https://exchange.prx.org/p/612976
We quietly move into April this year with what basically comes down to being a typical edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. Familiar tunes? Check. Not-so-familiar tunes? Yep, got them too. Stuff never heard on the show before? Got a handful of 'em. And, yes, we have an artists' set, this time featuring the Doors.
Artist: It's A Beautiful Day
Title: White Bird
Source: CD: It's A Beautiful Day
Writer: David and Linda LaFlamme
Label: San Francisco Sound (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's own San Francisco Sound label.
Artist: Traffic
Title: No Time To Live
Source: CD: Traffic
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
Although half of the songs on Traffic's self-titled second LP were written by Dave Mason, the guitarist/vocalist had very little to do with the remaining tracks. He did, however, play Hammond organ on the haunting No Time To Live. The song also features Steve Winwood on lead vocals, piano and bass, Chris Wood on soprano saxophone and Jim Capaldi on drums.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: D.C.B.A.-25
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1967
One of the first songs written by Paul Kantner without a collaborator was the highly listenable D.C.B.A.-25 from Surrealistic Pillow. Kantner said later that the title simply referred to the basic chord structure of the song, which is built on a two chord verse (D and C) and a two chord bridge (B and A). That actually fits, but what about the 25 part? Well, it was 1967 San Francisco. Figure it out.
Artist: Syndicate Of Sound
Title: Little Girl
Source: LP: Little Girl
Writer(s): Baskin/Gonzalez
Label: Bell
Year: 1966
San Jose California, despite being a relatively small city in the pre-silicon valley days, was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced more than its share of hit records from 1966-68. One of the earliest and biggest of these hits was the Syndicate Of Sound hit Little Girl, which has come to be recognized as one of the top garage-rock songs of all time. Little Girl was originally released regionally in mid 1966 on the Hush label, and reissued nationally by Bell Records a couple months later.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Title: Maybe It's You
Source: Mono LP: I Like It Like That
Writer(s): Clark/Davidson
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
It's a well-known fact that in the 1960s the British and American versions of albums by British Invasion bands often had different song lineups and sometimes even different album titles. In the case of the Dave Clark Five, however, their album catalogs in the two nations were mutually exclusive. In fact, the DC5 actually released twice as many LPs in the US between 1964 and 1967 as they did in their native UK. As a result, there are several DC5 songs that were never availble to British record buyers, unless they were willing to buy a US-only LP such as I Like It Like That, which came out in 1965. Although the band eschewed psychedelia as a general rule, some of their songs, such as Maybe It's You, have a definite garage-rock feel to them. The band's American popularity is underscored by one other interesting bit of trivia: they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show a total of 18 times, by far the most appearances by a British Invasion band.
Artist: Keith
Title: Ain't Gonna Lie
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 11-Pop, Part 4 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Powers/Fischoff
Label: Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1966
James Barry Keefer is best known for his hit single 98.6, which spent over a dozen weeks on the charts and made the top 10 in 1966. He is also known for being one of the first pop artists to go by a single name, Keith. What he is not known for is the song that preceded 98.6 by two months, Ain't Gonna Lie. His first album, however, included both Ain't Gonna Lie and 98.6. In fact, following what seems to be a pattern with Mercury Records in 1966, the album title itself is the two song titles separated by a slash. I guess they thought it might help album sales. They might even have been right, as it does seem that there were a lot of people who liked particular songs without having the slightest idea who the artist was. Come to think of it, there still are.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.
