Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2615 (starts 4/6/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/613804

    This week we have mostly long sets, including a battle of the bands that takes up an entire half hour and most of side one of the legendary Hawkwind debut LP.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    House Of The Rising Sun
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    trad., arr. Price
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1964
    These days the edited version of the Animals' House Of The Rising Sun is virtually impossible to find, but in 1964 this three-minute version of the tune was the only one to get played on top 40 radio. 

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Source:    Mono LP: Bringing It All Back Home
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1965
    I recently saw a picture of Bob Dylan sitting alone in a theater with the caption "Bob Dylan sitting with everyone that's a better songwriter than he is". While I may not go quite that far, I have to admit that you would have to search far and wide to find any song with lyrics equal to It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). The song was first performed in October of 1964 and recorded in January of 1965 for inclusion on his album Bringing It All Back Home. Famous lines from the song include "Money doesn't talk, it swears," and "He not busy being born is busy dying." Dylan himself has repeatedly cited the song as one of his songs that means the most to him, and he has continued to perform it throughout his career (an estimated 772 times as of 2015).

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Fire Engine
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    In the summer of 1971 the band I was in, Sunn, did a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs as part of our regular repertoire. For the siren effect at the beginning of the song we used our voices, which always elicited smiles from some of the more perceptive members of the audience. Listening to Fire Engine, from The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators, has the same effect on me, for pretty much the same reason. The main difference is that the Elevators actually did it with the tape rolling on one of their own original songs, something Sunn never got the opportunity to do. 

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Riot On Sunset Strip
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Riot On Sunset Strip soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Fleck/Valentino
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Anyone who doubts just how much influence bands like the Standells had on the punk-rock movement of the late 1970s need only listen to the 1967 title track from the movie Riot On Sunset Strip. The song, written by bandmembers Tony Valentino and John Fleck, sounds like it could have been an early Ramones recording. The song itself (and the movie) were based on a real life event. Local L.A. business owners had been complaining about the unruliness and rampant drug use among the teens hanging out in front of the various underage clubs that had been springing up on Sunset Strip in the wake of the success of the Whisky a Go Go, and in late 1966 the Los Angeles Police Department was called in to do something about the problem. What followed was a full-blown riot which ultimately led to local laws being passed that put many of the clubs out of business and severely curtailed the ability of the rest to make a profit. By 1968 the entire scene was a thing of the past, with the few remaining clubs converting to a more traditional over-21 approach. The unruliness and rampant drug use, meanwhile, seems to have migrated up the coast to San Francisco, where it managed to undo everything positive that had been previously accomplished in the Haight-Ashbury district.

Artist:    Electric Flag
Title:    Another Country
Source:    LP: The Best Of The Electric Flag (originally released on LP:  A Long Time Comin')
Writer(s):    Polte/Bloomfield
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    In 1967, after leaving the Butterfield Blue Band, guitarist Michael Bloomfield decided to form what he called "An American Music Band." The band would incorporate all of Bloomfield's favorite musical genres, including jazz, rock, soul, and of course blues. Like his friend Al Kooper, Bloomfield wanted to work in a horn section as well. The result was the Electric Flag. After one soundtrack album for a Peter Fonda cult film that was mostly a Bloomfield solo effort (although credited to the band), the Electric Flag made its official debut with the 1968 LP A Long Time Comin'. Perhaps the track that came closest to incorporating all the elements that Bloomfield wanted into a single piece was Another Country, which, along with a short Bloomfield instrumental that served as a coda, takes up the last nine and a half minutes of A Long Time Comin'. Bloomfield would leave the group following the release of the LP, although the remaining members, including Barry Goldberg, Nick Gravenites and Buddy Miles, would record a follow-up without him.

Artist:    Koobas
Title:    Barricades
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released on LP: Koobas)
Writer(s):    Ellis/Stratton-Smith/Leathwood
Label:    EMI (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    The Koobas were a Merseybeat band that never managed to achieve the level of success enjoyed by bands such as the Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers, despite having the patronage of Beatles manager Brian Epstein and even appearing in the film Ferry Across The Mersey.  They did record several singles for both Pye and Columbia, but with little to show for it. Nonetheless, EMI, the parent company of Columbia, commissioned an entire album from the band in 1969. Among the standout tracks from that self-titled LP was the five-minute long Barricades, a track that starts with a Motown beat, but before long morphs into a chaotic portrait of riot and revolution, complete with anarchic sound effects.

Artist:    Easybeats
Title:        Friday On My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Battle Of The Bands-Vol. Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Era (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:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    After an unsuccessful debut single (Wrapping Paper), Cream scored a bona-fide hit in the UK with their follow-up, I Feel Free. As was the case with nearly every British single at the time, the song was not included on Fresh Cream, the band's debut LP. In the US, however, hit singles were commonly given a prominent place on albums, and the US version of Fresh Cream actually opens with I Feel Free. To my knowledge the song, being purely a studio creation, was never performed live by the band.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Shapes Of Things
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (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 making it to the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Too Many People
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pons/Rinehart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1965
    The Leaves are a bit unusual in that in Los Angeles, a city known for drawing wannabes from across the world, this local band's members were all native Ellayins. Formed by members of a fraternity at Cal State Northridge, the Leaves had their greatest success when they took over as house band at Ciro's after the Byrds vacated the slot to go on tour. Like many bands of the time, they were given a song (Bob Dylan's Love Minus Zero) to record as a single by their producer and allowed to write their own B side. In this case the intended B side was Too Many People, written by bassist Jim Pons and  guitarist Bill Rhinehart. Before the record was released, however, the producers decided that Too Many People was the stronger track and designated it the A side. The song ended up getting more airplay on local radio stations than Love Minus Zero, making it their first regional hit. The Leaves had their only national hit the following year with their third attempt at recording the fast version of Hey Joe, the success of which led to their first LP, which included a watered down version of Too Many People. The version heard here is the 1965 original. Eventually Pons would leave the Leaves, hooking up first with the Turtles, then Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention.

Artist:    Lost And Found
Title:    Don't Move Girl
Source:    Mono German import LP: Sixties Rebellion Vol. 5: The Cave (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Al Manfredi
Label:    Way Back (original US label: Plus)
Year:    1966
    Originally formed as the Nuts & Bolts in San Clemente, California, the Lost And Found relocated to Phoenix while still in their teens and cut their one and only single for the local Plus label in 1966 before returning to California in early 1967. The A side of that single, Don't Move Girl, was written by bassist Al Manfredi. Rounding out the band were lead guitarist Jim Jeffers, rhythm guitarist Mike Ingram and drummer Mike Ryer.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Purple Haze
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Following up on the success of their first UK single, Hey Joe, the Jimi Hendrix Experience released Purple Haze in early 1967. The popularity of the two singles (released only in Europe) led to a deal with Reprise Records to start issuing the band's material in the US. By then, however, the Experience had already released Are You Experienced without either of the two hit singles on it. Reprise, hedging their bets, included both singles (but not their B sides), as well as a third UK single, The Wind Cries Mary, deleting several tracks from the original version of Are You Experienced to make room for them.

Artist:    Art Of Lovin'
Title:    Paul's Circus
Source:    British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US on LP: The Art Of Lovin')
Writer(s):    Paul Applebaum
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    Although the so-called Boss-Town Sound was in reality mostly hype foisted on the public in 1968 by executives at M-G-M Records who were chafing at having missed out almost entirely on the whole San Francisco thing the previous year, there was at least one local band that fully embraced the concept. Ironically, the Art Of Lovin', from the Boston suburb of Newton, was not in any way connected to M-G-M. Powered by the vocals of Gail Winnick and the songwriting skills of guitarist Paul Applebaum, the band also included organist Barry Tatleman, bassist Johnny Lank and drummer Sandy Winslow. They made enough of an impression on Mainstream Records owner Bob Shad to be able to record an entire self-titled LP for the label, which included the somewhat whimsical piece Paul's Circus. Rather than pursue their musical careers further, however, the band members opted to disband the group and go to college shortly after the album was released.

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:      Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:     4+20
Source:      CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Year:     1970
     Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were always more a collection of individuals than a true group. 4+20, from their second album, déjà vu, is a good illustration of this. The song features Stephen Stills on acoustic guitar and vocal, with no other voices or instruments on the recording. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Love You To
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    Following the release of Rubber Soul in December of 1965, the Beatles' George Harrison began to make a serious effort to learn to play the Sitar, studying under the master, Ravi Shankar. Along with the instrument itself, Harrison studied Eastern forms of music. His first song written in the modal form favored by Indian composers was Love You To. The recording, featured on the 1966 Revolver album, also features Indian percussion instruments and suitably spiritual lyrics. 

