Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2629 (starts 7/13/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/626411 

    This week we have an Advanced Psych segment that includes a rather interesting medley of cover songs. Plus, a mid-period Beatles set and a set of Santana tracks from their 1969 debut LP, and of course the usual mix of singles, B sides and album tracks from the late 1960s, starting with a rather long 1967 set.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints
Source:    Mono CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year:    1967
    Incense and Peppermints started off as an instrumental from Los Angeles band Thee Sixpence members Mark Weitz and Ed King, mostly because the band simply couldn't come up with any lyrics. Their producer decided to bring in professional songwriters John S. Carter and Tim Gilbert to finish the song, and ended up giving them full credit for it. This did not sit well with the band members. In fact, they hated the lyrics so much that they refused to sing them. Undaunted, the producer persuaded 16-year-old Greg Munford, a friend of the band who had accompanied them to the recording studio, to sing the lead vocals on the track, which was was then issued as the B side of the group's fourth single, The Birdman Of Alkatrash, on the All-American label. Somewhere along the line a local DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) immediately signed the band (which by then had changed their name to the Strawberry Alarm Clock) issuing the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side. Naturally, the song went to the number one spot, becoming the band's only major hit.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Take It Back
Source:     Mono European import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer:     Bruce/Brown
Label:     Lilith (original US label: Atco)
Year:     1967
     After seven years of serving in the Air Force liason office at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, my dad got transferred to Weisbaden Air Force Base in Germany. Standard practice at the time was for the married GI to go on ahead of the rest of the family and find a place to live "on the economy." My dad, already having quite a bit of time in the service, was able to instead get a spot in a place called Kastel, which was a group of WWII Panzer barracks that had been adapted for use by American military with families. When the rest of us arrived in August I was happily surprised to find that my dad, in addition to finding us a place to live, had bought a state-of-the-art Akai X-355 Tape Recorder using money he had won at Lotto, along with a pair of Koss headphones. I of course had to go to the Base Exchange to look for pre-recorded tapes. Already having experience with reel to reel machines, I knew that tapes recorded at 3 3/4 ips had more tape hiss than those recorded at 7 1/2 ips, so I was resolved to only buy tapes recorded at the faster speed. Unfortunately several albums I wanted were only available at the slower speed. The problem was resolved a year later when my dad finally got a Dual turntable to hook up to the tape recorder. I immediately went out and bought a reel of blank tape; the first album I made a copy of was Cream's Disraeli Gears. I would often fall asleep listening to that tape, which meant I ended up sleeping through the last songs on the album, including Take It Back. I must have done some kind of sleep learning, though, since to this day I can quote the lyrics of the entire song.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Who's Been Sleeping Here
Source:    LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    Between The Buttons, released in early 1967, shows the Rolling Stones beginning to experiment with a more psychedelic sound than on previous albums. Brian Jones, in particular, took up several new instruments, including the sitar, heard prominently on the track Who's Been Sleeping Here. The next LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request, would take the group even further into psychedelic territory, prompting a back to basics approach the following year.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     (Electric) Flute Thing
Source:     LP: Live At Town Hall
Writer:     Al Kooper
Label:     Verve Forecast
Year:     1967
    Several tracks on the 1967 Blues Project album Live At Town Hall were not recorded live at all. In fact, of the few live recordings on the album, only (Electric) Flute Thing was actually recorded at Town Hall. The other live tracks on the LP were from a 1966 recording at Stonybrook University. Unfortunately all of the live tracks on the LP suffer from poor sound quality, which, considering they were among the first attempts ever at recording a progressive blues/rock band in concert, is not all that surprising. 

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Riders On The Storm
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: L.A. Woman)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971
    The last major hit single for the Doors was also one of their best: Riders On The Storm. In fact, it still holds up as one of the finest singles ever released. By anyone. And the album version is even better.

Artist:    Blind Faith
Title:    Can't Find My Way Home
Source:    CD: Blind Faith
Writer:    Steve Winwood
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Blind Faith was the result of some 1969 jam sessions in guitarist Eric Clapton's basement with keyboardist/guitarist Steve Winwood, whose own band, Traffic, had disbanded earlier in the year. Drummer Ginger Baker, who had been Clapton's bandmate in Cream for the previous three years, showed up one day, and Winwood eventually convinced Clapton to form a band with the three of them and bassist Rick Grech. Clapton, however, did not want another Cream, and even before Blind Faith's only album was released was ready to move on to something that felt less like a supergroup. As a result, Winwood took more of a dominant role in Blind Faith, even to the point of including one track, Can't Find My Way Home, that was practically a Winwood solo piece. Blind Faith disbanded shortly after the album was released, with the various band members moving on to other projects. Winwood, who soon reformed Traffic, is still active as one of rock's elder statesmen, and still performs Can't Find My Way Home in his concert appearances.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Shades Of Time/Savor/Jingo
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer(s):    Santana/Rolie/Areas/Brown/Carabello/Shrieve/Olatunji 
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Santana started out as a jam band, but after taking on Bill Graham as manager began to work out more structured pieces. Both of these elements can be heard on their first self-titled LP, released in 1969. Shades Of Time is one of the more structured tunes, written by guitarist Carlos Santana and keyboardist/vocalist Gregg Rolie, which leads into the instrumental Savor, credited to the entire band. This is turn leads into Jingo, a song written by Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji and featured on his first album Drums of Passion in 1959. 

Artist:      Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     Mr. Limousine Driver
Source:      CD: Grand Funk
Writer:    Mark Farner
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1969
     When Grand Funk Railroad first appeared on the scene they were universally panned by the rock press (much as Kiss would be a few years later). Despite this, they managed to set attendance records across the nation and were instrumental to establishing sports arenas as the venue of choice for 70s rock bands. Although their first album, On Time, was not an instant hit, their popularity took off with the release of their second LP, Grand Funk (also known as the Red Album). One of the many popular tracks on Grand Funk was Mr. Limousine Driver, a song that reflects the same attitude as their later hit We're An American Band. 

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    You Can't Win
Source:    CD: Heavy
Writer(s):    DeLoach/Weis
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Personnel changes were pretty much a regular occurrence with Iron Butterfly. After the first album, Heavy, everyone except keyboardist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy left the band. This was accompanied by a drastic change in style as well, as Ingle, who had already been carrying the lion's share of lead vocals, became the group's primary songwriter as well. You Can't Win, written by vocalist Daryl DeLoach and lead guitarist Danny Weis, is a good example of the band's original sound, back when they were scrounging for gigs in a rapidly shrinking L.A. all-ages club scene.
    
Artist:     Electric Prunes
Title:     Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less)
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Tucker/Mantz
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     For a follow-up to the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger chose another Annette Tucker song (co-written by Jill Jones) called Get Me To The World On Time. This was probably the best choice from the album tracks available, but Hassinger may have made a mistake by choosing Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less) as the B side. That song, written by the same Tucker/Mantz team that wrote I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) could quite possibly been a hit single in its own right if it had been issued as an A side. I guess we'll never know for sure.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Pledging My Time
Source:    45 RPM single B side 
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The B side of the first single from Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album was Pledging My Time, a blues tune that features Robbie Robertson (who had been touring with Dylan) on guitar. The song was one of three tracks recorded in four takes in Nashville on March 8th of 1966. The single version of the song heard here fades after only two minutes (the album version being considerably longer).

Artist:    Warlocks
Title:    Can't Come Down
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer:    Garcia/Kreutzmann/Lesh/McKernan/Weir
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1965
    In 1965 Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters were travelling around conducting the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, basically an excuse to turn people on to LSD. Part of Kesey's entourage was a group of young musicians calling themselves the Warlocks, who had formed earlier that year. Around the time of the first acid test in November of 1965 group made their first visit to a recording studio, cutting a set of demos for Autumn Records. After hearing that there was already a band named the Warlocks making records, they booked studio time under the name Emergency Crew. The songs themselves, which were produced by Autumn Records' owners Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue and Bobby Mitchell, did not get released until 1999, when the Warlocks (who began calling themselves the Grateful Dead just days after the recording sessions) decided to include them on an anthology album. The lead vocals on Can't Come Down are by guitarist Jerry Garcia, although they don't sound much like his later Grateful Dead recordings.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    You Movin'
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: The Preflyte Sessions)
Writer(s):    Gene Clark
Label:    Rhino (original label: Sundazed)
Year:    Recorded 1964, released 2001
    Although the Byrds got their first hit with a Bob Dylan cover, Mr. Tambourine Man, they did have a quality songwriter right from the beginning in the person of guitarist Gene Clark. One of the earliest Clark songs to be recorded by the band was You Movin', which was included on a 1964 demo tape that remained unreleased until 2001.

