Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2635 (starts 8/24/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/631617

    This week's show includes an artists' set from the Jimi Hendrix Experience in our first hour. Then, in the second hour, the entire first side of  Eric Burdon and the Animals second LP, The Twain Shall Meet, is presented in a monoraul mix originally released only in Europe and the UK. We finish out the show with an all-mono battle of the bands and a handful of mono single mixes. 

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Brave New World 
Source:    LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1969
    It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the movie itself.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Square Room
Source:    British import CD: Now And Them
Writer(s):    Armstrong/Elliot/Harley/Henderson/McDowell
Label:    Rev-Ola (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    With new lead vocalist Kenny McDowell replacing the departed Van Morrison, Them relocated to the US and recorded a single for Sully Records, a label based in Amarillo, Texas and co-owned by Ray Ruff. The B side of that single was a three-minute long tune called Square Room. Not long after the single was released Ruff and the band all relocated to Los Angeles, where Ruff produced two Them albums for Capitol's Tower subsidiary. The first of these, Now And Them, features a nearly ten minute long version of Square Room that has come to be regarded as one of the finest examples of raga-rock to come out of the psychedelic era. Jim Armstrong in particular turns in a strong performance on lead guitar. 
        
Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Daily Nightly
Source:    LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s):    Michael Nesmith
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1967
    One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (Dolenz also sang lead on the tune). 
        
Artist:    Who
Title:    Whiskey Man
Source:    Simulated Stereo CD: A Quick One (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    John Entwhistle
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    Although the Who had previously issued a pair of singles in the US, the first one to make any kind of waves was Happy Jack, released in late 1966 and hitting its peak the following year. The B side of that record was the song Whiskey Man. Like all the Who songs penned by bassist John Entwhistle, Whiskey Man has an unusual (but in real life far too common) subject; in this case, psychotic alcohol-induced hallucinations.

Artist:    Denise
Title:    Boy, What'll You Do Then
Source:    Mono British import CD: It's Bad For You, But Buy It
Writer(s):    Denise Kaufman
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Wee)
Year:    1965
    Somebody needs to write a biography of Denise Kaufman. Seriously. She is an amazing woman. A native San Franciscan, Kaufman was already sneaking into North Beach clubs at the age of 14 and was head of Youth For Kennedy at her junior high school. Already getting known for her prowess as a blues harmonica player, she cut her first record, backed up by a garage band from Berkeley High School known as the Answer, at age 18. The self-penned Boy, What'll You Do Then is basically a breakup song, although, according to Kaufman, the relationship itself never really had time to develop in the first place. Kaufman was also a later member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, joining the group in time for Kesey's famous walkout of the Beatles' 1965 concert at the Cow Palace. A chance meeting at a party hosted by the members of Blue Cheer with guitarist Mary Ellen Simpson, Kaufman became the principle songwriting member of the Ace Of Cups. But that's another story.

Artist:    Warner Brothers
Title:    Lonely I
Source:    LP: The Dunwich Records Story (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Warner
Label:    Voxx/Tutman
Year:    1966
    Peoria, Ilinois, was home to the Warner Bros. Combo, a group made up of brothers Larry and Al Warner along with Tom Stovall and Ken Elam. They released their first single, a cover of Mairzy Doats backed with Three Little Fishes, on the local Kandy Kane label in 1963. The following year they released four singles on three different labels, including a re-release of their first single on the Hollywood-based Everest label. They released one single a year from 1965 to 1968 on four different Chicago-based labels, including a song called I Won't Be The Same Without Her for the Dunwich label in 1966. The B side of that single was Lonely I (the letter I, not the number 1). Oddly enough the word "lonely" never appears in this otherwise blatant swipe of Clarence "Frogman" Henry's Ain't Got No Home. 

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Gentle Dreams
Source:    CD: The Blues Project Anthology (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Katz/Kuhlberg
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1967
    There is no question that the Blues Project was a band ahead of its time. They were the first jam band, touring extensively from coast to coast, influencing countless musicians along the way (including the members of a band called the Warlocks, who would soon change their name to the Grateful Dead) to take a chance on improvisation. Still, they existed at a time when top 40 radio airplay was the measure of success. By this standard, the Blues Project was a dismal failure. Their only charted single, Al Kooper's No Time Like The Right Time, stalled out at #97, spending all of two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, and even that rather excellent track was not representative of the band's live sound. In fact, none of the Blues Project singles (excepting their cover of Back Door Man) sounded much like the Blues Project that so excited audiences on college campuses across America. The problem was, in my opinion, that they were actually trying too hard to have a hit record, rather than playing to their own strengths. This is apparent when listening to the group's final single for the Verve Forecast label, a tune called Gentle Dreams co-written by guitarist Steve Katz (who sings on the track) and flautist/bassist Andy Kuhlberg. Like all of Katz's compositions, Gentle Dreams feels more like a folk song than the rest of the band's material. Unfortunately, Katz's vocals were not yet up to the level of quality he would achieve as a member of Blood, Sweat And Tears a few years later.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Love Story
Source:    CD: This Was (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968 (UK), 1969 (US)
    Love Story was the last studio recording by the original Jethro Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornish. The song was released as a single (Jethro Tull's first in the US) following the band's debut LP, This Was. Shortly after its release Abrahams left the group, citing differences with Anderson over the band's musical direction. Love Story spent eight weeks on the UK singles chart, reaching the #29 spot. In the U.S., Love Story was released in March 1969, with A Song for Jeffrey (an album track from This Was) on the B-side, but did not chart. Like most songs released as singles in the UK, Love Story did not appear on an album until several years later; in this case on the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past. It has most recently been included as a bonus track on the expanded CD version of This Was.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    You're Lost Little Girl
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The Doors second LP, Strange Days, was stylistically similar to the first, and served notice to the world that this band was going to be around for awhile. Songwriting credit for You're Lost Little Girl (a haunting number that's always been a personal favorite of mine) was given to the entire band, a practice that would continue until the release of The Soft Parade in 1969.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Colored Balls Falling
Source:    German import CD: 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 compilations.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The first track on the original UK release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was moved to the middle of side 2.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Bold As Love
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    When working on the song Bold As Love for the second Jimi Hendrix Experience album in 1967, Jimi reportedly asked engineer Eddie Kramer if he could make a guitar sound like it was under water. Kramer's answer was to use a techique called phasing, which is what happens when two identical sound sources are played simultaneously, but slightly (as in microseconds) out of synch with each other. The technique, first used in 1958 but seldom tried in stereo, somewhat resembles the sound of a jet plane flying by. This is not to be confused with chorusing (sometimes called reverse phasing), a technique used often by the Beatles which electronically splits a single signal into two identical signals then delays one to create the illusion of being separate tracks. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original UK label: Polydor)
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.
    
Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    All I Really Need Is You
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Midnight Ride
Writer(s):    Lindsay/Revere
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Paul Revere And The Raiders have gotten a bad rap over the years, mostly for dressing funny. During the mid-60s, however, with the British Invasion in full swing, an American band needed every gimmick it could think of, and the Raiders simply took advantage of their band leader's birth name and did the obvious. What's often overlooked, however, is the fact that Paul Revere And The Raiders, co-led by Revere and vocalist/saxophonist Mark Lindsay, were one of the best bands of their time, and the first  band from the Pacific Northwest to achieve continuous national chart success. The band members were prolific songwriters as well. In fact, of the twelve songs on their 1966 album Midnight Ride, ten were originals, including All I Really Need Is You, which leads off side two of the LP.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Talk Talk
Source:    CD: Turn On-The Very Best Of The Music Machine (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and singer/songwriter Tim Rose had worked up). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk (a song that ironically had been recorded on four-track equipment at RCA's Burbank studios prior to the band's signing with Original Sound) in 1966.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    For No One
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    With the predominance of the keyboards and french horn (played by Alan Civil) in the mix, For No One (essentially a Paul McCartney solo number) shows just how far the Beatles had moved away from their original image as a "guitar band" by the time they recorded the Revolver album in 1966. John Lennon considered For No One to be one of Paul's best songs.

Artist:    Notes From The Underground
Title:    Where I'm At Today
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley Years
Writer(s):    Mike O'Connor
Label:    Big Beat 
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1995
    Prior to signing with Vanguard in late 1967, Berkeley, California's Notes From The Underground tried to follow in the footsteps of fellow Berkeleyites Country Joe And The Fish by recording and releasing a four-song EP of their own. They ended up recording seven songs in April of 1967. Among the three unused songs was the song that most sounded like their mentors, Where I'm At Today. The tune was re-recorded for the Notes' own debut LP the following year.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    The Twain Shall Meet (side one)
Source:    LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    Eric Burdon And The Animals were among the many acts that appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967. Although the band did make an impression at the festival, the festival itself made an even bigger impression upon the band. This was demonstrated in the best way possible with the late 1967 release of the band's next single, Monterey, which name-checked many of the other artists on the scene. The group followed that single up with their second LP, The Twain Shall Meet, in 1968. Each side of the LP was a continuous track, with each song fading into the one following it. The album begins with a short sitar introduction with spoken vocals by Burdon that leads into the stereo version of Monterrey, which is missing the first few notes from the single version. As Monterey fades out, it is replaced by the contemplative Just The Thought, sung by bassist Danny McCulloch. Studio effects highlight the blues-based Closer To The Truth, which fades into No Self Pity. Songwriting credits for all of the above are given to the entire group, but the final track on side one, Orange And Red Beams, was both written and sung by McCulloch. 

