https://exchange.prx.org/p/627230
This week's show, recorded five years ago but never broadcast, features some rather obscure tunes at the beginning, but quickly settles into more familiar territory, including an artists' set from the Rolling Stones, before moving on to Iron Butterfly's most famous song. From there it gets interesting, ending with a nearly eight minute long track from Eric Burdon and War.
Artist: Action
Title: I'll Keep Holding On
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): Hunter/Stevenson
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1966
The Action was probably the most popular band among the so-called Mods in mid-60s London. Formed in 1963 Kentish Town as the Boys, the group recorded a pair of singles before changing their name to the Action in 1965. Following the name change the band came to the attention of producer George Martin, who signed the group to his AIR production company, releasing several successful singles on the Parlophone label. The second of these was I'll Keep Holding On, which had been a minor hit for the Marvelettes in the US. The Action version, while remaining faithful to the original in terms of vocals, placed a greater emphasis on the instrumental parts, especially the guitar and drums.
Artist: Yellow Payges
Title: Our Time Is Running Out
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jimmy Webb
Label: Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year: 1967
Why the Yellow Payges were never a household name is a bit of a mystery. They were the headliner of Dick Clark's Happening '67 tour of 45 cities in 45 days, they were signed to a major record label, and they recorded songs by established songwriters like Jimmy Webb, yet they never were able to make a sizable dent on the top 40 charts. Maybe the timing was just wrong. Or it could have been the constantly fluctuating lineup of the band itself, that at one time included the son of Mickey Rooney. But most likely it was the strategic blunder of appearing in a series of commercial for (who else?) the Yellow Pages. According to founder and lead vocalist Dan Hortter "We were put in these hideous yellow satin ruffled shirts with black velvet pants, and did these ridiculous commercials. It pretty much destroyed everything we worked so hard to accomplish." Our Time Is Running Out was their first single for Uni, released in December of 1967.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Now I Taste The Tears
Source: Mono CD: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer(s): Clifford
Label: See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
The second LP from the Beacon Street Union, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens, was a departure from the sound of the band's first album. If anything, it featured an even more eclectic mix of songs than The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union, including the humorous King of the Jungle and a nearly 17 minute version of Baby, Please Don't Go. The band took an R&B turn with the closing track on side one of the LP, Now I Taste The Tears, which features a horn section led by band member Robert Rhodes.
Artist: Humble Pie
Title: Down Home Again
Source: LP: Lost And Found (originally released in UK on LP: Town And Country)
Writer(s): Steve Marriott
Label: A&M (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1969
Released only three months after the band's debut LP, Humble Pie's Town And Country was a mostly acoustic departure from the group's hard rock sound. Guitarist/vocalist Steve Marriott's compsitions such as Down Home Again actually took on a country-rock vibe. The album itself came out just as Immediate Records was going out of business; as a result the album got no promotion, or even a US release from the label. The two Immediate albums were eventually released in the US in 1973 as a double-LP called Lost And Found on A&M Records.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title: Lover Man
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year: 1970
When the original Jimi Hendrix Experience made its US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967, they opened with a fast-paced high-energy version of the Muddy Waters classic Killing Floor. In fact, except for the lyrics, Hendrix's arrangement of the song was essentially a brand-new song. Hendrix must have realized at some point that all he had to do is write new lyrics for the tune to create an entirely new composition, because he made not one, but two recordings of what came to be called Lover Man. The first was made prior to the recording of the Band Of Gypsys live album in late 1969, while the later version heard here features his final power trio, consisting of Hendrix, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell, who were already being billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience when they recorded the song in 1970.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Homeward Bound
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1966
Following the success of Sounds Of Silence, Paul Simon And Art Garfunkel set about making an album of all new material (Sounds Of Silence had featured several re-recorded versions of tunes from the 1965 British album The Paul Simon Songbook). The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, one of the finest folk-rock albums ever recorded. The album contained several successful singles, including Homeward Bound.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Broken Arrow
Source: LP: Retrospective-The Best Of Buffalo Springfield (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The most experimental track ever to appear on a Buffalo Springfield album, Broken Arrow is basically a Neil Young solo piece with orchestra, arranged and co-produced by Jack Nitzsche. The track uses extensive editing and studio effects to highlight Young's highly personal lyrics.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Free Spirit
Source: CD: Spirit (bonus track)
Writer: John Locke
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1967
When Spirit entered the recording studio to work on their first album they recorded more music than they could fit on an LP. One of the tracks that got cut from the final lineup was Free Spirit, an instrumental piece written by keyboardist John Locke. Like most of Spirit's early material, Free Spirit incorporates jazz into the band's sound to a much greater degree than on later recordings.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
When Let's Spend The Night Together was climbing the charts, the Rolling Stones made one of their many appearances on the Ed Sullivan show. The show's producers (or maybe Ed himself) asked Mick Jagger to change the words to "Let's Spend Some Time Together", and he actually complied! I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now (nor can I imagine the band agreeing to it).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: Mono CD: Flowers
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in Spring of '66, is a scathing criticism of the abuse of legal prescription drugs by the parents of the Stones' fans. Perhaps more than any other song of the time, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: You Can't Always Get What You Want
