https://exchange.prx.org/p/580558
This week the emphasis is on the mid to late years of the psychedelic era, with sets from each of the years 1967 through 1970. Also, a set of tunes from Cream taken from their first two albums.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Like A Rolling Stone
Source: CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Bob Dylan incurred the wrath of folk purists when he decided to use electric instruments for his 1965 LP Highway 61 Revisited. The opening track on the album is the six-minute Like A Rolling Stone, a song that was also selected to be the first single released from the new album. After the single was pressed, the shirts at Columbia Records decided to cancel the release due to its length. An acetate copy of the record, however, made it to a local New York club, where, by audience request, the record was played over and over until it was worn out (acetate copies not being as durable as their vinyl counterparts). When Columbia started getting calls from local radio stations demanding copies of the song the next morning they decided to release the single after all. Like A Rolling Stone ended up going all the way to the number two spot on the US charts, doing quite well in several other countries as well. Personnel on this historic recording included guitarist Michael Bloomfield, pianist Paul Griffin, drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Joe Madho, guitarist Charlie McCoy and tambourinist Bruce Langhorne. In addition, guitarist Al Kooper, who was on the scene as a guest of producer Tom Wilson, sat in on organ, ad-libbing a part that so impressed Dylan that he insisted it be given a prominent place in the final mixdown. This in turn led to Kooper permanently switching over to keyboards for the remainder of his career.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Dead End Street
Source: Mono Canadian import CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The last major Kinks hit in the US was Sunny Afternoon in the summer of 1966. The follow-up Deadend Street, released in November, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success in the US (although it was a top five hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola was released in 1970.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Plastic Fantastic Lover
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Jefferson Airplane scored their first top 10 hit with Somebody To Love, the second single released from the Surrealistic Pillow album. Almost immediately, forward-thinking FM stations began playing other tracks from the album. One of those favored album tracks, Plastic Fantastic Lover, ended up being the B side of the band's follow-up single, White Rabbit. When the Airplane reunited in 1989 and issued their two-disc retrospective, 2400 Fulton Street, they issued a special stereo pressing of the single on white vinyl as a way of promoting the collection.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2,000 Light Years From Home
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released on LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more noticable than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover itself was a parody of Sgt. Pepper's, featuring the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines and pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interestingly enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) got significant airplay.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: See Emily Play
Source: Mono CD: An Introduction To Syd Barrett (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Following up on their first single, Arnold Layne, Pink Floyd found even greater chart success (at least in their native England) with See Emily Play. Released in June of 1967, the song went all the way to the #6 spot on the British charts. In the US the song failed to chart as a single, although it was included on the US version of Pink Floyd's debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. The "Emily" in question is reportedly the sculptor Emily Young, who in those days was known as the "psychedelic schoolgirl" at London's legendary UFO club.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Coloured Rain
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Traffic, in its early days, was a band with an almost schizophrenic identity. On the one hand there was Steve Winwood, who was equally adept at guitar, keyboards and vocals and was generally seen as the band's leader, despite being its youngest member. His opposite number in the band was Dave Mason, an early example of the type of singer/songwriter that would be a major force in popular music in the mid-1970s. The remaining members of the band, drummer/vocalist Jim Capaldi and flautist/saxophonist Chris Wood, tended to fall somewhere between the two, although they more often sided with Winwood in his frequent creative disputes with Mason. One of these disputes involved the choice of the band's second single. Mason wanted to follow up the successful Paper Sun with his own composition, Hole In My Shoe, while the rest of the band preferred the group composition, Coloured Rain. Mason won that battle, but would end up leaving the band before the release on the group's first LP, Mr. Fantasy. This in turn led to the album being revised considerably for its US release, which was issued under a completely different title, Heaven Is In Your Mind, with most of Mason's contributions being excised from the album (although, oddly enough, Hole In My Shoe, which was not on the original LP, was included on the US album). One final example of the band's schizophrenic nature was in the way the group was marketed. In the US, Traffic was, from the beginning, perceived as a serious rock band along the lines of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In their native land, however, they were, thanks in part to the top 40 success of both Paper Sun and Hole In My Shoe as well as Winwood's fame as lead vocalist for the Spencer Davis Group, dismissed as a mere pop group. Mason would rejoin and leave the group a couple more times before achieving solo success in the mid-70s with the hit We Just Disagree, while Traffic would go on to become a staple of progressive FM rock radio in the US.