Artist:    King Crimson
Title:    Discipline
Source:    LP: Discipline
Writer(s):    King Crimson
Label:    Warner Brothers/EG
Year:    1981
    In 1981, after a seven-year hiatus, Robert Fripp decided to reform his old band, the legendary King Crimson. Not content to rehash the past, however, Fripp assembled a new lineup, with only drummer Bill Bruford being retained from any of the band's previous incarnations. Filling out the new lineup were guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew (who had played with Talking Heads and Frank Zappa's band) and bassist Tony Levin, who also played Chapman stick on the album. All the tunes on Discipline are credited to the entire band, although the instrumental title track that finishes out the album shows a stronger Fripp presence than some of the others.

Artist:    Hawkwind
Title:    Hassan I Sadha
Source:    British/European 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Calvert/Rudolph
Label:    Atomhenge
Year:    1977
    Hassan I Sadha was a track from the 1977 album Quark, Strangeness And Charm that was released in edited form as a single, but only in France and Italy. It finally got released in the UK, as well as Europe in 2016 as a Record Store Day single. The song was written by lead vocalist Robert Calvert and bassist Paul Rudolph, who had left the group before Quark, Strangeness And Charm was released.

Artist:    Infrared Radiation Orchestra
Title:    2000 Light Years From Home/Eight Miles High (incorporating excerpts from Third Stone From The Sun and Interstellar Overdrive)
Source:    CD: Preparing The Feast Of Skeldon
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards/Clark/McGuinn/Crosby (Hendrix/Barrett)
Label:    self-released
Year:    2011 (?)
    The Infrared Radiation Orchestra included a medley of songs with numbers in the title as the final track on their second album, Preparing The Feast Of Skeldon. This particularly medley is still part of their stage repertoire, despite changes in personnel over the years, and in fact sounds better every time they play it.

Artist:    Ultimate Spinach
Title:    Funny Freak Parade
Source:    LP: Ultimate Spinach (mono promo copy)
Writer(s):    Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    1967 was also the year of the "Boss-Town Sound", a gimmick used to promote several Boston-based bands signed to the M-G-M label (M-G-M having been asleep at the wheel during the recent band-signing frenzy in San Francisco). Derided in the music press as a crass attempt to manipulate record buyers, the ultimate victims of this fraud were the bands themselves, many of which were actually quite talented. One of the best remembered of these bands was Ultimate Spinach, the brainchild of keyboardist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote all the material for the group's first two LPs. Although much of the Spinach material sounds like it could have been written by Country Joe McDonald, there are a few tracks, such as Funny Freak Parade, that have a totally original sound to them. The recording uses a wah-wah effect in a rather unique way (at least I don't recall it being used quite like this elsewhere).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Taxman
Source:    LP: Revolver
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple/Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    The Beatles' 1966 LP Revolver was a major step forward, particularly for guitarist George Harrison, who for the first time had three of his own compositions on an album. Making it even sweeter was the fact that one of these, Taxman, was chosen to lead off the album itself. Although Harrison is usually considered the band's lead guitarist, the solo in Taxman is actually performed by Paul McCartney, who also played bass on the track.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
    According to principal songwriter John Lennon, Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite was inspired by a turn of the century circus poster that the Beatles ran across while working on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Most of the lyrics refer to items on the poster itself, such as Henry the Horse and the Hendersons.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Here, There And Everywhere
Source:    LP: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    In the early days the Beatles did a lot of doubling up of vocals to achieve a fuller sound. This meant that the lead vocalist (usually John Lennon or Paul McCartney) would have to record a vocal track and then go back and sing in unison with his own recorded voice. The process, which Lennon in particular found tedious, often took several attempts to get right, making for long and exhausting recording sessions. In the spring of 1966 engineer Ken Townsend invented a process he called automatic double tracking that applied a tape delay to a single vocal to create the same effect as manual double tracking. The Beatles used the process for the first time on the Revolver album, on tracks like I'm Only Sleeping and Doctor Robert. Oddly enough, the song that sounds most like it used the ADT system, McCartney's Here, There And Everywhere, was actually two separate vocal tracks, which becomes obvious toward the end of the last verse when one of the vocals drops down to harmonize on a couple notes.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Going To Try
Source:    CD: Stonedhenge
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1969
    Although Ten Years After is known mostly for straight ahead blues rock and roll numbers like I'm Going Home, Alvin Lee and company did have a more experimental side, as evidenced by their third LP, Stonedhenge. The album consists of a half dozen tracks written by Lee and performed by the entire band interspersed with solo tracks from each of the four band members. The opening track, Going To Try, is possibly the most psychedelic song in the TYA catalog, being basically a series of variations on a common theme in different time and key signatures.  

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    Jack O' Diamonds
Source:    British import CD: Fairport Convention
Writer(s):    Dylan/Carruthers
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1968
    The recording history of the premier English folk-rock band, Fairport Convention, can be more than a little confusing. A large part of the problem was caused by A&M Records, who had the rights to release the band's material in the US, starting with the band's second LP. Rather than go with the original album title, What We Did On Our Holidays, A&M retitled the album Fairport Convention, releasing it in 1970. The problem is that the band's first album, released in the UK on Polydor in 1968, was also titled Fairport Convention. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the lineup on the 1968 Polydor LP differs from that of every other Fairport album, most notably in the absence of the band's most visible member, vocalist Sandy Denny. Fairport Convention (the band) was formed in 1967, and was consciously following in the footsteps of Jefferson Airplane, albeit from a British perspective. Like the Airplane, the original Fairport lineup had a wealth of talent, including Martin Lamble on drums and violin, Simon Nicol on guitars, Judy Dyble on autoharp, recorder and piano, Richard Thompson on guitar and mandolin, Ashley Hutchings (then known as Tyger Hutchings) on bass and Ian MacDonald (who later became known as Iaan Matthews), who shared lead vocals with Dyble. Musically the band was far more rock-oriented than on later LPs, as can be heard on tracks like Jack Of Diamonds, a song that the band credited to Bob Dylan and Ben Carruthers. This can be attributed, at least in part, to a general disdain among the youth of Britain for the traditional English folk music that was taught to every schoolchild in the country (whether they wanted it or not). Later albums would find Fairport Convention doing more and more traditional folk, eventually becoming the world's most popular practicioners of the art, although they never entirely abandoned their rock roots. 

Artist:    Pride And Joy
Title:    If You're Ready
Source:    Canadian import CD: The Best Of Dunwich Records...Vol. 2)  (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Dennis Dahlquist
Label:    Sundazed/Here 'Tis (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1967
    Formed in 1964 in Chicago's affluent Highland Park suburb, the Del-Vetts were one of the Windy City's most popular teen bands, playing places like The Cellar and The Rolling Stone nearly every night. After releasing one single for the Seeburg label (a cover of the Righteous Brothers' Little Latin Lupe Lu), the signed with Dunwich Records, cutting three singles for the label. The last of these came out after the band had changed its name to Pride And Joy in 1967, a decision made by, believe it or not, their own fan club. The B side of that final single was If You're Ready, written by Dennis Dahlquist, who had also written their best-known tune, Last Time Around.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Can I Get To Know You Better
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Sloan/Barri
Label:    FloEdCo (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1966
    Although it started well for them, with the song You Baby hitting the top 20, 1966 was overall a disappointing year for the Turtles. Their next four singles stiffed, with only two of them reaching the lower reaches of the Hot 100. The last of these was Can I Get To Know You Better. Like You Baby, it was written by the songwriting team of Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, who would have great success as the producers and primary songwriters of the Grass Roots just a few months later. For some reason, however, Can I Get To Know You Better, released in October of 1966, only managed to hit the #89 spot on the charts, despite being a catchy tune with a strong hook that was performed to perfection by the Turtles themselves. The record marked the debut of the band's new bass player, Chip Douglas, who would (under the name Douglas Farthing Hatelid) be brought in to produce the Monkees' Headquarters album after that group successfully got Don Kirschner fired and (temporarily) became a real band. 