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    It's All Over Now
Source:    British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bobby & Shirley Womack
Label:    Decca
Year:    1964
    During a 1964 on-air interview with the Rolling Stones, New York DJ Murray the K played a copy of a song called It's All Over Now by Bobby Womack's band, the Valentinos. The song had been a minor hit earlier in the year, spending two weeks in the top 100, and the Stones were reportedly knocked out by the record, calling it "our kind of song." Less than two weeks later the Stones recorded their own version of the song, which became their first number one hit in the UK. At first, Womack was reportedly against the idea of a British band recording his song, but changed his mind when he saw his first royalty check from the Stones' recording. 

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let Me In
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    Marty Balin deserves recognition for his outstanding abilities as a leader. Most people don't even realize he was the founder of Jefferson Airplane, yet it was Balin who brought together the diverse talents of what would become San Francisco's most successful band of the 60s and managed to keep the band together through more than its share of controversies. One indication of his leadership abilities is that he encouraged Paul Kantner to sing lead on Let Me In, a song that the two of them had written together for the band's debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, despite the fact that Balin himself had no other onstage role than to sing lead vocals.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Child Of The Moon
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     London
Year:     1968
    Child Of The Moon was, essentially, the last gasp of the Rolling Stones' psychedelic period, and one of the last Stones tracks to feature founder Brian Jones prominently (on saxophone). Following the poor critical response to their self-produced late 1967 LP Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Stones had brought in producer Jimmy Miller for their next album, Beggar's Banquet. Miller, who had previously produced several hit records for Steve Winwood, including Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man (both by the Spencer Davis Group), tended to favor straight-ahead rock and roll with a touch of soul. This was reflected in the first single Miller produced for the Rolling Stones, Jumpin' Jack Flash. Although Miller is also credited as the producer of Child Of The Moon, which appeared as the single's B side, it is more likely that the song was more or less produced by the band itself as Miller was still getting his footing. 

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Somebody To Love
Source:    Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s):    Darby Slick
Label:    Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1967
            If not for Somebody To Love, no one would even remember that Grace Slick and her husband Jerry were once in a band with her brother-in-law, Darby, who wrote the song.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Good Times, Bad Times
Source:    British import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Decca
Year:    1964
    It may be hard to imagine, but the first Rolling Stones US tour was less than a complete success. In order to salvage something positive about the trip abroad, producer Andrew Loog Oldham arranged for the band to book time at Chicago's Chess Records studio, where many of the band's idols had recorded for the past decade. One of the songs from those sessions was Good Times, Bad Times. The song was only the second Jagger/Richards composition to be recorded by the Stones, and the first to be released on 45 RPM vinyl. Since 45s outsold LPs by a factor of at least five to one in 1964 this was an important distinction (especially considering that the writers of B sides were paid royalties at the same rate as the writers of A sides).

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Bringing Me Down
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    One of several singles released mainly to San Francisco Bay area radio stations and record stores, Bringing Me Down is an early collaboration between vocalist Marty Balin and guitarist/vocalist Paul Kantner. Balin had invited Kantner into the band without having heard him play a single note. It turned out to be one of many right-on-the-money decisions by the Jefferson Airplane founder.

Artist:    Bubble Puppy
Title:    Lonely
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Prince/Cox
Label:    International Artists
Year:    1969
    The Bubble Puppy came into existence in 1967, when two former members of the legendary Corpus Christie,Texas garage band the Bad Seeds, guitarist Rod Prince and keyboardist/bassist Roy Cox, relocated to San Antonio, recruiting guitarist Todd Potter and drummer Craig Root to form the new band. Success came quickly in the form of the band's very first gig, opening for the Who at the San Antonio Colosseum. After David Fore replaced Root in the band, the group relocated to Austin, where they got a steady gig at the Vulcan Gas Company. By 1968 the Bubble Puppy was traveling all over Texas for gigs, and late in the year got a contract with Houston-based International Artists, a label that had already gained notoriety by signing the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. After releasing a surprise top 40 hit, Hot Smoke And Sassafras (with Lonely on the B side) in December of 1968, the band got to work on a full album, A Gathering Of Promises. International Artists failed to get the album out quickly enough to capitilize of the popularity of Hot Smoke And Sassafras, and further hurt the band's chance of success by refusing to grant licensing rights on the single to Apple Records for European release. By 1970 the band and the label had parted company, with the Bubble Puppy relocating to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian.

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Slide Machine
Source:    Mono British import CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s):    R. P. St. John
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1967
    Following a successful tour of Southern California in late 1966, the 13th Floor Elevators returned to their native Austin, Texas to begin work on a second LP. Unlike the first album, which (like most debut efforts of the time) was recorded in a matter of days, Easter Anywhere took several months to complete. During that time the band underwent personnel changes and a continuously deteriorating relationship with Internation Artists Records, which kept setting up inappropriate gigs instate when the band would have been better served building up a national following. In addition, some of the band members were exhibiting increasingly bizarre behavior due to excessive drug use, which slowed work on the album down considerably. One more factor contributing to the tardiness of the LP was the band's desire to make an album that would be thematically consistent throughout rather than a random collection of songs like their debut LP had been. The fact that the theme itself was pretty cosmic made it that much harder to capture in the recording studio. Although nearly all the material on the album was written by the band members themselves, one track, Slide Machine, was credited to the mysterious R.P. St. John, who became considerably less mysterious after he moved to San Francisco and, as Powell St. John, co-founded Mother Earth with singer/songwriter Tracy Nelson. 

Artist:    James Brown/Famous Flames
Title:    Night Train
Source:    Mono CD: All-Time 20 Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Washington/Simpkins/Forrest
Label:    Polydor (original label: Sue)
    James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, got his start with a group called the Gospel Starlighters, which eventually became the Famous Flames. Their first big hit was Please, Please, Please, which went into the top 10 on the R&B charts in 1956. The original group lasted until 1957, but did not have any other hit records. By the end of the decade, however, Brown had re-formed the Flames as his backup vocal group, accompanying the James Brown Orchestra (sometimes called the James Brown Band). A string of hits followed, including his own version of Jimmy Forrest's Night Train. Brown changed the lyrics on the tune to include a list of cities on his current tour (that not so coincidentally had R&B radio stations that might play the record if their home city was mentioned). Brown reportedly played drums on the track as well.

 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2635 (starts 8/24/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/631616

    With one exception, nothing on this week's show has been heard on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion for at least two years. In fact, four of this week's 13 tracks, including three of the first four, have never been played on the show before at all.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Hand Of Doom
Source:    CD: Paranoid
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Given the reputation and history of Black Sabbath, it may come as a surprise that Hand Of Doom, from the band's second LP, Paranoid, is actually an anti-drug song, albeit one that actually explores the circumstances leading up to drug addiction. It's also seven minutes of some of the heaviest rock recorded up to that point. 

Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    To Love Somebody
Source:    CD: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s):    Barry & Robin Gibb
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Janis Joplin's first solo album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama, got a lukewarm reception, both from the rock press and from fans of the singer who had been listening to her since her days with Big Brother And The Holding Company. The main problem seems to be that, while musically more proficient than the members of Big Brother, Joplin's new group (sometimes called the Kozmic Blues Band) never seemed to gel as a group. The fact that all but two of the tracks on the LP were cover songs didn't help matters, either. In fact one of those covers, To Love Somebody, was of a song that had been a hit single for the Bee Gees, a group about as far removed from the San Francisco scene as one could imagine in 1969.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Talking Old Soldiers
Source:    LP: Tumbleweed Connection
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    Uni
Year:    1970
    The Wikipedia entry for Elton John's third album, Tumbleweed Connection, calls it a "concept album based on country and western and Americana themes." Well, I guess two out of three ain't bad. It certainly contains both Americana and Western themes, having been heavily influenced by Marty Robbins's El Paso, but I have to take issue with the use of the term "country and western". The fact is, that, until the 1950s the two were separate musical genres, with country music based in the music of Appalachia and the South, while western music was more sophisticated, drawing elements from other genres. The aforemention El Paso, for instance, incorporated elements of Ranchero music, something that never would have occured to someone like Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams. Of course, more than anything else, Tumbleweed Connection sounds like an Elton John album, as can be plainly heard on songs like Talking Old Soldiers.

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Lullabye
Source:    LP: Pilgrimage
Writer(s):    Powell/Turner/Upton/Turner
Label:    MCA (original US label: Decca)
Year:    1971
    After establishing themselves as a hard-rocking band feature harmony lead guitars on their first album, Wishbone Ash immediately went in the opposite direction for the opening track of their second LP, Pilgrim. Although still featuring two lead guitars, Lullabye is a much more laid back piece than anything on the band's debut LP.

