Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2624 (starts 6/8/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/621969

    This week we have an Advanced Psych segment that goes from a Little Red Record to a Big Red Ball. Other than that we have several sets that focus on a particular year. In fact, every set does, along with two or three songs that aren't part of a set at all.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    EXP/Up From The Skies
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The second Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Axis: Bold As Love, is very much a studio creation. Hendrix had been taking a growing interest in what could be done with multiple tracks to work with, and came up with a masterpiece. What makes the achievement even more remarkable is the fact that he actually only had four tracks to work with (compared to the virtually unlimited number available with modern digital equipment). EXP, which opens the album, is an exercise in creative feedback, using volume and panning to create the illusion of circular motion. The intro to the piece is a faux interview of a slowed-down Hendrix (posing as his friend Paul Caruso) by a slightly sped up bassist Noel Redding. The track leads directly into Up From The Skies, the only song on the album to be issued as a single in the US. Up From The Skies features Hendrix's extensive use of a wah-wah pedal, with vocals and guitar panning back and forth from speaker to speaker over the jazz-styled brushes of drummer Mitch Mitchell.

Artist:    Atlantics
Title:    Come On
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Australia as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Peter Hood
Label:    Rhino (original label: Sunshine)
Year:    1967
    One of Australia's most popular and prolific bands, the Atlantics were formed in 1961 as a surf band. By 1964 they were also recording songs with vocals, usually backing up singer Johnny Rebb. Additionally, they released a handful of records with their own vocals provided by guitarist Jim Addams and/or drummer Peter Hood. Among those singles was Come On, a 1967 track written by Hood.

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Time Waits
Source:    LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    When putting together this week's show I noticed that there was one track on the 1967 Circus Maximus debut album that I had only played once before. After listening to it, I understand why. Written by Bob Bruno, Time Waits is sung by the entire band. Unfortunately, vocal harmonies were not their strong point. 
    
Artist:    Superfine Dandelion
Title:    Day And Night
Source:    British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US on LP: The Superfine Dandelion)
Writer(s):    McFadden/Musil
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    The Mile Ends were a Phoenix, Arizona band that were regulars at a local teen club called the Fifth Estate, which was run by a guy named Jim Musil. Musil became the group's manager, booking studio time to record a drinking song called Bottle Up And Go in 1966. Not long after that the group, now consisting of guitarists Mike McFadden and Ed Black, along with drummer Mike Collins, began calling themselves the Superfine Dandelion for a studio project sponsored by Musil. The group recorded an album's worth of material that came to the attention of Bob Shad, who was looking for material to issue on his Mainstream label. Shad bought the tapes, releasing the album in November of 1967. Day And Night is one of the standout tracks from that album.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Colored Balls Falling
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The first Love album is rooted solidly in both folk-rock and garage rock. A solid example of this blend is Colored Balls Falling, written by Arthur Lee. To my knowledge, Colored Balls Falling has never been included on any anthology albums, making this mono mix of the song somewhat of a rarity until recently, when Elektra reissued the album in both mono and stereo formats on a remastered CD.

Artist:    Monks
Title:    Boys Are Boys And Girls Are Choice
Source:    German import CD: Black Monk Time
Writer(s):    Burger/Clark/Day/Johnston/Shaw
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Polydor)
Year:    1966
    One advantage of being an American beat band (they weren't yet calling it "rock") in mid-60s Germany was that, unless you were truly horrible, you pretty much had a guaranteed local audience. In the case of the Monks, four ex-GIs who were anything but horrible, that meant a level of artistic freedom that most other bands wouldn't have until the latter part of the decade. The Monks were, in fact, popular enough to get a contract with the German branch of England's Polydor label, and tight enough to turn out an excellent, if somewhat obscure album called Black Monk Time, as well as a handful of singles. It turned out, however, that the record buying public wouldn't be ready for a band like the Monks playing short and to the point songs like Boys Are Boys And Girls Are Choice until the late 1970s, when punk-rock became all the rage.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Shapes Of Things
Source:    British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label:    Columbia 
Year:    1966
    Unlike earlier Yardbirds hits, 1966's Shapes Of Things was written by members of the band. The song, featuring one of guitarist Jeff Beck's most distinctive solos, just barely missed making it to the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.

Artist:     Ten Years After
Title:     50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain
Source:     CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer:     Alvin Lee
Label:     Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:     1970
    Alvin Lee mentions going to every planet in the solar system in 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain, a nearly eight-minute track from the 1970 Ten Years After album, Cricklewood Green. The album itself was the band's most successful until they changed labels and released A Space In Time, the LP that included their best known song, I'd Love To Change The World.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    Strychnine
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: Here Are The Sonics)
Writer(s):    Gerald Roslie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1965
    From 1965 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered one of the foundation stones of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals, such as Strychnine from their debut LP, are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics, along with their labelmates the Wailers, are often cited as the first true punk rock bands.

Artist:        Beatles
Title:        The Word
Source:    Mono CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:        Capitol/EMI
Year:        1965
        The original concept for the album Rubber Soul was to show the group stretching out into R&B territory. The US version of the album, however, deleted several of the more soulful numbers in favor of folk-rock oriented songs. This was done by Capitol records mainly to cash in on the sudden popularity of the genre in 1965. Not all of the more R&B flavored songs were replaced, however. John Lennon's The Word appeared on both US and UK versions of Rubber Soul.

Artist:    Bobby Fuller Four
Title:    Let Her Dance
Source:    LP: Nuggets Volume 3-Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bobby Fuller
Label:    Rhino (original labels: Mustang/Liberty)
Year:    1965
    Once upon a time executive Bob Keane from the small Hollywood-based Stereo-Fi corp. (owner of the Del-Fi and Mustang labels) had lunch with Al Bennett, head of the much larger Liberty Records. Keane was excited about Mustang's about-to-be-released new single, a tune by the Bobby Fuller Four called Let Her Dance. Bennett told Keane he was interested in hearing it, so Keane obliged by sending over a tape of the song later that same day. Bennett liked the song so much that he asked Keane if he could put it out himself. Keane, hoping for a possible distribution deal with Liberty, replied "send me over a contract", and proceeded to release the single himself. Meanwhile Bennett had a contract drawn up and was so certain the deal was sealed, started sending out promos of the song on the Liberty label to several radio stations before receiving the signed contract back from Keane. When Keane read the contract itself, he saw that Bennett had included language that would have given Liberty first rights to a Bobby Fuller Four LP, as well as the Let Her Dance single. Keane, who had no intention of signing away either song or album, told Bennett that there was no way he was going to sign the contract. When he found out that promo copies of Let Her Dance had already been sent out on the Liberty label he immediately contacted every radio station that had a copy and let them know that the only legitimate release of the song was on the Mustang label. Unfortunately, he overlooked the trade magazines when making his phone calls, and the song was listed by both Billboard and Cashbox as being a Liberty release. 

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Atlantis
Source:    British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Uncut (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    Although it was included on the 1969 album Barabajagal, Donovan's Atlantis was originally issued as a single in November of 1968. The tune went into the top 10 in several nations worldwide, including the US, but only managed to peak at #23 in the UK. At nearly five minutes in length, the song was considered by the shirts at Epic Records to be too long to get top 40 airplay in the US, and was thus relegated to B side status. They were proved wrong when DJs started flipping the record over and it went to the #7 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

Artist:     Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title:     Piece Of My Heart
Source:     LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer:     Ragovoy/Burns
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1968
     By 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company, with their charismatic vocalist from Texas, Janis Joplin, had become as popular as fellow San Francisco bands Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Somehow, though, they were still without a major label record deal. That all changed with the release of Cheap Thrills, with cover art by the legendary underground comix artist R. Crumb. The album itself was a curious mixture of live performances and studio tracks, the latter being led by the band's powerful cover of the 1966 Barbara Lynn tune Piece Of My Heart. The song propelled the band, and Joplin, to stardom. That stardom would be short-lived for most of the band members, however, as well-meaning but ultimately wrong-headed advice-givers convinced Joplin that Big Brother was holding her back. The reality was that Joplin was far more integrated with Big Brother And The Holding Company than anyone she would ever work with again.