Artist:    Modern Folk Quintet
Title:    Night Time Girl
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk-Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Kooper/Levine
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1966
    The Modern Folk Quintet can be seen two ways: either as a group that constantly strived to be on the cutting edge or simply as fad followers. Starting off in the early 60s, the MFQ found themselves working with Phil Spector in the middle of the decade, complete with Spector's trademark "wall of sound" production techniques. When that didn't work out they signed with Lou Adler's Dunhill Records, cutting Night Time Girl, a tune that sounds like a psychedelicized version of the Mamas and the Papas.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Tattoo
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original US label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    Starting in 1966, the Who wrote songs about things no other rock group had even considered writing songs about. Happy Jack, for instance, was about a guy who would hang out on the beach and let the local kids tease (but not faze) him. I'm A Boy was about a guy whose mother insisted on dressing him the same as his sisters. And I'm not even getting into the subject matter of Pictures Of Lily. The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967, continued this trend with songs like Tattoo, about an adolescent and his brother who go out and get (without their parents' permission) their first tattoos. The song is accompanied by a jingle for Radio London, the most successful of the British pirate radio stations that operated from studios in London but utilized illegal transmitters floating on platforms off the coast (the BBC having a monopoly on broadcasting at the time).
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2629 (starts 7/13/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/626408 

    After spending the first twenty minutes of the show in the year 1970, we jump up a few years, ending in 1977.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Nature's Way
Source:    CD: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer:    Randy California
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1970
    Nature's Way is one of the best-known and best-loved songs in the Spirit catalog. Originally released on the 1970 LP Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, the song was finally issued as a single in 1973, long after lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes had left Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne. 

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Bus Rider
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Kurt Winter
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1970
    When Randy Bachman suddenly quit the band he had co-founded ten years before, the Guess Who frantically searched for a replacement guitarist. They ended up with two, Kurt Winter and Greg Leskiw. Both had been members of the Winnipeg-based Gettysburg Address, and Winter had recently formed a power trio named Brother that was considered to be Winnipeg's first supergroup. Winter brought a couple of Brother's songs along with him when he joined the Guess Who, one of which, Bus Rider, was issued as a B side in September of 1970 and included as the opening track on the band's Share The Land album the following month. The song also appeared on The Best Of The Guess Who, released in 1971.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Fugue U/Parchman Farm/Wrath Of Daisey
Source:    CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image/Allison
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Despite drawing decent crowds in Florida (and, later, Los Angeles) and getting rave reviews from the rock press, as well as their fellow musicians, Blues Image was never able to sell a lot of albums. This is a shame, as almost all of their material was as good or better than anything else being recorded in 1969-70. A classic example is the medley of Fugue U (emulating J.S. Bach), a jazz-rock arrangement of Mose Allison's Parchman Farm and the latin-rock instrumental Wrath Of Daisey. Guitarist Mike Pinera went on to replace Eric Brann in Iron Butterfly the following year.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title:    Power Of Soul
Source:    CD: South Saturn Delta
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 1997
    1969 was a strange year for Jimi Hendrix. For one thing, he did not release any new recordings that year, yet he remained the top money maker in rock music. One reason for the lack of new material was an ongoing dispute with Capitol Records over a contract he had signed as a backup musician in 1965. By the end of the year an agreement was reached for Hendrix to provide Capitol with one album's worth of new material. At this point Hendrix had not released any live albums, so it was decided to tape his New Year's performances at the Fillmore East with his new Band Of Gypsys (with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox), playing songs that had never been released in studio form. As it turns out, however, studio versions of many of the songs on that album do indeed exist, but were not issued until after Hendrix's death, when producer Alan Douglas put out a pair of LPs (Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning), that had some of the original drum and bass tracks (and even some guitar tracks) re-recorded by musicians that had never actually worked with Hendrix. One of those songs is Power Of Soul, which has finally been released in its original Band Of Gypsys studio version (recorded about a month after the group's live performance of the song) with background vocals provided by Cox and Miles. 

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Title:    Carry On
Source:    CD: Déjà Vu
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Carry On, the opening track from the Crosby, Still, Nash & Young album Déjà Vu, is a Stephen Stills song that incorporates lyrics from an earlier piece, Questions, which appeared on the third Buffalo Springfield album, Last Time Around. The song was the fourth single released from Déjà Vu, but failed to make the top 40 (which only reinforces my belief that top 40 radio had outlived its usefulness by 1970). 

Artist:    Bruce Springsteen
Title:    Wild Billy's Circus Story
Source:    LP: The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle
Writer(s):    Bruce Springsteen
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    Originally titled Circus Song, Wild Billy's Circus Story is the oldest song on Bruce Springsteen's second LP, The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle. Written in mid-1972, the song was part of the E Street Band's stage repertoire through early 1973, when it was reworked to become the first song recorded for the LP in May. The original composition was basically a description of the everyday lives of circus people; for its recorded version passages were added about a clown running away from the circus and a young boy becoming enamored of, and eventually joining the circus itself.

Artist:    Stealer's Wheel
Title:    Star
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Joe Egan
Label:    A&M
Year:    1973
    Formed in 1972 in Paisley, Scotland by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan, Stealer's Wheel scored a huge international hit with Stuck in the Middle With You that same year. Their followup album, 1973's Ferguslie Park, did not have any hits to match Stuck's success, although two of the songs from the album made the top 40 charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The second of these was Star, a Joe Egan composition that hit the top 30 in 1974. After the duo split Rafferty went on to international fame for his 1978 hit Baker Street. 

Artist:    Graham Nash
Title:    Prison Song
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    Graham Nash's Prison Song is one of those songs that by all rights should have been a huge hit. It was by a name artist. It had a catchy opening harmonica riff and a haunting melody. I can only surmise that once again Bill Gavin (whose Gavin Report was considered by many in the industry to be the top 40 "bible") decided that the lyrics were too subversive for AM radio and had the song blacklisted, much as he had done with the Byrds Eight Miles High a few years earlier. Those lyrics center on a subject that is unfortunately still relevant today: the utter absurdity of drug laws and the disproportionate sentences for violation of those laws in various part of the United States.

Artist:    Barclay James Harvest
Title:    The Great 1974 Mining Disaster
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Everyone Is Everybody Else)
Writer(s):    John Lees
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1974
    Although they were never as big as other prog-rock bands such as Yes or Emerson, Lake And Palmer, England's Barclay James Harvest nonetheless had a long and productive career. Their 1974 album Everyone Is Everybody Else is generally considered to be their artistic and commercial peak, and was especially successful in continental Europe, as were the band's subsequent LPs. One of the more notable tracks on Everyone Is Everybody Else is The Great 1974 Mining Disaster, a tribute to the Bee Gees first international hit single, New York Mining Disaster 1941, with a healthy number of David Bowie references thrown in.

Artist:    Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM)
Title:    Out Of The Roundabout
Source:    LP: Chocolate Kings
Writer(s):    PFM
Label:    Asylum
Year:    1975
    Premiata Forneria Marconi (English translation: The Award Winning Marconi Bakery) was the first Italian rock band to place albums on the British and American charts. Part of the reason for this is the fact that, beginning in 1973, they began to reissue their original albums with new English lyrics overdubbed over the original Italian. This made their material more accessible to English-speaking audiences, although their appeal was mainly due to their complex progressive rock arrangements (and the fact that they were proficient enough on their instruments to play those arrangements). In 1975 they attempted to take it a step further by adding a new lead vocalist, Bernardo Lanzetti, and actually writing the original lyrics for their album Chocolate Kings in English (as opposed to using translations of the original Italian lyrics). In some cases, such as Out Of The Roundabout, the change was for the better, although overall the group was still perceived as being weak in the vocals department.

Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    Coyote
Source:    LP: Hejira
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Asylum
Year:    1976
    Joni Mitchell is not one to rest on past accomplishments. Having had her greatest commercial success with the albums Court And Spark and its followup, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Mitchell expressed a desire to work with jazz musicians who could play subtleties that the rock studio musicians she had previously worked with were not familiar with. One of the first jazz musicians she connected with musically was bassist Jaco Pastorius, who used a fretless bass that freed him up to play "notes between the notes". Mitchell and Pastorius are joined by percussionist Bobbye Hall on Coyote, the lead track from the 1976 album Hejira. The song, like almost Mitchell's compositions, is based on her own life experiences, in this particular case a one-night stand with a notorious womanizer. In addition to opening the album itself, Coyote was released as the lead single from Hejira, but did not chart at all in the US and peaked at #79 on the Canadian charts.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    It's Yourself
Source:    British import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Collins/Rutherford/Banks/Hackett
Label:    Charisma
Year:    1977
    One of the rarest Genesis tracks, Its Yourself was originally slated to be included on the 1976 album A Trick Of The Tail, but time limitations forced the band to instead hold the song back and release it as the B side of Your Own Special Way the following year. That single was never released in the US, however, and the song has not been included on CD versions of any regular Genesis albums, even as a bonus track. Why that should be is a bit of a mystery to me, since It's Yourself is an outstanding track worthy of much greater exposure. 
  

