https://exchange.prx.org/p/643164
This week we do some exploring, with half a dozen tracks that have never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before joining an entire half hour of tunes from 1967, a Who set and a few trips up and down through the the years 1965 to 1970.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I've Just Seen A Face
Source: CD: Rubber Soul (originally released in UK on LP: Help)
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol/EMI (original UK label: Parlophone)
Year: 1965
Consider the case of Dave Dexter, Jr. Dexter was the guy at Capitol Records who decided in late 1962 that there was no profit in Capitol releasing records by the hot new British band known as the Beatles that had just been signed to their UK partner label, EMI. After he was finally persuaded to issue I Want To Hold Your Hand as a single in late 1963, he became the guy responsible for determining which songs got released in what format: LP or 45 RPM single. He also set the song lineups for all the Beatle albums released in the US up to and including Revolver in 1966. In 1965 he decided to change the entire tone of the Rubber Soul album by deleting the more soulful numbers and substituting a pair of more acoustical tunes that he had left off the US release of Help! This was a deliberate attempt to tie in the Beatles with the folk-rock movement, which at the time of Rubber Soul's release was at the peak of its popularity. Not surprisingly, there are still people around who prefer the US version of the album, which opens with one of the aforementioned Help tracks, I've Just Seen A Face.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: Mono LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
In their early days Jefferson Airplane, like most of their contemporaries, included several cover tunes in their repertoire. Unlike many other bands, however, the Airplane managed to stamp all of their covers with their own unmistakable sound. One excellent example of this is the Airplane's version of Tobacco Road, a song by John D. Loudermilk that had been a hit for the British invasion band Nashville Teens in 1964. The Airplane version, which appears on their debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, takes an entirely different approach than the Teens' rendition (or the similarly styled Blues Magoos version recorded around the same time as the Airplane's), laying off the power chords in favor of a jazzier approach built around Marty Balin's vocals.
Artist: Status Quo
Title: Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Francis Rossi
Label: Rhino (original label: Cadet Concept)
Year: 1967
The band with the most charted singles in the UK is not the Beatles or even the Rolling Stones. It is, in fact, Status Quo, quite possibly the nearest thing to a real life version of Spinal Tap currently in existence. Except for Pictures of Matchstick Men, the group has never had a hit in the US. On the other hand, they remain popular in Scandanavia, playing to sellout crowds on a regular basis (yes, they are still together).
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: (Till I) Run With You
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Bonner/Gordon
Label: Kama Sutra
Year: 1968
Following the departure of John Sebastian, the Lovin' Spoonful turned to drummer Joe Butler to take over the lead vocals for the band. By late 1968, however, public tastes had changed considerably, and the Spoonful's brand of light folky pop, as heard on songs like (Till I) Run With You, was no longer in vogue. After one final LP, Revelation: Revolution 69, which is notable more for the fact that it features a man and woman running naked through a field on the album cover than for the music contained on the album itself, the band called it quits.
Artist: Fat Water
Title: Only For The Moment
Source: Promo LP: Fat Water
Writer(s): Boris
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1969
Virtually nothing is known about the band called Fat Water, other than a) they were probably from somewhere outside the Chicago area, b) they only used their first names, even on songwriting credits, and c) they released one self-titled LP on the M-G-M label in 1969. Only For The Moment, written by Boris the bassist and sung by Vicky the singer, is one of the more listenable tracks on that LP.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: The Band With No Name
Source: CD: Watt
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
A deliberate play on words by guitarist Alvin Lee, The Band With No Name opens side two of the 1970 Ten Years After LP Watt. The term "band" was used in the early days of LP records to refer to the individual songs on an album, which, looked at from above, looked like a series of circular bands separated by the spaces between the songs. The term had largely fallen out of usage by 1970 (giving way to the more popular "track" or sometimes "cut"), which makes sense, given that self-contained groups (like Ten Years After) were generally referred to as bands by that point in time. This particular band is a short instrumental piece done in the style of Ennio Morricone's themes for the "Dollars Trilogy" of Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name.