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1969
When the Rolling Stones called for singers to back them up on their recording of You Can't Always Get What You Want, they expected maybe 30 to show up. Instead they got twice that many, and ended up using them all on the record. The song, which also features Al Kooper on organ, was orginally released as the B side of Honky Tonk Women in 1969. In the mid-1970s, after the Stones had established their own record label, Allen Klein, who had bought the rights to the band's pre-1970 recordings, reissued the single, this time promoting You Can't Always Get What You Want as the A side. Klein's strategy worked and the song ended up making the top 40.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Tombstone Blues
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released on LP: Highway 61 Revisited)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
One of the most influential albums in rock history was Bob Dylan's 1965 LP Highway 61 Revisited. Although he had experimented with adding electric guitar, bass and drums to some of the songs on his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited was his first LP to feature electric instruments on every track. Of these, the most notable was probably the guitar work of Michael Bloomfield, who would soon come to prominence as lead guitarist for the Butterfield Blues Band. Bloomfield's work is most prominent on blues-based tracks such as Tombstone Blues, which follows the classic Like A Rolling Stone on side one of the original LP.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: And I Like It (alternate version)
Source: CD: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (bonus track)
Writer: Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1966
Jorma Kaukonen was giving guitar lessons when he was approached by Marty Balin about joining a new band that Balin was forming. Kaukonen said yes and became a founding member of Jefferson Airplane. The two seldom collaborated on songwriting, though. One of the few examples of a Balin/Kaukonen composition is And I Like It, the track that closes out the band's first album. A few months later, just prior to the album's release, drummer Skip Spence left the Airplane to co-found Moby Grape, and the band recruited experienced jazz drummer Spencer Dryden as his replacement. This longer version of And I Like It, recorded in July of 1966, is one of the first recordings to include Dryden as a member of the band.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Mr. Pitiful
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Redding/Cropper
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1965
Otis Redding got his first big break when he recorded These Arms Of Mine in late 1962. The song took off on the R&B charts the following year, eventually selling over 800,000 copies. Redding followed the song up with a series of R&B hits in the same slow soulful style, leading one music critic to dub him Mr. Pitiful. Redding, always one to recognize an opportunity, took the title and, along with co-writer Steve Cropper, came up with his first up-tempo hit in 1965. By the time of his death in late 1967 Redding had established himself as one of the top R&B acts in the country, and, thanks to a electrifying set at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967, was well on the way to becoming a major star on top 40 radio as well.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Source: CD: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s): Doug Ingle
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
I think there is a law on the books somewhere that says I need to play the full version of Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida at least once a year to retain the show's psychedelic cred, so here it is.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Not Guilty
Source: CD: Anthology 3
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Capitol/Apple
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1996
One of the most legendary unreleased Beatles recordings, Not Guilty was written by George Harrison after returning from the band members' spiritual retreat in Rishikesh, India, where they studied Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The song addresses his growing dissatisfaction with his role in the band, while defending himself against accusations that he led the group "astray on the road to Mandalay". The recording process was a difficult one, taking over 100 takes to get right, and even then Harrison was unsatisfied with the final recording, which may explain why the song, originally slated for inclusion on the White Album, remained unreleased for nearly 30 years.
Artist: Grass Roots
Title: Dinner For Eight
Source: LP: Feelings
Writer(s): Creed Bratton
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1968
The battle between the desires of recording artists for more creative freedom and record company people for more hit records is about as old as the music industry itself. As recorded music became more popular in the 1960s the battle intensified. Sometimes the artists won. More often it was the record companies. On occasion, the artist would have a brief window of opportunity to show they could succeed doing it their own way, only to have the door shut on them when things didn't work out as well as planned. So it was with the Grass Roots. The most famous incarnation of the band actually started off as a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor. When the first Grass Roots lineup balked at the demands made on them by their producers and left town, those producers, P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, promptly went out and hired the 13th Floor to become the new Grass Roots. After some success in 1967 with the hit song Let's Live For Today and a couple of lesser hits, the band demanded, and got, the opportunity to do an album their own way. The result was Feelings, which featured several songs such as Dinner For Eight that were written by the band member themselves. Unfortunately for the band, Feelings did not perform well commercially, and from that point on the Grass Roots did things the Sloan-Barri way. As it turns out, the Sloan-Barri way led to lots and lots of hit singles, but little respect within the rock community itself.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Valleri
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released on LP: The Birds, The Bees, And The Monkees)
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1968
The last Monkees top 10 single was also Michael Nesmith's least favorite Monkees song. Valleri was a Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart composition that the group had first recorded for the first season of their TV show in 1966. Apparently nobody was happy with the recording, however, and the song was never issed on vinyl. Two years later the song was re-recorded for the album The Birds, The Bees And The Monkees and subsequently released as a single. The flamenco-style guitar on the intro (and repeated throughout the song) was played by studio guitarist Louie Shelton, after Nesmith refused to participate in the recording.