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2628 (starts 7/6/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/625554

    This week we start off with about 45 minutes' worth of British tracks before finally adding some American groups into the mix. Our second hour, however, reverses the trend, with an all-American Advanced Psych segment followed by an artists' set from Simon & Garfunkel. We finish out the show with alternating British and American sets, letting Bob Dylan have the last word.

Artist:    Primitives
Title:    You Said
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Geoff Tindall
Label:    Rhino (original label: Pye)
Year:    1964
    The Corn Flakes were formed in Oxford, England, but did not get much attention until they changed their name to the highly appropriate Primitives in 1964. Following the name change, the Primitives were able to garner several TV and magazine appearances based on their image alone. As can be heard on their second single, You Said, the band sounded a bit like a cross between the Who and the Rolling Stones. In 1966 the Primitives relocated to Italy, enjoying a much greater degree of chart success than they had been able to drum up in their own country.

Artist:    Troggs
Title:    With A Girl Like You
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Reg Presley
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    The Troggs followed up their monster hit Wild Thing with another monster hit, With A Girl Like You, that actually outperformed Wild Thing in several countries, including the UK, where it went all the way to the top of the charts. Not so in the US, however, where the song only reached the #29 spot. The likely reason for this is that Wild Thing had been released on two competing labels in the US, and one of them had With A Girl Like You as the B side. So when the song was released as a single a couple months later several record buyers already had a copy, which of course hurt the sales of the newer release. 

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Astronomy Domine
Source:    CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (originally released in UK and Canada)
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: EMI Columbia)
Year:    1967
    When the US version of the first Pink Floyd LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, was released on the Tower label, it was missing several tracks that had appeared on the original British version of the album. Among the most notable omissions was the original album's opening track, Astronomy Domine, which was replaced by the non-LP single See Emily Play.  Astronomy Domine is a Syd Barrett composition that was a popular part of the band's stage repertoire for several years. The piece is considered one of the earliest examples of "space rock", in part because of the spoken intro (by the band's manager Peter Jenner) reciting the names of the planets (and some moons) of the solar system through a megaphone. 

Artist:    Nice
Title:    Tantalising Maggie
Source:    CD: The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack
Writer(s):    Jackson/Emerson
Label:    Fuel 2000 (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1967
    The Nice, the first band to fuse rock, jazz and classical music, creating a totally new genre in the process, had rather unique origins. In 1966 Ike and Tina Turner did a tour of England, with their backup vocal group, the Ikettes, in tow. One of the Ikettes, P.P. Arnold, made such a strong impression on both Mick Jagger and his manager/producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, that they convinced her to stay in London and embark on a solo career. Starting in April of 1967, Oldham, who was in the process of setting up his own record label, set about putting together a band to back her up. Oldham's first recruit was bassist Lee Jackson of the local R&B group Gary Farr and the T-Bones. Jackson soon brought in former fellow T-Bone Keith Emerson, who was already getting a reputation as the London club circuit's hottest Hammond organ player. The two of them soon recruited guitarist Davy O'List and drummer Brian Davison to complete the new band, which Oldham had already decided would be called the Nice. To save money, Oldham, instead of hiring an opening act, let the Nice do a short warmup set before being joined by Arnold onstage. Since Arnold herself performed a fairly standard mix of R&B and soul songs, the Nice were encouraged to create something different for their own set. That "something different" ended up being a mix of jazz, classical and psychedelic rock that had never been heard before. It wasn't long before the Nice, with their new "progressive rock" sound, became a bigger attraction than Arnold herself, and by the end of the year the Nice had signed with Oldham's new label, Immediate Records. In December of 1967 The Thoughts Of Everlist Davjack (the title being an amalgamation of the members' last names) was released. Early releases of the album gave shared songwriting credits to the entire band. The CD reissue of The Thoughts Of Everlist Davjack, however, is more specific, with Emerson and Jackson sharing writing credit on tracks like Tantalising Maggie.

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:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Going Home
Source:    British import LP: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    Goin' Home was not originally meant to run over eleven minutes, but when the Rolling Stones recorded the track they decided to keep the tape rolling as the band kept on jamming after the intended two and a half minutes had passed. The result was one of the first extended-length studio recordings by a rock band and the first "jam" recorded expressly for an album. The regular lineup of Mick Jagger (vocals), Keith Richards (guitar), Billy Wyman (bass), Charlie Watts (drums) and Brian Jones (who plays harmonica on the tune) was augmented by Ian Stewart on piano and Jack Nitzsche on percussion. The track was included on both the US and UK versions of the Aftermath album, which was the first Stones LP to not include any cover songs as well as being the first Rolling Stones album to be recorded in true stereo. 

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     In My Life
Source:     LP: Rubber Soul
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Capitol/EMI
Year:     1965
    Rubber Soul was the first Beatles album to be made up entirely of songs written by the band members themselves, mostly John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon's contributions in particular were starting to move away from the typical "young love" songs the band had become famous for. One of the best examples is In My Life, which is a nostalgic look back at Lennon's own past (although put in such a way that it could be universally applied). Despite never being released as a single, In My Life remains one of the most popular songs in the Beatles catalog.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Season Of The Witch
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer:    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sony (original label: Epic)
Year:    1966 (stereo version, 1969)
     Season Of The Witch has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring tracks on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the album was not released in the UK until late 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Like all tracks from both Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, Season Of The Witch was only available in a mono mix until 1969, when a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track masters for the singer/songwriter's first greatest hits compilation. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Take It Back
Source:    LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    After seven years of serving in the Air Force liason office at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, my dad got transferred to Weisbaden Air Force Base in Germany. Standard practice at the time was for the married GI to go on ahead of the rest of the family and find a place to live "on the economy." My dad, already having quite a bit of time in the service, was able to instead get a spot in a place called Kastel, which was a group of WWII Panzer barracks near the city of Mainz that had been adapted for use by American military with families. When the rest of us arrived in August I was happily surprised to find that my dad, in addition to finding us a place to live, had bought a state-of-the-art Akai X-355 Tape Recorder using money he had won at Lotto, along with a pair of Koss headphones. I of course had to go to the Base Exchange to look for pre-recorded tapes. Already having experience with reel to reel machines, I knew that tapes recorded at 3 3/4 ips had more tape hiss than those recorded at 7 1/2 ips, so I was resolved to only buy tapes recorded at the faster speed. Unfortunately several albums I wanted were only available at the slower speed. The problem was resolved a year later when my dad finally got a Dual turntable to hook up to the tape recorded. I immediately went out and bought a reel of blank tape; the first album I made a copy of was Cream's Disraeli Gears. I would often fall asleep listening to that tape, which meant I ended up sleeping through the last songs on the album, including Take It Back. I must have done some kind of sleep learning, though, since to this day I can quote the lyrics of the entire song.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    I'm A Man
Source:    Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Elias McDaniel
Label:    Raven (original label: Epic)
Year:    1965
    For many, the Yardbirds version of I'm a Man is the definitive version of this Bo Diddley classic. Oddly enough, the song was released as a single only in the US, where it made it into the top 10 in 1965. 

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Milk Cow Blues
Source:    Mono CD: No Way Out (bonus track originally released on LP: The Best Of The Chocolate Watch Band)
Writer(s):    Kokomo Arnold
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1983
    The members of the Chocolate Watchband had a clear set of priorities, and spending time in a recording studio was nowhere near the top of their list (apparently neither was making sure the record company got their name right, as the album cover read Chocolate Watch Band). Nonetheless, once they were signed to Tower Records they were obligated to at least make an effort at recording an album, even though they would much rather have been upstaging the various big name acts that they opened for. The result was that their producer, Ed Cobb, found it easier just to hire studio musicians to record tracks that were then included on the first two Chocolate Watchband albums. Even when the band itself did record the songs, Cobb would, on occasion, bring in studio vocalist Don Bennett to record his own lead vocals, replacing those of Dave Aguilar, whom Cobb felt sounded like a Mick Jagger impersonator (he was right, but Aguilar was damn good at it). There are a few recordings, however, that capture the true sound of the Watchband. Among those is their cover of Kokomo Arnold's Milk Cow Blues, using an arrangement similar to that of the Kinks on their Kink Kontroversy album. The song remained unreleased until the 1983, when it was included on the band's first greatest hits collection.

