https://exchange.prx.org/p/637951
This week we feature an extra-long artists' set from Procol Harum, along with the long version of a Chambers Brothers classic. Also a set from slightly vocally challenged bands, starting with an artists' set from the Rolling Stones. And this time around we have the A side of one of those early European singles by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sweet Wine
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s): Baker/Godfrey
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
When Cream was formed, both bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had new music for the band to record (guitarist Eric Clapton having chosen to shut up and play his guitar for the most part). Most of these new songs, however, did not yet have words to go with the music. To remedy the situation, both musicians brought in outside lyricists. Baker chose poet Pete Brown, while Bruce chose to bring in his wife, Janet Godfrey. After a short time it became apparent that Bruce and Brown had a natural affinity for each other's material, and formed a partnership that would last longer than Cream itself. Baker, meanwhile, tried working with Godfrey, but the two only came up with one song together, Sweet Wine, which was included on the band's debut LP, Fresh Cream.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: The Wind Cries Mary
Source: LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP Are You Experienced?)
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The US version of Are You Experienced was significantly different than its UK counterpart. For one thing, the original UK album was only available in mono. For the US version, engineers at Reprise Records, working from the original multi-track masters, created all new stereo mixes of about two-thirds of the album, along with all three of the singles that the Jimi Hendrix Experience had released in the UK and Europe. The third of these singles was The Wind Cries Mary, which had hit the British charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title: Spontaneous Apple Creation
Source: British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released on LP: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown)
Writer(s): Brown/Crane
Label: Uncut (original US label: Atlantic)
Year: 1968
One of the most revered examples of British psychedelia is the 1968 album The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. While side one was done as a concept album about Hell, side two was a mixture of original tunes and the most popular cover songs from the band's live repertoire. Among the originals on side two is Spontaneous Apple Creation, possibly the most avant-garde piece on the album. Once you hear it, you'll know exactly what I mean by that.
Artist: Evergreen Blues
Title: Funky Woman
Source: LP: Comin' On
Writer(s): Joe McSweyn
Label: ABC
Year: 1969
The first album by East L.A.'s Ever-Green Blues was made up mostly of songs written by their producer/manager, Jim King, with a few cover tunes thrown in and only one band original. For their second effort, however, the band, now using the name Evergreen Blues, started writing some of their own material, including Funky Woman, written by founding member Joe McSweyn. Around this time they parted company with King over the band's musical direction and added a new co-lead vocalist, Edward James Olmos. Eddie, as he was then known, stayed with the band for about a year before changing careers and becoming an actor, while the rest of the band changed their name to Elijah, recording a couple more albums before disbanding in the early 1970s.
Artist: Doors
Title: Twentieth Century Fox
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
There's no getting around it: there are no bad songs on the first two Doors albums. Pick one at random, say Twentieth Century Fox. Great song. They all are.
Artist: Wyld
Title: If I Had It
Source: Mono German import LP: Sixties Rebellion Vol. 5-The Cave (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Huffman/Wyatt/Hammond
Label: Way Back (original label: Charay)
Year: 1967
The Wyld was a band from Greenville, South Carolina led by Rudy "Rude" Wyatt, who also recorded with a band called The Roots. Whether the two were actually the same band is debatable, since three of the four Wyld singles released on the Texas-based Charay label had the same B side as the only Roots single, released two years earlier on the Brownfield label (there is also reason to believe that the two labels were actually one and the same). Regardless, the fourth and final single to be released by the Wyld was If I Had It, which had the same catalog number as their other three and included one of those A sides as its B side. So to recap: The Wyld released five songs on four singles with the same catalog number, and one of those five was a recycled B side from a previous group that may have actually been an earlier incarnation of the Wyld itself. My head hurts.
Artist: Young Rascals
Title: Mickey's Monkey/Love Lights
Source: LP: Collections
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland/Malone/Scott
Label: Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year: 1966
The Young Rascals' second LP, Collections, was the one that truly established the group as America's premier blue-eyed soul band. One of the reasons was their medley of Mickey's Monkey (originally recorded by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles) and Bobby Bland's Turn On Your Love Light (incorrectly listed as Love Lights and credited to Sonics vocalist Gerald Roslie, who had indeed written an entirely different song called Love Lights). At over four and a half minutes, the medley, that closes side one of the original LP, is the longest track on the album.