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Midnight Rider
Source:    CD: Electric Seventies (originally released on LP: Idlewild South) 
Writer(s):    Gregg Allman
Label:    JCI/Warner Special Markets (original labels: Capricorn/Atco)
Year:    1970
    Gregg Allman said it only took him about an hour to come up with most of what would come to be known as his signature song, Midnight Rider. He had problems coming up with lyrics for the third verse, however, and finally turned to Kim Payne, one of the band's roadies, for help. The two of them broke into the Capricorn studios late at night to record a demo of the song, which was later re-recorded by the full Allman Brothers Band and released on their second LP, Idlewild South. The song was released as the second single from the album, but did not chart in its original form, even though that recording is far superior to the various cover versions (including one by Gregg Allman himself as a solo artist) that actually did chart over the years.

Artist:    Blue Öyster Cult
Title:    I'm On The Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep
Source:    LP: Blue Öyster Cult
Writer(s):    Bloom/Bouchard/Pearlman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    I'm On The Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep was first recorded in 1970, shortly after the band that would become Blue Öyster Cult had changed its name from Soft White Underbelly to Oaxaca. The song, about a guy being chased by the Mounties, was re-recorded later that same year for the band's first album for Elektra, when the band was calling itself the Stalk-Forrest Group, but that album remained unreleased until 2001. The song was recorded again and finally released on Blue Öyster Cult's self-titled debut LP for Columbia in 1972. The following year a faster and heavier version of the song titled The Red And The Black was recorded for their followup LP, Tyranny And Mutation. 

Artist:    Cactus
Title:    Feel So Good
Source:    CD: Cactus
Writer(s):    Appice/Bogert/Day/McCarty
Label:    Wounded Bird (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    In September of 1969 guitarist Jeff Beck approached former Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tim Bogert about forming a new band. Those plans fell through, however, when Beck fractured his skull in a car accident that December. Bogert and Appice quickly recruited vocalist Rusty Day, formerly of the Amboy Dukes, and guitarist Jim McCarty from the Detroit Wheels to form Cactus, releasing their first LP in July of 1970. The album, which can best be described as blues-based hard rock, closes with Feel So Good, which includes an Appice drum solo. 

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Ride With Me
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo promo copy)
Writer(s):    Mars Bonfire
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1971
    By 1971 Steppenwolf's best years were already behind them. Looking to rekindle the old magic, the band turned to songwriter (and former band member) Dennis Edmonton, who, under the pseudonym Mars Bonfire, had penned their biggest hit, Born To Be Wild. Although Ride With Me was a solid song, it stalled out in the lower reaches of the top 40 charts while being virtually ignored by more progressive album rock stations. 

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    There I Go Again
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer(s):    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    The two sides of James Gang Rides Again sound like two entirely different albums. As it turns out, this was somewhat intentional. According to bassist Dale Peters, guitarist Joe Walsh had written a set of acoustic tunes while the band was recording what would become side one of the album. Rather than try to hastily come up with another side's worth of tunes, the band decided just to let Walsh record the songs he had already written with a minimum of accompaniment. Among those tunes on side two of James Gang Rides Again is There I Go Again, a catchy number that features Walsh on both acoustic and (overdubbed) steel guitar.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Return Of The Giant Hogweed
Source:    CD: Nursery Crymes
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1971
    The Return Of The Giant Hogweed, from the 1971 Genesis album Nursery Cryme, is actually based on a true story about an invasive organism brought to England from Russia in the 1800s. Genesis, thanks in large part to the sense of whimsy brought to the band by their new drummer, Phil Collins, deliberately exaggerated the story, making the Giant Hogweed a threat to civilization as we know it. Nursery Crymes itself, although officially the third Genesis album, was in fact the debut of the band's classic lineup of Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford and new guitarist Steve Hackett, who joined a few months after founding member Anthony Phillips left the group following the release of the Trespass album. This lineup would remain intact until the departure of Gabriel in 1975.

Artist:    Mahavishnu Orchestra
Title:    Open Country Joy
Source:    45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    John McLaughlin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    John McLaughlin. Billy Cobham. Rick Laird. Jan Hammer. Jerry Goodman. All were destined to become jazz-rock fusion stars by the end of the decade, but in 1971 the term fusion, as applied to music, was not yet in use. Yet fusion was indeed the most appropriate word for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, whose five members came from five different countries: England, Ireland, Panama, Czechoslovakia (as it was then known) and the US, respectively. The members came from a variety of musical backgrounds as well. McLaughlin (who wrote all the group's material) and Cobham had met while working on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew album, while Goodman had recorded two albums with the Chicago-based Flock. The Mahavishnu Orchestra was known for its ability to quickly shift between music styles on such tracks as Open Country Joy, which appeared on the group's second LP, Birds of Fire, as well as being released as a single.The original band disbanded after only two albums, but McLaughlin would later revive the group with a different lineup in the 1980s.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Pretzel Logic
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1974
    Steely Dan's third album, Pretzel Logic, was almost universally praised by the rock press, including NME magazine, which named it the 1974 album of the year, and Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, who ranked it at the top of his own annual list. The title track, according to co-writer Donald Fagan, is actually about time travel, and includes references to Napoleon Bonaparte and travelling minstrel shows.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Bagful Of Boogie
Source:    LP: One More River To Cross
Writer(s):    Canned Heat
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    There is no doubt that when it comes to longevity, the Rolling Stones are the undisputed kings of rock. But not far behind them is Canned Heat, a band that is still performing in spite of the fact that none of the original members of the band are still around. In fact, the band's membership has always been a revolving door, with only two of the band's founders, vocalist Robert Hite and guitarist Alan Wilson, making it as far as the group's first album. By 1973 even Wilson was gone, yet Hite and drummer Adolfo de la Parra (who had joined the group in time for their second LP in 1968) were able to attract quality musicians, including Hite's brother Richard on bass, Ed Beyer on keyboards, James Shane on rhythm guitar and former member Henry Vestine on lead guitar, for the band's tenth studio album, One More River To Cross. It was their first album on the Atlantic label, the band members having successfully negotiated their way out of their long-term contract with Liberty Records, which itself had been folded into United Artists. As usual, the album included a mixture of blues covers and band originals, with Bagful Of Boogie being an example of the latter.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2634 (starts 8/17/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/630814 

    Sometimes you just gotta do something different, and this week we start off the show with an entire album side from the Gods. If that weren't enough, we also have the Turtles taking on Jefferson Airplane in a battle of the bands, plus several other treats, including the B side of the very first Moody Blues single, released in 1964.

Artist:    Gods
Title:    Genesis-side two
Source:    Mono British import LP: Genesis
Writer(s):    Sugarman/Robertson/Konas/Hensley/Kerslake
Label:    Parlophone (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    The Juniors were a British pop band formed in 1962 made up entirely of adolescent boys who played their own instruments. The membership included 13-year-old rhythm guitarist Mick Taylor, 14-year old Brian Glascock on drums and his brother, 11-year-old John Glascock on bass. in 1965, the band underwent some changes, adding keyboardist Ken Hensley and lead vocalist/guitarist Lee Konas and changing their name to The Gods. They became part of the British blues scene, opening for Cream in 1966. The following year Taylor, who by this time had developed into a quality lead guitarist, accepted an offer to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers as Peter Green's replacement, and they were forced to regroup, replacing the remaining two former Juniors with drummer Lee Kerslake and bassist Paul Newton, who in turn was replaced by bassist Greg Lake. In 1968 Lake was invited to join Robert Fripp's new group, King Crimson, and John Glascock returned to the band. It was this lineup (Konas/Hensley/Glascock/Kerslake) that recorded the 1968 album Genesis. As was becoming more common that year, all the songs on each side Genesis ran together as a single track, and that is the way they are being presented here. Side two of the LP starts off with two songs, Radio Show and Plastic Horizon, written by British songwriters Harold Robertson and Paul Sugarman before moving into original territory for Konas's Farthing Man, followed by I Never Knew, a collaboration between Konas and Hensley that shows early signs of what Uriah Heep would sound like. The side finishes with Time And Eternity, co-written by Konas and Kerslake. After releasing a second album, the band officially disbanded, with a group called Toe Fat, featuring several of the same members, replacing it. The four ex-Gods who recorded Genesis reunited once more under the name Head Machine for an album called Orgasm in 1970 before moving on to other projects, including Uriah Heep (Hensley and Kerslake) and, eventually, Jethro Tull (John Glascock). 

Artist:    Public Nuisance
Title:    America
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on CD: Gotta Survive)
Writer(s):    David Houston
Label:    Rhino (original label: Frantic)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2003
    Looking and sounding a lot like the Ramones would in the late 70s, Public Nuisance found itself the victim of unusual circumstances that led to the cancellation of their only LP in 1968. Producer Terry Melcher, who had risen to fame as producer of Paul Revere and the Raiders, had made the mistake of rejecting tapes sent to him by a wannabe rock star named Charles Manson. When Manson achieved the fame and notoriety that had eluded him as a musician (by killing a bunch of people), Melcher felt it prudent to go into hiding, shelving the Public Nuisance project in the process. The album was finally released 35 years later on the independent Frantic label.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Tangier
Source:    British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man 
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    Although officially credited to Donovan Leitch, Tangier, from the 1968 LP The Hurdy Gurdy Man, was actually written by Donovan's close friend Gyp Mills (also known as Gypsy Dave). The song's original title was In Tangier Down A Windy Street. The piece is one of three songs on The Hurdy Gurdy Man that are built around a single note (known in Eastern music as a drone). Due to an ongoing contractual dispute between Donovan and Pye Records, The Hurdy Gurdy Man was originally released only in the US.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Blowin' In The Wind
Source:    CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    CBS
Year:    1963
    Generally acknowledged as Bob Dylan's first true classic, Blowin' In The Wind first appeared on the 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The song was popularized the following year by Peter, Paul and Mary and soon was the single most played song around campfires from coast to coast. For all I know it still is. (Do young people still sing around campfires? Maybe they should.)
        
Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Lose Your Money (But Don't Lose Your Mind)
Source:    Mono CD: Time Is On My Side (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Laine/Pinder
Label:    Power Sound 2001
Year:    1964
    Ever wonder how a progressive rock band known for their orchestral arrangements got a name like the Moody Blues? Take a listen to Lose Your Money (But Don't Lose Your Mind), the B side of their first record, and you'll wonder no more.

 Artist:     Who
Title:     Disguises
Source:     British import 45 RPM EP: Ready Steady Who
Writer:     Pete Townshend
Label:     Reaction
Year:     1966
     After several successful appearances on the British TV show Ready Steady Go (the UK's answer to American Bandstand), the Who took over the entire show for a week, and then released an EP called Ready Steady Who to capitalize on it. One side of the EP featured cover songs such as Bucket T and the Batman theme done for laughs. The two tracks on the first side of the record, however, were Who originals: a new version of Circles (a song that originally appeared on the My Generation album) and Disguises, which made its debut as the lead track of the EP. The song itself features an effect that always sounded to me like the noise you would pick up on an AM radio fading in and out as you were listening to a distant station at night. Since in 1966 the Who's British audience had only offshore pirate stations (while their European counterparts had only Radio Luxembourg) at night as a source for current rock and soul music, this could well have been the Who's first attempt at making a record that sounded like it was coming from a radio station, something they became famous for a year later when they released their third LP, The Who Sell Out. 

Artist:    Cuby + Blizzards
Title:    L.S.D. (Got A Million Dollars)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    T. McGuiness
Label:    Universal (original Dutch label: Philips)
Year:    1966
    In the Netherlands it was a given that if you wanted to hear some live blues you needed to check out Cuby + Blizzards. Led by vocalist Harry "Cuby" Muskee and lead guitarist Eelco Gelling, C+B, as they were known to their fans, had been in a couple of local bands as early as 1962, but had made a decision to abandon rock 'n' roll for a more blues/R&B approach in 1964. After cutting a single for the small CNR label in 1965, C+B signed a long-term contract with Philips the following year. Their first single, LSD (Got A Million Dollars) has a sound not dissimilar to many American garage bands of the time, especially those who favored the Yardbirds as their primary influence. Cuby + Blizzards hit the Dutch top 40 nine times between 1967 and 1971, and released several well-received albums as well.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    European import CD: Ten Years After
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Deram
Year:    1967
    The late 1960s saw the rise of a British blues-rock scene that brought fame to Peter Green, Dave Edmunds and other talented guitarists. One of the first bands to release an album in this sub-genre was Ten Years After, led by Alvin Lee. Their debut LP, released in 1967, included several cover tunes, including Spoonful, which had been recorded the previous year by Cream (in studio form), and would gain popularity as a live track in 1968. 

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Prodigal Son
Source:    CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s):    Robert Wilkins
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The Rolling Stones always had a fondness for American roots music, but by 1967 had largely abandoned the genre in favor of more modern sounds such as pychedelia. The 1968 album Beggar's Banquet, however, marked a return to the band's own roots and included such tunes as Prodigal Son, which at first was credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. In reality the song was written by the Reverend Robert Wilkins, and has since been acknowledged as such.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Tired Of Waiting For You
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Priority (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1965
    After a series of hard-rocking hits such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks surprised everyone with the highly melodic Tired Of Waiting For You in 1965. As it turns out the song was just one of many steps in the continually maturing songwriting of Ray Davies.

Artist:    Love
Title:    She Comes In Colors
Source:    LP: Love Revisited (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Arthur Lee's transition from angry punk (on songs like 7&7 Is and My Little Red Book) to a softer, more introspective kind of singer/songwriter was evident on Love's second LP, Da Capo. Although there were still some hard rockers, such as Stephanie Knows Who, the album also includes songs like She Comes In Colors, which was released ahead of the album as the band's third single in late 1966. The song was one of Lee's first to inspire critics to draw comparisons between Lee's vocal style and that of Johnny Mathis. Lee may indeed have been, as many assert, a musical genius, but his reference to "England town" shows his knowledge of geography to be somewhat lacking.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Time Between
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Chris Hillman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    The Byrds went from being the prototypical folk-rock band to being the seminal country-rock band over the space of about three years and six albums. The beginning of this transition can be heard on Time Between, from their fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. Time Between was bassist Chris Hillman's first attempt to write a song on his own, and features guest guitarist Clarence White, who would later replace David Crosby as a full-fledged member of the Byrds (ouch!).

Artist:    Easybeats
Title:        Friday On My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year:        1966
       Considered by many to be the "greatest Australian song" ever recorded, the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, released in late 1966, certainly was the first (and for many years only) major international hit by a band from the island continent. Technically, however, Friday On My Mind is not an Australian song at all, since it was recorded after the band had relocated to London. The group continued to release records for the next year or two, but were never able to duplicate the success of Friday On My Mind. Ultimately vocalist Stevie Wright returned to Australia, where he had a successful solo career. Guitarists Harry Vanda and George Young, who had written Friday On My Mind, also returned home to form a band called Flash And The Pan in the early 1970s. Later in the decade Young would help launch the careers of his two younger brothers, Angus and Malcolm, in their own band, AC/DC. 

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Let The Cold Winds Blow
Source:    Mono LP: It Ain't Me Babe
Writer(s):    Howard Kaylan
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1965
    Although still quite young (the band members had to get their parents' permission to record their first LP), the Turtles already had the makings of a successful group in 1965 when they recorded It Ain't Me Babe. In addition to the usual batch of cover songs that were expected from a "pop" band (the term "rock" having not come into common usage at that point in time) the album included a handful of original compositions from bandmembers. Lead vocalist Howard Kaylan, in particular, provided some decent tunes such as Let The Cold Winds Blow, which opens side two of the original LP.

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:    Turtles
Title:    Can't You Hear The Cows
Source:    Mono CD: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    The Turtles
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1968
    By late 1968 the Turtles already had their best times behind them. After a failed attempt at self-production (the record company refused to release all but one of the tracks they had recorded), the band went back into the studio to cut a Harry Nilsson tune, The Story of Rock and Roll. Can't You Hear the Cows, sort of a twisted throwback to their days as the surf music band known as the Crossfires and sounding oddly like the mid-80s Beach Boys, appeared on the B side of that single.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    J.P.P. McStep B Blues
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track originally released on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s):    Skip Spence
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1974
    One of the first songs recorded for the Surrealistic Pillow album, J.P.P. McStep B. Blues ended up being shelved, possibly because drummer Skip Spence, who wrote the song, had left the band by the time the album came out.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    A Walk In The Sun
Source:    Mono LP: It Ain't Me Babe
Writer(s):    Howard Kaylan
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1965
    Trivia fact: the members of the Turtles had to get their parents to sign permission slips before they could record their debut LP, It Ain't Me Babe. Yep, they were that young when they scored their first top 10 single in 1965. With that in mind, it might be come as a surprise that vocalist Howard Kaylan had already written a few songs, including A Walk In The Sun, that were included on the album itself. The band, formed when all the members were still in high school, had been known prior to 1965 as the Crossfires, playing mostly surf music. They were the first, and most successful, artists signed to the Los Angeles based White Whale label. 

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    White Rabbit
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer:    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane (not that they needed one). 

Artist:     Simon and Garfunkel
Title:     A Hazy Shade Of Winter
Source:     45 RPM single (promo copy)
Writer:     Paul Simon
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     Originally released as a single in 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs intended for the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used in the movie was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    The Great Banana Hoax
Source:    CD: Underground
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The second Electric Prunes LP, Underground, saw the band gaining greater creative control over the recording process than at any other time in their career (until their reformation over thirty years later). The album's opening track, The Great Banana Hoax, is notable for two reasons: first, it was composed by band members and second, it has nothing to do with bananas. The title probably refers to the rumor circulating at the time that Donovan's Mellow Yellow was really about smoking banana peels to get high. The song itself is an indication of the musical direction the band itself wanted to go in before it got sidetracked (some would say derailed) by producer David Hassinger, who would assert control to the point of eventually replacing all the original members of the band by their fourth album (yes, some producers had that kind of power in those days). 