Artist:    Love
Title:    7&7 Is
Source:    Mono German import CD: Da Capo
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. Truth to tell, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.

Artist:    Them
Title:    I Happen To Love You
Source:    Mono LP: Now And Them
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    I Happen To Love You was first recorded by the Electric Prunes for their 1967 album Underground. The band wanted to release the Gerry Goffin/Carole King tune as a single, but producer David Hassinger instead chose to issue a novelty track, To The Highest Bidder. Unlike the Prunes version, which emphasized the King melody line, Them's version of I Happen To Love You was done in much the same style as their earlier recordings with Van Morrison. Kenny McDowell provided the lead vocal.

Artist:    Love
Title:    The Castle
Source:    German import CD: Da Capo
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Considering that both of their first two LPs had cover photos taken against the backdrop of Bela Lugosi's former residence in the Hollywood Hills (known as Dracula's Castle), it is perhaps inevitable that Love would have a track called The Castle on one of these albums. Sure enough, one can be found near the end of the first side of the late1966 album Da Capo. The song is an early indication of the direction that band was moving in, away from the straight folk/garage-rock of their first LP toward the more sophiscated sound of Forever Changes, which would be released a year later. 

Artist:    Them
Title:    Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
Source:    British import CD: Now And Them
Writer(s):    Jimmie Cox
Label:    Rev-Ola (original US label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    The artist that comes to mind when I see the title of this Jimmy Cox tune is, of course, Eric Clapton, who included it on the Derek and the Dominos Layla album. Them's version of Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out, from the album Now And Them featuring vocalist Kenny McDowell, actually predates Clapton's by a couple years.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Alone Again Or
Source:    CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Square Room
Source:    Mono LP: Now And Them
Writer(s):    Them
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
     The first album Them recorded after relocating to the US was called Now and Them.  Recorded in late 1967, the LP was released in January of '68. The standout track of the album is the nearly ten minute long Square Room, an acid rock piece that showcases the work of guitarist Jim Armstrong. An edit of the track had already appeared as the B side of a single before the album was released.

Artist:    Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come
Title:    Gypsy Escape
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Galactic Zoo Dossier)
Writer(s):    Denis Taylor
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1971
    Arthur Brown became a household name in 1968 with the release of one of the great albums of British psychedelic music, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and it's #1 hit single, Fire. To help promote the album the band set out on a US tour; by the time the tour was over the band had decided to break up. After a series of unsuccessful projects, Brown re-emerged in 1970 with a new band, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come. Unlike the Crazy World, which was one of the most purely psychedelic bands in British rock history, Kingdom Come was a pioneer of the new progressive rock movement and was one of the first bands to use synthesizers extensively. In fact, about the only thing the two bands had in common was Brown's distinctive vocals. Gypsy Escape, from the album Galactic Zoo Dossier, couldn't even make that claim, being an instrumental written by the band's light show guy, Denis Taylor (who was the only non-performing member of the band pictured on the album cover).
 
Artist:    Hawkwind
Title:    The Reason Is?/Be Yourself/Paranoia-Part 1
Source:    LP: Hawkwind
Writer(s):    Brock/Hawkwind
Label:    4 Men With Beards (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1970
    The psychedelic era in the UK was short-lived compared to its US counterpart, and is generally considered to have started with the Beatles' Revolver album and ended with the Beatles' White Album. Among the many musicians who formed psychedelic bands was Alan Brock, who formed a band called the Famous Cure that spent most of its existence playing gigs in continental European countries such as the Netherlands. Brock became a professional busker in 1968, touring and even appearing on an album in that capacity for the next couple of years. In 1969 he reunited with former Famous Chef bandmate Mick Slattery and bassist John Harrison to form a band they initially called Group X, and then Hawkwind Zoo before finally settling on Hawkwind as a permanent name. Slattery left the group before their first LP, which, in addition to Brock and Harrison, included saxophonist Nik Turner, lead guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton and drummer Terry Ollis. The album itself is considered one of the earliest examples of space-rock, with instrumental pieces like The Reason Is sequeing directly into tunes like Be Yourself, which in turn seques into the short instrumental Paranoia-Part 1. Hawkwind has since released dozens of albums, EPs and singles (sometimes under assumed names) over the years, with Brock being the only continuous member of the group.

Artist:    Sly And The Family Stone
Title:    I Want To Take You Higher
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Stand and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sly Stone
Label:    Priority (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    Sylvester Stewart was a major presence on the San Francisco music scene for several years, both as a producer for Autumn Records and as a popular local disc jockey. In 1967 he decided to take it to the next level, using his studio connections to put together Sly And The Family Stone. The band featured a solid lineup of musicians, including Larry Graham, whose growling bass line figures prominently in their 1969 recording of I Want To Take You Higher. The song was originally released as a B side, but after the group blew away the crowd at Woodstock the recording was re-released as a single the following year. 

Artist:    Max Frost And The Troopers aka The 13th Power
Title:    Shape Of Things To Come
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Max Frost was a politically savvy rock star who rode the youth movement all the way to the White House, first through getting the support of a hip young Senator, then getting the age requirements for holding high political office lowered to 21, and finally lowering the voting age to 14. Everyone over 30 was locked away in internment camps, similar to those used during WWII by various governments to hold those of questionable loyalty to the current regime. What? You don't remember any of that? You say it sounds like the plot of a cheapie late 60s teen exploitation flick? Right on all counts. "Wild in the Streets", released in 1968, starred Christopher Jones as the rock star, Hal Holbrook as the hip young senator, and a Poseidon Adventure-sized Shelly Winter as the rock star's interred mom. Richard Pryor, in his film debut, played the band's drummer/political activist Stanley X. Shape Of Things To Come was a surprise hit single taken from the film, and was long thought to be the work of studio musicians under the supervision of Mike Curb, but is now known to have been recorded by an actual band called the 13th Power, led by vocalist/songwriter Paul Wibier, that had released a single called I See A Change Is Gonna Come for Curb's own Sidewalk label the previous year.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2615 (starts 4/6/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/613803

    We have quite a few tracks this time around that have been only played once before on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, along with a few that haven't been played at all and, of course, a couple of old favorites as well.

Artist:    Edgar Winter Group
Title:    Frankenstein (edited version)
Source:    LP: They Only Come Out At Night
Writer:    Edgar Winter
Label:    Epic
Year:    1973
    A real monster hit (sorry, couldn't resist).

Artist:    Graham Nash/David Crosby
Title:    Immigration Man
Source:    45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1972
    Graham Nash and David Crosby decided to make an album without Stephen Stills or Neil Young in 1972. The two songwriters' compositions alternated on the album, with the final track, Nash's Immigration Man (based on his own real life experience at customs), being released as a single.

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Done Somebody Wrong
Source:    LP: At Fillmore East
Writer(s):    Kirkland/James
Label:    Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year:    1971
    As a general rule, live albums by rock bands are made up mostly of tunes that the group had previously released on studio albums. The Allman Brothers Band, however, took a different path for their 1971 double LP At Fillmore East. Of the seven tracks spread across four album sides, only the last two had previously appeared on the band's two studio efforts. The first four tunes, in fact, were blues covers such as Done Somebody Wrong, a tune generally attributed to Elmore James, who recorded the song in 1960. James, however, had actually rearranged a song that Eddie Kirkland had released in 1959 called I Must Have Done Somebody Wrong. Kirkland had given James permission to record the song, but only if Kirkland was credited as the songwriter, however James's name appeared on the 1960 single as the sole songwriter. When the Allman Brothers Band performed the song at the Fillmore East they introduced it as "an old Elmore James" tune.