Artist:    Del Shannon
Title:    Silver Birch/I Think I Love You
Source:    British import CD: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover
Writer(s):    Shannon/Perkins
Label:    BGO (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Sometimes called Del Shannon's most consistent album (and certainly his most psychedelic), The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover was released in early 1968, long after Shannon's run at the top of the charts with songs like Runaway and Keep On Searching. The album was a departure from Shannon's usual style, with songs like Silver Birch (about a girl whose wedding plans came to nothing) replacing the usual "I'm the victim here" types of songs Shannon was famous for. Westover (Shannon's birth name) takes a more subdued, yet rich, vocal approach on songs like the self-penned I Think I Love You, resulting in one of the most underrated (and unheard) tracks of the psychedelic era. 

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Valleri
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released on LP: The Birds, The Bees, And The Monkees)
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    The last Monkees top 10 single was also Michael Nesmith's least favorite Monkees song. Valleri was a Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart composition that the group had first recorded for the first season of their TV show in 1966. Apparently nobody was happy with the recording, however, and the song was never issed on vinyl. Two years later the song was re-recorded for the album The Birds, The Bees And The Monkees and subsequently released as a single. The flamenco-style guitar on the intro (and repeated throughout the song) was played by studio guitarist Louie Shelton, after Nesmith refused to participate in the recording.

Artist:    Pink Fairies
Title:    Prologue/Right On, Fight On
Source:    CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: What A Bunch Of Sweeties)
Writer(s):    Pink Fairies
Label:    Polydor (UK import)
Year:    1972
    While most rock musicians in the early 1970s were dreaming of becoming rich and famous, there were a few notable exceptions on both sides of the Atlantic. Among those were Detroit's MC5, whose radical politics were at the forefront of everything they did, and the New York City street band David Peel and the Lower East Side, who were more a musical guerrilla theater group than an actual rock band. In the UK, it was the Pink Fairies bucking the establishment, performing such anarchic acts as giving free concerts outside the gates of places where other bands were playing for pay, such as the 1970 Isle Of Wight music festival. Formed from the ashes of another anarchic band, the Social Deviants, the Pink Fairies recorded three albums from 1971-73, finally cutting a single for Stiff Records in 1976 before splitting up. The group has reformed several times since.

Artist:    Matching Mole
Title:    Gloria Gloom
Source:    LP: Little Red Record
Writer(s):    Bill MacCormick
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    The musical center for avant-garde progressive rock was known as the Canterbury Scene, which included the bands Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, Delivery and Quiet Sun, among others. In October of 1971, former Soft Machine drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt formed a sort of Canterbury supergroup with keyboardist David Sinclair of Caravan, guitarist Phil Miller of Delivery, bassist Bill McCormick of Quiet Sun. Calling themselves Matching Mole (an anglicization Machine Molle, the French translation of Soft Machine), they released their debut LP in April of 1972. Sinclair left the group after the album was released and was replaced by New Zealand pianist Dave MacRae in time for their second and final LP, Matching Mole's Little Red Record. Produced by Robert Fripp, the album included a guest appearance by Brian Eno, who played synthesizer on Gloria Gloom. The album is also notable for its cover art, which is done in the style of China's Cultural Revolution posters.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Analog Life
Source:    British import LP: Artifact
Writer(s):    Harris/Smith
Label:    Heartbeat
Year:    2001
    The Electric Prunes, like many other bands, recorded, in addition to their own compositions, material from professional songwriters such as Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz. Unlike many groups, however, the Prunes shied away from recording covers of popular tunes, instead going with songs they could rearrange to their own liking. Such was the case with their first single, Ain't It Hard, which had been released as a B side in 1965 by the Gypsy Trips, as well as their biggest hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), written by the aforementioned Tucker/Mantz team. Some of the songs they recorded, such as Toonerville Trolley and Dr. Do-Good, were a total departure from the band's usual style. The group continued this trend with Analog Life, from their 2001 comeback album, Artifact. The song is credited to Harris and Smith (no first names given), but I have been unable to find any other references to the song other than the Prunes' recording. 

Artist:    Big Red Ball
Title:    Eastern Sky
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
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. Eastern Sky is the B side of their second single. 

Artist:    Charlatans
Title:    Alabama Bound
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer:    trad., arr. The Charlatans
Label:    Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat) 
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1996
    Despite being one of the most important bands on the San Francisco scene, the Charlatans did not have much luck in the recording studio. Their first sessions were aborted, the planned LP for Kama Sutra was shelved by the label itself, and the band was overruled in their choice of songs to be released on their first (and only) single issued from the Kama Sutra sessions. In 1967, however, they did manage to get some decent tracks recorded. Unfortunately, those tracks were not released until 1996, and then only in the UK. The centerpiece of the 1967 sessions was this six-and-a-half minute long recording of a traditional tune that is generally considered to be the Charlatans' signature song: Alabama Bound.

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

Artist:    Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title:    Abba Zaba
Source:    45 RPM single (originally issued as B side and included on LP: Safe As Milk)
Writer(s):    Don Van Vliet
Label:    Sundazed/Buddah
Year:    1967
    After an aborted recording career with A&M Records, future avant-garde rock superstar Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) signed a contract with the newly formed Buddah record label. The first record ever released by Buddah was the album Safe As Milk, which included the single Yellow Brick Road, backed with Abba Zaba. Although the Captain's music was at that time still somewhat blues-based, the album was not a commercial success, and Buddah cut Beefheart and his Magic Band from the label in favor of more pop oriented groups like the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. Captain Beefheart then moved to yet another fledgling label, Blue Thumb, before finding a more permanent home with his old high school classmate Frank Zappa's Bizarre Records, where he released the classic Trout Mask Replica. More recently, Sundazed has re-released the Buddah single, but with Abba Zaba as the A side. 

Artist:    Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Title:    I'll Search The Sky
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Ricochet)
Writer(s):    David Hanna
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1967
            The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released two albums in 1967, about four to five months apart. Part of the reason for this may have been that their label, Liberty Records, was finding it difficult to get any of their releases to show up on the Billboard album charts; in fact, the first Dirt Band album was one of only two LPs on the label to accomplish that feat that year. The second LP by the group, Ricochet, was not able to duplicate the success of the first one, however, despite fine tracks like I'll Search The Sky and the band was in danger of fading off into obscurity by the end of the year. The group persisted, however, and eventually hit it big with their version of Jerry Jeff Walker's Mr. Bojangles. The band continued to gravitate toward country music over the next decade, eventually emerging as one of the top country acts of the 1980s.

Artist:    Roger Nichols Trio
Title:    Montage Mirror
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released in UK on LP: The Parade-Sunshine Girl: The Complete Recordings)
Writer(s):    Nichols/Roberds
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2008
    The Parade was an L.A. studio group made up of actors and studio musicians that had a top 20 hit with Sunshine Girl in early 1967. Montage Mirror, recorded later the same year is pretty much the same group but credited to the Roger Nichols Trio instead. An attempt to subvert an unpleasant contract with another label perhaps? I guess we'll never know, as the song sat on the shelf for 41(!) years before being included on a British Parade anthology.

Artist:    Shadows of Knight
Title:    Light Bulb Blues
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label:     Dunwich
Year:    1966
    Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2624 (starts 6/8/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/621968 

    This week we have three sets of four songs apiece. The first takes us from 1968 to 1971, the second from 1976 to 1973 and the third centers around the turn of the decade.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Fresh Garbage
Source:    CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Spirit)
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Epic (original label: Ode)
Year:    1968
    Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a fairly hard rocker and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Lady Samantha
Source:    CD: Jewel Box (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    EMI/UMC (original US label: DJM)
Year:    1969
    Like almost all artists in the 1960s, Elton John released several singles before his first album hit the racks. The second of these singles was Lady Samantha, which came out on the DJM label in January of 1969. It was re-released over a year later on MCA's Congress label. 