Artist:    Them
Title:    The Moth
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Lane/Pulley
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    After Van Morrison left Them to pursue a career as a solo artist, his old band decided to head back to Ireland and recruit Kenny McDowell for lead vocals. Them then moved out to Texas and hooked up with producer Ray Ruff, who got them a contract with Tower Records, Capitol's subsidiary label specializing in releasing already produced recordings from outside sources such as Ed Cobb's Green Grass Productions (Standells, Chocolate Watchband) and soundtrack albums for teen exploitation flicks such as Riot on Sunset Strip and Wild in the Streets from Mike Curb's Sidewalk Productions. The 1968 LP Time Out! Time In! For Them was the second of two psychedelic albums the group cut for Ruff and released onTower before moving into harder rock and another label.

Artist:     David Peel and the Lower East Side
Title:     The Lower East Side
Source:    LP: The American Revolution
Writer:     Billy Joe White
Label:     Elektra
Year:     1970
     If there was any one band that could be called a Yippie band, it was David Peel and the Lower East Side. As much street theater as rock and roll, the group consisted of three core members: David Peel (guitar, vocals), Billy Joe White (guitar, vocals), and Harold C. Black (tambourine, vocals), plus just about anyone who wanted to play and/or sing along. The group's first album was Have A Marijuana, recorded live at New York's Washington Square at a cost of around $4,000. The album was a surprise cult hit, netting Elektra nearly a million dollars. The band's priorities, however, were more about social issues than musical ones, and the group did not get around to recording another album until 1970. By then the Yippie movement had run its course, and the decision was made to abandon the street theater aspect of the group and concentrate instead on making a studio album. To do this, they enlisted several new semi-official members to record The American Revolution, arguably the first true punk-rock LP ever recorded. The songs covered a variety of topical issues, including sex (Girls, Girls, Girls), religion (God), and the still-raging Vietnam War (I Want To Kill You and Hey, Mr. Draft Board, a parody of Larry Verne's Mr. Custer). The opening track, written by White, serves to both introduce and (loosely) define the band itself.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Touch Me
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of The Doors (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Soft Parade)
Writer(s):    Robby Kreiger
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1968
    The fourth Doors album was a departure from their previous work. No longer would the entire band be credited for all the tracks the band recorded. In addition, the group experimented with adding horns and other studio embellishments. Nowhere is this more evident than on Touch Me, the only hit single from the album.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Summertime Blues
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s):    Cochrane/Capehart
Label:    Priority (original label: Philips)
Year:    1968
    European electronics giant Philips had its own record label in the 1960s. In the US, the label was distributed by Mercury Records, and was known primarily for a long string of hits by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1968 the label surprised everyone by signing the loudest band in San Francisco, Blue Cheer. Their cover of the 50s Eddie Cochrane hit Summertime Blues was all over both the AM and FM airwaves that summer.

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Itchycoo Park
Source:    CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1967
    Led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, the Small Faces got their name from the fact that all the members of the band were somewhat vertically challenged. The group was quite popular with the London mod crowd, and was sometimes referred to as the East End's answer to the Who. Although quite successful in the UK, the group only managed to score one hit in the US, the iconic Itchycoo Park, which was released in late 1967. Following the departure of Marriott the group shortened their name to Faces, and recruited a new lead vocalist named Rod Stewart. Needless to say, the new version of the band did much better in the US than its previous incarnation before itself being destroyed by Stewart's solo career. 
    
Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Good Vibrations
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Although I had originally discovered top 40 radio in 1963 (when I received a small Sony transistor radio for my birthday), it wasn't until 1966 that I really got into it in a big way. This was due to a combination of a couple of things: first, my dad bought a console stereo, and second, my junior high school went onto split sessions, meaning that I was home by one o'clock every day. This gave me unprecedented access to Denver's two big top 40 AM stations, as well as an FM station that was experimenting with a Top 100 format for a few hours each day. At first I was content to just listen to the music, but soon realized that the DJs were making a point of mentioning each song's chart position just about every time that song would play. Naturally I began writing all this stuff down in my notebook (when I was supposed to be doing my homework), until I realized that both KIMN and KBTR actually published weekly charts, which I began to diligently hunt down at various local stores. In addition to the songs occupying numbered positions on the charts, both stations included songs at the bottom of the list that they called "pick hits". These were new releases that had not been around long enough to achieve a chart position. The one that most stands out in my memory was the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, a song I liked so much that I went out to the nearest Woolco and bought it the afternoon I heard it. Within a few weeks Good Vibrations had gone all the way to the top of the charts on both stations, and I always felt that some of the credit should go to me for buying the record when it first came out (hey I was 13, OK?). Over the next couple of years I bought plenty more singles, but to this day Good Vibrations stands out as the most influential 45 RPM record purchase I ever made.
    
Artist:    Santana
Title:    Singing Winds, Crying Beasts
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Abraxas)
Writer(s):    Mike Carabello
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    Mike Carabello, one of the three Santana percussionists, only had one solo songwriting credit on the three LPs he played on. It was a good one, though. Singing Winds, Crying Beasts is the opening track of the second Santana LP, Abraxas. The tune flows so naturally into the next track that it is sometimes considered a long intro to Black Magic Woman, despite the fact that Singing Winds, Crying Beasts is nearly five minutes long. 

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    New Speedway Boogie
Source:    LP: Workingman's Dead
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    The first three Grateful Dead albums were all attempts to capture the energy and experimentation of the band's live sets. Finally, in 1969, the band decided just to release a double LP of live performances. Once this goal had been reached the band began to move into new territory, concentrating more on songwriting and studio techniques. The result was Workingman's Dead, the first Grateful Dead LP to include songs that would become staples of the emerging album rock radio format. Among the strongest tracks on the album was New Speedway Boogie, which would become a staple of the band's live shows.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2634 (starts 8/17/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/630813

    This week we're breaking the show up into shorter sets, in order to keep the back announcing breaks shorter. Of course that means there are more interruptions, so we're putting it to you: which do you prefer? Long sets with a laundry list of what you've been hearing (which to be honest is easier for me), or shorter sets like on this week's show? Let me know, OK?

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Are You Experienced?
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    Before the release of Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience the emphasis in rock music (then generally known as pop music) was on the 45 RPM single, with albums seen as a luxury item that supplemented an artist's career rather than defined it. Are You Experience helped change all that. The album was not only highly influential, it was also a major seller, despite getting virtually no airplay on US top 40 radio. The grand finale of the LP was the title track, which features an array of studio effects, including backwards masked guitar and tape loops. Interestingly enough, the album was originally issued only in a mono version in the UK, with European pressings using a simulated stereo mix. After Reprise bought the rights to release the LP in the US the label hired its own engineers to create stereo mixes of the songs from the four-track master tapes.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Spanish Caravan
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    The third Doors album, Waiting For The Sun, was somewhat of a departure from the first two, covering a greater variety of styles than their previous efforts. A prime example is Spanish Caravan, which starts with a flamenco solo from guitarist Robbie Kreiger and continues in a highly Spanish (not Mexican) flavored musical vein.

Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    Shades Of Scarlett Conquering
Source:    LP: The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Asylum
Year:    1975
    Joni Mitchell was always known for sophisticated lyrics, but after making her switch from Reprise to Asylum, her music began to take on a sophistication of its own. While still based in folk-rock, it increasingly incorporated jazz idioms to create a sound that was uniquely Mitchell's. This trend reached its fulfillment with the 1975 album The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, featuring complex songs such as Shades Of Scarlett Conquering. The song is a poetic observation of women who actually look to fictional character Scarlett O'Hara as a role model. If at first that seems a bit absurd, rest assured that I have met such women as recently as the 1990s. 

Artist:    Jeff Beck
Title:    Constipated Duck
Source:    CD: Blow By Blow
Writer(s):    Jeff Beck
Label:    Epic
Year:    1975
    Following the dissolution of Beck, Bogert And Appice in 1974, guitarist Jeff Beck, after doing session work for various bands, decided to work on his first entirely instrumental solo album. To help with the project he recruited keyboardist Max Middleton from the second Jeff Beck Group and hired George Martin to produce the album. Filling out the group instrumentally were bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey. The shortest track on the album, Constipated Duck, is also the only one solely credited to Beck as a songwriter, as much of the album's songs were written (or co-written) by Middleton. The album was a critical and commercial success, prompting Beck to record mostly instrumentals for the rest of his long career.

Artist:    Carole King
Title:    Corazón 
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Carole King
Label:    Ode
Year:    1973
    Both sides of Carole King's fifth album, Fantasy, play as one continuous side, making it hard to play individual songs on the radio without cutting off part of the song itself. Luckily, King released two singles from Fantasy, the first of which was the Latin flavored Corazón. Because her primary audience was the Adult Contemporary crowd, which meant mostly AM radio stations in 1973, promo copies of the single were monoraul rather than stereo, as opposed to the retail version of the record.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Take It Easy
Source:    Looking In
Writer(s):    Simmonds/Peverett
Label:    Deram (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1970
    In mid-1970 lead vocalist Chris Youlden and the rest of Savoy Brown parted company, leaving Dave Peverett to double up as vocalist and guitarist for the band. The remaining four members (Peverett, bassist Tone Stevens, drummer Roger Earl and guitarist/founder Kim Simmonds) immediately went to work on what would be Savoy Brown's sixth LP. Looking In, when released, ended up being the most successful album in the band's entire run, and the only one to make the British charts (Savoy Brown had always done better with US audiences than in their native UK). Among the many listenable tunes on Looking In is Take It Easy, written by Peverett and Simmonds. Unfortunately, this particular Savoy Brown lineup was not to last, as Simmonds summarily dismissed the rest of the group shortly after Looking In was released, citing musical differences. Simmonds set about putting together a new lineup, while the other three erstwhile members formed their own band, Foghat, a group that would ironically have far more commercial success than Savoy Brown ever achieved.
    