Artist: Weeds
Title: It's Your Time
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Bowen/Wynne
Label: Behemoth (original label: Teenbeat Club)
Year: 1966
The Weeds were formed in La Vegas in 1966 by Fred Cole (lead vocals), Eddie Bowen (guitar), Ron Buzzell (guitar), Bob Atkins (bass guitar), and Tim Rockson (drums). Cole had already established himself as a recording artist with other local bands that played at the Teenbeat Club (thought to be the first teens-only club in the US) in Paradise, a Las Vegas suburb, and it wasn't long before the Weeds released It's Your Time on the club's own record label. Not long after the single was released the band drove to San Francisco, where they had been promised a gig at the Fillmore Auditorium, but when they arrived they discovered that no one there knew anything about it. Rather than return to Las Vegas, the Weeds decided to head north for Canada to avoid the draft, but they ran out of gas in Portland, Oregon, and soon became part of that city's music scene. Cole would eventually become an indy rock legend with his band Dead Moon, co-founded by his wife Toody, herself a Portland native.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Bringing Me Down
Source: Mono LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Balin/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Released mainly to San Francisco Bay area radio stations and record stores, Jefferson Airplane's third single, Bringing Me Down, from the LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, 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 fortuitous decisions by the young bandleader.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Back Street Girl
Source: CD: Flowers
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
Back Street Girl is a tune that was originally released on the British version of the 1967 LP Between The Buttons, but left off the US album. Instead, the tune appeared later the same year on the US-only album Flowers. The album itself was a mixture of new and previously released material; in fact, half the songs on Flowers had already appeared on the US versions of Aftermath and Between The Buttons, while several more (including Back Street Girl) were available in the UK. This led critics to initially dismiss Flowers as a promotional ploy, but in more recent years the album has been recognized as a strong collection of songs based on the social scene surrounding the band itself.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Lady Jane
Source: 45 RPM single B side (stereo reissue)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1966
One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated seperately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Sittin' On A Fence
Source: CD: Flowers
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: Recorded 1965, released1967
Not all the songs from the Rolling Stones' recording sessions for the album Aftermath were included on either the British or American version of the final LP. One of the songs that was left off the album was Sittin' On A Fence, a country flavored tune that finally surfaced in 1967 on the US-only LP Flowers. British record buyers would have to wait until 1969 to hear the song, when it appeared on the UK version of Through The Past, Darkly.
Artist: Others
Title: I Can't Stand This Love, Goodbye
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brand/Costa/Shepley
Label: BFD (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1965
Not much is known about the Rhode Island band known as the Others (not to be confused with either the California or Florida bands called the Others), other (sorry) than the fact that they were apparently popular enough to land a contract with the largest record label in the world, RCA Victor, recording two singles for the label in late 1965. The first of these was I Can't Stand This Love, Goodbye, released in September of that year.
Artist: Monks
Title: We Do Wie Du
Source: German import CD: Black Monk Time
Writer(s): Burger/Spangler/Havlicek/Johnston/Shaw
Label: Repertoire (original label: Polydor International)
Year: 1966
The Monks were ahead of their time. In fact they were so far ahead of their time that only in the next century did people start to realize just how powerful the music on their first and only LP actually was. Released in West Germany in 1966, Black Monk Time both delighted and confused record buyers with songs like We Do Vie Du, which plays on the similarities between the English and German languages. Not bad for a group of five American GIs (probably draftees) who, while stationed at Frankfurt, managed to come up with the idea of a rock band that looked and dressed like Monks (including the shaved patch on the top of each member's head) and sounded like nothing else in the world at that time. Of course, such a phenomenon can't sustain itself indefinitely, and the group disappeared in early 1967, never to be seen or heard from again, which has only enhanced their legendary status.
Artist: Notes From The Underground
Title: Where Does Love Go
Source: Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP: Notes From The Underground)
Writer(s): Mandell/Sokolow/O'Connor
Label: Big Beat (original label: Changes)
Year: 1967
After Country Joe And The Fish became too popular in San Francisco to keep performing regularly at Berkeley's Jabberwock a new band called Notes From The Underground stepped in to fill the void. The group, consisting of guitarists Fred Sokolow and Mark Mandel, along with bassist Mike O'Connor, pianist Jim Work and drummer Peter Oswalt soon came to the attention of Chris Strachwich, founder of Arhoolie Records, who invited the group to the local Sierra Sound studios to record seven songs. Four of these, including Where Does Love Go, were released on an EP on Arhoolie's subsidiary label Changes in 1967.
Artist: Colder Children
Title: Memories
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Danny Felton
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Boutique)
Year: 1968
I know virtually nothing about the Long Island band known as Colder Children. How about you? If you are familiar with them, clue me in, OK?