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Wasp/Behind The Wall Of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B.
Source:    CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers/Rhino
Year:    1970
    While feedback-laden bands like Blue Cheer are often credited with laying the foundations of what would come to be called heavy metal, Black Sabbath is generally considered to be the first actual heavy metal band. Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward didn't set out to create a whole new genre. They simply wanted to be the heaviest blues-rock band around. After seeing a movie marquee for an old Boris Karloff film called Black Sabbath and deciding that would make a good name for a band, however, the group soon began modifying their sound to more closely match their new name. The result was a debut album that would change the face of rock music forever. Probably the best known track on the Black Sabbath album is N.I.B., which closes out the LP's first side. Contrary to popular belief, N.I.B. is not a set of initials at all, but just the word nib done in capital letters with periods after each letter. According to Geezer Butler, who wrote the lyrics for N.I.B. "Originally it was Nib, which was Bill's beard. When I wrote N.I.B., I couldn't think of a title for the song, so I just called it Nib, after Bill's beard. To make it more intriguing I put punctuation marks in there to make it N.I.B. By the time it got to America, they translated it to Nativity In Black." On the album the song is preceded by a short bass solo from Butler, which in turn segues directly out of the previous track, Behind The Wall Of Sleep. For some reason (possibly to garner the group more royalties) Warner Brothers Records added extra song titles to the two tracks on the album cover and label to make them look like four separate pieces. The original British release, however, lists them as Behind The Wall Of Sleep and N.I.B. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Night Bird Flying
Source:    CD: Voodoo Soup (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    Night Bird Flying was one of a handful of fully completed tracks that were slated for the next Jimi Hendrix album when the guitarist unexpectedly passed away in late1970. Naturally, the song was selected for inclusion of the first posthumous Hendrix LP, The Cry Of Love, as well as various CDs over the years, including Voodoo Soup and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, both of which were attempts to assemble what would have been the fourth Jimi Hendrix studio album. In all cases, however, I think the compilers missed the obvious: Night Bird Flying should have been the second track on the album, following Freedom. Don't ask me how I know this. I just do. Call it a gut feeling if you will, but Night Bird Flying belongs in that #2 slot. Period. 

Artist:    Flo & Eddie
Title:    Keep It Warm
Source:    45 RPM single (promo) (taken from LP: Moving Targets)
Writer(s):    Kaylan/Volman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1976
    Record companies wielded a lot of power in the mid-1960s, especially over young aspiring acts such as the Turtles. When the Turtles decided to call it quits in 1970, members Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan found themselves unable to use even their own birth names in a musical context, prompting them to come up with the name Phlorescent Leech And Eddie when they joined the Mothers Of Invention. After bandleader Frank Zappa was injured onstage in 1971 the duo continued to record under the same name, shortening it to simply Flo And Eddie for their second album. Arguably their most popular album was Moving Targets, released in 1976, that features the song Keep It Warm, a wry commentary about what had happened to some of the counterculture icons of the late 1960s.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Pandora's Box
Source:    LP: Procol's Ninth
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1975
    An overview of Procol Harum's albums shows increasing lavish production values over their first seven studio albums (and their 1972 live album, that featured an entire orchestra performing with the band). For Procol's Ninth, however, they changed directions, working with producer Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller on an album that focused more on the structure of the songs themselves. The most popular track on the album was Pandora's Box, a song that the band had first attempted to record in 1967. 

Artist:    Robin Trower
Title:    Day Of The Eagle
Source:    CD: Bridge Of Sighs
Writer(s):    Robin Trower
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1974
    Although Robin Trower's first solo album following his departure from Procol Harum went largely under the radar, his second LP, Bridge Of Sighs, was a huge success, spending 31 weeks on the US charts and peaking at the #7 spot. The opening track, Day Of The Eagle, soon became a concert staple for the guitarist and has been covered by other guitarists, notably Steve Stevens on his album Memory Crash. Other artists who have covered Day Of The Eagle include Tesla and Armored Saint.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Woman From Tokyo
Source:    Japanese import CD: Who Do We Think We Are
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Deep Purple's most successful period came to an end with the band's seventh LP, Who Do We Think We Are. The album, released in 1973, was the last for vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover, both of whom had joined the band three years earlier. Those three years saw the group go from semi-obscurity (especially in their home country) to one of the world's most popular rock bands. Songs like Smoke On The Water and Highway Star had become mainstays of FM rock radio worldwide, but tensions within the band itself were starting to tear it apart. Nonetheless, the final album by the classic lineup of Richie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice featured some of the band's best material, including the LP's opening track, My Woman From Tokyo, which is still heard with alarming regularity on classic rock radio stations.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Amazing Journey
Source:    British Import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Tommy)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Polydor UK (original US label: Decca)
Year:    1969
    After achieving major success in their native England with a series of hit singles in 1965-67, the Who began to concentrate more on their albums from 1968 on. The first of these concept albums was The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. The Who Sell Out was a collection of songs connected by faux radio spots and actual jingles from England's most popular pirate radio station, Radio London. After releasing a few more singles in 1968, the Who began work on their most ambitious project yet: the world's first rock opera. Tommy, released in 1969, was a double LP telling the story of a boy who, after being tramautized into becoming a blind deaf-mute, eventually emerges as a kind of messiah, only to have his followers ultimately abandon him. One of the early tracks on the album is Amazing Journey, describing Tommy's voyage into the recesses of his own mind in response to the traumatic event that results in his "deaf, dumb and blind" condition.

Artist:    Sons Of Champlin
Title:    The Thing You Do
Source:    British import CD: Loosen Up Naturally/Follow Your Heart/The Sons (originally released on LP: Loosen Up Naturally)
Writer(s):    Bill Champlin
Label:    BGO (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1969
    While still in high school in Mill Valley, California in 1965, guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Bill Champlin hooked up with a band called the Opposite Six, one of the few blue-eyed soul bands on the West Coast. The group did pretty well until both the drummer and the bass player were drafted by the US Army, causing the Opposite Six to fall apart. Champlin, along with saxophone player Tim Cain, soon formed a new band, which after a brief flirtation with the name Masterbeats became the first incarnation of the Sons Of Champlin. The Opposite Six had always featured a horn section, a practice that Champlin continued with his new band. The group signed to Trident Records in 1967, recording an album that remained unreleased until 1999. The following year they got a deal with Capitol Records, and recorded their first album locally at Golden State Recorders.  One of the highlights of the double-LP, Loosen Up Naturally,  was a tune called The Thing You Do, which is fairly representative of the band's sound. The album did well enough to allow the band to record several more albums before Champlin left to replace Terry Kath in Chicago. Following his departure from that band a few years back, Champlin formed a new Sons Of Champlin band that is still performing regularly.

Artist:    Gypsy
Title:    Gypsy Queen
Source:    LP: Gypsy
Writer(s):    Enrico Rosenbaum
Label:    Gypsy
Year:    1970
    In the mid-1960s it was common, especially in the larger cities in the US, for a local band to go into a local recording studio and make a record that would be released on a local label and get played on a local radio station or two. Sometimes these songs would become local, or even regional hits. In a few cases these songs even became national hits, and in rare cases would lead to an entire run of hits. By 1970, however, this path to success had all but disappeared, due to a number of factors. Most local radio stations were tightening their playlists to include only nationally charted hits. Locally-owned record labels had all but disappeared, with the more successful ones being bought out by their larger competitors. Bands looking for national success were forced to relocate, usually to New York or Los Angeles. One such band was Gypsy. Formed in Minnesota as the Underbeats, the band moved to L.A. in 1969, renaming themselves Gypsy and becoming the house band at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood. It was during their tenure at the Whisky that they released their self-titled double LP debut album containing their biggest hit, Gypsy Queen-Part 1. The band released several more albums over a period of over 40 years, both as Gypsy and as the James Walsh Gypsy Band. They played their final show on November 4, 2017 in St. Louis.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Samba Pa Ti
Source:    CD: Abraxas
Writer(s):    Carlos Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    One of the most enduring tracks from Santana's second LP, Abraxas, Samba Pa Ti starts off as a slow instrumental, slowly picking up the pace and adding percussion to give it a decidedly latin flavor. As far as I know, Carlos Santana still includes Samba Pa Ti in his concert repertoire.
 