Artist: Second Time
Title: Listen To The Music
Source: LP: Wild In The Streets (soundtrack)
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
The soundtrack album produced by Mike Curb for the 1968 film Wild In The Streets comes from three sources. The first, and most prominent, are recordings made by Max Frost And The Troopers, the fictional band that the movie itself revolves around. On the album itself these songs (most of which are written by the Brill building songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil) are credited to the 13th Power, which is in all likelihood the real name of the band. A subsequent album by Max Frost And The Troopers features two songs that were also released as a single by the 13th Power on Curb's Sidewalk label, lending credence to this theory. The second group of songs on the soundtrack are from legendary go-to bandleader Les Baxter. Each one of these is credited to a different "band", although they are all performed by studio musicians. And then there are two songs by a group called the Second Time (who were apparently known as The Boys until Curb changed their name, possibly because the 13th Power were originally known as Mom's Boys). One of these, Listen To The Music, was also issued as the B side of one of the aformentioned Lex Baxter tracks (it didn't chart). The only other release I know of by the Second Time is a single released on Sidewalk later the same year. My theory is that the two Second Time songs were originally meant to be a single release, but were instead used on the Wild In The Streets soundtrack album as filler, something Curb was known to have done fairly often prior to his becoming head of M-G-M Records in 1969.
Artist: SRC
Title: Up All Night
Source: Mono import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Milestones)
Writer(s): Clawson/Richardson/Quackenbush/Lyman/Quackenbush
Label: Zonophone UK (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1969
Stylistic and regional contemporaries of bands such as the MC5 and the Amboy Dukes, SRC were formed in 1965 as the Tremelos, soon changing their name to the Fugitives and releasing four singles and an album on various local Detroit labels. They released their first records under the name SRC in 1967, a pair of singles for the A [squared] label, which led to a contract with Capitol that resulted in one album per year from 1968-70. The most successful of these was the 1969 LP Milestones, which included the single Turn Into Love and its B side, Up All Night. After being dropped from the Capitol roster the group continued on for a couple more years, releasing a final single under the name Blue Scepter for Rare Earth Records in 1972.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Omaha
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Moby Grape)
Writer: Skip Spence
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1967
As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.
Artist: Animals
Title: Outcast
Source: British import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Campbell/Johnson
Label: Decca
Year: 1966
Like many mid-60s British groups, the Animals had a fondness for American R&B music, and would often feature covers versions of songs originally released by people like Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. In 1966, for the B side of Inside Looking Out, the Animals recorded Outcast, a song that had been released the previous year by Eddie Campbell and Ernie "Sweetwater" Johnson of Phoenix, Arizona, who recorded as Eddie And Ernie. A different song was used for the US B side of Inside Looking Out, and Outcast was not released in North America until late 1966, when it appeared, in a shorter form, on the LP Animalisms. To my knowledge the longer single version of Outcast has never been released in the US.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Let Me Be
Source: Mono CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released on LP: It Ain't Me Babe and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): P.F. Sloan
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1965
The Turtles were nothing if not able to redefine themselves when the need arose. Originally a surf band known as the Crossfires, the band quickly adopted an "angry young men" stance with their first single, Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, and the subsequent album of the same name. For the follow-up single the band chose a track from their album, Let Me Be, that, although written by a different writer, had the same general message as It Ain't Me Babe. The band would soon switch over to love songs like Happy Together and She'd Rather Be With Me before taking their whole chameleon bit to its logical extreme with an album called Battle Of The Bands on which each track was meant to sound like it was done by an entirely different group.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ron, Rudy and O'Kelley Isley
Label: LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol Records misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.
Artist: Young Rascals
Title: (I've Been) Lonely Too Long
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released on LP: Collections and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Felix Cavalier
Label: Priority (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1967
The Young Rascals got off to a great start with Good Lovin' in 1966, but their next two singles were unable to crack the tp 20, and for a while it looked like the Rascals might end up being one-hit wonders. Then, in 1967, the Collections album was released, and the group's fortunes took a turn for the better. The first hit of the year was (I've Been) Lonely Too Long, a tune that went a long way toward establishing the Young Rascals as the premier "blue-eyed soul" band in the nation. Several more hits followed over the next two years, including People Got To Be Free, one of the defining songs of 1968.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Birds In My Tree
Source: LP: The Best Of The Strawberry Alarm Clock (originally released on LP: Incense And Peppermints)
Writer(s): Bunnell/Bartek
Label: Sundazed/Uni
Year: 1967
The Strawberry Alarm Clock had a history of not acknowledging everyone involved in making their records, especially near the beginning of their career. For instance, the lead vocalist on Incense And Peppermints itself, Greg Munford, was not even a member of the band. Furthermore, four of the ten songs on the album, including Birds In My Tree, we co-written (with bassist George Bunnell) by Steve Bartok, who also provided flute parts for several songs, but received no credit for his work. Birds In My Tree, incidentally, was chosen as the B side for the band's second single, Tomorrow.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Bright Light Lover
Source: CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Bob Bruno
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Keyboardist Bob Bruno's contributions as a songwriter to Circus Maximus tended to favor jazz arrangements. On Bright Light Lover, however, from the band's first album, he proves that he could rock out with the raunchiest of the garage bands when the mood hit.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Gone And Passes By
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Dave Aguilar
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Producer Ed Cobb, years after the fact, expressed regret that he didn't take the time to discover for himself what made the Chocolate Watchband such a popular band among San Jose, California's teenagers. Instead, he tried to present his own vision of what a psychedelic band should sound like on the group's debut LP, No Way Out. Many of the tracks on the album used studio musicians, and two of the tracks featuring the Watchband itself used studio vocalist Don Bennett instead of Dave Aguilar, including the single Let's Talk About Girls. The remaining tracks, although featuring the full band, were somewhat obscured by additional instruments, particular the sitar, which was not normally used by the band when performing live. This synthesis of Cobb's vision and the actual Watchband is probably best illustrated by the song Gone And Passes By, an Aguilar composition that somewhat resembles a psychedelicized version of the Rolling Stones' cover of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.