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Phoenix
Source:    CD: Wishbone Ash
Writer(s):    Upton/Turner/Turner/Powell
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1970
    The first Wishbone Ash album was characterized by the dual lead guitar work of Andy Powell and Ted Turner. This is particularly notable on the album's showcase piece, the ten and a half minute long Phoenix. Unfortunately, the lack of a powerful lead vocalist kept Wishbone Ash from becoming a first-tier band.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Fountain Of Salmacis
Source:    Canadian import CD: Nursery Cryme
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1971
    Genesis' original guitarist, Anthony Phillips, left the group following their second LP, Trespass, in 1970. This almost caused the band to break up, but ultimately resulted in a revised lineup consisting of Peter Gabriel (vocals), Tony Banks (keyboards), and Mike Rutherford (bass), along with new members Steve Hackett (guitar) and Phil Collins (drums). Early in 1971 the five got to work on a new album, which eventually came to be called Nursery Cryme. Although the album was not a huge seller in their native England, it found enough of a following in European nations such as Belgium to allow the band to continue on. The Fountain Of Salmacis, the album's closing track, was inspired by the story of a water nymph who becomes a hermaphodite after bathing in cursed water (hey, blame the ancient Greeks for that story).

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

Artist:    Enoch Smoky
Title:    It's Cruel
Source:    Mono LP: Brown Acid: The Sixth Trip (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Douglas/Gedz/Collignon
Label:    RidingEasy (original label: Pumpkin Seed)
Year:    1969
    Enoch Light was one of the pioneers of high-fidelity stereo recording techniques in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He developed the Command label for ABC records specifically to showcase those techniques, and his album covers were prominently displayed in various retail stores. In the latter part of the decade a hard-rocking band from Iowa City decided to call themselves Enoch Smoky. Although regionally popular, their entire recorded output consisted of one single, released on the local Pumpkin Seed label in 1969. It's Cruel is the A side of that single.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Roadhouse Blues
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Morrison Hotel)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1970
    After getting less than favorable reviews for their fourth LP, The Soft Parade, the Doors decided to go back to their roots for 1970s Morrison Hotel. One of the many bluesier tunes on the album was Roadhouse Blues, a song that soon became a staple of the group's live performances.

Artist:    Mountain
Title:    Travellin' In The Dark (To E.M.P.)
Source:    LP: Nantucket Sleighride
Writer(s):    Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1971
    Mountain, formed in 1970, took its name from Leslie West's 1969 solo album, recorded after the guitarist shortened his name from Weinstein following the breakup of the Vagrants. Just as important to the band's sound, however, was Felix Pappalardi, sometimes known as the "fourth member" of Cream. Pappalardi had produced all but the first Cream album, and, along with his wife Janet Collins, helped write some of their best material, including Strange Brew, which opened the second Cream album, Disraeli Gears. As a member of Mountain, Pappalardi played keyboards and bass, as well as singing lead vocals on several of the band's most popular tunes, including Travellin' In The Dark from Mountain's second LP, Nantucket Sleighride. The song, which was subtitled To E.M.P. is somewhat autobiographical, E.M.P. being the initials of Pappalardi's mother.

Artist:    Hot Tuna
Title:    Half/Time Saturation
Source:    LP: Yellow Fever
Writer(s):    Kaukonen/Casady/Steeler
Label:    Grunt
Year:    1975
    Originally formed in 1969 as an offshoot of Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna started off as a mainly acoustic band doing mostly blues standards, and had performed as an opening act for the Airplane itself in 1970. In the early 1970s, with the Airplane winding down, Hot Tuna emerged as a fully electric band independent of the Airplane. In 1974 the band, which at that point consisted of guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady and drummer Bob Steeler, decided that it would be "just fun to be loud" for a while, recording three albums in 1975-76 as a power trio. The second of these three was Yellow Fever. As can be heard on the track Half/Time Saturation, they certainly succeeded.

Artist:    Eric Clapton
Title:    Willie And The Hand Jive
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Johnny Otis
Label:    RSO
Year:    1974
    Bandleader Johnny Otis managed to outdo Bo Diddley at his own beat with the 1968 hit song Willie And The Hand Jive. Eric Clapton, always on the lookout for cover tunes, did his own version, somewhat de-emphasizing the Bo Diddley beat, in 1974.
 

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2614 (starts 3/30/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/612976

    We quietly move into April this year with what basically comes down to being a typical edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. Familiar tunes? Check. Not-so-familiar tunes? Yep, got them too. Stuff never heard on the show before? Got a handful of 'em. And, yes, we have an artists' set, this time featuring the Doors.

Artist:     It's A Beautiful Day
Title:     White Bird
Source:     CD: It's A Beautiful Day
Writer:     David and Linda LaFlamme
Label:     San Francisco Sound (original label: Columbia)
Year:     1968
     It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's own San Francisco Sound label. 

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    No Time To Live
Source:    CD: Traffic
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    Although half of the songs on Traffic's self-titled second LP were written by Dave Mason, the guitarist/vocalist had very little to do with the remaining tracks. He did, however, play Hammond organ on the haunting No Time To Live. The song also features Steve Winwood on lead vocals, piano and bass, Chris Wood on soprano saxophone and Jim Capaldi on drums.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    D.C.B.A.-25
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    One of the first songs written by Paul Kantner without a collaborator was the highly listenable D.C.B.A.-25 from Surrealistic Pillow. Kantner said later that the title simply referred to the basic chord structure of the song, which is built on a two chord verse (D and C) and a two chord bridge (B and A). That actually fits, but what about the 25 part? Well, it was 1967 San Francisco. Figure it out.

Artist:    Syndicate Of Sound
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    LP: Little Girl 
Writer(s):    Baskin/Gonzalez
Label:    Bell
Year:    1966
    San Jose California, despite being a relatively small city in the pre-silicon valley days, was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced more than its share of hit records from 1966-68. One of the earliest and biggest of these hits was the Syndicate Of Sound hit Little Girl, which has come to be recognized as one of the top garage-rock songs of all time. Little Girl was originally released regionally in mid 1966 on the Hush label, and reissued nationally by Bell Records a couple months later. 

Artist:    Dave Clark Five
Title:    Maybe It's You
Source:    Mono LP: I Like It Like That
Writer(s):    Clark/Davidson
Label:    Epic
Year:    1965
    It's a well-known fact that in the 1960s the British and American versions of albums by British Invasion bands often had different song lineups and sometimes even different album titles. In the case of the Dave Clark Five, however, their album catalogs in the two nations were mutually exclusive. In fact, the DC5 actually released twice as many LPs in the US between 1964 and 1967 as they did in their native UK. As a result, there are several DC5 songs that were never availble to British record buyers, unless they were willing to buy a US-only LP such as I Like It Like That, which came out in 1965. Although the band eschewed psychedelia as a general rule, some of their songs, such as Maybe It's You, have a definite garage-rock feel to them. The band's American popularity is underscored by one other interesting bit of trivia: they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show a total of 18 times, by far the most appearances by a British Invasion band.

Artist:    Keith
Title:    Ain't Gonna Lie
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 11-Pop, Part 4 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Powers/Fischoff
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1966
    James Barry Keefer is best known for his hit single 98.6, which spent over a dozen weeks on the charts and made the top 10 in 1966. He is also known for being one of the first pop artists to go by a single name, Keith. What he is not known for is the song that preceded 98.6 by two months, Ain't Gonna Lie. His first album, however, included both Ain't Gonna Lie and 98.6. In fact, following what seems to be a pattern with Mercury Records in 1966, the album title itself is the two song titles separated by a slash. I guess they thought it might help album sales. They might even have been right, as it does seem that there were a lot of people who liked particular songs without having the slightest idea who the artist was. Come to think of it, there still are.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    Children Of The Sun
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1969
    Formed in Riverside, California in 1965, the Misunderstood relocated to London in 1966, where they soon became one of the top bands on the local underground scene. Unfortunately, the band was plagued by issues involving draft eligibility, resulting in original rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter Greg Treadwell returning to the states soon after arriving in the UK. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as his replacement, Londoner Tony Hill, teamed up with vocalist Rick Brown to write even better songs, augmented by the talents of Glenn Ross Campbell, who played his leads on a pedal steel guitar.  The band soon signed with Fontana, releasing a single in December of 1966 before once again running into problems with the draft board, this time concerning Brown. With their frontman gone, the Misunderstood soon disbanded, with the remaining American members returning to California. Two years later Fontana released a second single by the Misunderstood, Children Of The Sun, which has since come to be regarded as a classic example of garage-flavored psychedelic music. 