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2623 (starts 6/1/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/621111

    This week, in addition to the usual assortment of singles, B sides and album tracks from the psychedelic era, we have a pair of artists' sets and a couple of somewhat unusual tracks that have never been played on the show before.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Heart Full Of Soul
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     Graham Gouldman
Label:     Epic
Year:     1965
     Heart Full Of Soul, the Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love, was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, whose own band, the Mockingbirds, was strangely unable to buy a hit on the charts. Gouldman later went on to be a founding member of 10cc, who were quite successful in the 1970s.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    By mid-1966 there was a population explosion of teenage rock bands popping up in garages and basements all across the US, the majority of which were doing their best to emulate the grungy sound of their heroes, the Rolling Stones. The Stones themselves responded by ramping up the grunge factor to a previously unheard of degree with their last single of the year, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? It was the most feedback-laden record ever to make the top 40 at that point in time, and it inspired America's garage bands to buy even more powerful amps and crank up the volume (driving their parents to drink in the process).

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Lucifer Sam
Source:    Mono LP: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Tower
Year:    1967
    Beyond a shadow of a doubt the original driving force behind Pink Floyd was the legendary Syd Barrett. Not only did he front the band during their rise to fame, he also wrote their first two singles, Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, as well as most of their first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. In fact it could be argued that one of the songs on that album, Lucifer Sam, could have just as easily been issued as a single, as it is stylistically similar to the first two songs. Sadly, Barrett's mental health deteriorated quickly over the next year and his participation in the making of the band's next LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, was minimal. He soon left the group altogether, never to return (although several of his former bandmates did participate in the making of his 1970 solo album, The Madcap Laughs).

Artist:    Love Sculpture
Title:    Farandole
Source:    LP: Forms And Feelings
Writer(s):    Bizet, arr. by Dave Edmunds
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1968
    I repeat: Eat your heart out, Ted Nugent. This time in stereo.

Artist:    Fire Birds
Title:    No Tomorrows
Source:    CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released on LP: Light My Fire)
Writer(s):    Firebirds
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Crown)
Year:    1969
    Throughout the 50s and 60s there were literally hundreds of budget labels that made their fortunes fooling record buyers into thinking they were getting hit records at a discounted price, when in reality they were getting cheap cover versions by uncredited and underpaid studio musicians. One of the most successful of these budget labels was Crown, a label created in 1953 by the Bahari Brothers which specialized in low-priced LPs spotlighting either a specific genre (polka, blues, gospel, etc.) or a particular artist via a tribute album that did not include any recordings by the actual artist. In 1969 Crown released a pair of hard psychedelic LPs: Hair, by 31 Flavors, and Light My Fire, by the Firebirds. In reality, they were both by the same band, rumored to be a local Los Angeles group that was not actually called either the Firebirds or 31 Flavors. Unlike most Crown releases, however, these two albums featured original material such as No Tomorrow that would not have been out of place beside albums by Blue Cheer or early Grand Funk Railroad.

Artist:    Elephant's Memory
Title:    Midnight Cowboy
Source:    LP: Heavy Mix (originally released on LP: Songs From Midnight Rider)
Writer(s):    John Barry
Label:    Pickwick (original label: Buddah)
Year:    1969
    One of the hardest-to-describe bands of the late 1960s, Elephant's Memory was formed by singer/saxophonist/flautist/clarinetist Stan Bronstein and drummer Rick Frank, along with bassist/trombonist Myron Yules. One early member of the band was vocalist Carly Simon, although by the time the band recorded their debut LP in 1969 she had been replaced by Michal Shapiro. Filling out the band's 1969 lineup were keyboardist Richard Sussman and guitarists John Ward and Chester Ayres. Elephant's Memory's second album was titled Songs From Midnight Rider, which was a bit disingenuous, since out of the 11 songs on the LP, only two were actually from the movie soundtrack. Two more songs on the album were Elephant Memory's own interpretations of the film's best known pieces, including the instrumental theme heard here. Those four tracks made up the entire first side of the album, while the second side was made up entirely of songs that had already been released on their debut LP.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    The Morning: Another Morning
Source:    CD: Days Of Future Passed
Writer(s):    Thomas/Knight
Label:    Deram/Polydor/UMe
Year:    1968
    The Moody Blues were struggling to remain viable as a group in late 1968 when their label, the British Decca company, asked them to record a rock version of Dvorak's 9th Symphony as a way to showcase a new stereo recording system they had developed, with the resulting album to appear on Decca's new rock-oriented label Deram. Once in the studio, however, the band worked with orchestral arranger Peter Knight to instead create a concept album about a typical day in the life of an average working person. That album was titled (by the record company) Days Of Future Passed, and it forever changed the fortunes of the Moody Blues. Using two studios, one for the band and the other for the orchestral sections, the album was recorded in just three weeks, with most tracks, such as The Morning: Another Morning, consisting of band recordings segueing directly into orchestral pieces. Despite the success of the album, the Moody Blues chose to work without an orchestra on their next album, In Search Of The Lost Chord.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Steve's Song
Source:    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. The tune starts with a very old-English style repeated motif that gets increasing complicated as it repeats itself before segueing into a more conventional mode with Katz on the lead vocal. Katz would write and sing simlarly-styled tunes, such as Sometimes In Winter, as a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears. 
 
Artist:    Doors
Title:    Roadhouse Blues
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Morrison/The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1970
    After getting less than favorable reviews for their fourth LP, The Soft Parade, the Doors decided to go back to their roots for 1970s Morrison Hotel. One of the many bluesier tunes on the album was Roadhouse Blues, a song that soon became a staple of the group's live performances.

Artist:    Donovan/Jeff Beck Group
Title:    Barabajabal
Source:    CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Barabajagal)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    Donovan Leitch enlisted the Jeff Beck Group as collaborators for Barabajabal, a track from his 1969 album of the same name. Some pressings of the single list the title as Goo Goo Barabajabal (Love Is Hot), but since both the original LP track, and  Epic's July 1969 trade ad for the single say Barabajagal I'm going with that. 

Artist:     Beacon Street Union
Title:     Speed Kills
Source:     British import CD: The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union/The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer:     Ulaky/Wright
Label:     See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year:     1967
     Boston's Beacon Street Union had an interesting mix of tunes on their debut LP. Despite the title, Speed Kills is not an anti-drug song. Rather, the song addresses the frenetic pace of life the band members had encountered since relocating to New York City shortly before recording The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    At The Zoo
Source:    LP: Bookends (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Simon and Garfunkel did not release any new albums in 1967, instead concentrating on their live performances. They did, however, issue several singles over the course of the year, most of which ended up being included on 1968's Bookends LP. At The Zoo was one of the first of those 1967 singles. It's B side ended up being a hit as well, but by Harper's Bizarre, which took The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) to the top 10 early in the year.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Good Vibrations
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Although I had originally discovered top 40 radio in 1963 (when I received a small Sony transistor radio for my birthday), it wasn't until 1966 that I really got into it in a big way. This was due to a combination of a couple of things: first, my dad bought a console stereo, and second, my junior high school went onto split sessions, meaning that I was home by one o'clock every day. This gave me unprecedented access to Denver's two big top 40 AM stations, as well as an FM station that was experimenting with a Top 100 format for a few hours each day. At first I was content to just listen to the music, but soon realized that the DJs were making a point of mentioning each song's chart position just about every time that song would play. Naturally I began writing all this stuff down in my notebook (when I was supposed to be doing my homework), until I realized that both KIMN and KBTR actually published weekly charts, which I began to diligently hunt down at various local stores. In addition to the songs occupying numbered positions on the charts, both stations included songs at the bottom of the list that they called "pick hits". These were new releases that had not been around long enough to achieve a chart position. The one that most stands out in my memory was the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, a song I liked so much that I went out to the nearest Woolco and bought it the afternoon I heard it. Within a few weeks Good Vibrations had gone all the way to the top of the charts on both stations, and I always felt that some of the credit should go to me for buying the record when it first came out (hey I was 13, OK?). Over the next couple of years I bought plenty more singles, but to this day Good Vibrations stands out as the most influential 45 RPM record purchase I ever made.
    
Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dreaming
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Jack Bruce
Label:    Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were a few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.

Artist:    Fleur De Lys
Title:    Circles
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Rhino (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1966
    Circles was a song by the Who that was originally slated to be released in the UK on the Brunswick label in February of 1966 as a follow-up to the highly successful My Generation. A dispute between the band and the label and their producer, Shel Talmy, however, led to the Who switching labels and releasing another song, Substitute, in its place on March 4th, with Circles (retitled Instant Party) on the B side of the record. When Talmy slapped the band with a legal injunction, the single was withdrawn, and another band, the Fleur De Lys, took advantage of the situation, recording their own version of Circles and releasing it on March 18th on the Immediate label. Just to make things more confusing Brunswick issued the Who's version of Circles as the B side of A Legal Matter on March 8th, while the Who reissued Substitute with a different B side (that they didn't actually play on) on March 14th.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Whiskey Man
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    John Entwhistle
Label:    Decca
Year:    1966
    Although the Who had previously issued a pair of singles in the US, the first one to make any kind of waves was Happy Jack, released in late 1966 and hitting its peak the following year. The B side of that record was the song Whiskey Man. Like all the Who songs penned by bassist John Entwhistle, this one has an unusual subject: in this case, psychotic alcohol-induced hallucinations that are more enjoyable than reality.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Winds Of Change
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:    Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    The "new" Animals first album was Winds of Change, an ambitious effort that gave writing credit to all five band members for all the tracks on the album (with the exception of a cover version of the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black). The opening track is basically Eric Burdon paying tribute to all his musical heroes, and it's quite an impressive list, including jazz and blues greats as well as some of the most important names in the annals of rock and roll. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Girl
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    Some people think Girl is one of those John Lennon drug songs. I see it as one of those John Lennon observing what's really going on beneath the civilized veneer of western society songs myself. Your choice.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Love You To
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (originally released on LP: Revolver)
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:    1966
    Following the release of Rubber Soul in December of 1965, the Beatles' George Harrison began to make a serious effort to learn to play the Sitar, studying under the master, Ravi Shankar. Along with the instrument itself, Harrison studied Eastern forms of music. His first song written in the modal form favored by Indian composers was Love You To, from the Revolver album. The recording also features Indian percussion instruments and suitably spiritual lyrics. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Ticket To Ride
Source:    LP: Help!
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1965
    Trying to figure out the Beatles' catalog can be a bit confusing, as Capitol Records, which had the rights to release the band's recordings in the US, had their own ideas about what should be on a Beatles album, which was often at odds with the wishes of the band members themselves. Some US albums, such as Beatles '65, had no British counterpart at all, while others had different track lineups than the original UK versions. Probably the most radically altered of the original LPs was the soundtrack album to the film Help! In the UK, side one of the album contained songs from the film itself, while side two contained a collection of unrelated studio recordings, some of which had been intended for, but not used in, the film. In the US, however, the Help album included incidental orchestral pieces heard throughout the movie interspersed with the songs heard on side one of the UK album. Among the tracks heard on both versions (albeit with lots of added reverb on the US release) was Ticket To Ride, which was also issued as a single in the US (using one of the songs from side two of the UK Help album as a B side). The tune has gone on to become one of the most recognizable Beatles songs ever recorded.
 
Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Cinnamon Girl
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used an amped-up version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.

Artist:    Human Expression
Title:    Every Night
Source:    Mono LP: Highs In The Mid Sixties vol. 3: '67 Mondo Hollywood A-Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    The Human Expression
Label:    AIP (original label: Accent)
Year:    1967
    One thing Los Angeles had become known for by the mid-1960s was its urban sprawl. Made possible by one of the world's most extensive regional freeway systems, the city had become surrounded by suburbs on all sides (except for the oceanfront). Many of these suburbs were (and are) in Orange County, home to Anaheim stadium, Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. The O.C. was also home to the Human Expression, a band that recorded a trio of well-regarded singles for the Accent label. The first of these was a song called Every Night that was credited to the entire band.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Cream Puff War
Source:    CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s):    Jerry Garcia
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1967
    The first Grateful Dead album was recorded in a matter of days, and was mostly made up of cover tunes that the band was currently performing. The two exceptions were The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), which was credited to the entire band, and Cream Puff War, a song written by guitarist Jerry Garcia. The two tracks were paired up on the band's first single as well. Cream Puff War, as recorded, ran nearly three and a half minutes, but was edited down to 2:28 at the insistence of the corporate shirts at Warner Brothers Records.

Artist:    Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title:    Eventually
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Spreading From The Ashes)
Writer(s):    Alan Brackett
Label:    Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2005
    The Peanut Butter Conspiracy (or PBC) was one of the more psychedelic of the local L.A. bands playing the various clubs along L.A.'s Sunset Strip during its golden years of 1965-68. As was the case with so many bands of that time and place, they never really got the opportunity to strut their stuff, although they did leave some decent tapes behind, such as Eventually, recorded in 1966 but not released until 2005.

Artist:    Penny Arkade
Title:    Swim
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Not The Freeze)
Writer(s):    Craig Vincent Smith
Label:    Rhino (original label: Sundazed)
Year:    Recorded: 1967; released 2009
    In 1967 Michael Nesmith, realizing that the Monkees had a limited shelf life, decided to produce a local L.A. band, Penny Arkade, led by singer/songwriter Craig Vincent Smith. Nesmith already had several production credits to his name with the Monkees, including a recording of Smith's Salesman on their 4th LP. Swim, like Salesman, has a touch of country about it; indeed, Nesmith himself was one of the earliest proponents of what would come to be called country-rock. In 1967, however, country-rock was still at least a year away and Nesmith was unable to find a label willing to release the record. 

Artist:    Davie Allan And The Arrows
Title:    Rockin' Angel
Source:    LP: The Wild Angels (soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Curb/Allan/Hatcher
Label:    Tower
Year:    1966
    Davie Allen is best known for providing music for the soundtracks of several teen-oriented and biker movies from the 1960s. Allan grew up in the San Fernando Valley of California, where he met Mike Curb, with whom he would form an instrumental surf band. Curb, who had a keen business sense, formed his own Curb Records label in 1963, issuing Allan's first single, War Path. Allan played on several other singles for Curb as a session guitarist, both on the Curb label and its successor, Sidewalk Records. Around that same time Curb made a deal with Roger Corman's American International Pictures to supply music for the director's youth-oriented films. This led to the formation of the Arrows, a loose aggregation of studio musicians that Allan would utilize for various projects. Most of the Arrows' early recordings were fairly unremarkable, although they did get some local L.A. radio airplay for a song called Apache '65. Allan's big break came when he acquired a fuzz box for his guitar, using it for his most famous recording, Blue's Theme from the film The Wild Angels. Most of Allan's contributions to the film's soundtrack were short instrumental pieces like Rockin' Angel. The film itself is notable for its cast, which included Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra and Bruce Dern, among others. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Can You See Me
Source:    LP: Smash Hits (originally released in UK on LP: Are You Experienced) 
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA
Year:    1967
    Before releasing the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, in the US, Reprise Records decided to make some changes to the track lineup, adding three songs that had been released as non-album singles in the UK. To make room for these, three songs were cut from the original UK version of the LP. The most popular of these three tracks was Can You See Me, a song that was included in the band's set when they made their US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967.  Despite the audience's positive response to the song, the band apparently dropped Can You See Me from their live set shortly after Monterey. The song was originally slated to be released as the B side of The Wind Cries Mary, but instead was used as an album track. Can You See Me finally got released in the US in 1969, on the Smash Hits LP. 
  
Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    51st Anniversary
Source:    Mono Dutch import LP: The Singles (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Polydor (original UK label: Track)
Year:    1967
    The first Jimi Hendrix Experience single of 1967 (and the first for Track Records) was the classic Purple Haze, released on March 17, 1967. For the B side, the band chose one of producer Chas Chandler's favorite tracks, 51st Anniversary. The song expressed Hendrix's views on marraige by looking at it first from 51 years after the wedding, and then working his way back through the years. The first half, in Hendrix's words, was "just saying the good things about marraige, or maybe the usual things about marraige. The second part of the record tells about the parts of marraige which I've seen." Hendrix's own parents got married when his mother was just 17, just like the girl in the song. Musically, 51st Anniversary is somewhat unique for Hendrix in that it does not have a guitar solo, although the recording does feature five guitar overdubs linked together over the course of the track.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Remember
Source:    LP: Smash Hits (originally released in UK on LP: Are You Experienced) 
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise (original UK label: Track)
Year:    1967
    It was common in the 1960s for artists to include "filler" material on their albums, with their best stuff being saved for single releases. Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience made making the best albums a priority, there was still material on their first LP that Hendrix himself considered filler. One of these was Remember, which was also one of three tracks deleted from the US version of the LP to make room for three UK singles that were not on the UK version of Are You Experienced. Still, filler for Jimi Hendrix is as good as or better than 99% of many other artists' best material at the time, as can be heard here.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Tower
Year:    1966
    The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. Both Good Guys and Dirty Water were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written songs for the "E" Types and Chocolate Watchband (both of which he also produced).

Artist:     Troggs
Title:     Wild Thing
Source:     Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Chip Taylor
Label:     K-Tel (original label: Fontana)
Year:     1966
    I have a DVD copy of a music video (although back then they were called promotional films) for the Troggs' Wild Thing in which the members of the band are walking through what looks like a train station while being mobbed by girls at every turn. Every time I watch it I imagine singer Reg Presley saying giggity-giggity as he bobs his head. 

Artist:    Outsiders
Title:    What Makes You So Bad You Weren't Brought Up That Way
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    King/Kelley
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    The Starfires were a Cleveland band founded in 1958 by 15-year-old guitarist Tom King that played mostly instrumental cover versions of R&B hits. Over the next few years they released several singles on small independent labels such as Pama (owned by King's uncle), usually billed as Tom King And The Starfires. In 1964, in the wake of the British invasion, the band added vocalist Sonny Geraci. Around this time King entered a songwriting partnership with his brother in law, Chet Kelley, providing the Starfires with most of the original material. In late 1965 the Starfires recorded a King/Kelley composition called Time Won't Let Me, which led to the band signing with Capitol Records. For reasons that are not entirely clear the band changed its name to the Outsiders before releasing the song in February of 1966. The success of Time Won't Let Me led to the Outsiders recording an entire album that included five King/Kelley originals along with half a dozen cover songs, a typical mix for 1966. Drummer Ronnie Harkai, who had played on Time Won't Let Me, enlisted in the Air Force shortly after recording the song, so another drummer, Jimmy Fox, who had been a member of the Starfires a few years earlier, was brought in to play on the album before going on to form his own band, the James Gang. Among the original tunes recorded for the LP was the slow ballad Girl In Love, which became the band's second single. The B side of that record, also taken from the album, was a garage-rock styled track called What Makes You So Bad You Weren't Brought Up That Way, one of the more overlooked gems of the psychedelic era.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Old Man
Source:    Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1967
    An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the group. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, was actually one of the first tracks recorded for Forever Changes. At the time, the band's rhythm section was more into sex and drugs than rock and roll, and McLean and Lee arranged to have studio musicians play on Old Man, as well as on one of Lee's songs. The rest of the group was so stunned by this development that they were able to temporarily get their act together long enough to complete the album. Nonetheless, the two tunes with studio musicians were left as is, although reportedly Ken Forssi did step in to show Carol Kaye how the bass part should be played (ironic, since Kaye is estimated to have played on over 10,000 recordings in her long career as a studio musician).

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    The Walking Song
Source:    Mono LP: Happy Together
Writer(s):    Kaylan/Nichols
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1967
    When they weren't recording hit songs by professional songwriters, the Turtles were busy developing their own songwriting talents, albeit in a somewhat satirical direction. One early example is The Walking Song, which contrasts the older generation's obsession with material goods with a "stop and smell the roses" approach favored by the song's protagonist. This toungue-in-cheek style of writing would characterize the later careers of two of the band members, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who, after performing with the Mothers at the Fillmore would become known as the Phlorescent Leech (later Flo) and Eddie.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Love Is Only Sleeping (alternate mix)
Source:    CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weill
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1967
    The Monkees's began work on their fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD., using four-track tape recorders, the standard technology at the time. At some point during the making of the album the group was able to get access to state-of-the-art eight-track recorders, and in August of 1967 all the recordings made up to that point were copied over to the new machines. This mixdown of Love Is Only Sleeping, a song originally intended to be released as a single, was made from the original four-track master tape on July 7th.

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Itchycoo Park
Source:    CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1967
    Led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, the Small Faces got their name from the fact that all the members of the band were somewhat vertically challenged. The group was quite popular with the London mod crowd, and was sometimes referred to as the East End's answer to the Who. Although quite successful in the UK, the group only managed to score one hit in the US, the iconic Itchycoo Park, which was released in late 1967. Following the departure of Marriott the group shortened their name to Faces, and recruited a new lead vocalist named Rod Stewart. Needless to say, the new version of the band did much better in the US than its previous incarnation before itself being destroyed by Stewart's solo career. 
     

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2623 (starts 6/1/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/621110

    Underground comedy was always a part of early 70s FM rock radio, and one of the biggest names in underground comedy was the Firesign Theatre. Their best known work was a 30s radio detective drama parody called The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger. Over the years the Firesign Theatre came up with more pieces featuring Nick and the gang, including The Three Faces Of Al, featured in its entirety on this week's edition of Rockin' in the Days of Confusion. Before getting down to the humor, though, we have some favorite tunes to warm up on, and afterwards a couple that have never been played on the show before.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Paranoid
Source:    CD: Grand Funk
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    I spent a good portion of the summer of 1971 riding around in a 1954 Ford panel truck listening to Grand Funk (aka the Red Album) on 8-track tape. One thing I noticed was that, unlike the Black Sabbath song with the same name, Grand Funk Railroad's Paranoid has lyrics that actually make sense, albeit in a not entirely healthy way. The sad part, of course, is that there are actually people who live that way.

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Revival
Source:    CD: Idlewild South
Writer(s):    Dicky Betts
Label:    Mercury/UMe (original label: Capricorn)
Year:    1970
    The second Allman Brothers band was the first to include songs written by guitarist Dicky Betts. One of those songs, Revival, was also issued as the first single from the album. Originally written as an instrumental, Revival is one of the most easily recognizable songs in the Allman Brothers' catalog, and was the band's first single to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart, spending three weeks there.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Love Her Madly
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971    
    Released as a single in advance of the 1971 Doors album L.A. Woman, Love Her Madly was a major success, peaking just outside the top 10 in the US, and going all the way to the #3 spot in Canada. The album itself was a return to a more blues-based sound by the Doors, a change that did not sit well with producer Paul Rothchild, who left the project early on, leaving engineer Bruce Botnik to assume production duties. Rothchild's opinion aside, it was exactly what the Doors needed to end their run (in their original four man incarnation) on a positive note. 

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    The Three Faces Of Al
Source:    LP: The Three Faces Of Al
Writer(s):    Austin/Proctor/Bergman
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1984
    Undoubtably the Firesign Theatre's best-known and best-loved creation was private detective Nick Danger, Third Eye. The character first appeared in The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger, a parody of 1930s radio dramas that took up the entire second side of the 1969 album How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All. After showing up on a variety of albums, radio shows and even a movie over the next decade and a half, Danger finally got his own full-length album, The Three Faces Of Al, in 1984. David Ossman, who played the 1000-year-old man Catherwood in Further Adventures, had left the Firesign Theatre (temporarily, as it turned out) to be a producer at NPR, and did not participate in the writing or recording of The Three Faces Of Al.