Artist: Doors
Title: When The Music's Over
Source: CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: Strange Days)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
I remember the first time I heard When The Music's Over. My girlfriend's older brother had a copy of the Strange Days album on the stereo in his room and told us to get real close to the speakers so we could hear the scream of a butterfly while he turned the volume way up. What we got, of course, was a blast of "...we want the world and we want it now." Good times.
Artist: Hamilton Streetcar
Title: Invisible People
Source: Mono LP: Highs In The Mid Sixties Vol. 3- L.A. ‘67/Mondo Hollywood (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Ralphe Plummer
Label: AIP (original label: LHI)
Year: 1967
Hamilton Streetcar was a Los Angeles band that often appeared as an opening act for bands like Jefferson Airplane, Strawberry Alarm Clock and Steppenwolf. They released two singles on Lee Hazelwood's LHI label and an LP for Dot before disbanding in 1969. Invisible People was the B side of their first single, released in August of 1967.
Artist: Who
Title: Happy Jack
Source: British import 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: Reaction/Polydor
Year: 1966
Happy Jack was originally released as a single in the UK in late 1966. It did not hit the US airwaves, however, until the early months of 1967. (I heard it for the first time on KLZ-FM, a Denver station whose format was a forerunner of progressive rock. KLZ-FM didn't call themselves a rock station. They instead marketed themselves as playing the top 100, as opposed to the top 60 played on KIMN, the dominant AM station in the city.) Although the song was not intended to be on an album, Decca Records quickly rearranged the track order of the Who's second album, A Quick One, to make room for the song, changing the name of the album itself to Happy Jack in the process.
Artist: Who
Title: Medac/Relax
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Entwistle/Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
The Who's most psychedelic album was The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. In addition to a wealth of outstanding songs, the album contained several short faux commercials such as the song Medac, written by bassist John Entwistle, which runs 57 seconds. The piece tells the story of a boy whose acne is out of control until he tries a new product, Medac, which makes his face as smooth as "a baby's bottom". The tune is immediately followed by one of the Who's most underrated tracks, Pete Townshend's Relax, which (unlike the rest of the album) was recorded in New York.
Artist: Who
Title: Instant Party (Circles)
Source: Mono LP: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1966
As was the case with many British bands, the song lineups on the early Who albums were not exactly the same in the US and the UK. In the case of the My Generation album, the only difference was actually due to censorship by Decca Records in the US, who felt that the band's version of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man was too risque for American teenagers. To replace it, Decca chose a song that had not yet been released in either the US or UK called Instant Party (Circles). The song was released in the UK as Instant Party a few months later when the band's original British label, Brunswick, issued it as the B side to A Legal Matter without the band's permission (the Who had changed labels to Reaction/Polydor after the My Generation LP was released). Making it even more confusing was the fact that the Who had released their latest single, Substitute, three days before the Brunswick single, with the same song as the B side, but with the title shown as Circles (Instant Party). Less than two weeks later an entirely different band known as Fleur-De-Lys released a version of Circles that was virtually identical to the Who version as the A side of their own single.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Like A Rolling Stone
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Bob Dylan incurred the wrath of folk purists when he decided to use electric instruments for his 1965 LP Highway 61 Revisited. The opening track on the album is the six-minute Like A Rolling Stone, a song that was also selected to be the first single released from the new album. After the single was pressed, the shirts at Columbia Records decided to cancel the release due to its length. An acetate copy of the record, however, made it to a local New York club, where, by audience request, the record was played over and over until it was worn out (acetate copies not being as durable as their vinyl counterparts). When Columbia started getting calls from local radio stations demanding copies of the song the next morning they decided to release the single after all. Like A Rolling Stone ended up going all the way to the number two spot on the US charts, doing quite well in several other countries as well.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: My Obsession
Source: CD: Between The Buttons
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
