Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2626 (starts 6/22/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/623811

    This week we have a major battle of the bands, as the Beatles take on the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Other highlights include a thematic Advanced Psych segment, and our first look at an album series called The Electric Lemonade Acid Test that came out at the turn of the century and featured obscurities from lesser-known British labels that existed in the late 1960s. It all gets underway with a mid-60s fauna set.
 
Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965 
    After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the Byrds turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics adapted from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
    
Artist:    Turtles
Title:    You Baby
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Sloan/Barri
Label:    FloEdCo (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1966
    After first hitting the charts with their version of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles released yet another "angry young rebel" song, P.F. Sloan's Let Me Be. Realizing that they needed to vary their subject matter somewhat if they planned on having a career last longer than six months, the band formerly known as the Crossfires went with another Sloan tune, You Baby, for their first single of 1966. Although the music was in a similar style to Let Me Be, the lyrics, written by Steve Barri, were fairly typical of teen-oriented love songs of the era. The Turtles would continue to record songs from professional songwriters for single release for the remainder of their existence, with their original compositions showing up mostly as album tracks and B sides, while Sloan and Barri would go on writing and producing teen-oriented love songs for a group called the Grass Roots. 

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    Monterey
Source:    CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1968
    One of the first appearances of the New Animals on stage was at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The experience so impressed the group that they wrote a song about it. The song was issued both as a single and on the LP The Twain Shall Meet. The single used a mono mix; the LP version, while in stereo, was overlapped at both the beginning and end by adjoining tracks, and was missing the first few seconds of the single version. The version used here was created by splicing the mono intro onto the stereo main portion of the song, fading out at the end a bit early to avoid the overlap from the LP. This process (called making a "cut down") was first done by a company called Drake-Chenault, which supplied tapes to radio stations using the most pristine stereo versions of songs available. Whether M-G-M, which included Monterey on The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals Volume 2, used the Drake-Chenault version or did the cut down itself, the result is the same.

Artist:    Sebastian Cabot
Title:    It Ain't Me Babe
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    One of the more popular recurring sitcom themes of the late 60s was the single father. In nearly every case the father was played by an already established actor, starting with Fred MacMurray in My Three Sons. Brian Keith took his turn with Family Affair, which ran from 1966 to 1971. What made this show stand out visually from the rest was the presence of French the butler, played by the bearded Sebastian Cabot. Cabot, an English actor, also did a lot of voice work for Disney Studios, including narrating several Winnie The Pooh films. In 1966 he recorded a spoken word version of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe with a chamber orchestra background.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label:    Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    In the early 1960s the San Bernardino/Riverside area of Southern California (sometimes known as the Inland Empire), was home to a pair of rival top 40 stations, KFXM and KMEN. The newer of the two, KMEN, had a staff that included Ron Jacobs, who would go on to co-create the Boss Radio format (more music, less talk!), and Brian Lord, one of the first American DJs to champion British Rock. Lord arranged for copies of Beatles albums to be shipped to KMEN from record shops in London before they were released in the US, giving the station an edge over its competition in 1964. More importantly in the long term, Lord was the man responsible for setting up the Rolling Stones' first US gig (in San Bernardino). From 1965-67 Lord took a break from KMEN, moving north to the San Jose area. While there, he heard a local band playing in a small teen club and invited them to use his garage as a practice space. The band was Count Five, and, with Lord's help, they got a contract with L.A.'s Double Shot label, recording and releasing the classic Psychotic Reaction in 1966. Lord later claimed that this was the origin of the term "garage rock".

Artist:    Who
Title:    I'm A Boy (original version)
Source:    British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Reaction
Year:    1966
    The Who's1966 hit I'm A Boy was originally intended to be part of a rock mini-opera set in a future where parents choose the sex of their children ahead of time. The family of the protagonist orders four girls, but instead gets three girls and a boy. Refusing to acknowledge the truth, the mother insists on dressing the boy in girl's clothing and forces him to do "feminine" things. OK, it's a pretty absurd idea, but the song, recorded in early August of 1966 and released about two weeks later, ended up going all the way to the #2 spot on the British charts. The song was rearranged and re-recorded three months later for the 1966 LP A Quick One, but ended up being left off the album. It finally appeared on the 1971 LP Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy
Source:    Mono Canadian import CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released on LP: Kinda Kinks)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy is perhaps recognizable from a TV commercial from a few years back (don't ask me who the ad was for, as I tend to ignore such things). The song was originally the opening track from the 1965 album Kinda Kinks, which, like most British albums of the time, had a different song lineup on its US release than the original UK version. In this case, it also had entirely different cover art, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

Artist:    Del-Vetts
Title:    Every Time
Source:    Mono LP: The Dunwich Records Story (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jim Lauer
Label:    Tutman (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Chicago's Del-Vetts only released three singles before changing their name to Pride And Joy in 1967. The best of these was Last Time Around, written by Dennis Dahlquist, who also wrote the B side, a tune called Every Time. Although not an official band member, Dahlquist wrote nearly all the group's original material.