Artist: Spooky Tooth
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: LP: Spooky Tooth
Writer(s): J.D. Loudermilk
Label: Bell
Year: 1968
Spooky Tooth was formed in 1967, when American organist Gary Wright hooked up with a British band that had been known as the V.I.P.s, but had recently renamed themselves Art. They released one LP, Supernatural Fairy Tales, before changing their name to Spooky Tooth in 1968. Unlike most other bands (Procol Harum being a notable exception), Spooky Tooth featured two keyboardists, Wright on organ and Mike Harrison on piano, in addition to the usual guitar (Luther Grosvenor) bass (Greg Ridley and drums (Mike Kellie). This lineup recorded two albums as Spooky Tooth, before Ridley left to join Humble Pie. The longest track on their debut LP, It's All About (self-titled in the US) was a cover version of J.D. Loudermilk's Tobacco, slowed down Vanilla Fudge style. Apparently someone at the record company liked it, because the album itself was retitled Tobacco Road for its 1972 re-release in the UK. Wright would go on to greater fame as a solo artist with his international hits Dream Weaver and Love Is Alive in the mid-1970s.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Summer In The City
Source: LP: Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful
Writer(s): Sebastian/Sebastian/Boone
Label: Sundazed/Kama Sutra
Year: 1966
The Lovin' Spoonful changed gears completely for what would become their biggest hit of 1966: Summer In The City. Inspired by a poem by John Sebastian's brother, the song was recorded for the album Hums Of The Lovin' Spoonful. That album was an attempt by the band to deliberately record in a variety of styles; in the case of Summer In The City, it was a rare foray into psychedelic rock for the band. Not coincidentally, Summer In The City is also my favorite Lovin' Spoonful song. Besides, it's July. Gotta play it.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Funny Face
Source: LP: Something Else
Writer(s): Dave Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Kinks lead guitarist Dave Davies has always been overshadowed by his brother, bandmate Ray Davies. Nonetheless, Dave has the second most writing credits among the band members, and nearly every Kinks album had at least one of his own compositions. The younger Davies actually flirted with a solo career in 1967 when his song Death Of A Clown was released under his own name. The song was included on the next Kinks album, Something Else, along with two more of Dave's compositions. One of those, Funny Face, is notable for its unusual time and tempo changes.
Artist: Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield/Barry Goldberg/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title: Albert's Shuffle
Source: LP: Super Session
Writer(s): Bloomfield/Kooper
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1968
There is no doubt that one of the most important and influential albums of the late 1960s was the Super Session album. Released in 1968, the album was conceived in part because keyboardist/producer Al Kooper felt that Michael Bloomfield had never been recorded in the right context to truly showcase his prowess as a guitarist. Taking advantage of his position as staff producer for Columbia Records, Kooper enlisted keyboardist Barry Goldberg and bassist Harvey Brooks (both of which had been Bloomfield's bandmates in the Electric Flag), as well as ace studio drummer Eddie Hoh for a series of taped jam sessions. Although Bloomfield himself went AWOL midway through the sessions, the quintet managed to get several outstanding tracks recorded, including Albert's Shuffle, which opens the LP. As originally released, several tracks included horn overdubs added by Kooper to fill out the sound. In 2003, two of these tracks, including Albert's Shuffle, were included with the horns removed as bonus tracks on the CD version of the Super Session album.
Artist: Eric Burdon And War
Title: The Vision Of Rassan
Source: LP: Eric Burdon Declares War
Writer(s): Burdon/Miller/Scott/Dickerson/Jordan/Brown/Allen/Oskar
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1970
In 1969 record producer Jerry Goldstein, went to see a band called Nightshift that was backing up blues singer (and L.A. Rams Defensive End) Deacon Jones in a Los Angeles night club called the Rag Doll. He contacted vocalist Eric Burdon, who had recently disbanded the Animals and was looking to get more into an R&B groove, and introduced him to the band. They soon began recording together as Eric Burdon And War, releasing the album Eric Burdon Declares War in 1970. The opening track, The Vision Of Rassan, is a two-part paeon to jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk, who had recently started calling himself Raahsan Roland Kirk.