Artist:    Statesmen
Title:    Stop And Get A Ticket
Source:    Mono LP: Highs In The Mid 60s Vol. 9-Ohio 
Writer(s):    Travis & Coventry Fairchild
Label:    AIP
Year:    1967
    Not every garage band had songwriting skills. Some, such as Ohio's Statesmen, preferred to cover songs originally done by other bands. Unfortunately, their label, the tiny Tema Records, didn't have accurate information about the original version of Stop-Get A Ticket, which had been a regional hit for Clefs Of Lavender Hill, led by the brother and sister Travis and Coventry Fairchild in 1966. Not only did they get the title of the song wrong, they gave writing credit to Travers and Coventry. In this case, however, it was because the Clefs own label, credited the song that way and when Columbia's Date subsidiary picked it up for national distribution they repeated the error.

Artist:    Changin' Tymes
Title:    Blue Music Box
Source:    British import CD: Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sounds Of Memphis
Writer(s):    Barham/Ferrer/Frazier/Moore/Warner
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    1968
    Memphis, Tennessee, is a town known for its music. In particular, it is known for its vibrant blues scene, its classic R&B roots (as the home of Stax Records) and of course for some guy named Elvis. What Memphis is not particularly known for, however, is a psychedelic club scene. Nonetheless, like many other US cities in the late 1960s, Memphis did indeed boast a handful of truly psychedelic bands. One of the best of these was the Changin' Tymes, who recorded a pair of tracks for producer James Parks. One of these, Blue Music Box was released as a B side under the auspices of the Memphis Underground Music Association in 1968.

Artist:    Elephant's Memory
Title:    Hot Dog Man
Source:    LP: Buddah’s 360° Dial-A-Hit (originally released on LP: Elephant's Memory)
Writer(s):    Richard Sussman
Label:    BMG/Collector's Choice (original label: Buddah)
Year:    1969
    One of the hardest-to-describe bands of the late 1960s, Elephant's Memory was formed by singer/saxophonist/flautist/clarinetist Stan Bronstein and drummer Rick Frank, along with bassist/trombonist Myron Yules. One early member of the band was vocalist Carly Simon, although by the time the band recorded their debut LP in 1969 she had been replaced by Michal Shapiro. Filling out the band's 1969 lineup were keyboardist Richard Sussman and guitarists John Ward and Chester Ayres. Despite Amazon Music's misleading header, Hot Dog Man was not featured on the band's Songs From Midnight Cowboy album. Rather it was one of the more popular tracks from their 1969 self-titled debut LP 

Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    Mercedes Benz
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Pearl)
Writer(s):    Joplin/Neuwirth/McClure
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 1971
    Mercedes Benz was the last song recorded by Janis Joplin. After laying down this vocal track on October 3, 1970 she went home and OD'd on heroin. The song appeared exactly as recorded on the 1971 album Pearl.

Artist:    Lenny Kaye/Fleshtones
Title:    Lost On Xanadu (version)
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Lenny Kaye
Label:    Yep Roc
Year:    2019
    In addition to being the original lead guitarist for the Patti Smith Group, Lenny Kaye was the guy who compiled the very first album dedicated to garage psych rock. So of course when I saw this 2019 single in a record store I had to buy it. The Fleshtones are a legendary New York garage band that was formed in Queens in 1976 and made its debut at the equally legendary CBGB that same year.

Artist:    Splinter Fish
Title:    Take Me
Source:    LP: Splinter Fish
Writer(s):    Bracey/Hawley
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    Albuquerque, NM, like most medium-sized cities, had a vibrant club scene throughout the rock and roll era, with many of these clubs featuring live music. Until the late 1980s, however, very few bands were able to find gigs performing their own material. This began to change, however, with the emergence of alternative bands such as Jerry's Kidz and F.O.R., and underground venues such as the Club REC and the refurbished El Rey theater. One of the best bands to emerge at this time was Splinter Fish. Formed by guitarist/vocalist Chuck Hawley in 1988, the band also featured Jeff Bracey on bass, former F.O.R. member Deb-O on vocals, and the prolific Zoom Crespin on drums. The group released one self-titled LP in 1989, which featured a strong set of tunes, including Take Me, a tune that features slap bass from co-writer Bracey. 

Artist:    Gov't Mule
Title:    Thorazine Shuffle
Source:    CD: Dose
Writer(s):    Haynes/Abt
Label:    Volcano
Year:    1998
    When the Allman Brothers Band reformed in 1989, it included new members Warren Haynes on guitar and Allen Woody on bass. The two were fans of late 60s power trios such as Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and, with drummer Matt Abts, formed Gov't Mule as a side project, releasing their first studio album in 1995. Following a well-received live album, the group split permanently from the Allmans in 1997, releasing their second studio album, Dose, in 1998. The most memorable track on the album was Thorazine Shuffle, a tune written by Haynes and Abt that has become a staple of the group's live performances. 

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Mrs. Robinson
Source:    CD :Collected Works (originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Possibly the most enduring song in the entire Simon And Garfunkel catalog, Mrs. Robinson (in an edited version) first appeared on the soundtrack for the film The Graduate in 1967. It wasn't until the Bookends album came out in 1968 that the full four minute version was released. Also released as a single, the song shot right to the top of the charts, staying there for several weeks.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    We've Got A Groovey Thing Goin'
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM B side and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    In late 1965, a New York based Columbia Records staff producer, Tom Wilson, decided to perform an experiment. He had just put the finishing touches on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album, and was high on the potential of integrating electric rock instruments into folk music. Around this same time, The Sound Of Silence, a song by the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel that Wilson had produced the previous year, had begun to get airplay on radio stations in Boston and throughout the state of Florida. Without the knowledge of the duo (who had by then split up) Wilson remixed the song, adding electric guitar, bass and drums, essentially creating a whole new version of the song and, for that matter, a whole new genre: folk-rock. The new electric version of The Sound of Silence, backed by We've Got a Groovey Thing Goin', was released in September of 1965, and it soon became obvious that it was going to be a hit. The only problem was that by the time all this happened, Simon and Garfunkel had gone their separate ways, briefly reuniting in April of 1965 to record We've Got a Groovey Thing Going, but not releasing it at the time. Simon had relocated to London and recorded a UK-only LP called the Paul Simon Songbook in June of 1965, releasing it two months later. By mid-November The Sound Of Silence was the #1 song in Boston, and had entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Simon returned to the states, got back together with Art Garfunkel and, on December 13, 1965 began recording tracks for a new album. On January 1, 1966 The Sound Of Silence hit the #1 spot on the Hot 100. Two weeks later the LP Sounds Of Silence, which included a new stereo mix of We've Got A Groovey Thing Going made from the original 4-track master tape, was released. By the way, this song is the only instance I know of of the word "groovy" being spelled "groovey". 

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Cecilia
Source:    LP: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Sometimes the censors completely miss a line. Case in point: Cecilia, a track from the fourth Simon & Garfunkel album, Bridge Over Trouble Water. The line: "Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia up in my bedroom. I got up to wash my face...". Umm, why would he need to wash his face after making love? Stephen Colbert asked Paul Simon that very question in 2009. Simons's reply:  "Well, it's the '60s, so I can't remember." Sure, Paul.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    It Must Be Love
Source:    LP: Ball
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Although it did not contain anything like the monster hit In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, the third Iron Butterfly LP, Ball, was probably a better album overall. The first single released from the album was In The Time Of Our Lives, backed with It Must Be Love, a tune that features some nice guitar work from Eric Brann, who would soon be leaving the band for an unsuccessful solo career.
    
Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    San Franciscan Nights
Source:    CD: The Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals (originally released on LP: Winds of Change and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    In late 1966, after losing several original members over a period of about a year, the original Animals disbanded. Eric Burdon, after releasing one single as a solo artist (but using the Animals name), decided to form a "new" Animals. After releasing a moderately successful single, When I Was Young, the new band appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. While in the area, the band fell in love with the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, during what came to be called the Summer Of Love. The first single to be released from their debut album, Winds Of Change, was a tribute to the city by the bay called San Franciscan Nights. Because of the topicality of the song's subject matter, San Franciscan Nights was not released in the UK as a single. Instead, the song Good Times (which was the US B side of the record), became the new group's biggest UK hit to date (and one of the Animals' biggest UK hits overall). Eventually San Franciscan Nights was released as a single in the UK as well (with a different B side) and ended up doing quite well. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    May This Be Love
Source:    Mono LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The original UK version of Are You Experienced featured May This Be Love as the opening track of side two of the album. In the US, the UK single The Wind Cries Mary was substituted for it, with May This Be Love buried deep on side one. It's obvious that Hendrix thought more highly of the song than the people at Reprise who picked the track order for the US album.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Silas Stingy
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    John Entwistle
Label:    Decca
Year:    1967
    John Alec Entwistle did not write average songs. For example, his best known song, Boris The Spider, was about, well, a spider. Whiskey Man dealt with a drunk's imaginary friend. And then there was Silas Stingy, from The Who Sell Out. The song tells the story of a man who was so miserly he spent his entire fortune on protecting his money, thus ending up with nothing at all. One of my all-time favorite Who tracks.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Pushin' Too Hard
Source:    Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    Big Beat (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1965
    The Seeds' Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic. Originally released under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard, the song got minor airplay on some Los Angeles radio stations, but it wasn't until it was included on the band's first LP and then re-released as a single in late 1966 that the song really took off, ultimately climbing to the #36 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and, perhaps more importantly, hitting #1 on Chicago's WLS on February 17, 1967.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Tobacco Road
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    John D. Loudermilk
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    For years I've been trying to find a DVD copy of a video I saw on YouTube. It was the Blues Magoos, complete with electric suits and smoke generators, performing Tobacco Road on a Bob Hope TV special. The performance itself was a vintage piece of psychedelia, but the true appeal of the video is in Hope's reaction to the band immediately following the song. You can practically hear him thinking "Well, that's one act I'm not taking with me on my next USO tour."

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    You Told Me
Source:    LP: Headquarters
Writer(s):    Michael Nesmith
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1967       
            After Don Kirschner got himself fired from Colgems for issuing the album More of the Monkees without the band's knowledge or permission (as well as a subsequent single that was sent out in promo form to radio stations and almost immediately rescinded), the band members insisted on having greater artistic control over what was being issued with their names on it. The end result was the Headquarters album, the only Monkees LP to feature the band members playing virtually all the instruments (with a few exceptions, notably producer Chip Douglas playing bass guitar). Although the Michael Nesmith composition You Told Me starts off side one of the LP, it was actually the third and final Nesmith track to be recorded for Headquarters. Peter Tork plays banjo on the song, which was sung by Nesmith himself.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Like A Rolling Stone
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    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.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2628 (starts 7/6/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/625553

    The elephant in the room this week is Pink...as in Floyd, as we present the entire second side of the 1975 album Wish You Were Here. There are other critters running around as well, including Black Oak Arkansas, Ten Years After and, to get things started on a rather retro note, Jethro Tull.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Living In The Past
Source:    CD: Stand Up (bonus track) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    By the end of the 1960s most UK labels had abandoned the British tradition of not including singles on LPs. One notable exception was Island Records, who continued to issue mutually exclusive Jethro Tull albums, singles and EPs into the early 1970s. Among those non-LP tracks was the 1969 single Living In The Past, which would not be included on an album until 1972, when the song became the title track of a double LP Jethro Tull retrospective. The song then became a hit all over again, including in the US, where the original single had failed to chart.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Have A Cigar/Wish You Were Here/Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)
Source:    CD: Wish You Were Here
Writer(s):    Waters/Gilmour/Wright
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1975
    One of the most recognizable songs in the entire Pink Floyd catalog, Have A Cigar is an indictment of the hypocrisy, greed and general sleaziness that drives the modern music industry. Recorded in Abby Road's studio 3, the song featured guest vocalist Roy Harper, who was working on an album of his own in studio 2 at the time. Both David Gilmour and Roger Waters attempted to sing the song (which was written by Waters), but were unhappy with the results. Gilmour had already contributed some guitar parts to Harper's album, and decided to ask Harper to return the favor. During the song's fadeout, the sound quality suddenly changes to resemble that of a cheap car radio speaker, and is followed by the sound of a radio dial being retuned to a new station playing the song Wish You Were Here. The song itself is often thought to be a tribute to Syd Barrett, but Waters, who wrote the lyrics, has since said that they were more self-directed. The final track on the album, however, is most definitely a tribute to Pink Floyd's original leader, who had been asked to leave the band in 1968 because of his mental health issues. In fact, Barrett himself showed up in the studio on July 5, 1975 when the band was putting the finishing touches on Shine On You Crazy Diamond. David Gilmour, who had known Barrett since childhood, was getting married later that day, and Barrett had come for the reception, showing up early to visit with his former bandmates. At first nobody knew who the overweight guy with shaved head and eyebrows was, and when Rick Wright, who was the first to recognize Barrett, identified him to the rest of the band, they were reportedly "shocked and horrified" to see the state he was in. Witnesses described Barrett as "not entirely sensible" and "not really there", adding that he didn't seem to realize that he himself was the subject of the song the band was working on. After the wedding reception Barrett left without saying goodbye; it was the last time most of the band members would see him alive.

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    All Around My Hat
Source:    LP: All Around My Hat
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Hart/Prior/Knight/Johnson/Kemp
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1975
    Steeleye Span hit the peak of their popularity in 1975 with the album All Around My Hat, which spent six months on the British album charts, peaking at #7. It was also their first album to chart in the US, peaking at #143. Although all the songs on the album, including the title track, were credited to the band members, they were actually traditional English folk ballads that had been given electric rock arrangements by the band. The song All Around My Hat, released as a single in edited form, reached #5 on the British charts, becoming the group's highest charting single.

Artist:    Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Title:    Second Hand
Source:    LP: Not Fragile
Writer(s):    Randy Bachman
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1974
    As of 1974, Bachman-Turner Overdrive had achieved considerable success on the top 40 charts with Let It Ride and Takin' Care Of Business, but had yet to gain an audience on FM rock radio. That changed, however, with the release of Not Fragile in September of 1974. Bolstered by the addition of Blair Thornton on "second lead guitar", Not Fragile lived up to its title with hard-rocking tunes like Second Hand. Bandleader Randy Bachman later said "Not Fragile was when it all came together for us. We captured the album-oriented rock audience as well as the singles audience with that album. Not Fragile made BTO recognized around the world."

Artist:    Black Oak Arkansas
Title:    Jim Dandy
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Lincoln Chase
Label:    Atco
Year:    1973
    My first exposure to Black Oak Arkansas was at a Grand Funk Railroad concert in August of 1971. I had literally arrived on the campus of Southwestern University in Weatherford Oklahoma the night before the concert, having hitchhiked there from New Mexico. On arrival I soon learned that my bandmates DeWayne and Mike, whose dorm room I was crashing in, already had tickets for the concert in Norman, Oklahoma. They invited me to come along, assuring me that I could easily score tickets at the gate. As it turns out they were right, but by the time we got there the only tickets left were bleacher seats. Of course, the rest of the group that made the drive to Norman all had floor tickets, so I ended up sitting by myself up in the nosebleed section for the opening act, a group I had never heard of called Black Oak Arkansas. I decided that, for the next 45 minutes or so, I would be a reviewer, and started analyzing this new band one song at a time. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed at first, but found each successive song to be a little bit better than the one before it. By the time the band had finished their set, I was electrified (literally, since the last song was called The Day Electricity Came To Arkansas). I eventually bought a copy of the album Black Oak Arkansas, and was pleased to discover that the songs were in the exact same order on the LP as I had first heard them in concert. Over the years I continued to follow the band's progress, and was happy to hear, in 1973, their remake of an old LaVerne Baker song, Jim Dandy, on the local AM radio station. In fact, I went out and bought a copy of the 45 RPM single (which has since been replaced more than once with less scratchy copies). 