Artist: Illinois Speed Press
Title: Hard Luck Story
Source: German import LP: Underground '70 (originally released on LP: Illinois Speed Press)
Writer(s): Kal David
Label: CBS (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
In 1967 someone coined the phrase "San Francisco sound" to describe the wave of bands coming out of the Bay Area that year, despite the fact that there really was no specific San Francisco sound. The following year, someone at M-G-M Records (which had missed out entirely on the whole San Francisco thing, with the exception of the Eric Burdon And The Animals single San Franciscan Nights) decided to sign a bunch of Boston bands and market them as the "Boss-Town Sound." This campaign went over like a lead balloon, actually hurting the chances of the bands to make a name for themselves. Undeterred, Columbia Records tried the same thing in Chicago in 1969, signing the Chicago Transit Authority, the Flock, Aorta and Illinois Speed Press and marketing them as the "Chicago Sound". Producer James William Guercio, who had previously worked with the Buckinghams and Blood, Sweat & Tears, was brought in to produce the first Illinois Speed Press album, which included the song Hard Luck Story, a somewhat atypical piece of blues-rock written by Kal David, who along with Paul Cotton formed the core of the band. David and Cotton soon wearied of being lumped in with other Chicago bands, and relocated to California, essentially becoming a duo in the process and helping pioneer the country-rock sound that would emerge from Southern California in the mid-1970s. Cotton later assumed a leadership role with the southern California country-rock band Poco.
Artist: Syndicate Of Sound
Title: So Alone
Source: LP: Little Girl
Writer(s): John Sharkey
Label: Bell
Year: 1966
The Syndicate Of Sound for formed in San Jose, California in 1964, when two members of a group called Lenny Lee And The Nightmen joined up with another local group called the Pharaohs. Not long after the new band was formed, the Texas band Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs released the song Wooly Bully, prompting San Jose's Pharaohs to change their name to the Syndicate Of Sound. After winning a battle of the bands that featured over 100 groups in 1965 they were awarded a contract with Del-Fi Records (the label that Richie Valens had recorded for) to record a single called Prepare For Love. The single went nowhere, but the following year they came up with Little Girl, releasing it on the local Hush label. After getting extensive airplay on San Jose radio station KLIV, Little Girl was picked up for national release on the Bell label, making it to the #8 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in June of 1966. This led to an album released in July of 1966 that included the song So Alone, written by the band's keyboardist, John Sharkey.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Absolutely Sweet Marie
Source: Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Bob Dylan's Absolutely Sweet Marie, from his 1966 album Blonde On Blonde is best known for the line "To live outside the law you must be honest". The line was not entirely without precedent, however. Woody Guthrie, in his notes about the song Pretty Boy Floyd, said "I love a good man outside the law, just as I hate a bad man inside the law". And then there is the line "When you live outside the law, you have to eliminate dishonesty', from the 1958 film The Lineup, which Dylan may or may not have seen (I know I haven't). Regardless, it's Dylan's line that has had the greatest cultural impact.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)
Source: CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M/Rebound
Year: 1968
The last 16 months (more or less) I lived in Germany my family was given use of a basement room in the apartment building we lived in on Ramstein Air force Base. Such rooms were known as "maid's rooms," and ours became my bedroom, giving me a degree of privacy and freedom unknown to most 16-year-olds. I had one of those record players that would shut itself off when it got to the end of the record and I would always put an album on, turn off the light and let the music lull me into dreamland. My favorite album at that time was Procol Harum's Shine On Brightly, and I would usually put on side two of the LP, which opens with Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone). At the time I didn't realize that the song title was a reference to the British record label Procol Harum recorded for, Regal Zonophone, since my copy was released in Germany on the Polydor label. I still have that copy, although it is far too thrashed to play over the radio.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Quite Rightly So
Source: LP: The Best Of Procol Harum (originally released on LP: Shine On Brightly)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1968
In 1969, while living on Ramstein AFB in Germany, my dad managed to get use of one of the basement storage rooms in building 913, the 18-unit apartment building we resided in. For a few months (until getting in trouble for having overnight guests and making too much noise...hey I was 16, whaddaya expect?) I got to use that room as a bedroom. I had a small record player that shut itself off when it got to the end of the record, which meant I got to go to sleep every night to the album of my choice. As often as not that album was Shine On Brightly, a copy of which I had gotten in trade for another album (the Best of the Beach Boys I think) from a guy who was expecting A Whiter Shade of Pale and was disappointed to discover it was not on this album. I always thought I got the better end of that deal, despite the fact that there was a skip during the fade of Quite Rightly So, causing the words "one was me" to repeat over and over until I scooted the needle over a bit. Luckily Quite Rightly So is the first song on the album, so I was usually awake enough to do that.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: In Held Twas In I
Source: CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer: Brooker/Fisher/Reid
Label: A&M/Rebound
Year: 1968
Although the idea of grouping songs together as "suites" was first tried by Jefferson Airplane on their 1967 album After Bathing At Baxter's, Procol Harum's 17-minute long In Held Twas In I, from their 1968 album Shine On Brightly, is usually cited as the first progressive rock suite. The title comes from the first word of each section of the piece that contains vocals (several sections are purely instrumental). The work contains some of the best early work from guitarist Robin Trower, who would leave the group a few years later for a solo career. Shine On Brightly was the last Procol Harum album to include organist Matthew Fisher, who came up with the famous opening riff for the group's first hit, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, and was the sole writer of the Grand Finale section of In Held Twas In I.