Artist:    Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title:    Time Is After You
Source:    CD: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading /The Great Conspiracy (originally released on LP: The Great Conspiracy)
Writer(s):    Alan Brackett
Label:    Collectables (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    The Young Swingers, consisting of John Merrill (guitar/vocals), Barbara "Sandi" Robison (vocals), Alan Brackett (bass/vocals),  Spencer Dryden (drums), and Jim Cherniss (guitar/vocals), were a Los Angeles band that released two obscure singles in 1965 before they started calling themselves the Ashes, releasing their first single under that name in early 1966. The group disbanded, however, in June of that year when Dryden accepted an offer to replace Skip Spence as the drummer for Jefferson Airplane and Robison left to have a baby. Brackett formed a new band called the Crossing Guards with guitarist Lance Fent and drummer Jim Voight. By the end of the year Merrill and Robison had joined the new group as well, taking the name Peanut Butter Conspiracy and releasing their debut single on Columbia Records in January of 1967. The group recorded two LPs for Columbia. The second of these, The Great Conspiracy, included several original tunes, including Time Is After You, which Brackett had written nearly two years earlier. After several lineup and label changes, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy finally disbanded in 1970.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    You Got Me Floatin'
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience took four-track recording technology to new levels with their second LP, Axis: Bold As Love on songs like You Got Me Floatin'. The track opens with backwards guitar followed by a memorable riff that continues throughout the song. The entire instrumental break also uses backward-masked guitar, making a somewhat simplistic song into a track that bears further listens.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    With the exception of John Lennon's 1968 audio collage Revolution 9, the longest Beatle song ever recorded was I Want You (She's So Heavy), from the Abbey Road album. The track alternates between two distinct sections: the jazz-like I Want You, which contains most of the song's lyrical content, and the primal-scream based She's So Heavy, which repeats the same phrase endlessly in 6/8 time while an increasingly loud wall of white noise eventually leads to an abrupt cut-off at 7:47.

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

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Oh! Darling
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    Paul McCartney reportedly recorded vocals for the Abbey Road track Oh! Darling on several consecutive days (always using the first take) in an effort to make it sound like he had been performing it night after night in a club. In an interview shortly before his death, former bandmate John Lennon had this to say about the song: "Oh! Darling was a great one of Paul's that he didn't sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better—it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he's going to sing it."

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    If 6 Was 9
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Before 1967 stereo was little more than an excuse to charge a dollar more for an LP. That all changed in a hurry, as artists such as Jimi Hendrix began to explore the possibilities of the technology, in essence treating stereophonic sound as a multi-dimensional sonic palette. The result can be heard on songs such as If 6 Were 9 from the Axis: Bold As Love album, which is best listened to at high volume, preferably with headphones on. Especially the spoken part in the middle, when Jimi says the words "I'm the one who's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want." It sounds like he's inside your head with you. 
    
Artist:     Beatles
Title:     Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)/A Day In The Life
Source:     CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:     1967
     One of the great accidents of record production was the splice that turned the chicken at the end of Good Morning Good Morning into a guitar, starting off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) and ultimately leading into A Day In The Life, with it's slowly dissolving orchestral chord that brings the number one album of 1967 to a close. It turns out it works pretty well following Jimi's penny whistle at the end of If 6 Was 9, too.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Kicks
Source:    Simulated stereo CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released on 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    Kicks was not the first pop song with a strong anti-drug message, but it was the first one to be a major hit, making it to the number four spot on the US charts and hitting number one in Canada. It remained Paul Revere and the Raiders' best known song until Indian Reservation went all the way to the top of the charts five years later.

Artist:    Infrared Radiation Orchestra
Title:    Call Me Tanya
Source:    EP CD: Mad Dog Sullivan (And Other Love Songs)
Writer(s):    Kim Draheim
Label:    GTG
Year:    2017
    In 2017 the Infrared Radiation Orchestra put out a five-song EP that included the nine-minute long Call Me Tanya. A listen to the lyrics makes it obvious just which Tanya is being referred to.

 Artist:    Patti Smith
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts (spoken intro written by Patti Smith)
Label:    Mer
Year:    1974
    Before signing with Arista Records in 1975, the Patti Smith group recorded a 1974 single for the independent Mer label. Financed by art collector/curator Sam Wagstaff, the record featured Smith's version of Hey Joe, with a spoken introduction concerning Patty Hearst, who had been kidnapped by, and subsequently became a member of, a radical group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army that year.

Artist:    Smithereens
Title:    Long Way Back Again
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM box set: A Date With The Smithereens
Writer(s):    Pat DiNizio
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1994
    As always, Pat DiNizio's lyrics for Long Way Back Again are open to interpretation, which makes it a perfect fit for our first ever thematic Advanced Psych set. The song, from the 1994 album A Date With The Smithereens, is enhanced by a short guitar solo from Lou Reed.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sympathy For The Devil
Source:    LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1968
    When I was a teenager I would occasionally hear some adult make a comment about how rock and roll was the "Devil's music." This only got more ridiculous in 1968, when the Rolling Stones released Sympathy For The Devil as the opening track on their Beggar's Banquet album. Mick Jagger, who wrote the lyrics, was actually somewhat mystified by such reactions, as it was, after all, only one song on an album that also included such tunes as Prodigal Son (based on a Bible story) and Salt Of The Earth, a celebration of the common man. There is no doubting, however, that Sympathy For The Devil itself is a classic, and has been a staple of the band's live sets since the late 1980s. 

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    We're A Fade, You Missed This
Source:    Mono CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    I can't help but think that this song title is a dig at the mastering engineer at United Artists who faded the opening track of the album Heaven Is In Your Mind nearly a minute too early. The track itself is the missing last 54 seconds of Paper Sun, tacked on to the end of the album.

Artist:    Exception
Title:    Don't Torture Your Mind
Source:    British import LP: The Electric Lemonade Acid Test (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Roger Hill
Label:    Tenth Planet (original label: President)
Year:    1969
    Formed in 1966, the Exception released a pair of singles on the CBS before switching over to the President label for their next five releases. The B side of the last of these was Don't Torture Your Mind, which also appeared on their sole LP, The Exceptional Exception. The song was written and sung by guitarist Roger Hill, who would briefly become a member of Fairport Convention in 1972.