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Harry Hypochondriac
Source:    LP: Straight Shooter
Writer(s):    Peters/Troiano/Kenner
Label:    ABC
Year:    1972
    One of the most interesting rock and roll histories of the early 1970s was that of the James Gang. Originally consisting of drummer Jim Fox, bassist Tom Criss and guitarist Joe Walsh, the Cleveland-based band first appeared on vinyl on 1969's Yer Album. After replacing Criss (who didn't want to tour) with Dale Peters, the group released James Gang Rides Again, which, thanks to tracks like Funk #49 made them stars. Following one more album with this lineup, Walsh left the group for a solo career. With the departure of Walsh, whose style had dominated the James Gang's first three albums, the remaining two members decided to carry on without him, recruiting two new members, vocalist Roy Kenner and guitarist Dominic Troiano. Both had been members of the Canadian R&B club band Mandala that had been succeeded by the more rock-oriented Bush, but that band had been unsuccessful in finding an American audience. The first album with this new lineup was Straight Shooter, released in 1972. Although the group made a conscious effort to maintain the original James Gang sound, there were a couple of tunes, such as Harry Hypochondriac, that took a bit more whimsical approach. After one more album, Troiano left the group to replace Randy Bachman in the Guess Who, and the James Gang recruited Tommy Bolin, whose outstanding guitar work once again put the band in the national spotlight. But that's a story for another time.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    No Title
Source:    CD: Stonedhenge
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram/Polygram
Year:    1969
    After achieving what guitarist/vocalist Alvin Lee called the "ultimate" live Ten Years After album, Undead, in 1968, the group was left wondering what to do next. Their solution was to go experimental with the band's third LP, Stonedhenge. The longest track on the album, No Title, starts off as a slow, moody, blues-oriented piece that, without missing a beat becomes a loud showcase for Alvin Lee's guitar pyrotechnics. This is followed by a thumping hard rock section featuring Chick Churchill's organ work, leading to a short jazz-oriented section that uses a rather psychedelic studio effect to return to the song's slow beginnings and a  musique concrète finale. 

Artist:    Harvey Mandel
Title:    Snake
Source:    LP: Cristo Redentor
Writer(s):    Harvey Mandel
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    Harvey Mandel first came to national attention as the guitarist on Stand Back! Here Comes Charlie Musselwhite's South Side Band, one of the first blues albums to be also targeted to rock listeners. One of the standout tracks on the album was Christo Redemptor, which has come to be considered Musselwhite's signature song. Not long after the album was released, Mandel moved to San Francisco, performing regularly at the Matrix club and often jamming with fellow guitarists Elvin Bishop and Jerry Garcia. A chance meeting with local disc jockey Abe "Voco" Kesh led to Mandel's first solo LP, released in 1968. The album, titled Cristo Redentor as a tribute to Musselwhite, was made up entirely of instrumentals like Mandel's self-penned Snake, and ultimately led to Mandel being invited to replace Henry Vestine in Canned Heat the following year.
    
Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Cinnamon Girl
Source:    CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used an amped-up version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.
  
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2627 (starts 6/29/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/624690 

    It's the first week of the second half of the year, which, in America, means it's the fourth of July, the anniversary of the official beginning of a rebellion that shook the world. This week on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era we celebrate the musical rebellion that helped define the 1960s in America, beginning with a brief history of protest songs. We start with a hit cover version of a Pete Seeger song...

Artist:    Kingston Trio
Title:    Where Have All The Flowers Gone
Source:    CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1961
    Protest songs did not start in the 1960s. Indeed, two of the genre's torchbearers, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, had been around since the 1930s. But McCarthyism in the early 1950s had squelched virtually all non-conformist voices in the US, and it wasn't until late 1961, when the clean-cut Kingston Trio recorded their own version of Seeger's Where Have All The Flowers Gone, that a protest song received enough national exposure to become a genuine hit, going to the #21 spot on the top 40 charts in early 1962. Peter, Paul And Mary included their own version of the song on their chart-topping (five weeks at #1) debut LP later that year.

Artist:    Peter, Paul And Mary
Title:    Blowin' In The Wind
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1963
    Just as knowing the chords for Van Morrison's Gloria was pretty much a prerequisite for being in a garage band, being able to play Bob Dylan's Blowing In The Wind was a must for anyone attempting to play folk music at a party in the mid-1960s. If there was more than one of you singing, you most likely used the Peter, Paul and Mary arrangement of the tune, with its three-part harmony. Their version was by far the most popular recording of the song, going all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts in the summer of '63.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    There But For Fortune
Source:    45 RPM single (promo copy)
Writer:    Phil Ochs
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1965
    When I was a kid I used to occasionally pick up something called a grab bag at the local PX (my dad being in the military, I had access to such places). It was literally a sealed brown paper bag with anywhere from four to six 45 rpm records in it. Usually these were "cut-outs", leftover copies of records that hadn't sold as well as expected. Often they were five or six years old (albeit unplayed). Once in a while, though, there would be a real gem among them. My original copy of the Joan Baez recording of Phil Ochs's There But For Fortune was one such gem. I later found a promo copy while working at KUNM in Albuquerque, which is the one I use now, since my original is long since worn out. Not only was this record my first introduction to Joan Baez, it was also the first record I had ever seen on the Vanguard label and the first song written by Phil Ochs I had ever heard. Not bad for twelve and a half cents, especially when you consider that the flip side was Baez doing a Bob Dylan tune. 

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as EP)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rhino (original label: Rag Baby)
Year:    1965
    A relatively new arrival on the highly politicized Berkeley folk music scene in 1965, Country Joe McDonald had already organized a loose group of musicians to play at "teach-ins" designed to educate the public about what was really going on in Vietnam. He was also attempting to put together a newspaper with a similar focus, but found himself short of usable copy. His solution was to create a "talking issue" by inserting a 7" 33 1/3 RPM record into the paper. His own contribution to the record was the first recorded version of a song that would later become one of the best-known antiwar tunes ever penned: the iconic I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The actual makeup of the band called Country Joe And The Fish on this recording is not quite clear, other than the fact that both McDonald and Barry Melton played on it. An early video made of the group performing the song shows several people I don't recognize alternating on the vocals.

Artist:    Mothers Of Invention
Title:    Help, I'm A Rock, 3rd Movement: It Can't Happen Here
Source:    45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Barking Pumpkin (original label: Verve)
Year:    1966
    Help, I'm A Rock and its follow up track It Can't Happen Here are among the best-known Frank Zappa compositions on the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out! What is not so well known is that the band's label, Verve, issued a single version of the track under the title Help, I'm A Rock, 3rd Movement: It Can't Happen Here, as the B side of the band's first single. This mono single version removes the avant-garde jazz piano and drum section from the piece, making the track slightly over three minutes in length. The result is one of the strangest a cappella performances ever committed to vinyl. 

Artist:    Phil Ochs
Title:    Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends (originally released on LP: Pleasures Of The Harbor)
Source:    CD: The Best Of Phil Ochs
Writer(s):    Phil Ochs
Label:    A&M
Year:    1967
    In 1964, less than a week after my 11th birthday, an event happened over 2000 miles from where I lived that would have a profound effect on my view of humanity, particularly the portion of it that lived in large cities. Late one night, a woman named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside of her apartment in Queens, NY., in front of witnesses, none of whom came to her defense. One witness late told police that she "didn't want to get involved". After he was apprehended, the killer was asked why he had attacked her in front of witnesses. His chilling reply was that he knew no one would help, because "people never do". That did not ring true to my 11-year-old self. I had been raised by good-hearted people with small-town values. When someone was in trouble, you helped them out. That's just how it was. Yet, that had not happened when Kitty Genovese was attacked. Ever since then I've tried to find empathy for, not only the victims, but those who stand by and do nothing. I've tried to understand why. Although I've made some progress, I still haven't figured it out. Apparently I was not the only one affected by the story. Phil Ochs used it as the starting point for what would turn out to be his most popular song, Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends, from his 1967 LP Pleasures Of The Harbor. I didn't get to hear that song until the late 1970s. It was banned in most radio markets because of the line "smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer", and ended up stalling out a dozen or so spots short of the top 100 when it was released as a single in 1967. In fact, I only heard it after hearing the new that Ochs had committed suicide in 1976, and one of my fellow DJs at KUNM played the song as part of a Phil Ochs memorial segment. Apparently the Genovese story, as well as other events described in the song, affected Ochs profoundly as well. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Piggies
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1968
    Beatle George Harrison had first revealed an anti-establishment side with his song Taxman, released in 1966 on the Revolver album. This particular viewpoint remained dormant until the song Piggies came out on the 1968 double LP The Beatles (aka the White Album). Although the song was intended to be satirical in tone, at least one Californian, Charles Manson, took it seriously enough to justify "whacking" a few "piggies" of his own. It was not pretty.
     
Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Monster/Suicide/America
Source:    CD: Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective (originally released on LP: Monster)
Writer(s):    Kay/Edmonton/St. Nicholas/Byrom
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1969
    Although they are mostly remembered for hits like Born To Be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride, Steppenwolf always had a social/political side as well, as evidenced by songs like The Ostrich and Don't Step On the Grass, Sam, but when it comes to pure political songs, the Monster trilogy is usually the first one that comes to mind. Personally, I consider it to be Steppenwolf's masterpiece.  