Artist: John Mayall
Title: Brand New Start
Source: LP: Blues Alone
Writer(s): John Mayall
Label: London
Year: 1967
In between all the comings and goings among personnel in the Bluesbreakers, bandleader John Mayall found time to record a solo album. Unlike most "solo" albums of the time, which tended to use studio musicians to back the soloist, Blues Alone features Mayall playing every non-percussion instrument on the album (Keef Hartley played drums). The opening track, Brand New Start, is a classic example of Mayall's style of blues.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: Yes, I Am Experienced
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
A grand tradition dating back to the early Rhythm and Blues recordings was something called the "answer song". Someone would record a song (Hound Dog, for example), that would become popular. In turn, another artist (often a friend of the original one), would then come up with a song that answered the original tune (Bear Cat, in our example earlier). This idea was picked up on by white artists in the late 50s (Hey Paula answered by Hey Paul). True to the tradition, Eric Burdon answered his friend Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced with Yes, I Am Experienced from the Winds Of Change album in 1967. The song, credited to Eric Burdon And The Animals, was done in a style similar to another Hendrix tune, Manic Depression.
Artist: Waters
Title: Mother Samwell
Source: CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Barrickman/Burgard
Label: Arf! Arf! (original labels: Delcrest & Hip)
Year: 1969
Formed in Louisville, Kentucky in 1967, the Waters released two singles on three labels before disbanding in 1969. The second of these, the Hendrix-inspired Mother Samwell, was first released on the Delcrest label in January of 1969 and then re-released by Hip in April of the same year.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience (mkII)
Title: Stone Free
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single (originally released on CD: Valleys Of Neptune)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sony Music/Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2010
The 1969 version of Stone Free actually exists in many forms. The song was originally recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966 and issued as the B side of Hey Joe in Europe and the UK, but not in the Western hemisphere. As Hendrix always felt that this original version was rushed, due to financial restraints, he resolved to record a new version following the release of Electric Ladyland. The band went into the studio in April of 1969 and recorded a new, much cleaner sounding stereo version of Stone Free, which eventually appeared on the Jimi Hendrix box set. This was not the last version of the song to be recorded, however. In May of 1969 Hendrix, working with drummer Mitch Mitchell and his old friend Billy Cox on bass, created an entirely new arrangement of the song. These new tracks were then juxtaposed with the lead guitar and vocal tracks from the April recording to make the version heard on the 2010 CD Valleys Of Neptune. Six years later that same version was released as a Record Store Day single.
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: Beatles
Title: The Word
Source: LP: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Capitol/EMI
Year: 1965
The original concept for the album Rubber Soul was to show the group stretching out into R&B territory. The US version of the album, however, deleted several of the more soulful numbers in favor of folk-rock oriented songs. This was done by Capitol records mainly to cash in on the sudden popularity of the genre in 1965. Not all of the more R&B flavored songs were replaced, however. John Lennon's The Word appeared on both US and UK versions of Rubber Soul.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: World Of Darkness
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: Sundazed/Reprise
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2015
Electric Prunes vocalist James Lowe recalls that he and bassist Mark Tulin wrote World Of Darkness after seeing the Beatles on TV. The song was recorded in 1966 as a demo, but the band never returned to the recording to fix what he calls "timing" errors. The tune was released "as is" as a B side for Record Store Day 2015.
Artist: Standells
Title: Try It
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Levine/Bellack
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
After a series of singles written by producer Ed Cobb had resulted in diminishing returns, the Standells recorded Try It, a tune co-written by Joey Levine, who would rise to semi-anonymous notoriety as lead vocalist for the Ohio Express, a group that was essentially a vehicle for the Kazenetz/Katz production team, purveyors of what came to be called "bubble gum" music. The song itself was quickly banned on most radio stations under the assumption that the phrase "try it" was a call for teenage girls to abandon their virginity. The fact is that nowhere in the song does the word "teenage" appear, but nonetheless the song failed to make a dent in the charts, despite its catchy melody and danceable beat, which should have garnered it at least a 65 rating on American Bandstand.