Artist:    Bacchus
Title:    Carry My Load
Source:    LP: Brown Acid-The First Trip (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Peterson/Turner/Souza 
Label:    RidingHigh (original label: Johnson)
Year:    1971
    Bacchus was a power trio from the Tampa Bay area that was formed in 1970 by Eric Turner (guitar, vocals, songwriter), Charlie Souza (bass), and Bill Peterson (drums), following the breakup of their previous band, the Tropics. Bacchus served as opening act for several major headliners, including Grand Funk Railroad, Lynyrd Skyryrd and Ted Nugent, before disbanding around 1974. One of their best remembered songs was Carry My Load, which was released as the B side of the band's first single in 1971.

Artist:    Troyka
Title:    Early Morning
Source:    LP: Troyka
Writer(s):    Troyka
Label:    Cotillion
Year:    1970
    Depending on whose opinion is being voiced, Edmonton, Alberta's Troyka was either Canada's first psychedelic band, Canada's first prog-rock band, or Canada's first hard-rock power trio. After checking out the instrumental Early Morning I would have to add a touch of soul to that mix as well.

Artist:    Graham Nash
Title:    Chicago
Source:    French import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    This song always struck me as a bit of an anachronism. The Democratic Convention in Chicago happened in 1968, after all, while this song, which is obviously about the demonstrations that were happening across the street at Lincoln Park, didn't come out until 1971. So what's the deal? Well, it turns out there was something called the Chicago 8 Defense Fund that was holding a fundraising concert that summer, and Nash wrote the song in part to pressure some of his bandmates (David Crosby was already on board) into performing for free. Did it work? I have no idea. Anyone in the Chicago area know if they played a benefit concert there in 1971?

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    Old Man
Source:    CD: Decade (originally released on LP: Harvest)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    Neil Young had his greatest success as a solo artist with the album Harvest, released in 1972. In fact, the song Heart Of Gold was so successful that Young deliberately set out to make less commercial sounding records from then on. Less successful on the charts was a second single, Old Man, that nonetheless got tons of exposure on FM rock stations that were just beginning to realize that they could be economically viable alternatives to top 40 AM stations. 

Artist:    National Lampoon, featuring Chevy Chase
Title:    Colorado
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits Of The National Lampoon (originally released on LP: Lemmings)
Writer(s):    Guest/Kelly/Hendra
Label:    Uproar (original label: Blue Thumb)
Year:    1973
    In January of 1973 National Lampoon began running a stage show called Lemmings that ended its run after 350 performances. The second half of each show was subtitled Woodshuck: Three Days of Peace, Love and Death, and was made up of parodies of many of the musical acts that had appeared at Woodstock. One popular performer who wasn't at Woodstock (although he apparently wished he had been) was John Denver. Nonetheless, writers Christopher Guest, Sean Kelly and Tony Hendra decided to include a Denver parody in Lemmings. The song Colorado, about being stranded in winter in the Colorado Rockie Mountains, was sung by a then-unknown Chevy Chase, with instruments and backup vocals provided by the Lemmings cast.
    
Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    My Mistake
Source:    British import CD: Living The Blues
Writer(s):    Alan Wilson
Label:    BGO (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Although Robert "The Bear" Hite was the main lead vocalist for Canned Heat, guitarist Alan "Sunflower" Wilson had his share of the spotlight as well, particularly on songs that he wrote himself, such as My Mistake, from the 1968 album Living The Blues. Similar in sound and structure to his most famous song, Going Up The Country, My Mistake is a worthy companion to that classic.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Come Together
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    After the Beatles released their 1968 double LP (the so-called White Album), they went to work on their final film project, a documentary about the band making an album. Unfortunately, what the cameras captured was a group on the verge of disintegration, and both the album and the film itself were shelved indefinitely. Instead, the band decided to record an entirely new group of compositions. Somehow, despite the internal difficulties the band was going through, they managed to turn out a masterpiece: Abbey Road. Before the album itself came out, a single was released. The official A side was George Harrison's Something, the first Harrison song ever to be released as a Beatle A side. The other side was the song that opened the album itself, John Lennon's Come Together. In later years Come Together came to be one of Lennon's signature songs and was a staple of his live performances.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Hats Off To (Roy) Harper
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin III
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Charles Obscure
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    The final track on Led Zeppelin's third album at first sounds like a throwaway track featuring Jimmy Page noodling slide guitar and Robert Plant throwing out blues cliches. This impression is reinforced by the fact that the writing credits on the label read "Traditional, arr. Charles Obscure". The reality, though, is that Hats Off To (Roy) Harper is based on a 1937 recording of Shake 'Em On Down by delta bluesman Bukka White. The title of the Led Zeppelin version is a tribute to the band's friend Roy Harper, who would come to international prominence in 1975 as the guest lead vocalist on Pink Floyd's Have A Cigar, from their Wish You Were Here album.  

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2633 (starts 8/10/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/629953

    This week, among other things, we have several sets of tunes from 1967, a Jefferson Airplane set and a surprise. So don't scroll down and look at the playlist too closely, OK? It all starts with a dedication...

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:     Who
Title:     In The City
Source:     British import 45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Entwhistle/Moon
Label:     Reaction
Year:     1966
     The war between the Who and Brunswick Records continued throughout 1966 with Brunswick responding to each new Who single with one of their own, using album tracks from the My Generation album. Despite this all the new Who singles on Reaction/Polydor that year made it to the top 5 in the UK, while the Brunswick singles did increasingly worse with each subsequent release. Brunswick finally gave up the battle after I'm A Boy (on Reaction) went all the way to # 2 on the UK charts, while Brunswick's La-La-La-Lies didn't even crack the top 100. The B side of I'm A Boy was In The City, a rare collaboration between bassist John Entwhistle and drummer Keith Moon. The song was included on the CD remastered version of the Who's second album, A Quick One, released in 1993.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Super Bird
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Country Joe and the Fish, from Berkeley, California, were one of the first rock bands to incorporate political satire into their music. Their I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag is one of the most famous protest songs ever written. Super Bird is even heavier on the satire than the Rag. The song, from the band's debut LP, puts president Lyndon Johnson, whose wife and daughter were known as "Lady-bird" and "Linda-bird", in the role of a comic book superhero. 

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    I Won't Hurt You
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer:    Harris/Lloyd/Markley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Unlike more famous L.A. groups like Love and the Doors, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was not a Sunset Strip club band. In fact, the WCPAEB really didn't play that many live performances in their career, although those they did tended to be at high profile venues such as the Hollywood Bowl. The band was formed when the Harris brothers, sons of an accomplished classical musician, decided to record their own album and release it on the small Fifa label. Only a few copies of that album, Volume One, were made and finding one now is next to impossible. That might have been the end of the story except for the fact that they were acquaintances of Kim Fowley, the Zelig-like record producer and all-around Hollywood (and sometimes London) hustler. Fowley invited them to a party where the Yardbirds were playing; a party also attended by one Bob Markley. Markley, who was nearly ten years older than the Harris brothers, was a former TV show host from the midwest who had moved out to the coast to try his luck in Hollywood. Impressed by the flock of young girls surrounding the Yardbirds, Markley expressed to Fowley his desire to be a rock and roll star and have the young girls flock around him, too. Fowley, ever the deal-maker, responded by introducing Markley to the Harris Brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born. With the addition of guitarist Michael Lloyd and the influence of Markley's not-inconsiderable family money, the group soon landed a contract with Reprise Records, where they proceeded to record the album Part One, which includes the tune I Won't Hurt You, which uses a simulated heartbeat to keep the...umm, beat.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    My Eyes Have Seen You
Source:    European import CD: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    It's strange. Some reviewers seem to think that the album Strange Days is inferior to the first Doors album. They justify this view by citing the fact that almost all the songs on both albums were already in the band's repertoire when they signed their record contract with Elektra. The implication is that the band naturally selected the best material for the first album, making Strange Days a collection of sloppy seconds. There is one small problem with this theory however. Pick a song at random from Strange Days and listen to it and in all likelihood it will sound every bit as good as a song randomly picked from the first album (and probably better than one picked from either of the Doors' next two LPs). In fact, I'll pick one for you: My Eyes Have Seen You. See what I mean?

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Thoughts And Words
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Chris Hillman
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
     In addition to recording the most commercially successful Dylan cover songs, the Byrds had a wealth of original material over the course of several albums. On their first album, these came primarily from guitarists Gene Clark and Jim (now Roger) McGuinn, with David Crosby emerging as the group's third songwriter on the band's second album. After Clark's departure, bassist Chris Hillman began writing as well, and had three credits as solo songwriter, including Thoughts And Words, on the group's fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. Hillman credits McGuinn, however, for coming up with the distinctive reverse-guitar break midway through the song.