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)
Source:    Mono LP: The Exciting Years (originally released on LP: Blonde On Blonde and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia Special Products
Year:    1966
     One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) was the first song recorded for the 1966 album Blonde On Blonde, and the only track from Dylan's initial New York sessions to actually make the album itself (the remainder of the tracks were recorded later in Nashville). The song features Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko from his stage band, the Hawks (later to be known as The Band), along with keyboardists Al Kooper and Paul Griffin and drummer Bobby Gregg. The song was completed during a nine-hour overnight session on January 25, 1966 and took 24 takes to master the nearly five minute long track. That evening Dylan showed up on a New York radio station and mentioned that he had just completed his "new single", comparing it to Like A Rolling Stone. Unfortunately, the song did not fare so well on the US charts; in fact, it didn't make the top 100 at all. In England, the song did a bit better, peaking at #33. 
    
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    It's Not Easy
Source:    CD: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:    1966
    The Rolling Stones' Aftermath, along with the Beatles' Rubber Soul, began a revolution in rock music that was felt for several decades. Prior to those two releases, albums were basically a mix of original and cover songs meant to provide a little supplemental income for popular artists who had hit singles. Aftermath, however, was full of songs that could stand on their own. Even songs like It's Not Easy, which could have been hit singles for lesser artists, were completely overlooked in favor of tracks like Under My Thumb, which is arguably the first true rock classic not to be released as a single. Within the short span of two years, rock would find itself in a place where an artist could be considered a success without having a hit single, something that was completely unheard of when Aftermath was released. This remained the norm throughout the remainder of the 20th century, until digital downloading made the entire concept of albums somewhat obsolete.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    After the surprise success of the Sound Of Silence single, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who had disbanded their partnership after the seeming failure of their Wednesday Morning 3 AM album in 1964, hastily reunited to record a new album of electrified versions of songs written by Simon, many of which had appeared on his 1965 solo LP the Paul Simon Songbook. With their newfound success, the duo set about recording an album's worth of new material. This time around, however, Simon had the time (and knowledge of what was working for the duo) to compose songs that would play to both the strengths of himself and Garfunkel as vocalists, as well as take advantage of the additional instrumentation available to him. The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme, featuring tracks such as The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine, an energetic piece that effectively combines folk and rock with intelligent (if somewhat satirical) lyrics.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Birthday/Yer Blues
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    One of the great ironies of rock history was that the album entitled simply The Beatles was the one that had the fewest songs with all four of the band members playing on them. By 1968 the Beatles were experiencing internal conflicts, and nearly all of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songs were played by just the two of them, while George Harrison's songs (and Ringo Starr's single contribution as a songwriter) featured an array of some of the UK's top musicians (including guitarist Eric Clapton). The opening tracks of side three of the album are typical of this approach, as Birthday is essentially a McCartney solo piece. Yer Blues, on the other hand, has Lennon singing and playing guitar, with probably McCartney on bass and drums. The first performance of Yer Blues in front of a live audience was in December of 1968 as part of the Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus. It was not the Beatles however, that performed the tune. Instead, Yer Blues was played by the Dirty Mac, a jam band consisting of Lennon, Clapton, drummer Mitch Mitchell (of the Jimi Hendrix Experience), and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. That performance was never seen, other than by the studio audience, until the entire Circus was released on DVD a few years ago (Mick Jagger reportedly had the entire project shelved due to his dissatisfaction with the Stones' performance).

Artist:    Them
Title:    Dirty Old Man (At The Age Of 16) (original single version)
Source:    British Import CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tom Lane
Label:    Rev-Ola (original label: Sully)
Year:    1968
    Following the departure of original Them front man Van Morrison for a solo career in December of 1966, the remaining four members of the band, bassist Alan Henderson, guitarist Jim Armstrong, drummer Dave Harvey and multi-instrumentalist Ray Elliott, decided to continue using the Them name, recruiting new vocalist Kenny McDowell to take Morrison's place. They soon come to the attention of American producer Ray Ruff, who invited them to relocate to Amarillo, Texas, which they did in June of 1967. Their first single for Ruff was Dirty Old Man (At The Age Of 16), a tune done in the same style as their earlier Morrison recordings and released in August on the Texas-based Sully Label. Over the next year the band would become more psychedelicized, releasing two albums on the Tower label in 1968, the first of which, Now And Them, would include a newly recorded version of Dirty Old Man.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Radio Spot
Source:    Mono LP: The Dunwich Records Story (originally heard on at least one midwestern radio station)
Writer(s):    unknown
Label:    Voxx/Tutman
Year:    Recorded 1966
    In 1966 the Chicago-based Shadows Of Knight recorded a short piece they called Potato Chip, to be distributed as a giveaway with selected bags of Kitty Clover potato chips, a popular midwestern brand out of Omaha, Nebraska (apparently there were no Omaha bands willing to record such a song). Sadly, like so many tasty treats of the past, the Kitty Clover brand no longer exists, having been bought out and subsequently shut down by the huge Borden conglomerate in 1987.

Artist:    Castaways
Title:    Liar Liar
Source:    CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donna/Craswell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Soma)
Year:    1965
    The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves with their song Liar Liar for a couple months in 1965 before fading off into obscurity.

Artist:    Bonzo Dog Band
Title:    I'm The Urban Spaceman 
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Neil Innes
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (as they were originally called) was as much theatre (note the British spelling) as music, and were known for such antics as starting out their performances by doing calisthentics (after being introduced as the warm-up band) and having one of the members, "Legs" Larry Smith tapdance on stage (he was actually quite good). In 1967 they became the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's TV show that also featured sketch comedy by future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with David Jason, the future voice of Mr. Toad and Danger Mouse. Late in the year they appeared in the Beatles' telefilm Magical Mystery Tour, performing a song called Deathcab For Cutie. In 1968 the Bonzos released their only hit single, I'm The Urban Spaceman, co-produced by Paul McCartney. Frontman Neil Innes would go on to hook up with Eric Idle for the Rutles project, among other things, and is often referred to as the Seventh Python. 

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Kahuna Sunset
Source:    CD: Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (originally released on CD: Buffalo Springfield box set)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise (original label: Rhino)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2001
    In addition to the nearly two dozen songs released on the first two Buffalo Springfield albums, the group recorded a few other tunes, such as the instrumental Kahuna Sunset. Written by Neil Young and Stephen Stills, the track remained unreleased until 2001, when it appeared on Rhino's Buffalo Springfield Box Set. More recently the song has been released on volume one of the Neil Young Archives.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The Crystal Ship
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    Ever feel like you've discovered something really special that nobody else (among your circle of friends at any rate) knows about? At first you kind of want to keep it to yourself, but soon you find yourself compelled to share it with everyone you know. Such was the case when, in the early summer of 1967, I used my weekly allowance to buy copies of a couple of songs I had heard on the American Forces Network (AFN). As usual, it wasn't long before I was flipping the records over to hear what was on the B sides. I liked the first one well enough (a song by Buffalo Springfield called Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, the B side of For What It's Worth), but it was the second one, the B side of the Doors' Light My Fire, that really got to me. To this day I consider The Crystal Ship to be one of the finest slow rock songs ever recorded.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Not To Touch The Earth
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1968
    Waiting For the Sun was the first Doors album to feature a gatefold cover (imagine a 24"x12" greeting card with a record in it), and the Doors used half of the inside portion to print the entire text of "Celebration of the Lizard," which was a bit confusing, since no such track appeared on the album itself. They had made several attempts to record "Celebration", but were not entirely satisfied with any of them. They did, however, manage to salvage a short section from the middle of the piece called Not To Touch The Earth for inclusion on the album.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Five To One
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".

Artist:    Mother Earth
Title:    Groovy Way
Source:    LP: Satisfied
Writer(s):    S Taylor
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1970
    Despite never being a major commercial success, the band Mother Earth, led by vocalist/guitarist Tracy Nelson, was highly regarded by musicians and progressive FM radio people alike, resulting in the band getting just enough airplay to keep recording albums throughout the late 60s and early 70s. Groovy Way, from the 1970 LP Satisfied, is fairly typical of the Mother Earth sound.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Fireface
Source:    CD: One Step Beyond
Writer(s):    Sean Tolby
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:    1969
    The third and final album the Chocolate Watchband released on Tower Records was both the most and least representative of the band's actual sound. On the plus side, all the tracks on 1969's One Step Beyond were played and sung by the band members themselves, a claim that nobody could make about either of the previous Watchband albums. However, the group heard on One Step Beyond sounded nothing like the Chocolate Watchband that audiences in the Bay Area had become familiar with from 1966-68. In fact, the lineup heard on One Step Beyond was a mixture of new and former Watchband members, some of whom had left the group prior to their first trip to the studio in 1966. The result was a more schizophrenic sounding band than the Watchband of old, with an odd mixture of folk and hard rock replacing the garage rock and studio psychedelia of the group's earlier efforts. The new lineup also wrote most of the tracks on the album, including Sean Tolby's Fireface. The group even went on tour to promote the new LP, but continued to go through frequent personnel changes even when on the road, finally disbanding in early 1970.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Tribute To Muddy
Source:    LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Imperial (original label: Sonobeat)
Year:    1968
    Originally released on the regional Texas label Sonobeat and then reissued nationally on the Imperial label, The Progressive Blues Experiment is a mixture of classic blues covers and original tunes penned by guitarist/vocalist Johnny Winter. Tribute To Muddy is one of the latter. Not long after the release of The Progressive Blues Experiment, Winter signed a contract with Columbia that made him rich and famous overnight.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Teen Angel
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    For the B side of Donovan's 1968 single, Hurdy Gurdy Man, the Scottish singer/songwriter recorded one of his older songs, Teen Angel. Unlike the A side, this track is a quiet, folky piece with minimal instrumentation.