Artist: Next Exit
Title: Break Away
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Force/Kahan
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1968
The song Break Away is based on an unpublished poem from Paul Kahan, a longtime friend of the wife of the lead singer of the Tokens, who in 1968 were contract artists/producers for Warner Brothers Records. One of the Tokens' staff writers was Stephen Freidland, who, using the pen name Brute Force, came up with music for Kahan's poem. The result was Break Away, released in 1968 as the B side to a Tokens penned tune called I'm The Only One by a group called The Next Exit, who according to one source were (was?) actually a band form Missouri called the Fabulous Four.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: China Cat Sunflower
Source: LP: Aoxomoxoa (original 1968 mix)
Writer(s): Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1969
The third Grateful Dead album, Aoxomoxoa, was an experimental mixture of live audio and studio enhancements, much in the same vein as their previous effort, Anthem Of The Sun. One significant difference between the two is that, unlike Anthem, Aoxomoxoa was written entirely by the team of guitarist Jerry Garcia, bassist Phil Lesh and poet Robert Hunter, giving the album a more cohesive sound. One track on Aoxomoxoa, China Cat Sunflower, heard here in its original 1968 form, is almost entirely a studio creation, and as such has a bit cleaner sound than the rest of the LP.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Tell Me What Ya Got
Source: Mono CD: Ignition
Writer(s): Bonniwell/Garfield
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2000
The original Music Machine scored one huge hit with Talk Talk in late 1966, but due to a number of factors (nearly all of which can be attributed to bad management) was unable to repeat their success with subsequent singles. Finally, after a change of label failed to result in a change of fortunes, the original lineup disbanded. Undaunted, leader Sean Bonniwell assembled an entirely new lineup to complete the band's scheduled tours, stopping to record at various studios along the way whenever possible. Many of these recordings went unreleased for several years, such as the 1968 track Tell Me What You Got. The song is a rare instance of Bonniwell collaborating with another songwriter, in this case Harry Garfield. Although the song is not as sophisticated as Bonniwell's usual compositions, it does get points for attitude.
Artist: Cream
Title: Strange Brew
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Collins/Pappalardi
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
During sessions for Cream's second album, Disraeli Gears, the trio of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker recorded an instrumental track for an old blues tune, Lawdy Mama. Producer Felix Pappalardi and his wife Janet Collins reworked the melody and lyrics to create an entirely new song, Strange Brew. Clapton provided the lead vocals for the song, which was issued as a single in Europe and the UK, as well as being chosen as the lead track for the album itself.
Artist: Cream
Title: Spoonful
Source: CD: Fresh Cream (released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. Instead the song was released on two sides of a single in 1967, with 90 seconds removed from the song between parts one and two. The single never charted and now is somewhat difficult to find a copy of (not that anybody would want to). A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1969 compilation album Best Of Cream that the uncut studio version was finally released in the US.
Artist: Cream
Title: Mother's Lament
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Trad., arr. Cream
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The shortest-ever Cream recording was Mother's Lament, an old English drinking song that was tacked onto the end of the Disraeli Gears album. Other than the slightly off-key vocals (led by drummer Ginger Baker), the only instrument heard on the track is a piano (probably played by producer Felix Pappalardi).
Artist: McKendree Spring
Title: For What Was Gained
Source: LP: Second Thoughts
Writer: Eric Andersen
Label: Decca
Year: 1970
McKendree Spring, from New York's Hudson Valley, was one of those groups that defied easy classification. Were they a folk-rock band? Sort of. A country band? Well, kinda. Using a mix of traditional acoustic instruments and electronic synthesizers, McKendree Spring was successful enough to issue several albums throughout the 1970s. I remember seeing them live in the early 1970s (on a bill with Billy Preston) and performing an instrumental called How Can I Tell You I Love You When You're Sitting On My Face.