Artist:      Rolling Stones
Title:     On With the Show
Source:      CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:     Abkco (original label: London)
Year:     1967
     On With The Show, the final track on the last album from the Rolling Stones' psychedelic period, Their Satanic Majesties Request, makes you wonder if rock's Bad Boys were ever in the position of having to perform in a strip club. Then again, it could be about how some people go about getting their jollies, regardless of how the world is falling apart around them. Don't ask me, I suck at allegory.

Artist:    Magic Mushrooms
Title:    It's-A-Happening
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Casella/Rice
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1966
    It's not known whether or not the Magic Mushrooms heard any of the tracks from the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out when they recorded It's-A-Happening. Still, it's hard to imagine this bit of inspired weirdness being created in a vacuum. Besides this one single, nobody seems to have any knowledge whatsoever of the group known as the Magic Mushrooms, other than the fact that they hailed from Philadelphia, Pa., and, along with Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, may well have been the reason that A&M Records shied away from signing any more psychedelic rock bands for the next few years. (Well, there were Procol Harum and Joe Cocker, but their stuff was recorded for British labels and reissued in the US by A&M, so I'm not counting them). 

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    You Don't Know
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer:    Powell St. John
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    One of the most legendary psychedelic rock bands was the 13th Floor Elevators, based in Austin, Texas. Led by guitarist/vocalist Roky Erickson and featuring Tommy Hall on electric jug, the Elevators were among the first bands to use the word psychedelic in the title of their debut LP The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators. Most of the songs on the album were originals written by Hall and Erickson, but Hall asked the legendary Austin songwriter Powell St. John (the former Beatnik who would soon move to San Francisco and co-found Mother Earth with Tracy Nelson) to write a few songs, such as You Don't Know, for the band as well.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Shapes Of Things
Source:    Simulated stereo Canadian LP: Shapes Of Things (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label:    Priority (original label: Epic)
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 the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    It Ain't Me Babe
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    FloEdCo (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1965
    The Turtles started out as a local high school surf band called the Crossfires. In 1965 they were signed to a record label that technically didn't exist yet. That did not deter the people at the label (which would come to be known as White Whale) from convincing the band to change its name and direction. Realizing that surf music was indeed on the way out, the band, now called the Turtles, went into the studio and recorded four songs. One of those was Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe. The Byrds had just scored big with their version of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and the Turtles took a similar approach with It Ain't Me Babe. The song was a solid hit, going to the #8 spot on the national charts and leading to the first of many Turtles albums (not to mention hit singles) on the White Whale label. 

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source:    CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in late 1966 and hitting the charts in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation and Rhino's first Nuggets LP.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Square Room (single version)
Source:    Mono British import CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Armstrong/Harley/Henderson/McDowell
Label:    Rev-Ola (original label: Sully)
Year:    1967
    After Van Morrison left Them to try his luck as a solo artist, the rest of the band returned to their native Ireland to recruit a new vocalist, Kenny McDowell, before relocating to California. Their first record with the new lineup was a single on the Sully label of a song called Dirty Old Man (At The Age Of 16). The B side of the single was a piece called Square Room, that would end up being re-recorded in a much longer arrangement for their LP debut on Tower Records the following year. 

Artist:    Electric Flag
Title:    Killing Floor
Source:    LP: A Long Time Comin'
Writer(s):    Chester Burnett
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Chicago native Mike Bloomfield began playing in local bands around 1955 at age twelve, soon forming his own band called the Hurricanes. At age 14 he attended a concert by blues singer Josh White and began incorporating blues into his own music while frequenting clubs on the city's south side. In 1959 his band played a song at a school gathering that was considered so offensive the entire band was expelled. He ended up graduating from high school at a local YMCA two years later. By then he was sitting in with people like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, eventually coming to the attention of talent scout John Hammond, who got him signed to Columbia's Epic label. Although he made some recordings for the label, they remained unreleased, and in 1965 he joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and, perhaps even more importantly, sat in with Bob Dylan, playing lead guitar on Like A Rolling Stone and most of the other songs on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album. That summer he appeared onstage with Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, a landmark performance that drew the ire of many traditional folk music fans. Later that year the Butterfields released their debut LP, following it up with the landmark East-West album in 1966. In 1967 Bloomfield left the Butterfield Blues Band to form the Electric Flag. Billed as An American Music Band, the Flag did a mixture of original tunes and blues covers such as Howlin' Wolf's Killing Floor. The Electric Flag disintegrated after just one album, with Bloomfield joining Al Kooper, who he had met during the Highway 61 Revisited sessions, for the landmark Super Session album in 1968. Bloomfield suffered from chronic insomnia, which he attempted to treat with heroin. Bloomfield continued to record for the next dozen years, both as a solo artist and as a guest musician, but always seemed to remain pretty much in the background throughout the 1970s. Bloomfield died of what was ruled an accidental overdose due to cocaine and methamphetamine poisoning in 1981.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills And Nash
Title:    Helplessly Hoping
Source:    LP: So Far (originally released on LP: Crosby, Stills and Nash)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    By 1969 there was a significant portion of the record-buying public that was more interested in buying albums than in picking up the latest hit single. This in turn was leading to the emergence of album-oriented FM radio stations as players in the music industry. Crosby, Stills and Nash took full advantage of this trend. Although they did release a pair of singles from the debut LP (Marrakesh Express and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes), it was their album tracks like Helplessly Hoping that got major airplay on FM radio and helped usher in the age of the singer/songwriter, making the trio superstars in the process.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Sugar Magnolia
Source:    LP: American Beauty
Writer(s):    Hunter/Weir
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:     1970
            One of the most popular songs in the Grateful Dead catalog, Sugar Magnolia also has the distinction of being the second-most performed song in the band's history, with 596 documented performances. The song, written by Robert Hunter and Bob Weir, first appeared on the 1970 album American Beauty, but was not released as a single. A live version two years later, however, did see a single release, charting in the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100.

Artist:    Spanky And Our Gang
Title:    Lazy Day
Source:    LP: Spanky And Our Gang
Writer(s):    Fischoff/Powers
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    Sounding a bit like the Mamas and the Papas, Spanky And Our Gang had a series of hit records, starting with Sunday Will Never Be The Same, in 1967. The follow-up single, Lazy Day, actually had a longer chart life than its predecessor, although it did not chart quite as high. Both songs were featured on the group's debut LP. A second album yielded another major hit, I'd Like To Get To Know You, but, like many other hit-oriented bands of the time, Spanky And Our Gang were already starting to sound dated by 1968 and soon faded off into pop music history.

Artist:    Drag Set
Title:    Day And Night
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Schindler/Brancaccio
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Go)
Year:    1967
    For every British band to find international success in the mid-60s there were at least a dozen more that were never heard of outside their native land. Some of these bands (such as the Move and the Small Faces) were actually quite popular on their home turf, while others were barely able to scratch out a living and are for the most part long-forgotten. In between were the bands that had enough going for them to score a contract with one of the many new labels popping up, but were never able to get a record on the charts. Among those "in-betweeners" were a band called the Drag Set. They played gigs at the most popular London clubs in 1965 and 1966, which in turn led to them hooking up with Lionel Segal, who owned the Go label. The Drag Set released Day And Night in March of 1967, but the record went nowhere and the by the end of the year the band had renamed itself The Open Mind.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Bummer In The Summer
Source:    CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Perhaps the least known tune on Love's third LP, Forever Changes, Bummer In The Summer sounds at first like a throwback to the band's earlier work. A closer listen, however, reveals a thematic similarity with the rest of the critically-acclaimed album, which is generally considered to be the band's finest work.

Artist:    Seatrain
Title:    Out Where The Hills
Source:    British import CD: Seatrain/Marblehead Messenger (originally released on LP: Seatrain)
Writer(s):    Kuhlberg/Roberts
Label:    BGO (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    The addition of guitarist Peter Rowan to the Seatrain lineup for their self-titled second LP saw the group suddenly at the forefront of the country-rock movement, which can plainly be heard on songs like Out Where The Hills. Being more of an East Coast band, however, Seatrain was unable to build the same kind of audience as groups like Poco and the Flying Burrito Brothers, and after just two more albums the group disbanded.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Come Up The Years
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    One of the most overused motifs in pop music is the "You're too young for me" song. This probably reflects, to a certain degree, a lifestyle that goes back to the beginnings of rock and roll (Chuck Berry did jail time for transporting a minor across state lines, Jerry Lee Lewis saw his career get derailed by his marraige to his 13-year-old cousin, etc.). Generally, the song's protagonist comes to a decision to put a stop to the relationship before it gets too serious. The Marty Balin/Paul Kantner tune Come Up The Years takes a more sophisticated look at the subject, although it still comes to the same conclusion (I can't do this because you're jailbait). In fact, the only rock songwriter I know of that came to any other conclusion on the matter was Bob Markley of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and that's what ultimately got him in trouble with the law. Oh, and it's been alleged that some of Kim Fowley's dealings with certain members of the Runaways was, let us say, less than professional, which may well have been the reason for them severing ties with him.