Artist:    Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show
Title:    Makin' It Natural
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Silverstein/Comanor
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    Before shortening their name to Dr. Hook and becoming a somewhat bland mainstream band in the mid-1970s, Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show were a showcase group for the songs of Shel Silverstein, among them Sylvia's Mother and its B side, Makin' It Natural. 

Artist:    Poco
Title:    From The Inside
Source:    CD: The Forgotton Trail (1969-74) (originally released on LP: From The Inside)
Writer(s):    Timothy B. Schmidt
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1971
    The lineup of pioneering country-rock band Poco was pretty much in flux right from the beginning, with original bassist Randy Meisner leaving the band even before their first album was completed. His eventual replacement was Timothy B Schmidt, who had actually auditioned for the band when it was being formed and had been turned down in favor of Meisner. Schmidt was never the most prolific songwriter in the band, only contributing one song apiece to their early LPs, including the title track of their third album, From The Inside. Schmidt would go on to provide backup vocals for Steely Dan on three of their most popular albums in the mid-1970s and would eventually join the Eagles, once again replacing Randy Meisner.

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2622 (starts 5/25/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/620260

    This week we feature the entire second side of the 1971 Moody Blues album Every Good Boy Deserves (there really isn't much choice, since all the songs overlap each other). But of course that's only one segment of the show, and there's lots of good stuff in the other ones, including an extra long set of tunes from 1966 to start things off.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Don't Bring Me Down
Source:    Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label:    Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1965
    San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small (at the time) city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities were then, as now, considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page and had shifted musical gears).

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    MCA (original US 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 before relocating to London to form his new band. 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:    Savoy Brown Blues Band
Title:    True Story
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: British Archives Volume 2 (originally released on LP: An Anthology Of British Blues Vol. 2)
Writer(s):    Chatman
Label:    RCA Victor (original label: Immediate)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1968
    The original Savoy Brown Blues Band lineup, consisting of Guitarist Kim Simmonds, bassist Ray Chappell, drummer Leo Mannings, pianist Bob Hall (who had replaced Trevor Jeavons almost immediately after the band's formation, which is why I consider him an original member), harmonica player John O'Leary and vocalist Brice Portius, cut four sides for the Purdah label in 1966. Two of these were issued as a single, while the other two, including True Story, remained unreleased until Immediate records included them on their Anthology Of British Blues series two years later.

Artist:    Butterfield Blues Band
Title:    Mary Mary
Source:    CD: East-West
Writer(s):    Michael Nesmith
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Poor Mike Nesmith. One of his first compositions to get recorded was Mary Mary, which appeared on the classic 1966 Butterfield Blues Band album East-West. Unfortunately for Mr. Nesmith, the album contained no songwriting credits, leading Butterfield fans to assume the song was a band original. Not long after East-West was released Nesmith successfully auditioned for a new TV show about the adventures of an up-and-coming band called the Monkees. The TV show was an instant success, spawning a hit single and album in late 1966, making Nesmith quite famous. When a second Monkees album appeared in January of 1967 with their own version of Mary Mary on it, a lot of people assumed that Nesmith had ripped off the Butterfield Blues Band. In reality, it was the Monkees themselves that were getting screwed, as the album, featuring studio musicians under the supervision of Don Kirschner playing on all the tracks, was released without the knowledge or consent of the band itself.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Cheryl's Going Home
Source:     Mono CD: Projections
Writer:     Bob Lind
Label:     Sundazed/Verve Folkways
Year: 1966
     One of the more unlikely songs to appear on an album by one of rock's first jam bands, Cheryl's Going Home was originally a B side, released by Bob Lind in 1965. It's possible that the Blues Project recorded it as a possible single of their own but for some reason decided against it. Only the band members and producer Tom Wilson know for sure.

Artist:     Steve Miller Band
Title:     Song For Our Ancestors
Source:     CD: Sailor
Writer:     Steve Miller
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1968
     Sometime around 1980 someone (I don't recall who) released an album called Songs of the Humpback Whale. It was essentially two LP sides of live recordings of the mammals in their natural habitat (the ocean, duh). This was soon followed by a whole series of albums of natural sounds recorded in high fidelity stereo that went under the name Environments. I wonder if the producers of those albums realized that they were following in the footsteps of San Francisco's Steve Miller Band, who's second LP, Sailor, opens with about a minute of ocean sounds (including whale songs) that serve as an intro to Miller's Song For Our Ancestors (which in turn segues into the album's second song, Dear Mary).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) 
Source:    CD: Anthology 2 (mon version originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1970
    Basically a studio concoction assembled by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) was originally intended to be released as a 1969 single by the Plastic Ono Band. The track was the result of four separate recording sessions dating back to 1967 and originally ran over six minutes long. The instrumental tracks were recorded around the same time the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in Spring of 1967. Brian Jones added a saxophone part on June 8th of that year. In April of 1969 Lennon and McCartney added vocals, while Lennon edited the entire track down from a monoraul mixdown to slightly over four minutes. The single was readied for a November release, but at the last minute was withdrawn. The recording was instead released as the B side of the Beatles' Let It Be single the following year. In 1996 the original tapes were re-edited to create a new stereo mix that runs a little over five and a half minutes in length. The new mix was included on the Anthology 2 CD.

Artist:    Love Sculpture
Title:    Sabre Dance
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Khachaturian, arr. Edmunds
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1969
    Eat your heart out, Ted Nugent.

Artist:    Tomorrow
Title:    My White Bicycle
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hopkins/Burgess
Label:    Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1967
    One of the most popular bands with the mid-60s London Mods was a group called the In Crowd. In 1967 the band abandoned its R&B/Soul sound for a more psychedelic approach, changing its name to Tomorrow in the process. Their debut single, My White Bicycle, was inspired by the practice in Amsterdam of leaving white bicycles at various stategic points throughout the city for anyone to use (Ithaca, NY currently does the same thing, except theirs are yellow and green). The song sold well and got a lot of play at local discoteques, but did not chart. Soon after the record was released, however, lead vocalist Keith West had a hit of his own, Excerpt From A Teenage Opera, which did not sound at all like the music Tomorrow was making. After a second Tomorrow single failed to chart, the individual members drifted off in different directions, with West concentrating on his solo career, guitarist Steve Howe joining Bodast, and bassist Junior Wood and drummer Twink Alder forming a short-lived group called Aquarian Age. Twink would go on to greater fame as a member of the Pretty Things and a founder of the Pink Fairies, but it was Howe that became an international star in the 70s after replacing Peter Banks in Yes.

Artist:    Luv'd Ones
Title:    I'm Leaving You
Source:    CD: If You're Ready! The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gallagher/Vinnedge
Label:    Sundazed/Here 'Tis (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Although nearly all of the original material performed by the Luv'd Ones was written by lead guitarist/vocalist Char Vinnedge, rhythm guitarist Mary Gallagher got a co-writing credit on I'm Leaving You. The song was issued as the band's second single for the Dunwich label, and was reissued five months later as the B side of their third and final single, Dance Kid Dance.

Artist:    Country Joe and the Fish
Title:    Section 43
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer:    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    In 1966 Country Joe and the Fish released their original mono version of an instrumental called Section 43. The song was included on a 7" EP inserted in Joe McDonald's underground arts newspaper called Rag Baby. In 1967 the group recorded an expanded stereo version of Section 43 and included it on their debut LP for Vanguard Records, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. It was this arrangement of the piece (and quite possibly this recording) that was used in D. A. Pennebacker's film chronicle of the Monterey International Pop Festival that June.  

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Magic Of Love
Source:    45 RPM single (from box set Move Over)
Writer(s):    M. Spoelstra
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Until 2011, the only available recordings of Magic Of Love by Big Brother And The Holding Company were of live performances in 1967 and 1968. What very few people realized, however, is that the band actually recorded a studio version of Magic Of Love for possible inclusion on their Cheap Thrills album in 1968. Ultimately, though, it was decided that Cheap Thrills would be presented as a set of live recordings, and only two (three if you count Turtle Blues) of the original studio tracks were used on the album (although other studio recordings disguised as live tracks were used as well). Thus the studio version of Magic Of Love was put on the shelf for over 40 years, finally surfacing as part of a special box set of four 45 RPM records called Move Over. 