Artist:    Ellen Margulies
Title:    The White Pony
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Joyce/Steinberg/Secunda
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    When it comes to obscurities, few records compare with The White Pony, released as a single on the Reprise label in September of 1968. Nobody seems to know who Ellen Margulies, the vocalist on the track, was. For that matter, all that is known about the producer, Roger Joyce, is that he once was a member of a New York group called New Order (not the one formerly known as Joy Division). Joyce co-wrote the song with two other people, whose last names were Steinberg and Secunda (appropriately, their first names are unknown).

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Can You Dig It
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Peter Tork
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1968
    Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings in the 1960s (plus some co-writing credits on the Headquarters album). Both Tork originals were featured in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. After hearing Can You Dig It, you have to wonder why he never got the chance to write more tunes, as Can You Dig It is easily stronger than more than half of the material the group did record. Apparently Tork had similar feelings about it, since not long after Head was completed he left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album. 

Artist:    Human Beinz
Title:    April 15th
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US on LP: Evolutions)
Writer(s):    Belley/De Azevedo
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    The Human Beinz started out in Youngstown, Ohio as the Premiers in 1964, but changed their name to the Human Beingz in 1966. After a few moderately successful singles on various regional labels (including a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that predates the hit Shadows Of Knight version), the group signed to Capitol Records in 1967. In September of that year they released a cover of the Isley Brothers' Nobody But Me that became their only top 40 hit. Unfortunately, their name was misspelled on the label, and since the record was a hit, the band was stuck with the new spelling. By the time the group disbanded they had released several more singles (including two that hit the #1 spot in Japan), as well as two LPs, for Capitol. The second of these, Evolutions, was the more psychedelic of the two. Although the group was known mainly for its tight arrangements of cover songs, they did experiment a bit on Evolutions, particularly on April 15th, a seven minute free-form track co-written by guitarist/vocalist Dick Belley. 

Artist:    Blood, Sweat And Tears
Title:    God Bless The Child
Source:    LP: Heavy Sounds (originally released on LP: Blood, Sweat & Tears)
Writer(s):    Holiday/Herzog
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Although it was never released as a single, Blood, Sweat And Tears' version of the Billy Holiday classic God Bless The Child has become one of their most popular recordings over time, even to the point of being included on the group's Greatest Hits collection. The track was also chosen as the band's contribution to Columbia's Heavy Sounds collection that was released around 1969. 

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Taurus
Source:    CD: Spirit
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    After the release of Spirit's debut album they went on tour, with a new band, Led Zeppelin, opening for them. I mention this just in case you happen to notice any similarity between the opening acoustic guitar riff on this song and the one on Stairway To Heaven, which was released three or four years later. I bet you thought Jimmy Page only ripped off blues legends like Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon. 

Artist:    Velvet Illusions
Title:    Acid Head
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Weed/Radford
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tell, also released on Metromedia Records)
Year:    1967
    Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a suburban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle crowd as one of their own) the Velvet Illusions backtracked the Prunes' steps, leaving their native Yakima, Washington and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut Acid Head before calling it quits.
 

 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2614 (starts 3/30/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/612973

    Once again we take it one year at a time from the late 60s to the mid 70s, with tunes from familiar names like Jerry Garcia, Santana and Black Sabbath, and not-so familiar ones like Julie Driscoll and Rare Bird. And yes, we even have a short comedy bit from some kid named Chevy Chase about halfway though to liven things up.

Artist:    Blind Faith
Title:    Sea Of Joy
Source:    CD: Blind Faith
Writer(s):    Steve Winwood
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    At the time Blind Faith was formed there is no question that the biggest names in the band were guitarist Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, having just come off a successful three-year run with Cream. Yet the true architect of the Blind Faith sound was actually Steve Winwood, formerly of the Spencer Davis Group and, more recently, Traffic. Not only did Winwood handle most of the lead vocals for the group, he also wrote more songs on the band's only album than any other member. Among the Winwood tunes on that album is Sea Of Joy, which opens side two of the original LP.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Boogie Music
Source:    British import CD: Living The Blues
Writer(s):    L T Tatman III
Label:    BGO (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of San Francisco Bay Area blues purists who by 1968 had relocated to Southern California's Laurel Canyon. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout its existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. The B side of Going Up The Country was a tune called Boogie Music. The song is credited to L T Tatman III, which may be a pseudonym for the entire band, much as Nanker Phelge was for the Rolling Stones. Unusually, the single version of the song is actually longer than the album version heard here, thanks to a short coda made to sound like an archive recording from the 1920s.

Artist:    Julie Driscoll
Title:    Break Out
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in UK on LP: 1969)
Writer(s):    Julie Driscoll
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1971
    Julie Driscoll (now known as Julie Tippetts), became a household name in the UK as a member of Brian Auger and the Trinity, having already been, with Rod Stewart and Long John Baldry, one of three vocalists in the band Steampacket. After leaving the Trinity she recorded her first solo album with the Keith Tippet band backing her up, in 1969 (although the album itself was not released until 1971). One of the highlights from that album (entitled simply 1969), was the song Break Out, which showcases not only her vocal talents, but her willingness to experiment as well.      

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Master Hare
Source:    LP: Raw Sienna
Writer(s):    Kim Simmonds
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1970
    Savoy Brown's fifth LP, Raw Sienna, is often cited as the band's best album. It was also the last to feature vocalist Chris Youlden, who left the group for a less than stellar solo career following its release. Although Youlden wrote most of the songs on the album, bandleader Kim Simmonds provided the group with Master Hare, featuring Simmonds on lead guitar, "Lonesome" Dave Peverett on rhythm guitar, Tone Stevens on bass and Roger Earl on drums. Terry Noonan provided brass and string arrangements on the instrumental track.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Sweet Leaf
Source:    CD: Master Of Reality
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Composed pretty much entirely in the recording studio, Sweet Leaf is Black Sabbath's unapologetic ode to marijuana. The title was inspired by writing on the inside lid of a pack of Irish cigarettes that contained the words "it's the sweetest leaf that gives you the taste". The coughing at the beginning of the track was provided by Tony Iommi, who was caught by surprise at the potency of a joint handed to him by Ozzy Osbourne. And yes, the entire band was stoned when they recorded Sweet Leaf.
    
Artist:     Jerry Garcia
Title:     Sugaree
Source:     Mono 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer:     Garcia/Hunter/Kreutzmann
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1972
     In 1972 Warner Brothers gave the individual members of the Grateful Dead the opportunity to record solo albums. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and drummer Micket Hart took them up on the offer. Garcia's effort was unique in that he played virtually all the instruments on the album himself (except for the drum parts, which were played by Bill Kreutzmann). One of the best known songs from that album is Sugaree, which was soon added pretty much permanently to the Dead's concert repertoire. 

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    A Passion Play (Edit #10)
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    My very first "radio" gig was at a closed-circuit station serving various locations at Holloman AFB, New Mexico. Even though most radio stations got lots of free promo copies of current songs, the Voice Of Holloman was pretty much ignored by the major record labels, with one notable exception: Warner Brothers (and it's associated labels such as Reprise and Chrysalis). Since the Voice Of Holloman was pretty middle of the road, they didn't play Jethro Tull, and I got to snag a copy of the second Tull single taken from A Passion Play. Unlike Edit #8, which got enough airplay to warrant inclusion in Jethro Tull's "M.U" The Best Of Jethro Tull collection, Edit #10 was pretty much dead in the water as soon as it was released. In fact, I have never actually seen a regular copy of the single. My original promo copy is long gone, but I did manage to find one from a reliable source in 2018, and a slightly cleaner one more recently. Enjoy!