Artist:    Simon De Lacy
Title:    Goodbye Love
Source:    Mono British import LP: The Electric Lemonade Acid Test volume four (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Peter Thorp
Label:    Tenth Planet (original label: Spark)
Year:    1968
    First off, Simon De Lacy was not the name of an actual person. For that matter, Simon De Lacy was not the name of a band, either. There was, however, a Charles De Lacy in the band (he played bass) that was actually more of a one-off creation of guitarist Peter Thorp, who reportedly wanted to call the group Paprika Pepper. The record company, however, had other ideas, figuring that since the name Simon was popping up all over the place in 1968 they would just market the song Baby Come Back To Me as a "Simon De Lacy" record. Both Baby Come Back To Me and its B side were actually sung by Chris Jennings, who insists that he was neither Chris or Tim Andrews, as apparently some people have speculated.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Somebody To Love
Source:    British import CD: Peace & Love-The Woodstock Generation (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s):    Darby Slick
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1967
    Over 40 years after the fact, it's hard to imagine just how big an impact Jefferson Airplane's fifth single had on the garage band scene. Whereas before Somebody To Love came out you could just dismiss hard-to-cover songs as being not worth learning, here was a tune that was undeniably cool, and yet virtually impossible for anyone but the Airplane to play well (and even they were unable to get it to sound quite the same when they performed it live).

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Try To Understand
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 6-Punk, Part Two (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    The Seeds' first recording session of 1966 resulted in the band's third single, Try To Understand. By this point in the band's career lead vocalist Sky Saxon was no longer playing bass in the studio, although he continued to play the instrument onstage. At Saxon's request, Harvey Sharpe of the Beau-Jives, a popular Los Angeles band that occasionally appeared at Gene Norman's Crescendo Club (Norman also being the owner of the GNP Crescendo record label that the Seeds recorded for) joined the group in the studio, along with guitarist Vinnie Fanelli. The song was not able to get much airplay when released as an A side in February of 1966, and subsequently was chosen as the B side of the re-released version of Pushin' Too Hard later the same year, which ended up being the group's biggest hit. The song also appeared as the opening track of side two of the Seeds' debut LP.

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

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Wishful Sinful
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Robby Kreiger
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1969
    Wishful Sinful, perhaps more than any other song, typifies what's wrong with the Doors' 1969 album The Soft Parade. The tune, written by guitarist Robby Krieger, is lavishly embellished by strings and horns, which made it appealing to the more conservative elements of the music industry, such as the trade magazine Cash Box, while totally alienating the band's core audience. Released as a single in March of 1969, Wishful Sinful was a hit in Denmark, where it went into the top 10 and stayed there for a month. In the US, however, it was unable to crack the top 40 charts. As critic Richie Unterberger later put it, the song was "not all that good, and not sung very convincingly by [Jim] Morrison."

Artist:    Boston Tea Party
Title:    We Have Already Died
Source:    LP: The Boston Tea Party
Writer(s):    Mike Stevens
Label:    Flick Disk
Year:    1968
    Despite having a distribution deal with major label M-G-M, Flick-Disk only released three LPs and a pair of 45s, all in 1968. The first of these was from a Burbank, California psychedelic band incongruously named the Boston Tea Party. The band had released three singles for three different labels the previous year. For obvious reasons, We Have Already Died was passed over as a single from their only LP, despite probably being the best song on the album.

Artist:    Lemon Pipers
Title:    Green Tambourine
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Green Tambourine)
Writer(s):    Leka/Pinz
Label:    Priority (original label: Buddah)
Year:    1967
    Originally known as Ivan And The Sabers, Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label. Unfortunately for the band, it was their only hit. Making it even worse is the fact that, although the Lemon Pipers themselves were a real band (from a college town yet!) that had been making recordings since 1964, they ended up being grouped in with several "bands" who were for the most part studio creations by the Kazenetz/Katz production team that supplied Buddah with a steady stream of bubble-gum hits throughout 1968.

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    Find The Hidden Door
Source:    British Import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released in UK on LP: Before The Dream Faded)
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Cherry Red)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1982
    One of London's most legendary psychedelic bands was actually from California. The story of the Misunderstood started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most West Coast bands of the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock 'n' roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes, including the addition of lead vocalist Rick Brown. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, an Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were joined by a local guitarist, Tony Hill.  Ravencroft's brother Alan got the band a deal with Fontana Records, resulting in a single in late 1966, I Can Take You To The Sun, that took the British pop scene by storm. In addition to that single, the band recorded a handful of outstanding tracks that remained unreleased until the 1980s. Among those unreleased tracks was a masterpiece called Find The Hidden Door, written (as were most of the songs the band recorded in London) by Brown and Hill.  Problems with their work visas derailed the Misunderstood, and the band members soon found themselves being deported back to the US, and in one case, drafted into the US Army. 
As for John Ravencroft, he eventually returned to London, where he changed his last name to Peel and went on to become the most celebrated British DJ (or "presenter", as they call them there) of all time.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2626 (starts 6/22/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/623809

    It's once again free-form week on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, as we stay mostly in the years 1970-1973 for most of the hour. 

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title:     In From The Storm
Source:     LP: The Cry Of Love
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1970
     Although nobody knows for sure what the final track lineup would have been for Jimi Hendrix's first studio album since 1968's Electric Ladyland, most everyone associated with him agrees that it would have been a double LP and that In From The Storm would have been included on it. The song was first released on The Cry Of Love, the first posthumus Hendrix album, and subsequently was included on Voodoo Soup, Alan Douglas's first attempt at recreating that legendary fourth album. The song also appears on First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, the CD that has replaced Voodoo Soup in the Hendrix catalog. The recording features Hendrix on guitar, Mitch Mitchell on drums and Hendrix's longtime friend Billy Cox on bass. Before Hendrix's death in September of 1970 the trio had often been billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Hang Onto Yourself
Source:    CD: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1972
    David Bowie proved that he was quite capable of writing a straight up power pop tune with Hang Onto Yourself from The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. The album itself, as the title implies, documents the short career of pop star Ziggy Stardust against a backdrop of the imminent destruction of the world. While most of the songs on the album are about Ziggy Stardust, I've always imagined Hang Onto Yourself as being one of Ziggy's own songs, a hit single along the same lines as Grand Funk Railroad's We're An American Band or Mountain's Mississippi Queen. Interestingly enough, Bowie had released an earlier version of Hang Onto Yourself as a 1971 single under the name Arnold Corns. Was "Arnold Corns" a dry run for Ziggy Stardust?