Artist: Misunderstood
Title: Children Of The Sun
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hill/Brown
Label: Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1969
Formed in Riverside, California in 1965, the Misunderstood relocated to London in 1966, where they soon became one of the top bands on the local underground scene. Unfortunately, the band was plagued by issues involving draft eligibility, resulting in original rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter Greg Treadwell returning to the states soon after arriving in the UK. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as his replacement, Londoner Tony Hill, teamed up with vocalist Rick Brown to write even better songs, augmented by the talents of Glenn Ross Campbell, who played his leads on a pedal steel guitar. The band soon signed with Fontana, releasing a single in December of 1966 before once again running into problems with the draft board, this time concerning Brown. With their frontman gone, the Misunderstood soon disbanded, with the remaining American members returning to California. Two years later Fontana released a second single by the Misunderstood, Children Of The Sun, which has since come to be regarded as a classic example of garage-flavored psychedelic music.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)
Source: Mono LP: The Exciting Years (originally released on LP: Blonde On Blonde and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia Special Products
Year: 1966
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) was the first song recorded for the 1966 album Blonde On Blonde, and the only track from Dylan's initial New York sessions to actually make the album itself (the remainder of the tracks were recorded later in Nashville). The song features Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko from his stage band, the Hawks (later to be known as The Band), along with keyboardists Al Kooper and Paul Griffin and drummer Bobby Gregg. The song was completed during a nine-hour overnight session on January 25, 1966 and took 24 takes to master the nearly five minute long track. That evening Dylan showed up on a New York radio station and mentioned that he had just completed his "new single", comparing it to Like A Rolling Stone. Unfortunately, the song did not fare so well on the US charts; in fact, it didn't make the top 100 at all. In England, the song did a bit better, peaking at #33.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: It's Not Easy
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original US label: London)
Year: 1966
The Rolling Stones' Aftermath, along with the Beatles' Rubber Soul, began a revolution in rock music that was felt for several decades. Prior to those two releases, albums were basically a mix of original and cover songs meant to provide a little supplemental income for popular artists who had hit singles. Aftermath, however, was full of songs that could stand on their own. Even songs like It's Not Easy, which could have been hit singles for lesser artists, were completely overlooked in favor of tracks like Under My Thumb, which is arguably the first true rock classic not to be released as a single. Within the short span of two years, rock would find itself in a place where an artist could be considered a success without having a hit single, something that was completely unheard of when Aftermath was released. This remained the norm throughout the remainder of the 20th century, until digital downloading made the entire concept of albums somewhat obsolete.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1966
After the surprise success of the Sound Of Silence single, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who had disbanded their partnership after the seeming failure of their Wednesday Morning 3 AM album in 1964, hastily reunited to record a new album of electrified versions of songs written by Simon, many of which had appeared on his 1965 solo LP the Paul Simon Songbook. With their newfound success, the duo set about recording an album's worth of new material. This time around, however, Simon had the time (and knowledge of what was working for the duo) to compose songs that would play to both the strengths of himself and Garfunkel as vocalists, as well as take advantage of the additional instrumentation available to him. The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme, featuring tracks such as The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine, an energetic piece that effectively combines folk and rock with intelligent (if somewhat satirical) lyrics.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Birthday/Yer Blues
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year: 1968
One of the great ironies of rock history was that the album entitled simply The Beatles was the one that had the fewest songs with all four of the band members playing on them. By 1968 the Beatles were experiencing internal conflicts, and nearly all of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songs were played by just the two of them, while George Harrison's songs (and Ringo Starr's single contribution as a songwriter) featured an array of some of the UK's top musicians (including guitarist Eric Clapton). The opening tracks of side three of the album are typical of this approach, as Birthday is essentially a McCartney solo piece. Yer Blues, on the other hand, has Lennon singing and playing guitar, with probably McCartney on bass and drums. The first performance of Yer Blues in front of a live audience was in December of 1968 as part of the Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus. It was not the Beatles however, that performed the tune. Instead, Yer Blues was played by the Dirty Mac, a jam band consisting of Lennon, Clapton, drummer Mitch Mitchell (of the Jimi Hendrix Experience), and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. That performance was never seen, other than by the studio audience, until the entire Circus was released on DVD a few years ago (Mick Jagger reportedly had the entire project shelved due to his dissatisfaction with the Stones' performance).
Artist: Them
Title: Dirty Old Man (At The Age Of 16) (original single version)
Source: British Import CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tom Lane
Label: Rev-Ola (original label: Sully)
Year: 1968
Following the departure of original Them front man Van Morrison for a solo career in December of 1966, the remaining four members of the band, bassist Alan Henderson, guitarist Jim Armstrong, drummer Dave Harvey and multi-instrumentalist Ray Elliott, decided to continue using the Them name, recruiting new vocalist Kenny McDowell to take Morrison's place. They soon come to the attention of American producer Ray Ruff, who invited them to relocate to Amarillo, Texas, which they did in June of 1967. Their first single for Ruff was Dirty Old Man (At The Age Of 16), a tune done in the same style as their earlier Morrison recordings and released in August on the Texas-based Sully Label. Over the next year the band would become more psychedelicized, releasing two albums on the Tower label in 1968, the first of which, Now And Them, would include a newly recorded version of Dirty Old Man.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Radio Spot
Source: Mono LP: The Dunwich Records Story (originally heard on at least one midwestern radio station)
Writer(s): unknown
Label: Voxx/Tutman
Year: Recorded 1966
In 1966 the Chicago-based Shadows Of Knight recorded a short piece they called Potato Chip, to be distributed as a giveaway with selected bags of Kitty Clover potato chips, a popular midwestern brand out of Omaha, Nebraska (apparently there were no Omaha bands willing to record such a song). Sadly, like so many tasty treats of the past, the Kitty Clover brand no longer exists, having been bought out and subsequently shut down by the huge Borden conglomerate in 1987.