Artist:      Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Good Shepherd
Source:      CD: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP:Volunteers)
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Kaukonen
Label:    BMG/RCA
Year:     1969
     Jorma Kaukonen is given credit for arranging the traditional tune Good Shepherd for the fifth Jefferson Airplane album, Volunteers. The song is a good example of how much the group's sound had changed over a three year period, moving in several different directions at once. 
 
Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Run Around
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    The first Jefferson Airplane album was dominated by the songwriting of the band's founder, Marty Balin, both as a solo writer and as a collaborator with other band members such as Paul Kantner. The shirts at RCA had problems with some of Balin and Kantner's lyrics; specifically they objected to the line "flowers that sway as you lay under me" in the song Run Around, saying it was sexually suggestive, and the band had to change it to "flowers that sway as you stay here by me" to get it included on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. RCA had problems with two other Balin/Kantner tunes as well; one of them, Let Me In, had to undergo a similar change of lyrics, while another, Runnin' Round This World, was left off the album entirely. 

Artist:    Eyes
Title:    When The Night Falls
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):    Terry Nolder
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1966
    The Eyes formed in Whealing, West London in late 1962 as the Renegades, changing their name to Gerry Hart And The Hartbeats and finally The Eyes in 1964. The band was part of the Mod movement in mid-60s London, and was known as much for their visual image (they all wore rugby shirts and pink parkas with tire tracks across the back) as for the music they made. Like all Mod bands, the Eyes went for simply-structured tunes with repeated riffs, as can be heard on When The Night Falls, their 1966 debut single for a British label that had been formed to issue American recordings, which led British disc jockeys to jump to the conclusion that the Eyes were simply an American band trying to sound British. After three more singles and an EP failed to change that impression, the group decided to disband the following year. 

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Shake It Up (parts 1 & 2)
Source:    Mono LP: The Exciting Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Revere/Lindsay
Label:    Columbia Special Products (original label: Gardenia)
Year:    1962 (combined version: 1966)
    In the 1960s it was common for local bands to release a single or two on a local label. Sometimes this led to even more singles on local labels, and if they were lucky, a contract with one of the major labels. If a band then hit it big, some enterprising enterpreneur would come along and buy up the rights to the older regional releases and then put them on an album, usually to the displeasure of the major label that had signed the group. In the case of Paul Revere And The Raiders, however, Columbia had the foresight to buy up the rights to the band's previous records themselves, including all eight singles the band had released on the Gardenia label from 1960 through 1963.  Although for the most part they never did anything with them, they did include both sides of the band's sixth single, Shake It Up, on an album called The Exciting Years. The LP was issued on the Columbia Special Products label, leading me to believe that it was either a TV offer (not common in 1966) or more likely a free bonus album sent to members of the Columbia Record Club.

Artist:    Red Crayola
Title:    Hurricane Fighter Plane
Source:    Stereo British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Thompson/Cunningham/Barthelme
Label:    International Artists
Year:    1967 (single released 2011)
    Rock history is dotted with stories of bands who reputations exceeded their actual recorded output. One such band was Red Crayola, a Texas band who found themselves labelmates with the 13th Floor Elevators in 1967. Formed by art students at the University of St. Thomas (Texas) in 1966, the band was led by singer/guitarist and visual artist Mayo Thompson, along with drummer Frederick Barthelme (brother of novelist Donald Barthelme) and Steve Cunningham.  Although the Red Crayola (who were forced to change their name to Red Krayola in 1968) were only together for a couple of years, their legend continued to grow throughout the punk/new wave era and indy rock movements of the late 20th century and beyond. Which brings us to this curious single issued in 2011. The songs themselves were lifted from the first Red Crayola album, Parable Of Arable Land, and are even on the same label, International Artists...or are they? International Artists, a relatively small label owned by a group of Texas businessmen, ceased to exist in 1971, and this 2011 single is a British import. So what's the deal? Well, as it turns out, one of the original partners in International Artists was a guy named Lelan Rogers. In 1978 Rogers (perhaps with the help of his brother Kenny?) revived the label and reissued all twelve of the LPs that originally been released on International Artists. This was followed by various compilation albums, some of which included previously released material. By the early 2000s, the revived International Artists had become part of Britian's Charly Records, a company that specializes in archival material. Apparently the people at Charly felt there was enough interest in Red Crayola recordings to issue a yellow vinyl single 2011, with a newly remixed Hurrican Fighter Pilot on the A side and Pink Stainless Tail on the flip. As both these tracks overlap other stuff on the original LP, the single turns out to be a pretty good thing to have around.

Artist:    Aquarian Age
Title:    10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Alder/Wood
Label:    EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1968
    Following the breakup of the influential British psychedelic band Tomorrow, the various members went their separate ways, with vocalist Keith West embarking on a solo career and guitarist Steve Howe doing studio work before becoming a member of Yes. The remaining two members, Junior Wood (bass) and Twink Alder (drums), continued to work with Abbey Road studios staff producer Mark Wirtz on a single, 10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box, credited to the Aquarian Age. Probably the nearest American equivalent to the project was Sagittarius from Los Angeles producer Gary Usher. Both projects came from respected staff producers at major recording studios utilizing top studio talent, not to mention they both took their names from Zodiac signs.

And now for the surprise:

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Sufferin' Sucotash
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On 
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2006
    Before signing with Original Sound Records in late 1966, Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, recorded several demos. Among those demos was a tune called Sufferin' Sucotash, obviously inspired by a certain cartoon cat. If only Sean Bonniwell had sung it with a lisp...

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    She's Leaving Home
Source:    CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    One of the striking things about the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the sheer variety of styles on the album. Never before had a rock band gone so far beyond its roots in so many directions at once. One of Paul McCartney's most poignant songs on the album was She's Leaving Home. The song tells the story of a young girl who has decided that her stable homelife is just too unfulling to bear and heads for the big city. Giving the song added depth is the somewhat clueless response of her parents, who can't seem to understand what went wrong.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I'll Be Back
Source:    Mono CD: A Hard Day's Night (original US release: LP: Beatles '65)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1964
    The original British version of A Hard Day's Night was a full LP that included several songs such as I'll Be Back that were not from the film itself. The US version, however, appeared on the United Artists label as a movie soundtrack album, and included incidental music written by George Martin in addition to Beatles songs from the film itself. The remaining songs ended up being released on US-only LPs such as Beatles '65. 

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Come On In
Source:    British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    It only cost a total of $150 for the Music Machine to record both sides of their debut single at RCA Studios in Los Angeles, thanks to the band having been performing the songs live for several months. The band then took the tapes to Original Sound, who issued Talk Talk and Come On In on their own label. It may seem odd now, but original promo copies of the record show Come On In, a song that in many ways anticipated bands like the Doors and Iron Butterfly, as the "plug side" of the record, rather than Talk Talk, which of course went on to become the Music Machine's only major hit. 

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Double Yellow Line
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. The officer declined the invitation.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone/EMI (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    The top album of 1967 was the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was also the first US Beatles album to have a song lineup that was identical to the original UK LP. Consequently, it was also the first Beatle album released in the US to not include any songs that were also released as singles. Nonetheless, several tracks from the LP found their way onto the playlists of both top 40 AM and "underground" FM stations from coast to coast. Among the most popular of these tracks was John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which shows up near the top of just about everyone's list of classic psychedelic tunes.

Artist:    Buckinghams
Title:    I'll Be Back
Source:    LP: Time And Charges
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    I have a confession to make: I've had a copy of the Buckinghams' 1967 Columbia debut LP since the late 1970s, when I found it at a thrift store near the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. All this time I thought the name of the album was Time And Changes. In early 2018 I realized that the actual title of the album is Time And Charges. It says so right on the label. And the front cover. And the spine of the album cover, for that matter. No idea how I missed that. Anyway, the album, despite being fairly light pop for the most part, does have some interesting tracks, such as a cover of the Beatles' I'll Be Back which was arranged for the band by producer James William Guercio, whose interest in rock bands with a horn section would lead him to produce the second (and most successful) Blood, Sweat & Tears album, as well as all the early Chicago LPs. 

Artist:    Chimps
Title:    Fifth Class Mail
Source:    CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lite Psych (originally released on LP: Monkeys A-Go-Go)
Writer(s):    unknown
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Wyncote)
Year:    1967
    In the 1960s there were literally hundreds of record labels, many of which targeted specific audiences to the exclusion of all else. Among those were labels that specialized in exploiting current trends with cheap knockoffs, usually played by studio musicians using made up band names. Once in a while, a real band would record for these labels, but not under their actual name. One such case is the Chimps, who were in reality the Thomas A. Edison Electric Band, a Philadelphia band formed in 1966 that released one album (as the Edison Electric Band) on the Cotillion label in 1970, as well as a single for Cameo Records in 1967 shortly before that label's demise. As the Chimps, they released two albums for the Philadelphia based Wyncote label that were meant to capitalize on the popularity of the Monkees. The albums, Monkey Business and Monkeys A-Go-Go, both included a mix of Monkees cover songs and originals such as Fifth Class Mail, possibly the most psychedelic track the group ever recorded.