Artist:    Iggy And The Stooges
Title:    Search And Destroy
Source:    LP: Raw Power
Writer(s):    Pop/Williamson
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    Raw Power, the third album by the Stooges, saw the addition of James Williamson on guitar, with Ron Asheton moving over to bass to replace the departing Dave Alexander. Williamson also co-wrote all the songs on Raw Power with vocalist Iggy Pop. The album's opening track, Search And Destroy, has been called "an archetype for punk rock" and has been covered by numerous bands over the ensuing years.

Artist:    Rare Bird
Title:    Epic Forest
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Epic Forest)
Writer(s):    Rare Bird
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1972
    In late 1968 organist Graham Field placed a classified ad in a local music periodical looking for a pianist. In November David Kaffinetti responded to the ad, and the two of them began working on what would eventually become the band called Rare Bird. Yet more classified ads led to the eventual recruitment of vocalist/bassist Steve Gould and drummer Mark Ashton in August of 1969. Rare Bird was one of the first bands signed to Tony Stratton-Smith's Charisma label, but Field was not happy with the terms of the Charisma contract and left the band in 1971. After securing permission from Field to continue using the name Rare Bird, Gould and Kaffinetti recruited drummer Fred Kelly, guitarist Andy "Ced" Curtis and bassist Paul Karas to fill out the new lineup. This new version of Rare Bird signed with Polydor, releasing the album Epic Forest in 1972. Rare Bird was never a commercial success in their native England, however, and eventually disbanded in 1975.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Whenever You're Ready (We'll Go Steady Again) (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Source:    British import EP: Four From Four Eyes
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    DJM
Year:    1973
    Elton John gave us an unexpected present when he released Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting as a single in 1973: not one, but two non-LP B sides for the price of one. The second one, Whenever You're Ready (We'll Go Steady Again), features David Johnstone on slide guitar.

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Jail Bait
Source:    CD: Argus (bonus track originally released on promo EP: Live From Memphis)
Writer(s):    Powell/Turner/Upton/Turner
Label:    MCA/Decca
Year:    1972
    On August 12, 1972, Wishbone Ash made an appearance at Memphis radio station WMC-FM, performing one song from their 1970 debut album, and two more from the 1971 LP Pilgrimage. The band was so pleased with the quality of the recordings that they released all three songs on an EP later that year...but only as a promotional record to other radio stations. All three songs, including Jail Bait, were included as bonus tracks on the 2002 remastered CD version of their third album, Argus.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    I Want Freedom
Source:    CD: Survival
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1971
    After being savaged by the rock press for their first three studio albums, Grand Funk Railroad mellowed their hard rocking sound a bit with their 1971 LP Survival. It was the first Grand Funk album to feature keyboards (played by lead guitarist Mark Farner) extensively, as a listen to I Want Freedom, which opens side two of the album, demonstrates.

Artist:     Ten Years After
Title:     Circles
Source:     CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer:     Alvin Lee
Label:     Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:     1970
     Cricklewood Green continued the development of Ten Years After away from its blues roots and toward a more progressive rock sound that would ultimately lead them to their only top 40 hit, I'd Love To Change The World. That song, however, was still a couple albums in the future when Cricklewood Green was released in 1970. The seldom-heard Circles is basically an acoustic solo number from Alvin Lee.
 
Artist:    Badfinger
Title:    Money
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Tom Evans
Label:    Apple
Year:    1971
    Although Pete Ham was the primary songwriter for Badfinger, bandmate Tom Evans was no slouch either, as can be heard on Money, the B side of Day After Day.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Title:    Knife-Edge
Source:    CD: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Writer(s):    Janocek, arr. Emerson/Lake/Palmer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1970
    Starting with the release of their first self-titled LP, Emerson, Lake & Palmer were known for incorporating classical music into rock compositions. One of the earliest examples of this is Knife-Edge, an adaptation of  the first movement of Leoš Janácek's Sinfonietta that incorporates a section of Johann Sebastian Bach's first French Suite in D minor as well. All this on a piece that rocks out as hard as, if not harder than, anything else released in 1970. 

Artist:    John Hammond
Title:    Shake For Me
Source:    LP: Duane Allman-An Anthology (originally released on LP: Southern Fried)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Capricorn (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1969
    In 1969 blues singer/guitarist went to Alabama to record an album with several members of the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. At the same time, guitarist Duane Allman was a frequent guest musician at Muscle Shoals in between gigs with his own group, the Allman Brother Band. Allman ended up playing on several tunes on Hammond's Southern Fried LP, including the album's opening track, a cover of Willie Dixon's Shake For Me. Following the death of Duane Allman in 1971, Capricorn Records compiled a double LP called Duane Allman-An Anthology that included highlights of his studio work at Muscle Shoals.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Beggar's Farm
Source:    CD: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Parallels can be drawn between the early recordings of Jethro Tull and the American band Spirit. Both showed jazz influences that would be less prominent on later albums, but that helped both bands stand out from the pack on their respective debut LPs. An example of this can be heard on the track Beggar's Farm, an Ian Anderson tune from the first Jethro Tull album This Was.
 
Artist:    Crosby, Stills & Nash
Title:    Just A Song Before I Go
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1977
    By the mid 1970s Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were almost as well-known for their backstage fights as they were for the music they had made. In fact, after deja vu was released in 1970, it was seven years before even the original trio of David Crosby, Stephen Still and Graham Nash made another studio album, and even then Neil Young was conspicuously absent from the sessions. In spite of (or maybe because of) this, the 1977 LP CSN was an instant hit, peaking at #2 on the Billboard albums chart and going on to become their all-time best-selling album. The album also contained their only top 10 single, Nash's Just A Song Before I Go, which peaked at #7.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2625 (starts 6/15/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/622891

    Regular listeners of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era know that, rather than trying to be totally psychedelic all the time, we tend to put the emphasis on the era itself. This means that, in addition to the acid rock, we have garage rock, folk-rock, British rock, sunshine pop, blues rock and even an occasional soul classic thrown into the mix from time to time. This week, however, the emphasis is definitely on the psychedelic, culminating with a pair of extended pieces from Procol Harum and Pink Floyd. But first, a set of tunes from bands that appeared on the playbill of the Monterey International Pop Festival, which happened 59 years ago this week.