Artist:    Show Stoppers
Title:    Nothing To Say Today
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    W.E. Hjerpe
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The Show Stoppers were a Rochester, NY based club band that included Don Potter and Bat McGrath, who would go on to release an album together on the Epic label in 1969. The Show Stoppers were discovered by John Hammond in 1966 and signed to the Columbia label, where they released two singles. Both were rather pop-oriented, with better B sides. The first of these B sides was Nothing To Say Today, released in 1966. Both Potter and McGrath now reside in Nashville, where Potter became well-known as the creator of the "Judds sound" in the 1980s. Special thanks to Tom at the Bop Shop in Rochester (a record store that specializes in vinyl) for making these records available to me. 

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Every Good Boy Deserves Favor-side two
Source:    LP: Every Good Boy Deserves Favor
Writer(s):    Lodge/Thomas/Hayward/Pinder
Label:    Threshold
Year:    1971
    The Moody Blues are probably the first rock band to become known for doing nothing but concept albums, starting with the 1967 LP Days Of Future Past. Their 1971 album, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, is no exception, as each song on the LP leads directly into the next track. The second side of the LP consists of four songs, each one written by a different member of the group (a tactic that Pink Floyd was exploring at around the same time). The first of these is One More Time To Live, written by John Lodge. This is followed by Nice To Be Here, a Ray Thomas composition, and You Can Never Go Home, a tune from the pen of Justin Hayward. The album ends with My Song, written by Mike Pinder. Each song on the album is sung by the member that wrote the tune; despite this, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor maintains a consistency of sound throughout.
        
Artist:    Cyrkle
Title:    Bony Moronie
Source:    LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s):    Larry Williams
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The history of rock and roll is filled with one-hit wonders. Less common, however, are groups than managed to crack the upper reaches of the charts a second time, only to suffer diminishing returns with each subsequent effort. Such was the case with the Cyrkle, who burst on the scene with Red Rubber Ball and Turn Down Day in 1966. Originally a frat-rock band called the Rhondells, the group's fortunes turned in a big way on Labor Day of 1965, when New York attorney Nathan Weiss caught their gig in Atlantic City. Weiss in turn recommended the band to his business partner, Brian Epstein, who was looking for an American band to manage (I guess the Beatles weren't enough for him). Epstein renamed the band the Cyrkle (John Lennon providing the variant spelling) and set them up as the opening band for the Beatles' last US tour, including their final gig at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. Along the way, the group signed with Columbia Records, recording two LPs and several singles for the label before disbanding in early 1968. The first album, Red Rubber Ball, was a solid example of sunshine pop, as evidenced by the band's unique arrangement of Larry Williams's Bony Moronie. Two of the band's members, Don Dannemann and Tom Dawes, went on to become successful jingle writers (Dannemann wrote the original Un-Cola song while Dawes came up with "Plop plop fizz fizz" for Alka-Seltzer. The other two members became successful in other fields; one, Marty Fried is a bankruptcy attorney and the other, Earl Pickens, is a surgeon. 
 
Artist:      David Bowie
Title:     Space Oddity
Source:      CD: Sound and Vision Sampler (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko (original US label: Mercury)
Year:     1969
     When David Jones first started his recording career he was a fairly conventional pop singer, even after changing his name to David Bowie (to avoid being confused with Davy Jones of the Monkees). After several failed attempts to establish himself, Bowie released a song called Space Oddity in July of 1969, less than two weeks before the Apollo 11 moon landing. The song got off to a slow start, but by October was a hit in the UK, going all the way into the top 5 on the British charts. It was, however, banned by several radio stations in the US, and only charted three years later when it was re-released by RCA Victor, becoming Bowie's first US top 20 hit. The mellotron heard in the song, incidentally, was played by none other than Rick Wakeman, who would go on to become a member of Yes and a successful solo artist in the 1970s.

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Cowgirl In The Sand
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer:    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    It has been said that adverse conditions are conducive to good art. Certainly that truism applies to Neil Young's Cowgirl In The Sand, written while Young was running a 102 degree fever. Almost makes you want to get sick yourself, doesn't it?

Artist:    Pearls Before Swine
Title:    These Things Too
Source:    LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Record Show (originally released on LP: These Things Too)
Writer(s):    Tom Rapp
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    First there was folk-rock. Then came psychedelic rock. Somewhere among all this emerged something that has come to be called psychedelic folk. Perhaps the best example of this is a band called Pearls Before Swine, formed in Eau Gallie, Florida in 1965 by singer/songwriter/guitarist Tom Rapp with high school friends Wayne Harley (banjo, mandolin), Lane Lederer (bass, guitar) and Roger Crissinger (piano, organ). Inspired by the Fugs, they sent some demo tapes to the New York-based ESP Disk' label, which had released the first Fugs recordings. They were quickly signed to the label and got to work on their first LP, One Nation Underground. The album was a critical success, but whatever money was generated from album sales mysteriously vanished before reaching any band members. This led to subsequent Pearls Before Swine albums being essentially solo albums from Rapp, although Harley was still around for the album These Things Too. Also prominently featured on These Things Too was Rapp's wife Elisabeth, a Dutch national whom he had met during sessions for the second Pearls Before Swine album, Balaklava. 

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Sketch
Source:    LP: The Beat Goes On
Writer(s):    Vanilla Fudge
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Following the success of their debut LP (it hit #6 on the Billboard LP charts in September of 1967), the members of Vanilla Fudge concentrated their efforts on a pair of tunes that were released as a single in January of 1968. Meanwhile their producer, Shadow Morton, was working on a concept album without a whole lot of input from the band itself based around a recent Sonny And Cher hit single. The Beat Goes On was released in February of 1968. Each of the album four phases was centered around a different interpretation of Sonny Bono's composition. The band itself came up with the opening track on the album, appropriately titled Sketch, as it sets the stage for what comes after.

Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Special Care
Source:      LP: Last Time Around
Writer:    Stephen Stills
Label:     Atco
Year:        1968
       Released after Buffalo Springfield had already split up, 1968's Last Time Around is an uneven album that nonetheless includes some tasty tracks that have been largely overlooked. A prime example is Stephen Stills's Special Care, sounding as much like early Crosby, Stills And Nash as it does Buffalo Springfield.
 
Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Source:    CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise) 
Year:    1968
    If there was ever a band that illustrated just how bizarre the late 60s could be, it was the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Formed at a party (hosted by Hollywood hustler Kim Fowley) by the Harris brothers, Shaun and Danny, sons of a noted orchestra conductor, and financed by lyricist Bob Markley, a borderline pedophile with lots of money to burn, the band also included a talented but troubled lead guitarist from Denver, Ron Morgan, and a multi-instrumentalist, Michael Lloyd, who would go on to become a highly successful record producer. As would be expected with such a disparate group, several members ended up quitting during the band's run; strangely enough, they all ended up returning to the band at one time or another. Their music was just as strange as their story, as the title track of their fourth album, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, illustrates vividly. Musically the song is powerful, almost anthemic, creating a mood that is immediately destroyed by a spoken bit (I hesitate to use the term "poetry") by the aforementioned borderline pedophile, against a backdrop of a more subdued musical bed with background vocals somewhat resembling Gregorian chant. And just what words of wisdom does Markley have to share with us? Let me give you a small sample: "a vampire bat will suck blood from our hands, a dog with rabies will bite us, rats will run up your legs, but nothing will matter." Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the whole thing is that the piece was created without benefit of drugs, as all the members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (except for lead guitarist Ron Morgan) were notoriously drug-free, itself a bit of an oddity in late 60s Hollywood. Oddly enough, in spite of this (or maybe because of it), the track is actually quite fun to listen to. Besides, it only lasts two and a half minutes.