Artist: Castaways
Title: Liar Liar
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Donna/Craswell
Label: Rhino (original label: Soma)
Year: 1965
The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves with their song Liar Liar for a couple months in 1965 before fading off into obscurity.
Artist: Bonzo Dog Band
Title: I'm The Urban Spaceman
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Neil Innes
Label: United Artists
Year: 1968
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (as they were originally called) was as much theatre (note the British spelling) as music, and were known for such antics as starting out their performances by doing calisthentics (after being introduced as the warm-up band) and having one of the members, "Legs" Larry Smith tapdance on stage (he was actually quite good). In 1967 they became the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's TV show that also featured sketch comedy by future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with David Jason, the future voice of Mr. Toad and Danger Mouse. Late in the year they appeared in the Beatles' telefilm Magical Mystery Tour, performing a song called Deathcab For Cutie. In 1968 the Bonzos released their only hit single, I'm The Urban Spaceman, co-produced by Paul McCartney. Frontman Neil Innes would go on to hook up with Eric Idle for the Rutles project, among other things, and is often referred to as the Seventh Python.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Kahuna Sunset
Source: CD: Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (originally released on CD: Buffalo Springfield box set)
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise (original label: Rhino)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2001
In addition to the nearly two dozen songs released on the first two Buffalo Springfield albums, the group recorded a few other tunes, such as the instrumental Kahuna Sunset. Written by Neil Young and Stephen Stills, the track remained unreleased until 2001, when it appeared on Rhino's Buffalo Springfield Box Set. More recently the song has been released on volume one of the Neil Young Archives.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Crystal Ship
Source: CD: The Very Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
Ever feel like you've discovered something really special that nobody else (among your circle of friends at any rate) knows about? At first you kind of want to keep it to yourself, but soon you find yourself compelled to share it with everyone you know. Such was the case when, in the early summer of 1967, I used my weekly allowance to buy copies of a couple of songs I had heard on the American Forces Network (AFN). As usual, it wasn't long before I was flipping the records over to hear what was on the B sides. I liked the first one well enough (a song by Buffalo Springfield called Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, the B side of For What It's Worth), but it was the second one, the B side of the Doors' Light My Fire, that really got to me. To this day I consider The Crystal Ship to be one of the finest slow rock songs ever recorded.
Artist: Doors
Title: Not To Touch The Earth
Source: CD: The Very Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1968
Waiting For the Sun was the first Doors album to feature a gatefold cover (imagine a 24"x12" greeting card with a record in it), and the Doors used half of the inside portion to print the entire text of "Celebration of the Lizard," which was a bit confusing, since no such track appeared on the album itself. They had made several attempts to record "Celebration", but were not entirely satisfied with any of them. They did, however, manage to salvage a short section from the middle of the piece called Not To Touch The Earth for inclusion on the album.
Artist: Doors
Title: Five To One
Source: CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1968
Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".