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    Monterey
Source:    CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1968
    One of the first appearances of the New Animals on stage was at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The experience so impressed the group that they wrote a song about it. The song was issued both as a single and on the LP The Twain Shall Meet. The single used a mono mix; the LP version, while in stereo, was overlapped at both the beginning and end by adjoining tracks, and was missing the first few seconds of the single version. The version used here was created by splicing the single intro onto the  main portion of the song, fading out at the end a bit early to avoid the overlap from the LP. Most versions I have heard use the mono version of the short intro section, but this particular one, from a CD called Retrospective, has the entire song in true stereo.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Purple Haze
Source:     British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released in the UK as a 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     Polydor (original label:Track)
Year:     1967
     Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK on the Track label and in Europe on the Polydor label as a single, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise got the rights to release the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, in the US, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. Purple Haze next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which was released pretty much everywhere. Later releases included The Essential Jimi Hendrix in the US and a European double LP release on Polydor called The Singles, which collected all the tracks that had previously appeared on 7" vinyl anywhere, including posthumous releases. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that the song has now been released by all three currently existing major record conglomerates. 

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; even Country Joe himself wasn't sure) that was used in D. A. Pennebacker's film chronicle of the Monterey International Pop Festival that June.  

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Big Black Smoke
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Kinks had some of the best non-album sides of the 60s. Case in point: Big Black Smoke, which appeared as the B side of Dead End Street in November of 1966. The song deals with a familiar phenomenon of the 20th century: the small town girl that gets a rude awakening after moving to the big city. In this case the city was London, known colloquially as "the Smoke".

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Strange Brew
Source:    CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Clapton/Collins/Pappalardi
Label:    Polydor.Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    It's Breaking Me Up
Source:    LP: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull originally was part of the British blues scene, but even in the early days the band's principal songwriter Ian Anderson made no secret of the fact that he wanted to expand beyond the confines of that particular genre. Ironically, It's Breaking Me Up, from Jethro Tull's first LP, is an Anderson composition that is rooted solidly in the British blues style.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Out Of The Question
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Future
Writer(s):    Saxon/Serpent
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1965
    Until 2014, one's chances of hearing, let alone posessing, a copy of the B side of the original pressing of the Seeds' You're Pushing Too Hard was, for most of us, Out Of The Question. A rechannelled stereo version of the song appeared two years later on the third Seeds album, Future, which sold poorly and is almost as hard to find as the original single.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Mr. Farmer
Source:    CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: A Web Of Sound)
Writer:    Sky Saxon
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1966
    With two tracks (Can't Seem To Make You Mine and Pushin' Too Hard) from their first album getting a decent amount of airplay on L.A. radio stations in 1966 the Seeds headed back to the studio to record a second LP, A Web Of Sound. The first single released from the album was Mr. Farmer, a song that once again did well locally. The only national hit for the Seeds came when Pushin' Too Hard was re-released in December of 1966, hitting its peak the following spring.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Fallin'
Source:    LP: Future
Writer(s):    Saxon/Hooper
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1967
    After Pushin' Too Hard cracked the national charts nearly two years after its initial release, the Seeds went into the studio to record their third LP, Future. Unlike their first two albums, Future contains more than a few experimental tracks, including Fallin', a seven and a half minute long freakout that closes out the album's second side.

Artist:    ? And The Mysterians
Title:    I Need Somebody
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Rudy Martinez
Label:    Cameo
Year:    1966
    ? And The Mysterians, although formed in 1962, didn't enter a recording studio until April 15, 1966,, when they recorded 96 Tears at Art Schiell's Recording Studio in Bay City, Michigan. The song was released on the local Pa-Go-Go label and got a strong response in Michigan and Ontario, prompting the owner of Cameo Records to buy the rights to the song and distribute it nationally. The song went all the way to the top of the charts in the US and Canada, making the top 40 in several other countries, including the UK, as well. They followed up this success with an LP, also called 96 Tears. The first single from that album was I Need Somebody, which charted only in the US, peaking at #22. It was the last ? And The Mysterians song to hit the top 40 anywhere.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Here's Where You Belong
Source:    CD: Part One
Writer(s):    P.F. Sloan
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    If Here's Where You Belong sounds like it might have been a Turtles song, there's good reason for it. Many of the early Turtles hits were written by L.A. songwriter P.F. Sloan, who also wrote Barry McGuire's Eve Of Destruction and, with partner Steve Barri, was the driving force behind the Grass Roots in the early 1970s. A chance meeting between Sloan and the members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band at a taping for the Ed Sullivan show led to the band recording Here's Where You Belong for their first major label album, Part One, released in early 1967. It was, as it turned out, the band's most commercial sounding release, although, oddly enough, it was never issued as a single.