Artist:    National Lampoon
Title:    Mission: Impeachable
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits Of The National Lampoon (originally released on LP: The Missing White House Tapes)
Writer(s):    Chevy Chase, possibly others as well
Label:    Uproar (original label: Banana/Blue Thumb)
Year:    1974
    The missing White House Tapes was originally released as a single on the Blue Thumb label in 1973. It was then expanded into a full-length album, featuring an array of young talent that would soon be associated with a new TV show called NBC Saturday Night (later retitled Saturday Night Live). Among those new talents was a young man named Chevy Chase, who provided several comedy bits for the album, including Mission: Impeachable.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Black Water
Source:    CD: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits
Writer(s):    Patrick Simmons
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1974
    Doobie Brothers co-founder Patrick Simmons' contribution had been for the most part overshadowed by those of Tom Johnston on the band's first three albums, but with the song Black Water from the LP What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, that changed in a big way. The song, inspired by a visit to New Orleans, was released as the B side of the album's first single, Johnston's Another Park, Another Sunday. That single, however, stalled out in the #32 spot, and a subsequent single, Eyes Of Silver, did even worse, peaking at #52. This worried the record label enough to re-release yet another Johnston song, Nobody, which had appeared on the band's first album and had been released as a single in 1971. But then something unexpected happened. A radio station in Roanoke, Virginia began playing Black Water as an album track, prompting overwhelming listener response that led to other stations in Virginia airing the song as well. Five weeks after the Roanoke station began playing Black Water, Warner Brothers reissued the song, this time as an A side. It became the Doobie Brothers' first #1 hit and revived the band's career.

Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Colorado Jones/I Got A Song (reprise)
Source:    LP: Don't Call Us-We'll Call You (original album title: I Got A Song)
Writer(s):    Phillips/Corbetta/Corso
Label:    Claridge (original label: Brut)
Year:    1973/1975
    Around the time Liberty Records got folded into United Artists records they dropped almost all of their artists, including the Denver-based Sugarloaf, who had released two albums for the label in 1970 and 1971. The band had actually split up before that due to internal problems, although vocalist/keyboardist Jerry Corbetta still had the rights to the Sugarloaf name, and in 1973 Corbetta began work on a solo album for Neil Bogart's Brut label called I Got A Song. While that album was being made, Corbetta patched up his differences with former band members Bob Webber (guitar) and Bob Raymond (bass), and I Got A Song ended up being released as the third Sugarloaf album, with new drummer Larry Ferris, in late1973. Brut Records folded the following year, however, and Corbetta and manager Frank Slay bought back rights to the album, hoping to shop it around to another label. Meanwhile, using studio musicians as backup, Corbetta recorded a song called Don't Call Us, We'll Call You at a Denver recording studio. The song was released in late 1974 on Slay's own Claridge label and ended up being a surprise hit, prompting the re-release of I Got A Song in spring of 1975 under the title Don't Call Us-We'll Call You, with the hit single replacing one of the original tracks. The band continued with various personnel changes until 1978, when Corbetta decided to go it alone. Corbetta eventually became a founding member of the Classic Rock All-Stars, which featured members of other 60s bands like Iron Butterfly, Rare Earth and Cannibal & the Headhunters. The All-Stars even did a few gigs using the name Sugarloaf between 1992 and 2005. In 2012 the 1971 Sugarloaf lineup reunited for their induction to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame (and a gig the next day at a Hall of Fame after-party), after which Corbetta retired from performing due to health issues. 

Artist:    Rare Bird
Title:    Birdman-Part One (Title #1 Again)
Source:    45 RPM promo
Writer(s):    Kaffinetti/Karos/Curtis/Kelly/Gould
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1972
    The appropriately named Rare Bird was never very popular in their native England. None of their albums charted there, and they only had one charted single that went to the #27 spot in 1969. They were much more successful in continental Europe, however. That same single, Sympathy, was an international hit, selling a million copies worldwide and hitting the #1 spot in both France and Italy. By the time the Rare Bird's third LP, Epic Forest, was released, the band had gone through several personnel changes, including the loss of the group's founder, keyboardist Graham Field. In the US the band got some airplay on college radio stations, but was virtually ignored by mainstream US listeners. I did manage to find a copy of Birdman-Part One (Title #1 Again), the single from the Epic Forest album in a thrift store many years ago. It's really quite listenable.
    
Artist:    Santana
Title:    No One To Depend On
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Carabella/Escobida/Rolie
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Santana's third LP (which like their debut LP was called simply Santana), was the last by the band's original lineup. Among the better-known tracks on the LP was No One To Depend On, featuring a guitar solo by teen phenom Neal Schon (who would go on to co-found Journey). The version here is a rare mono promo pressing issued as a single in 1972. It is obviously not a true mono mix, but what is known as a "fold-down" mix, made by combining the two stereo channels into one. It sounds to me, though, like one channel (the one with Neil Schon's guitar) got shortchanged in the mix. 

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:    Everybody I Love You
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Stills/Young
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    The last track on the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album déjà vu is a Stephen Stills/Neil Young collaboration that sets the stage for the Stills/Young band a couple of years later. Stylistically it's pretty easy to figure out which part of Everybody I Love You was written by Stephen Stills and which part was written by Neil Young. What's interesting is how well the two parts actually fit together. As far as I know this is actually the first songwriting collaboration between the two, despite being bandmates in Buffalo Springfield since 1966 (and knowing each other even longer).
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2613 (starts 3/23/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/612023

    One-sixth of this week's show is Absolutely Free. The rest of the show is also free, just not absolutely, and includes a new Advanced Psych segment with a couple of tunes that have never been heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before, along with a mix of A sides, B sides and album tracks from 1966-1970.

Artist:    Scott McKenzie
Title:    San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    John Phillips
Label:    Ode
Year:    1967
    Some people are of the opinion that Scott McKenzie's 1967 hit San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair was one of the primary factors that led to the decline of the San Francisco counter-culture, thanks to a massive influx of people into the area inspired by the song. I wasn't there, so I really can't say how much truth there is to it.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Conquistador 
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Procol Harum
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    Deram
Year:    1967
    For reasons that are lost to history, the first Procol Harum album was released five months earlier in the US than it was in the UK. It also was released with a slightly different song lineup, a practice that was fairly common earlier in the decade but that had been (thanks to the Beatles) pretty much abandoned by mid-1967. One notable difference is the inclusion of A Whiter Shade Of Pale on the US version (the British practice being to not include songs on LPs that had been already issued on 45 RPM records). The opening track of the UK version was Conquistador, a song that would not become well-known until 1972, when a live version with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra backing up the band became a hit single. 

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    It's Wonderful
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Once Upon A Dream)
Writer:    Cavaliere/Brigati
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1967
    Psychedelic rock is generally considered to have begun on the West Coast (although Austin, Texas has a legitimate claim as well). By the time of the Summer of Love, however, psychedelic rock was a national trend. New York had always been one of the major centers of the music industry, so it's not surprising that on the East Coast 1967 was the year of the psychedelic single. One of the most popular New York bands of the time was the Young Rascals, generally considered to be the greatest blue-eyed soul band of the era, if not of all time. Still, the times being what they were, the Rascals departed from their usual style more than once in '67, first with the smash hit How Can I Be Sure, and then with their own psychedelic single, It's Wonderful, released in November.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Martha
Source:    CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    One of the most commercially accessible tunes on the third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, was a Paul Kantner song called Martha. Based on a real character (a young heiress who liked to hang out at the band's house at 2400 Fulton Street in San Francisco), the song was even used in a promotional film shown on a Perry Como TV special. Nonetheless, the song was never promoted as a single; in fact it was relegated to the B side of another Kantner song, Watch Her Ride, that barely scratched the bottom of the top 40 charts. Of course, by then the Airplane did not need a top 40 hit, as they were already becoming one of the first successful album-oriented rock bands. 