Artist: Mother Earth
Title: Groovy Way
Source: LP: Satisfied
Writer(s): S Taylor
Label: Mercury
Year: 1970
Despite never being a major commercial success, the band Mother Earth, led by vocalist/guitarist Tracy Nelson, was highly regarded by musicians and progressive FM radio people alike, resulting in the band getting just enough airplay to keep recording albums throughout the late 60s and early 70s. Groovy Way, from the 1970 LP Satisfied, is fairly typical of the Mother Earth sound.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Fireface
Source: CD: One Step Beyond
Writer(s): Sean Tolby
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1969
The third and final album the Chocolate Watchband released on Tower Records was both the most and least representative of the band's actual sound. On the plus side, all the tracks on 1969's One Step Beyond were played and sung by the band members themselves, a claim that nobody could make about either of the previous Watchband albums. However, the group heard on One Step Beyond sounded nothing like the Chocolate Watchband that audiences in the Bay Area had become familiar with from 1966-68. In fact, the lineup heard on One Step Beyond was a mixture of new and former Watchband members, some of whom had left the group prior to their first trip to the studio in 1966. The result was a more schizophrenic sounding band than the Watchband of old, with an odd mixture of folk and hard rock replacing the garage rock and studio psychedelia of the group's earlier efforts. The new lineup also wrote most of the tracks on the album, including Sean Tolby's Fireface. The group even went on tour to promote the new LP, but continued to go through frequent personnel changes even when on the road, finally disbanding in early 1970.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Tribute To Muddy
Source: LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment
Writer(s): Johnny Winter
Label: Imperial (original label: Sonobeat)
Year: 1968
Originally released on the regional Texas label Sonobeat and then reissued nationally on the Imperial label, The Progressive Blues Experiment is a mixture of classic blues covers and original tunes penned by guitarist/vocalist Johnny Winter. Tribute To Muddy is one of the latter. Not long after the release of The Progressive Blues Experiment, Winter signed a contract with Columbia that made him rich and famous overnight.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Teen Angel
Source: Mono British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
For the B side of Donovan's 1968 single, Hurdy Gurdy Man, the Scottish singer/songwriter recorded one of his older songs, Teen Angel. Unlike the A side, this track is a quiet, folky piece with minimal instrumentation.
Artist: Ellen Margulies
Title: The White Pony
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joyce/Steinberg/Secunda
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
When it comes to obscurities, few records compare with The White Pony, released as a single on the Reprise label in September of 1968. Nobody seems to know who Ellen Margulies, the vocalist on the track, was. For that matter, all that is known about the producer, Roger Joyce, is that he once was a member of a New York group called New Order (not the one formerly known as Joy Division). Joyce co-wrote the song with two other people, whose last names were Steinberg and Secunda (appropriately, their first names are unknown).
Artist: Monkees
Title: Can You Dig It
Source: LP: Head
Writer(s): Peter Tork
Label: Colgems
Year: 1968
Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings in the 1960s (plus some co-writing credits on the Headquarters album). Both Tork originals were featured in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. After hearing Can You Dig It, you have to wonder why he never got the chance to write more tunes, as Can You Dig It is easily stronger than more than half of the material the group did record. Apparently Tork had similar feelings about it, since not long after Head was completed he left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: April 15th
Source: British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US on LP: Evolutions)
Writer(s): Belley/De Azevedo
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beinz started out in Youngstown, Ohio as the Premiers in 1964, but changed their name to the Human Beingz in 1966. After a few moderately successful singles on various regional labels (including a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that predates the hit Shadows Of Knight version), the group signed to Capitol Records in 1967. In September of that year they released a cover of the Isley Brothers' Nobody But Me that became their only top 40 hit. Unfortunately, their name was misspelled on the label, and since the record was a hit, the band was stuck with the new spelling. By the time the group disbanded they had released several more singles (including two that hit the #1 spot in Japan), as well as two LPs, for Capitol. The second of these, Evolutions, was the more psychedelic of the two. Although the group was known mainly for its tight arrangements of cover songs, they did experiment a bit on Evolutions, particularly on April 15th, a seven minute free-form track co-written by guitarist/vocalist Dick Belley.
Artist: Blood, Sweat And Tears
Title: God Bless The Child
Source: LP: Heavy Sounds (originally released on LP: Blood, Sweat & Tears)
Writer(s): Holiday/Herzog
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Although it was never released as a single, Blood, Sweat And Tears' version of the Billy Holiday classic God Bless The Child has become one of their most popular recordings over time, even to the point of being included on the group's Greatest Hits collection. The track was also chosen as the band's contribution to Columbia's Heavy Sounds collection that was released around 1969.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Taurus
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Randy California
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
After the release of Spirit's debut album they went on tour, with a new band, Led Zeppelin, opening for them. I mention this just in case you happen to notice any similarity between the opening acoustic guitar riff on this song and the one on Stairway To Heaven, which was released three or four years later. I bet you thought Jimmy Page only ripped off blues legends like Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon.
Artist: Velvet Illusions
Title: Acid Head
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Weed/Radford
Label: Rhino (original label: Tell, also released on Metromedia Records)
Year: 1967
Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a suburban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle crowd as one of their own) the Velvet Illusions backtracked the Prunes' steps, leaving their native Yakima, Washington and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut Acid Head before calling it quits.