Artist:    Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty
Title:    A Visit With Ayshia
Source:    CD: Things
Writer(s):    Merrell Fankhauser
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Shamley)
Year:    1968
    Merrill Fankhauser first started playing guitar shortly after moving to San Luis Obispo, California in his teens. By 1960 he had become proficient enough to join a local band, the Impacts, as lead guitarist. In 1962 the Impacts got what they thought was a lucky break, but that turned out to be a classic example of people in the music business taking advantage of young, naive musicians. Following a successful gig at a place called the Rose Garden Ballroom they were approached by a guy named Norman Knowles, who played saxophone with a band called the Revels. Knowles convinced the Impacts to record an album's worth of material for Tony Hilder at Hilder's backyard studio in the Hollywood area. The two of them then took the recordings to Bob Keene, who issued them on his own Del-Fi label. It is not known how much money Knowles and Hilder made on the deal, but the Impacts never saw a penny of it, having signed a contract giving the band the grand total of one US dollar. Not long after the incident Fankhauser left the Impacts to move to Lancaster, Calfornia, where he formed a new band, the Exiles, in 1964. The Exiles had some regional success with a song called Can't We Get Along before breaking up, with Fankhauser returning to the coast to form his own band, Merrell and the Xiles. This band had a minor hit with a song called Tomorrow's Girl in 1967, leading to an album issued under the name Fapardokly (a mashup of band members' Fankhauser, Parrish, Dodd and Lee's last names). Fankhauser and Dodd then formed another band called Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty, which landed a contract with Uni Records (the label that would became MCA), issuing a self-titled album in 1968. This album was even more psychedelic than Fapardokly, as can be heard on A Visit With Ayshia. Fankhauser has been involved with several other projects since then, including a band called Mu in the early 1970s and, more recently the Fankhauser Cassidy band with drummer Ed Cassidy from Spirit. His latest project is an MP3 album called Signals From Malibu, released in 2015. 

Artist:    Family
Title:    The Weaver's Answer
Source:    British import CD: Music In A Doll's House/Family Entertainment (originally released on LP: Family Entertainment)
Writer(s):    Whitney/Chapman
Label:    See For Miles (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    Family was one of those bands that is more heard about than actually heard, mainly due to the presence of Ric Grech, the bassist/violinist who left the group in 1969 to become a member of Blind Faith and later was the bassist for Traffic. The band was originally formed in 1966, and consisted of Roger Chapman (lead vocals) John "Charlie" Whitney (guitar, organ, piano), Jim King (saxophone), Ric Grech (bass, violin) and Harry Ovenall (drums). Following an unsuccessful 1967 single on the Liberty label Ovenall left the group, to be replaced by Rob Townsend. It was this lineup that recorded the band's first two albums for the Reprise label, Music In A Doll's House and Family Entertainment. The Weaver's Answer, the opening track from Family Entertainment, was the band's signature song in concert. On the album the song, about an old man's request to the Weaver of Life to see "the patterns of my life gone by upon your tapestry", is fairly subdued, but both Whitney and Chapman, who wrote the tune, were unhappy with the studio arrangement. As a result, the piece was reworked considerably for live performances, becoming a louder, much harder rocking tune that was often used as the band's show closer. 

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Aimless Lady
Source:    CD: Closer To Home
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Despite being universally panned by the rock press, Grand Funk Railroad managed to achieve gold record status three times in the year 1970. The first two of these were actually released the previous year, but it was the massive success of their third LP, Closer To Home, that spurred sales of the band's albums overall. All of the songs on Closer To Home were written and sung by guitarist Mark Farner, including Aimless Lady, probably the best example on the album of a "typical" Grand Funk Railroad song.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Let Me Be
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    P.F. Sloan
Label:    FloEdCo (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:    Turtles    
Title:    All My Problems
Source:    LP: You Baby
Writer(s):    Lasseff/Feigin
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1966
    Songwriting credits for All My Problems, an album track on the second Turtles album, You Baby, went to "Dwight Tunji". The "Dwight Tunji Trio" was also credited on the album with supplying percussion and special effects. The problem is that there was no such person as "Dwight Tunji". It turns out that the name was actually a pseudonym used by Lee Laseff and Ted Feigin, owners of the White Whale label. Apparently there were royalty issues associated with the owners of a record label also getting paid for writing a song on the LP. Or, more likely, the band was coerced into recording All My Problems (a not particularly notable track) in the first place specifically so that the owners of the label could double dip. If that is indeed the case, I apologize for inadvertantly sanctioning such a sleazy move by playing the song and thus creating potential royalty money for those involved (then again that was 60 years ago, so they may not even be around to collect).

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Love In The City 
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Kaylan/Volman/Nichol/Pons/Seiter
Label:    FloEdCo (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1969
    One of the most overlooked songs in the Turtles catalog, Love In The City, produced by Ray Davies, was the last single released from the album Turtle Soup in 1969. At this point the band had gone through various personnel changes, although the group's creative core of Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman and Al Nichol remained intact. Still, as good as Love In The City was, it had become clear that the Turtles had run their last race. After releasing one more single (a rather forgettable balled called Lady-O), the band called it quits. Kaylan and Volman would end up joining the Mothers of Invention, appearing on the legendary Live At Fillmore East album before striking out on their own as the Phlorescent Leech (later shortened to Flo) And Eddie. 

Artist:    Association
Title:    Looking Glass
Source:    LP: Renaissance
Writer(s):    Jules Alexander
Label:    Valiant
Year:    1966
    The Association was formed in 1965 after the breakup of the 13-member group known as the Men. Their first single was a cover of the folk song Babe I'm Gonna Leave You that was issued on the independent Jubilee label. In 1966 they signed with the slightly larger Valiant label, which had a distribution deal with Warner Brothers Records, and recorded their first album Along Comes...The Association. The album spawned two hit singles, Along Comes Mary and Cherish, and the Association soon got to work on their second LP, Renaissance. Unlike the first album, Renaissance was made up entirely of songs written by band members, including Jules Alexander's Looking Gllass. Alexander, who was going by the name Gary Alexander on those two albums, would leave the group soon after the release of Renaissance, only to return to the band he helped found in 1969.