Artist: Chambers Brothers
Title: CD: Time Has Come Today
Source: The Time Has Come
Writer(s): Joe and Willie Chambers
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1967
The Chambers Brothers were an eclectic band with a gospel music background that dated back to the mid-50s, when oldest brother George finished his tour of duty with the US Army and settled down in the L.A. area. His three brothers soon followed him out to the coast from their native Mississippi, and began playing the Southern California gospel circuit before going after a more secular audience in the early 60s. Their best-known recording was Time Has Come Today, considered to be one of the defining tracks of the psychedelic era. The song, written by brothers Joe and Willie Chambers, was originally recorded in 1966 and released as a single, but went largely unnoticed by radio and the record-buying public. In 1967 the band recorded a new, eleven-minute version of Time Has Come Today for their album The Time Has Come. This version got considerable airplay on the handful of so-called "underground" FM stations that were starting to pop up across the US in college towns and major metropolitan areas, but was considered way too long for commercial radio. The following year two edited versions of the track were released. The second, longer edit ended up getting enough airplay to make the top 40; as a result the full-length version has become somewhat of a rarity on the radio, especially since the shorter version was made available in stereo in the mid-1980s. This week Stuck in the Psychedelic Era presents, for your enjoyment, the full-length album version of Time Has Come Today.
Artist: Move
Title: Blackberry Way
Source: Mono British import CD: Peace & Love-The Woodstock Generation (originally released on 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Roy Wood
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: A&M)
Year: 1968
Although they never had a hit single in the US, the Move, led by guitarist Roy Wood, was quite successful in their native UK. Their most successful song was Blackberry Way, released as a non-LP single in 1968, which went all the way to the top of the British charts, also hitting the top 20 in several European nations as well as Australia and New Zealand. Blackberry Way was the only Move single produced by Jimmy Miller, who was asked to take over production on the track by Denny Cordell, who had accidentally overbooked himself. The band's regular vocalist, Carl Wayne, reportedly refused to sing the song, leaving Wood to provide his own lead vocals for the recording.
Artist: Tommy Flanders
Title: The Moonstone
Source: LP: The Moonstone
Writer(s): Tommy Flanders
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1969
In early 1966, Blues Project vocalist Tommy Flanders took the advice of his girlfriend and quit the band just before their debut LP was released. She had convinced him that he was the true star of the group and should be pursuing a solo career in both music and film. The band continued on without him and is now recognized as one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s, particularly upon young San Francisco musicians in the process of forming their own bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead. Flanders, meanwhile signed with Verve Forecast as a solo artist, releasing a pair of singles that failed to chart and an LP, The Moonstone, that was by and large ignored by critics and the buying public alike. One of the few reviewers to mention the album characterized it as "a fairly forgettable record, and certainly a low-energy one, the mellowness threatening to dissolve into sleepiness." The one song on the album worth listening to is the title track.
Artist: Kinks
Title: I'm A Lover Not A Fighter
Source: French import EP: The Kinks (reissue)
Writer(s): Jay D Miller
Label: Sanctuary/BMG
Year: 1964
From 1964-1966 there were major differences between the US and UK catalogs of British Invasion bands such as the Kinks. This is partly because British albums tended to have longer running times, generally containing two or three more songs than their US counterparts. In addition, many groups released songs on 45 RPM Extended Play records in the UK and Europe, a practice that had been discontinued by most US labels in the late 1950s. A final factor was the British policy of not including songs that had been released as singles (or their B sides) on LPs. These extra songs usually ended up being released in the US on LPs that had no direct UK counterpart. One such album was 1965's Kinks-Size, which included I'm A Lover Not A Fighter, a rare Kinks cover song that was on the UK version of their 1964 debut LP and a rare self-titled EP in France.
Artist: Sonics
Title: Strychnine
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: Here Are The Sonics)
Writer(s): Gerald Roslie
Label: Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year: 1965
From 1965 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered one of the foundation stones of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals, such as Strychnine from their debut LP, are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics, along with their labelmates the Wailers, are often cited as the first true punk rock bands.
Artist: 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).
