improvisational tracks like The Fool, which took up the entire second side of the group's debut LP. The more recent CD reissue of the first Quicksilver Messenger Service album includes a live version of The Fool first released in 2000 by Collector's Choice Records.
Artist: Love Sculpture
Title: In The Land Of The Few
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: Forms And Feelings)
Writer(s): Edmunds/Findsilver/Ker
Label: Rhino (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1969
Dave Edmunds started off young. At age 10 the Cardiff, Wales native played in the Edmund Bros Duo (a piano duo) with his older brother Geoff. By the time Dave was 13 he and his brother had formed their own rock and roll band, with Dave on lead guitar and Geoff on rhythm. By the mid-1960s Dave Edmunds had switched to blues-rock, fronting a band called the Human Beans. It wasn't long before that group was pared down to a power trio consisting of Edmunds on guitar, John Williams on bass, and Congo Jones on drums calling itself Love Sculpture. The group released their first album, Blues Helping, in 1968, as well as a non-album single, Sabre Dance, that made the British top 10. The band's second, and final, album, Forms And Feelings, expanded beyond the electric blues of the first album to include harder to describe tracks like In The Land Of The Few. Not long after the album was released, Edmunds decided to go it as a solo artist, scoring a huge international hit with a remake of Smiley Lewis's I Hear You Knockin' in late 1970 before forming the band Rockpile with Nick Lowe later in the decade.
Artist: Koobas
Title: Barricades
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released on LP: Koobas)
Writer(s): Ellis/Stratton-Smith/Leathwood
Label: EMI (original UK label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
The Koobas were a Merseybeat band that never managed to achieve the level of success enjoyed by bands such as the Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers, despite having the patronage of Beatles manager Brian Epstein and even appearing in the film Ferry Across The Mersey. They did record several singles for both Pye and Columbia, but with little to show for it. Nonetheless, EMI, the parent company of Columbia, commissioned an entire album from the band in 1969. Among the standout tracks from that self-titled LP was the five-minute long Barricades, a track that starts with a Motown beat, but before long morphs into a chaotic portrait of riot and revolution, complete with anarchic sound effects.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Hey Fredrick
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer: Grace Slick
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1969
By 1969 Grace Slick's songwriting had taken a somewhat discordant tone, at least as far as the music went. Slick's lyrics were, for the most part, highly personal: no generic love songs for her. Hey Frederick, from the Volunteers album, illustrates both of these ideas well. The first line of the song, "Either go away or go all the way in", is a challenge that has been echoed by several other people over the years, most notably Ted Turner, whose motto "lead, follow or get out of the way" is in much the same spirit.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Don't Let Me Down
Source: LP: Hey Jude (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1969
One can get a good feel for the Beatles story simply by looking at the films they made. Their first, A Hard Day's Night, was a black and white movie that captured the group at a time that they had the world eating out of their collective hands. Their next film, Help!, was a bit more sophisticated, being both in color and in possession of an actual plot, albeit it a rather silly one. After some short promotional films that were a bit more experimental in nature (Strawberry Fields Forever, for example), they made a telefilm called Magical Mystery Tour in 1967. It was the band's first commercial failure. Their final project was another feature-length movie, but rather than a romp through fictional settings it was meant to be a documentary about the band's recording process. The film ended up documenting something else entirely: a band on the verge of a rather acrimonious breakup. Despite the internal conflicts, the group managed to record some strong tracks such as Don't Let Me Down, which was released as the B side of their first single of 1969, Get Back (both of which included Billy Preston on keyboards). Alternate versions of both songs were included on the final official Beatles album, Let It Be, the following year.
Artist: Tyrannosaurus Rex
Title: Nijinsky Hind
Source: CD: Unicorn
Writer(s): Marc Bolan
Label: A&M (original label: Blue Thumb)
Year: 1969
Nearly everyone is familiar with a song called Get It On (aka Bang A Gong), a huge hit in the early 70s by a group known as T-Rex. Not all that many people, however, are aware that the band was originally called Tyrannosaurus Rex, and consisted of only two members, Marc Bolan and Steve Peregrin Took. Tyrannosaurus Rex, in its original incarnation, was best described as a psychedelic folk duo with a stong emphasis on fantasy themes on songs like Nijinsky Hind, which appeared on the group's third LP, Unicorn. Took split with Bolan following the release of Unicorn after Bolan refused to use any of Took's compositions on the next Tyrannosaurus Rex album, A Beard Of Stars. Bolan replaced Took with Mickey Finn, who would remain a member after T-Rex expanded to become an electric rock band.