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Short-Haired Fathers
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Circus Maximus was formed in Greenwich Village by guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in 1967. The group originally wanted to call itself the Lost Sea Dreamers, but changed it after the Vanguard Records expressed reservations about signing a group with the initials LSD. Of the eleven tracks on the band's debut LP, only four were written by Walker, and those were in more of a folk-rock vein. Bruno's seven tracks, on the other hand, are true gems of psychedelia, ranging from the jazz-influenced Wind to the proto-punk rocker Short-Haired Fathers. The group fell apart after only two albums, mostly due to the growing musical differences between Walker and Bruno. Walker, of course, went on to become one of the most successful songwriters of the country-rock genre. As for Bruno, he's still in New York City, concentrating more on the visual arts in recent years.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    The Ostrich
Source:    Canadian CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    John Kay
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill/ABC)
Year:    1968
    Although John Kay's songwriting skills were still a work in progress on the first Steppenwolf album, there were some outstanding Kay songs on that LP, such as The Ostrich, a song that helped define Steppenwolf as one of the most politically savvy rock bands in history. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Why Don't We Do It In The Road?
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    Paul McCartney wrote Why Don't We Do It In The Road while the band was in India meditating. Just in case you're one of those people who ask authors and composers "where do you get your ideas?",  McCartney later said he was inspired to write the song after seeing a pair of monkeys doing it in the road. 

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     Life Is Just A Cher O'Bowlies
Source:     CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Electric Comic Book)
Writer:     Gilbert/Scala/Theilhelm
Label:     Mercury 
Year:     1967
     Although not as big a seller as their first LP (probably due to a lack of a major hit single), Electric Comic Book is nonetheless one of the great psychedelic albums. Life Is Just a Cher-O'-Bowlies, with its tongue in cheek approach, is about as typical a Blues Magoos song as anything this New York band ever recorded.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Interstellar Overdrive
Source:    LP: A Nice Pair (originally released in on LP: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s):    Barrett/Waters/Wright/Mason
Label:    Harvest (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Syd Barrett was still very much at the helm for Pink Floyd's first LP, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, released in 1967. The group had already released a pair of Barrett-penned singles, Arnold Layne (which was banned by the BBC) and See Emily Play. Piper, though, was the first full album for the group, and some tracks, notably the nine-minute psychedelic masterpiece Interstellar Overdrive, were entirely group efforts. On the original UK version of the LP Overdrive tracks directly into a Barrett piece, the Gnome. The US version, issued on Tower records, truncated Overdrive and re-arranged the song order. The original UK track order was restored for the international release of A Nice Pair in the mid-1970s, which coupled Piper At The Gates Of Dawn with the band's second LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets. 

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    In Held Twas In I
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer:    Brooker/Fisher/Reid
Label:    A&M/Rebound
Year:    1968
    Although the idea of grouping songs together as "suites" was first tried by Jefferson Airplane on their 1967 album After Bathing At Baxter's, Procol Harum's 17-minute long In Held Twas In I, from their 1968 album Shine On Brightly, is usually cited as the first progressive rock suite. The title comes from the first word of each section of the piece that contains vocals (several sections are purely instrumental). The work contains some of the best early work from guitarist Robin Trower, who would leave the group a few years later for a solo career. Shine On Brightly was the last Procol Harum album to include organist Matthew Fisher, who came up with the famous opening riff for the group's first hit, A Whiter Shade Of Pale. 
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2625 (starts 6/15/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/622888

    No matter how you calculate it, 25% of the tunes on this week's show have never been played on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion before. That's gotta count for something, right?

Artist:    Seatrain
Title:    13 Questions
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Kulberg/Roberts
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Despite being formed by the remaining members of the Blues Project, Seatrain spent most of its four years under the radar, getting little attention from the rock press and even less from the record buying public. Some of this lack of popularity can be attributed to the band's basic instability. None of their four albums (for three different labels!) have the same lineup, making it hard to establish a fan base. The fact that they didn't fit neatly into any particular genre, having elements of folk, country and jazz as well as rock, didn't help either. Their most successful record was the 1970 single, 13 Questions. Anyone who bought the album Seatrain soon realized, however, that the punchy horn-heavy single was nothing like the rest of the LP. 

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I Love Everybody
Source:    LP: Second Winter
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Following the success of Johnny Winter's self-titled Columbia debut LP, the guitarist went to work on a followup LP with a slightly expanded lineup. In addition to future Double Trouble member Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums, the group featured Winter's brother Edgar on keyboards. When it came time to set the final track lineup, however, they realized they had recorded more material than they could fit on a standard LP, but not enough for a double album. Not wanting to leave any of the material they had recorded off the album, they decided to release Second Winter as a three-sided LP (the fourth side being left totally blank). Although not a conventional solution, a listen to tracks like I Love Everybody (which opens side three of the LP) shows that it was totally justified.

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

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Tell Mama
Source:    LP: Street Corner Talking
Writer(s):    Simmonds/Raymond
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1971
    Following the release of the sixth Savoy Brown LP, Looking In, bandleader and lead guitarist Kim Simmonds dismissed the rest of the band over differences of opinion concerning the future direction the band would take musically. Simmonds himself wanted to maintain a strong connection to the band's blues roots, while the other members wanted to go in more of a hard rock direction (which they did by forming Foghat). Meanwhile, Simmonds recruited three former members of Chicken Shack, Paul Raymond on keyboards and occasional second guitar, Andy Silvester on bass and Dave Bidwell on drums, along with vocalist David Walker, to be the new Savoy Brown. Their first LP together was Street Corner Talking, an album that continued to build up their American following, thanks to strong material like Tell Mama, the album's opening track.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Lucille
Source:    Japanese import CD: Made In Japan (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Collins/Penniman
Label:    Rhino/Purple
Year:    Recorded 1972, released 1998
    Toward the end of 1971 the members of Deep Purple started thinking about making a live album. At the time such things were still a rarity, and it wasn't until the following summer that they finally made the recordings that would become the double LP Made In Japan. One song that was not on the original album was a hard-rocking cover of Little Richard's Lucille, recorded in Osaka on August 16, 1972. The song was finally included on an expanded CD version of the album in 1998.
    