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Source:    Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    Lightnin' Hopkins' Automobile Blues (originally released between 1946 and 1950 and found on the 1965 LP Early Recordings) served as the template for Bob Dylan's Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat on his 1966 album Blonde On Blonde. The Pill-Box hat had been made fashionable by Jacqueline Kennedy just a few years before (although I always associate it with Lois Lane for some reason). On the other hand, even in the mid-1960s the use of a leopard skin pattern was considered tacky by many people. Dylan merged the two concepts into a tune satirizing faddish fashion following, much as Ray Davies of the Kinks had done with his Dedicated Follower Of Fashion earlier the same year. In addition to Dylan, (who makes a rare appearance as a lead guitarist in the song's intro as well as playing rhythm guitar throughout the tune) the final take of Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat, completed in Nashville early in the morning on Mar 10, 1966, includes Kenny Buttrey on drums, Henry Strzelecki on bass, and Robbie Robertson on lead guitar.  

Artist:    Mouse And The Traps
Title:    A Public Execution
Source:    Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Henderson/Weiss
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year:    1965
    It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousin down in Tyler. Speaking of cousins, A Public Execution was inspired by a misunderstanding concerning a cousin and a motorcycle ride. According to Ronnie "Mouse" Weiss, his fiancee actually broke up with him after getting word that Mouse had been seen giving an attractive girl a ride. It turned out the attractive girl in question was his cousin from across the state who had come for a visit, but by the time the truth came out Weiss and his band had their first of many regional hit records.

Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source:     CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:     1966
     One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
    
Artist:    Other Side
Title:    Walking Down The Road
Source:    CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Al Shackman
Label:    Big Beat (original labels: Mainstream/Brent)
Year:    1966
    San Jose, California was at the center of the most vibrant and dynamic local music scenes in the country in the mid-1960s. By the end of 1966 both the Syndicate Of Sound and Count Five had cracked the national charts, while bands such as the Chocolate Watch Band were just beginning to make their mark. There was a lot of movement of musicians between bands as well, with groups like the Topsiders counting Sean Tolby (Watchband) and Skip Spence (Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape) among their early members. A move by the Topsiders to recruit Watchband guitarist/organist Ned Torney in 1966 resulted in an entirely new group, the Other Side, being formed. They soon had established enough of a reputation to get the attention of Golden State Recorders, who were auditioning acts for Mainstream Records owner Bob Shad. Shad signed the group immediately to his Brent label, releasing Walking Down The Road in early autumn. The stereo mix of Walking Down The Road was included on the compilation album With Love-A Pot Of Flowers on Shad's Mainstream label in late 1967, but by then the group had morphed into a band called Bogus Thunder, which would eventually become known as Gladstone, releasing a single on the A&M label in 1969.

Artist:     Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:     There's Always Tomorrow
Source:     Mono LP: Midnight Ride
Writer:     Levin/Smith
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     Paul Revere and the Raiders was one of the many bands of the early 1960s that helped lay the groundwork for the temporary democratization of American popular music later in the decade (for more on that head over to hermitradio.com and click the link to "The Psychedelic Era"). After honing their craft for years in the clubs of the Pacific Northwest the Raiders caught the attention of Dick Clark, who called them the most versatile rock band he had ever seen. Clark introduced the band to Terry Melcher, which in turn led to Paul Revere and the Raiders being the first rock band ever signed to industry giant Columbia Records, at that time the second largest record company in the country. In addition to organist Revere the band featured Mark Lindsay on lead vocals and saxophone, Phil "Fang" Volker on bass, Drake Levin on lead guitar and Mike "Smitty" Smith on drums. Occassionally someone other than Lindsay would get the opportunity to sing a lead vocal part, as Smitty does on There's Always Tomorrow, a song he co-wrote with Levin shortly before the guitarist quit to join the National Guard. Seriously, the guy who played the double-tracked lead guitars on Just Like Me quit the hottest band in the US at the peak of their popularity to voluntarily join the military. I'd say there was a good chance that Drake Levin was not one of the guys burning their draft cards that year.

Artist:    Adam
Title:    Eve
Source:    Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Taylor/London/Dawson/Schnug
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Malo)
Year:    1966
    Obviously a one-note gimmick, Adam consisted of Adam Taylor, Adam London, Adam Dawson and Adam Schnug, releasing one single called Eve in 1966. The following year a band called the Balloon Farm released A Question Of Temperature. It has long been suspected that they were both the same band. My own theory is that both tracks are the work of New York studio musicians having a little after-hours fun, similar to what was going on in Los Angeles with projects such as Sagittarius and the Ballroom.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    Portfolio
Source:    British import CD: Fairport Convention
Writer(s):    Dyble/Hutchings
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1968
    Fairport Convention is well known as one of the premier British folk bands of the 1970s. The band did not, however, start off that way. The original lineup, consisting of Ian McDonald (lead vocals), Judy Dyble (lead vocals, autoharp, recorder, piano), Richard Thompson (guitars, vocals, mandolin), Simon Nicol (guitars, vocals), Ashley Hutchings (bass), and Martin Lamble (percussion, violin), were an eclectic bunch with eclectic tastes that included the written works of Spike Milligan and James Joyce and the music of John Coltrane, Doc Watson, and the Butterfield Blues Band, among others. Their own music was a synthesis of folk, rock, jazz, blues and the avant-garde, and was hailed as Britain's answer to the Jefferson Airplane. The first self-titled Fairport Convention album was only released in the UK (which in later years would lead to some confusion, since the band's next LP, 1969's What We Did On Our Holidays, was released in the US in 1970 with no other name than Fairport Convention). Not every track on the original Fairport Convention LP had vocals. One of the strongest tracks, in fact, was an instrumental written by Dyble and Hutchings called Portfolio that manages, in just two minutes, to give a strong impression of where the band was at musically in 1968. As much as I like the much better known Sandy Denny version of Fairport Convention, I would have loved to have heard more from this original lineup of the band.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    The Great Banana Hoax
Source:    LP: Underground
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
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 in the late 1990s). 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:    Butterfield Blues Band
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    Mono LP: What's Shakin'
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    Unlike fellow New Yorkers the Blues Project, who were known for the long improvisational jams, the Butterfield Blues Band took a traditionalist approach to the blues, especially on their earliest recordings. Among those early tracks was a cover of Willie Dixon's Spoonful, which ended up not being used on their debut LP for Elektra. Jac Holzman, owner of Elektra, decided to issue the unused tracks (along with recordings from the Lovin' Spoonful, Eric Clapton's Powerhouse and others) on an anthology called What's Shakin' in 1966. The album itself was mostly overlooked by the record buying public at the time, but has since become an underground classic and has been recently reissued on both LP and CD.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    The first track on the original 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. For some reason Reprise Records misspelled the title as Foxey Lady, and continued to do so on posthumous compilations such as The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two.

Artist:    Oracle
Title:    Don't Say No
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single).
Writer(s):    Ruthann Friedmann
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1968
    Before the days of arena rock, with two or three bands touring together and putting on virtually the same show night after night, headliner bands often looked to local talent for their opening act, making each stop on the tour a unique event. Sometimes the local opening band made enough of an impression to create a path to stardom for themselves as well, or at least to get a record contract. Take the case of a Lake Charles, Lousiana band known locally as the Great Society. Although they had not made any records, they had developed enough of a reputation to be able to score gigs across the state line in East Texas. One of those gigs was opening for the Music Machine in mid 1967. The Music Machine, at this point, was experiencing the frustration of being unable to score a successful followup to their 1966 hit Talk Talk and was on the verge of dissolving, with the various individual members starting to explore other options. Among those members was bassist Keith Olsen, who liked Great Society enough to convince them to come out to Los Angeles and let Olsen produce them. Things did not go exactly as planned, however, as a bad acid trip left the band in no shape to cut a record. Olsen, however, working with co-producer Curt Boettcher, did get the group to provide vocals for a studio project the two of them were working on, a Ruthann Friedmann song called Don't Say No. As there had already been a band in California called Great! Society as recently as 1966, it was decided to rename the group the Oracle for the release of Don't Say No on the Verve Forecast label in 1968. Although the record was not a hit, it did help open doors for Olsen, who would go on to discover and produce the duo known as Buckingham Nicks, along with their breakthrough album as members of Fleetwood Mac. Since then Olsen has become one of the top producers in the history of rock music, working with such well known artists as the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, Eddie Money, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Heart, Joe Walsh, Starship, Santana, Kim Carnes, Jethro Tull, The Babys, Ozzy Osbourne, the Scorpions, .38 Special, Bad Company, Sammy Hagar, Russ Ballard, Whitesnake, Foreigner, Sheena Easton, Journey, Loverboy, and Lou Gramm. Not bad for a bass player from a band known as one-hit wonders.