Artist: Flock
Title: Lighthouse
Source: British import CD: The Flock/Dinosaur Swamps (originally released in US on LP: Dinosaur Swamps)
Writer(s): The Flock
Label: BGO (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1970
The second Flock album was even more experimental than their first with tunes like Lighthouse being a sort of twisted hybrid of hard rock and even harder blues, with the band's horn section adding to the chaos.
Artist: Them
Title: Walking In The Queen's Garden
Source: Mono LP: Now and Them (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Them
Label: Tower
Year: 1967
Not long after the release of their debut LP in 1965, Northern Ireland's most popular band split into two rival groups, each using the name Them. It wasn't until March of 1966 that Van Morrison's version of the band, which included bassist Alan Henderson, guitarist Jim Armstrong, multi-instrumentalist Ray Elliot, and a seemingly endless succession of drummers (shades of Spinal Tap!) won the legal rights to use the name Them. Not long after that Morrison left for a solo career. The remaining members (who still had the legal right to use the name Them), returned to Belfast, where they recruited new lead vocalist Kenny McDowell. At the invitation of producer Ray Ruff, Them relocated to Texas in 1967, cutting a pair of singles for local Texas labels before getting a contract with Capitol's Tower subsidiary in December of 1967 to record a pair of albums, both produced by Ruff. The second of these singles, Walking In The Queen's Garden, was also released on the Tower label, and all four single sides were included on the band's first Tower LP, Now And "Them".
Artist: Love Sculpture
Title: The Stumble
Source: British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s): King/Thompson
Label: EMI (original US label: Rare Earth)
Year: 1968
Most people associate the name Dave Edmunds with his hit version of I Hear You Knockin' from the early 1970s. What many don't know, however, is that Edmunds was first and foremost a smokin' hot blues guitarist, as can be heard on the opening track of the first of two albums he recorded with bassist John Williams and drummer Congo Jones as Love Sculpture. Like most of the songs on Blues Helping, The Stumble is a cover of a blues classic, in this case written and originally recorded by Freddie King in 1961 and released as a single the following year.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Bad Luck And Trouble
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer: Johnny Winter
Label: United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year: 1968
Johnny Winter first started getting attention while playing the Texas blues circuit. His first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the regional Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who got caught up in the whole glam rock thing, Johnny Winter remained a respected blues artist for his entire career.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Cowgirl In The Sand
Source: LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer: Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
It has been said that adverse conditions are conducive to good art. Certainly that truism applies to Neil Young's Cowgirl In The Sand, written while Young was running a 102 degree fever. Almost makes you want to get sick yourself, doesn't it?
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: Hush
Source: CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Shades Of Deep Purple)
Writer: Joe South
Label: K-Tel (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year: 1968
British rockers Deep Purple scored a huge US hit in 1968 with their rocked out cover of Hush, a tune written by Joe South that had been an international hit for Billy Joe Royal the previous year. Oddly enough, the Deep Purple version of the tune was virtually ignored in their native England. The song was included on the album Shades Of Deep Purple, the first of three LPs to be released in the US on Tetragrammaton Records, a label partially owned by actor/comedian Bill Cosby. When Tetragrammaton folded shortly after the release of the third Deep Purple album, The Book Of Taleisyn, the band was left without a US label, and went through some personnel changes, including the addition of new lead vocalist Ian Gillian (who had sung the part of Jesus on the original Jesus Christ Superstar album), before signing to Warner Brothers and becoming a major force in 70s rock. Meanwhile, original vocalist Rod Evans hooked up with drummer Bobby Caldwell and two former members of Iron Butterfly to form Captain Beyond before fading from public view.
Artist: Status Quo
Title: Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Harmony (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Francis Rossi
Label: RCA Special Products (original label: Cadet Concept)
Year: 1968
The band with the most charted singles in the UK is not the Beatles or even the Rolling Stones. It is, in fact, Status Quo, quite possibly the nearest thing to a real life version of Spinal Tap. Except for Pictures of Matchstick Men, the group has never had a hit in the US. On the other hand, they remain popular in Scandanavia, playing to sellout crowds on a regular basis (yes, they are still together).