Artist:    Paul McCartney And Wings
Title:    No Words
Source:    European import LP: Band On The Run
Writer(s):    McCartney/Laine
Label:    MPL (original label: Apple)
Year:    1973
    You would think that, after years of sharing writing credit with John Lennon on virtually everything musical either of them created, Paul McCartney might be inclined to take sole writing credit for his later material. Not so. Most of his 70s work co-credits his wife Linda and one track, No Words, from the 1973 LP Band On The Run, credits Denny Laine, the former Moody Blues member who was the third person making up the nucleus of the band Wings. No Words also has the distinction of being the shortest track (at 2:35) on Band On The Run.

Artist:    John Lennon
Title:    #9 Dream
Source:    CD: Lennon (box set) (originally released on LP: Walls And Bridges)
Writer(s):    John Lennon
Label:    Capitol (original label: Apple)
Year:    1974
    #9 Dream has the distinction of being John Lennon's last original composition to be released as a single before his five year hiatus from recording (from 1975-80), as well as his last song to hit the top 10 during his lifetime. The tune, from the Walls And Bridges album, is one of the most lavishly produced recordings in the Lennon catalog, featuring string arrangements written by Lennon himself. The song peaked at (coincidentally) the #9 spot on the Billboard charts in the US. 

Artist:    Mahavishnu Orchestra
Title:    Can't Stand Your Funk
Source:    45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    John McLaughlin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1975
    The original lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra dissolved in 1974. The following year guitarist John McLaughlin unveiled a new incarnation of the band that featured violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, keyboardist Gayle Moran, bassist Ralphe Armstrong and percussionist Narada Michael Walden, supplemented by a string quartet consisting of Steve Kindler and Carol Shive on violin, Marcia Westbrook on viola, and Phil Hirschi on cello, along with Steve Frankevich,  Russell Tubbs on alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, and Bob Knapp on brass. Westbrook and Frankevich had left the group by 1975, when they released the album Visions Of The Emerald Beyond. Can't Stand Your Funk was the only single released from that album.

Artist:    Jeff Beck
Title:    Head For Backstage Pass
Source:    CD: Wired
Writer(s):    Bascomb/Clark
Label:    Epic
Year:    1976
    After Beck, Bogert and Appice disbanded in 1974, guitarist Jeff Beck decided that his next album would be an all-instrumental one. That album, Blow By Blow, was both a commercial and critical success, prompting Beck to continue in the same vein with his next LP, Wired. Although percussionist Narada Michael Walden was the primary composer of the material on Wired, others, including bassist Wilbur Bascomb, who co-wrote Head For Backstage Pass, contributed to the songwriting duties as well. In fact, Beck himself had no writing credits on the album.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
Source:    CD: Selling England By The Pound
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1973
    In early 1973 Genesis was coming under fire by some British music critics for trying too hard to appeal to an American audience. The band responded with the album Selling England By The Pound. The title was chosen by vocalist Peter Gabriel, who borrowed it from a slogan used by the UK's Labor Party at the time. The lyrics of pieces such as Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, which opens the album, puts an emphasis on the decay of British folk culture in favor of rampant Americanization. The song itself is based on piano pieces composed by Gabriel, embellished with guitar parts from Steve Hackett and a choir effect (created on a mellotron) from keyboardist Tony Banks. Although Selling England By The Pound got a mixed reaction from both audience and critics at the time it was released, it has since gone on to achieve gold record status and has been cited by Hackett as being his favorite Genesis album.

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    Mark Time!
Source:    LP: Dear Friends
Writer(s):    Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    Originally broadcast: 1970, LP released 1972
    Dear Friends was the name of the Firesign Theatre's weekly live radio show that ran on Los Angeles station KPFK from September 16, 1970 through Feb 17. 1971. Later in 1971 the shows were edited into hour-long shows that were distributed to radio stations across the country. The group then compiled a two-LP collection of the show's best bits and released it in January of 1972 as (what else?) Dear Friends. Many of the bits are essentially improv pieces, but there were a few more heavily-rehearsed pieces included on the album as well. One of my own favorites is Mark Time, a parody of the kind of  action/adventure/science fiction radio serials that were a staple of network radio in the days before television.
    
Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Light Up Or Leave Me Alone
Source:    CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys)
Writer(s):    Jim Capaldi
Label:    Island
Year:    1971
    Jim Capaldi always wanted to be a front man. In fact, he was the lead vocalist and founder of his own band, the Sapphires, when he was just 14 years old. In 1963 he switched to drums to form the Hellions with guitarists Dave Mason and Gordon Jackson. The following year the Hellions got a gig backing up Tanya Day at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany, where he met Steve Winwood, who was staying at the same hotel as a member of the Spencer Davis Group. In 1965 Capaldi became the band's front man with the addition of Poli Palmer as the band's new drummer. Although the Hellions were a successful performing band, none of their four singles (including one in 1966 under the name Revolution) charted. Mason left the band that year and the remaining members recorded a few demos for Giorgio Gomelsky, but they were not released at the time. During this time Capaldi often sat in with Winwood, Mason and flautist Chris Wood for after-hours jam sessions at Birmingham's Elbow Club. In 1967 they officially formed Traffic, with Capaldi and Winwood co-writing the bulk of the band's material. After Winwood left Traffic to join Blind Faith, Capaldi, Mason and Wood tried to get a new band going with keyboardist Mick Weaver, but things didn't work out. In early 1970 Capaldi and Wood accepted Winwood's invitation to help with what was to be his debut solo album, but which ended up being a reformed Traffic's John Barleycorn Must Die. With the addition of drummer Jim Gordon on the album Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, Capaldi finally got a chance to front the band on two songs, one of which, Light Up Or Leave Me Alone, he wrote without Winwood's assistance. For the remainder of his life, in addition to continuing to work with Winwood as a member of Traffic and later on his solo albums, Capaldi pursued a successful solo career, scoring several hits on the British charts. His biggest American hit was That's Love, which hit the #28 spot in 1983. Jim Capaldi died from stomach cancer in 2005 at age 60.
 

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'.