Artist:    Attic Sound
Title:    Look Straight Through You
Source:    CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Rogers
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Pioneer)
Year:    1967
    When it comes to the subject of rare late-60s singles, it doesn't get much more obscure than the band known as the Attic Sound, who released one single, Look Straight Through You, in December of 1967, on the Pioneer label out of Memphis, Tennessee. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know where the group itself hailed from, although there are some collectors in Michigan who claim they were from that state. Another source says they were from Silver Spring, Maryland, although it's hard to imagine how an East Coast band ended up recording for a Memphis label. Regardless, the record has come to be regarded as highly collectable, thanks to a strong hook with lots of reverb.

Artist:    Dion
Title:    Abraham, Martin And John
Source:    CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dick Holler
Label:    Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year:    1968
    Although sometimes characterized as a protest song, Dion DiMucci's 1968 hit Abraham, Martin And John is really a tribute to three famous Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy (with a reference to the recently-assassinated Bobby Kennedy included in the final verse of the song). Most people in the business saw Dion, perhaps the most successful doo-wop artist of all time, as being near the end of his career by 1967, although he was one of only two rock musicians included on the cover collage of the Beatles' 1967 LP Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band beside the Beatles themselves (the other being Bob Dylan).  In April of 1968, however, Dion experienced what he later called "a powerful religious experience" which led to him approaching his old label, Laurie Records, for a new contract. The label agreed on the condition that he record Abraham, Martin And John. The song, written by Dick Holler (who also wrote, strangely enough, Snoopy vs. The Red Baron), ended up being one of Dion's biggest hits and led to the revitalization of his career. 

Artist:    Things To Come
Title:    Come Alive
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Russ Ward
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Long Beach, California was home to a band known as Things To Come, which featured drummer Russ Ward, who, as Russ Kunkel, would go on to become one of L.A.'s most in-demand studio drummers. Come Alive is a solid piece of garage rock written by Ward/Kunkel.
 
Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    969 (The Oldest Man)
Source:    CD: American Woman
Writer(s):    Randy Bachman
Label:    Buddha/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1970
    Although Burton Cummings was known primarily for his role as the Guess Who's lead vocalist, he got a chance to strut his stuff instrumentally as a flautist on 969 (The Oldest Man), an instrumental by Randy Bachman. Bachman himself showed a glimpse of the guitar prowess that he would become known for with his next band, Bachman Turner Overdrive, in the mid-1970s on the track.

Artist:    Zim Band
Title:    I Can See The Future
Source:    CD: Multiverse
Writer(s):    Zim
Label:    self-published
Year:    2021
    The Zim Band is a three-piece outfit operating out of Buffalo and Rochester, NY. Rather than go into it here, I'm going to refer you to their website https://thezimband.com/ while you listen to I Can See The Future from their 2021 CD Multiverse.

Artist:    Petals
Title:    The Mushroom Farm
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Kern/Wolf
Label:    November Rain
Year:    1990
    A few weeks ago I received a package from Cary Wolf of the Petals containing all of that band's early singles, most of which preceded the release of their first LP in 1992. Among them was The Mushroom Farm, released in 1990. Funs stuff!

Artist:    Infrared Radiation Orchestra
Title:    Maybe The Colors
Source:    CD: Stairs
Writer(s):  Vannais-Jackson/Draheim
Label:    GTG
Year:    2026
    According to guitarist Kim Draheim, Maybe The Colors was written by his then three-year-old granddaughter. Or at least the words and melody were. Draheim himself came up with chords that fit the song, as well as writing all the spoken parts. Maybe The Colors is featured on the 2026 Infrared Radiation Orchestra CD Stairs. In addition to Kim Draheim, Infrared Radiation Orchestra members are H. Elizabeth Alcott, Jon Arliss and Joe Sarofeen.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    Following the critical and commercial success of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Stones responded with their most psychedelic album ever, Their Satanic Majesties Request, with its own cover parodying the Sgt. Pepper cover. As an added touch, the Stones album featured cover art done on special holographic paper (the same material used for holo rings purchased from bubble gum machines) to simulate a 3D effect. The first side wrapped up with the nearly eight-minute long Sing This All Together (See What Happens), a sort of psychedelic jam track featuring an unusual array of instruments and effects.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Evening Gown
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Feher
Label:    Sundazed/Smash
Year:    1967
    Although the Left Banke was known for their "baroque pop" sound, much of that sound was achieved by the use of studio musicians, particularly a string section brought in by producer Harry Lookofoski, himself an accomplished violinist. In fact, keyboardist Michael Brown, who was Lookofsky's son, was the only member of the Left Banke to actually play on every song on the group's first LP, Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina. The full band did play on a few songs, including (probably) Evening Gown, which sounds like it was played by a garage band with a harpsichord (trust me, that's a compliment). Unfortunately, Evening Gown is also the shortest track on the album itself, clocking in at one minute and forty-six seconds. 

Artist:    Mothers Of Invention
Title:    Absolutely Free (1st in a series of underground oratorios)
Source:    LP: Absolutely Free
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Verve
Year:    1967
    In the liner notes of the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out, Frank Zappa included a long list of influences, both musical and conceptual. For the 1967 follow-up LP, Absolutely Free, Zappa seemingly drew on every one of those influences to create a complex musical tapestry that amazed, and often baffled, everyone who heard it. Zappa would continue to amaze and baffle critics and fans alike until his untimely death from cancer at age 47 in the early 1990s, leaving behind the most unique and varied body of work in musical history.

Artist:    John Sebastian
Title:    Red-Eye Express
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: John B. Sebastian)
Writer(s):    John Sebastian
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    John Sebastian's first solo album is one of those cases where the story behind the album is more interesting than the album itself. Sebastian had been the lead vocalist and primary songwriter for the Lovin' Spoonful during their period of greatest success (1965-67), but had left the group in early 1968 to pursue a solo career. The band tried to carry on without him, but after a string of commercial failures disbanded in early 1969. Meanwhile, Sebastian had been putting together tracks like Red-Eye Express for his debut solo album with the help of many of his old friends from his pre-Spoonful days as a struggling folk singer in New York's Greenwich Village, including (among others) David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, several months before they began recording together as a group. By early 1969 the album was ready to be released, but a series of unexpected problems delayed the album for over a year. The most pertinent of these problems was the fact that MGM records felt that the Lovin' Spoonful still owed them one more album under their previous contract with Kama Sutra Records, which had been distributed by MGM. Since the Spoonful no longer existed, MGM wanted to release Sebastian's album in its place, despite the fact that Sebastian had left the band the previous year. Sebastian and his manager, Bob Cavallo, felt differently, and made a deal with producer Paul Rothchild to get the album released on the Reprise label. Reprise head Mo Ostin bought out Sebastian's Kama Sutra contract and prepared to release the album, John B. Sebastian, in spring of 1969. MGM fought the move, however, and the album's release was delayed until 1970, when the album actually appeared on both labels at the same time (albeit with different cover art). Eventually Reprise ended up with the exclusive rights to the album, and the MGM version was withdrawn. During all this legal wrangling Sebastian made an unscheduled appearance at Woodstock (he was there as an audience member, but got drafted to fill time on the second day of the festival following a major rainstorm that left the stage covered in water, making it impossible for electric instruments to be used until it could be cleaned up), which enhanced his reputation and generated interest in the upcoming album, which eventually peaked at the #20 spot on the Billboard album charts. 

Artist:    Infinity
Title:    Venetian Glass
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released on LP: Collected Works 1969-1970)
Writer(s):    Baldwin/De Costa/Calver/Chesterton)
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Acme)
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2002
    Infinity was formed in 1969 and quickly became a popular opening act for such groups as Marmalade and the Searchers. Between gigs they worked on a concept album to be called "Science? Fiction!", but were unable to find a record company willing to take a chance on a band that mixed progressive rock and light pop. One of the tracks that was completed before the band split up was Venetian Glass, a song that captures the group's sound fairly accurately.

Artist:    Don Fardon
Title:    Dreaming Room
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Miki Dallon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1968
    Although Don Fardon is best known for the British hit version of J.D. Loudermilk's Indian Reservation, the B side of that single, a tune called Dreaming Room, is probably more representative of Fardon's style, which might be described as a slightly more psychedelic Tom Jones. Well, that's what I hear anyway.