My Obsession, from the 1967 album Between The Buttons, is the kind of song that garage bands loved: easy to learn, easy to sing, easy to dance to. The Rolling Stones, of course, were the masters of this type of song, which is why so many US garage bands sounded like the Stones.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Fortunate Son
Source: LP: Willy And The Poor Boys
Writer(s): John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1969
John Fogerty says it only took him 20 minutes to write what has become one of the iconic antiwar songs of the late 1960s. But Fortunate Son is not so much a condemnation of war as it is an indictment of the political elite who send the less fortunate off to die in wars without any risk to themselves. In addition to being a major hit single upon its release in late 1969 (peaking at #3 as half of a double-A sided single), Fortunate Son has made several "best of" lists over the years, including Rolling Stone magazine's all-time top 100. Additionally, in 2014 the song was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Artist: Eric Clapton/Jimmy Page
Title: Choker
Source: LP: British Archive Series: Blues for Collectors-Volume 2 (originally released on LP: Blues Anytime Vol. 2)
Writer(s): Clapton/Page
Label: RCA Victor (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1968
Immediate Records released a series of compilation records called Blues Anytime: An Anthology of British Blues in 1968, shortening the title to An Anthology of British Blues for their US release. These albums including several previously unreleased tracks by Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page such as Choker, backed up by Bill Wyman on bass, Mick Jagger on harmonica and Ian Stewart on keyboards. After Immediate Records went under in 1970, RCA Victor reissued the albums under the name British Archive Series: Blues for Collectors.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Born Cross-Eyed
Source: CD: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): The Grateful Dead
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After cranking out their first LP in a matter of days, San Francisco's Grateful Dead took a full six months to record, edit and mix the follow-up album, Anthem Of The Sun. Most of the tracks on the album run together and feature an experimental mix of live and studio material. The sole exception is Born Cross-Eyed, which has a running time of barely over two minutes. As near as I can tell, it is also the only actual studio track on the album. Although the song is credited to the entire band, Bob Weir's lyrics are rumoured to be autobiographical in nature.
Artist: Traffic
Title: You Can All Join In
Source: CD: Traffic
Writer(s): Dave Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
Dave Mason was the first member of Traffic to leave the band due to creative differences with the rest of the group. He rejoined the band, however, in time to help record the group's self-titled second LP. As a general rule, Mason's songs tended to be a bit more psychedelic than the rest of Traffic's material (Feelin' Alright being the obvious exception). Mason's songs also were more popular in Europe than in North America. In fact, when it came time to release a single from the album, it was a Mason song, You Can All Join In, that appeared as the A side on the European continent. The song was also used as the title track for a popular Island Records sampler LP in the UK.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Astronomy Domine
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (originally released in UK and Canada)
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: EMI Columbia)
Year: 1967
When the US version of the first Pink Floyd LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, was released on the Tower label, it was missing several tracks that had appeared on the original British version of the album. Among the most notable omissions was the original album's opening track, Astronomy Domine, which was replaced by the non-LP single See Emily Play. Astronomy Domine is a Syd Barrett composition that was a popular part of the band's stage repertoire for several years. The piece is considered one of the earliest examples of "space rock", in part because of the spoken intro (by the band's manager Peter Jenner) reciting the names of the planets (and some moons) of the solar system through a megaphone.
Artist: Association
Title: Along Comes Mary
Source: Mono LP: And Then...Along Comes The Association
Writer: Tandyn Almer
Label: Valiant
Year: 1966
The Association are best known for a series of love ballads and light pop songs such as Cherish, Never My Love and Windy. Many of these records were a product of the L.A. studio scene and featured several members of the Wrecking Crew, the studio musicians who played on dozens of records in the late 60s and early 70s. The first major Association hit, however, featured the band members playing all the instruments themselves. Produced, and possibly co-written, by Curt Boettcher, who would soon join Gary Usher's studio project Sagittarius, Along Comes Mary shows that the Association was quite capable of recording a classic without any help from studio musicians.
Artist: Spiders
Title: Why Don't You Love Me
Source: Mono EP: The Spiders (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dunaway/Furnier
Label: Sundazed (original label: Mascot)
Year: 1965
Most bands hated the idea of miming to a record for shows like American Bandstand or Ready Steady Go. One Phoenix band, however, actually got their start doing just that in a high school talent show. In 1964 16-year-old Vincent Furnier gathered four other members from his high school track team to "perform" songs in a talent show as the Earwigs, changing the words of popular songs as they saw fit, with only guitarists Glen Buxton and John Tatum actually playing their instruments. After winning the talent show they decided to form a real band using instruments bought at a local pawn shop, with Buxton teaching the others how to play. After a few months they tried out for a local club owner, who liked the band but hated the name Earwigs. Two weeks later the band tried out a second time, this time calling themselves the Spiders and performing with a huge black spider web as their backdrop. Within a year they were popular enough to cut their first record, a single called Why Don't You Love Me on the local Mascot label. By 1967 they had renamed themselves the Nazz, after the Yardbirds song and relocated to Los Angeles. They soon found out, however, that there was already a band on the East Coast called Nazz, and so decided to come up with the most wholesome sounding name they could think of to contrast with the band's somewhat ominous musical style and stage image. That new name was Alice Cooper.
Artist: Byrds
Title: I Knew I'd Want You
Source: LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer: Gene Clark
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
The Byrds did not have many original tunes on their first album, and most of those came from Gene Clark, who would be the first member to leave the band (due to his fear of flying). I Knew I'd Want You is among the most upbeat of Clark's songs.
Artist: Other Side
Title: Walking Down The Road
Source: CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Al Shackman
Label: Big Beat (original labels: Mainstream/Brent)
Year: 1966
San Jose, California was at the center of the most vibrant and dynamic local music scenes in the country in the mid-1960s. By the end of 1966 both the Syndicate Of Sound and Count Five had cracked the national charts, while bands such as the Chocolate Watch Band were just beginning to make their mark. There was a lot of movement of musicians between bands as well, with groups like the Topsiders counting Sean Tolby (Watchband) and Skip Spence (Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape) among their early members. A move by the Topsiders to recruit Watchband guitarist/organist Ned Torney in 1966 resulted in an entirely new group, the Other Side, being formed. They soon had established enough of a reputation to get the attention of Golden State Recorders, who were auditioning acts for Mainstream Records owner Bob Shad. Shad signed the group immediately to his Brent label, releasing Walking Down The Road in early autumn. The stereo mix of Walking Down The Road was included on the compilation album With Love-A Pot Of Flowers on Shad's Mainstream label in late 1967, but by then the group had morphed into a band called Bogus Thunder, which would eventually become known as Gladstone, releasing a single on the A&M label in 1969.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Wear Your Love Like Heaven
Source: CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: A Gift From A Flower To A Garden)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Legacy
Year: 1967
Following the release of his Mellow Yellow album in early 1967 Donovan decided to take a break from the studio, only recording a pair of singles over the next few months. Finally, in October, the Scottish singer/songwriter began work on his next album, a double LP to be called A Gift From A Flower To A Garden. The first disc was a collection of electric pop songs subtitled Wear Your Love Like Heaven, while the second, For Little Ones, featured more acoustic material and was oriented to a younger audience. As a way of hedging their bets, Epic Records also issued the project as a pair of separate albums. The lead single from the album was the title track from the first disc, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, which also opens the entire album. The song did fairly well on the charts, peaking at #23 in the US, and is considered a highlight of Donovan's psychedelic period.
Artist: Gun
Title: It Won't Be Long
Source: British import CD: Gun
Writer(s): Adrian Gurvitz
Label: Repertoire (original label: CBS)
Year: 1968
Gun was a British power trio that was even more popular in Germany than in their native land. Led by guitarist/vocalist Adrian Gurvitz (who was using the name Adrian Curtis at the time), the band evolved out of a larger group called the Knack, changing their name in 1966 and paring down to a three-piece consisting of Gurvitz, his brother Paul on bass and drummer Louis Farrell in 1968. The group scored a top 10 single with the opening track of the self-titled debut LP, a fast-paced rocker called Race With The Devil. The album itself had several outstanding tracks, including It Won't Be Long. As was the case with all the tunes on the album, It Won't Be Long was written and sung by Gurvitz. After two Gun albums the Gurvitz brothers began using their real names and continued to record together, first as Three Man Army and later with drummer Ginger Baker as the Baker-Gurvitz Army.
Artist: Elephant's Memory
Title: Jungle Jim At The Zoo
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 Cowboy, which was a bit disingenuous, since out of the 11 songs on the LP, only two were actually from the movie soundtrack. One of those two was Jungle Jim At The Zoo, which has some really bizarre lyrics.