Artist:    Crosby, Still, Nash & Young
Title:    Ohio
Source:    CD: Decade (Neil Young anthology)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1970
    One of the most powerful records to come out of the Nixon years, Ohio was written by Neil Young in response to the shooting deaths of four college students by National Guard troops at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Young wrote the lyrics after seeing photos of the incident in Life magazine. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded the song with their new rhythm section of Calvin Samuels and Johnny Barbata on May 21st. The recording was rush released within a few week, becoming a counter-culture anthem and cementing the group's reputation as spokesmen for their generation. Young later referred to the Kent State shootings as "probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning," adding that "David Crosby cried when we finished this take." Crosby can be heard ad-libbing "Four, why? Why did they die?" and "How many more?" during the song's fadeout. 

    From protest songs we move on to something there was no shortage of during the psychedelic era: youthful rebellion.

Artist:    Who
Title:    My Generation
Source:    Mono CD: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1965
    In late 1965 the Who released a song that quickly became the anthem of a generation. As a matter of fact it's My Generation. Some of us, including Who drummer Keith Moon, did indeed die before we got old. The rest of us weren't so lucky, but hey, that's life.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Let Me Be
Source:    CD: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: It Ain't Me Babe and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    P.F. Sloan
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1965
    The Turtles were nothing if not able to redefine themselves when the need arose. Originally a surf band known as the Crossfires, the band quickly adopted an "angry young men" stance with their first single, Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, and the subsequent album of the same name. For the follow-up single the band chose a track from their album, Let Me Be, that, although written by a different writer, had the same general message as It Ain't Me Babe. The band would soon switch over to love songs like Happy Together and She'd Rathr Be With Me before taking their whole chameleon bit to its logical extreme with an album called Battle Of The Bands on which each track was meant to sound like it was done by an entirely different group. 

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Pushin' Too Hard
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1965
    Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic, although it took the better part of two years to catch on. Originally released in 1965 as Your Pushin' Too Hard, the song was virtually ignored by local Los Angeles radio stations until a second single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine, started getting some attention. After being included on the Seeds' debut LP in 1966, Pushin' Too Hard was rereleased and soon was being heard all over the L.A. airwaves. By the end of the year stations in other markets were starting to spin the record, and the song hit its peak of popularity in early 1967.

    If life was difficult for a typical middle-class teenager in the mid-1960s (as it is for teenagers everywhen), imagine what it must have been like for someone living on the poor side of town.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of The Animals (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1965
    In 1965 producer Mickey Most put out a call to Don Kirschner's Brill building songwriters for material that could be recorded by the Animals. He ended up selecting three songs, all of which are among the Animals' most popular singles. Possibly the best-known of the three is a song written by the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil called We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. The song (the first Animals recording to featuring Dave Rowberry, who had replaced founder Alan Price on organ) starts off with what is probably Chas Chandler's best known bass line, slowly adding drums, vocals, guitar and finally keyboards on its way to an explosive chorus. The song was not originally intended for the Animals, however; it was written for the Righteous Brothers as a follow up to (You've Got That) Lovin' Feelin', which Mann and Weil had also provided for the duo. Mann, however, decided to record the song himself, but the Animals managed to get their version out first, taking it to the top 20 in the US and the top 5 in the UK. As the Vietnam war escalated, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place became a sort of underground anthem for US servicemen stationed in South Vietnam, and has been associated with that war ever since. Incidentally, there were actually two versions of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place recorded during the same recording session, with an alternate take accidentally being sent to M-G-M and subsequently being released as the US version of the single. This version (which some collectors and fans maintain has a stronger vocal track) appeared on the US-only LP Animal Tracks in the fall of 1965 as well as the original M-G-M pressings of the 1966 album Best Of The Animals. The original UK version, on the other hand, did not appear on any albums, as was common for British singles in the 1960s. By the 1980s record mogul Allen Klein had control of the original Animals' entire catalog, and decreed that all CD reissues of the song would use the original British version of the song, including the updated (and expanded) CD version of The Best Of The Animals.

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:     Standells
Title:     Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White 
Source:     Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Ed Cobb
Label:     Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:     1966
     The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. All but Try It were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written some of the Chocolate Watch Band's best stuff as well.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Society's Child
Source:    Mono CD: Songs Of protest (originally released as 45 RPM single) 
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1966
    Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one (Now Sounds) to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record got picked up and re-issued in 1966 by M-G-M's experimental label Verve Forecast, a label whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations the song became a major hit when re-released yet another time in early 1967. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement. Ironic, considering that Society's Child ends with the protagonist backing down and giving in to society's rules.

    Even in the psychedelic era, youthful rebellion would often give way to (or sometimes even lead to) War!

Artist:     Edwin Starr
Title:     War
Source:     CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Whitfield/Strong
Label:     Rhino (original label: Gordy)
Year:     1970
     It was 1970, and Motown Records staff producer Norman Whitfield was facing a bit of a dilemma. A track that he and co-producer Barrett Strong had included on the Temptations' LP Psychedelic Shack was starting to get a lot of airplay, and radio programmers were asking for the song to be released as a single. The problem was the song itself. War, co-written by Whitfield and Strong, had a powerful message that resonated with the anti-Vietnam War movement. This, of course, did not sit well with some of the more conservative radio station owners, a fact that Motown president Berry Gordy, Jr. was well aware of. At that particular moment in space and time, the Temptations were Motown's #1 cash cow (Diana Ross having left the Supremes earlier that year), and Berry did not want to take any chances with his top money makers. Eventually a compromise was reached. Whitfield re-recorded the track with second-string artist Edwin Starr, amping up the energy level of the song in the process, and ended up with one of the biggest hit singles of the year (and certainly the biggest of Starr's career). 

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The Unknown Soldier
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    One of the oddest recordings to get played on top 40 radio was the Door's 1968 release, The Unknown Soldier. The song is notable for having it's own promotional film made by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had been a film major at UCLA when the Doors were formed. It's not known whether the song was written with the film in mind (or vice versa), but the two have a much greater synergy than your average music video. As for the question of whether the Doors themselves were anti-war, let's just say that vocalist Jim Morrison, who wrote the lyrics to The Unknown Soldier, was pretty much anti-everything.

Artist:    Bob Seger System
Title:    2+2=?
Source:    LP: Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (originally released as 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bob Seger
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    Bob Seger had a series of regional hits in his native Detroit in the mid-1960s, leading to a deal with Capitol Records in 1968. His first single for Capitol was 2+2=?, one of the most powerful anti-war songs ever recorded. The track was included on Seger's first album, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, the following year, with one minor difference. Near the end of the song everything stops for a couple of seconds before the song resumes at full speed. Capitol was afraid of how that might go over with top 40 radio programmers (who were notoriously paranoid about "dead air") and had the band add a tone-bending power chord to the single version to cover up the silence. The album version (heard here), has the original silence intact. 

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Fortunate Son
Source:    LP: Willy And The Poor Boys
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1969
    John Fogerty says it only took him 20 minutes to write what has become one of the iconic antiwar songs of the late 1960s. But Fortunate Son is not so much a condemnation of war as it is an indictment of the political elite who send the less fortunate off to die in wars without any risk to themselves. In addition to being a major hit single upon its release in late 1969 (peaking at #3 as half of a double-A sided single), Fortunate Son has made several "best of" lists over the years, including Rolling Stone magazine's all-time top 100. Additionally, in 2014 the song was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". 

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    Sky Pilot
Source:    CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Rhino (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1968
    After the original Animals lineup disbanded in late 1966, lead vocalist Eric Burdon quickly set out to form a "New Animals" group that would come to be called Eric Burdon and the Animals. The new band was much more rooted in the psychedelic era than its predecessor, with songs like A Girl Named Sandoz (Sandoz being the name of the lab that first developed LSD) appearing as the B side of their first single, and San Franciscan Nights, an invitation to Europeans to hook up with the hippie culture of Haight-Ashbury, making the charts in 1967. Their most memorable release, Sky Pilot, called the religious establishment to task for its tacit endorsement of warfare itself through the practice of including chaplains as part of the military heirarchy. The song, running over seven minutes in length, was spread out over two sides of a 45 RPM single, making it difficult for radio stations to play in its entirety (the album version cross fades into the next track). Nonetheless, Sky Pilot managed to hit a respectable #14 on the charts in 1968.

Artist:      Jethro Tull
Title:     Hymn 43
Source:      CD: Aqualung
Writer:    Ian Adnerson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1971
     Eric Burdon And The Animals proved in 1968, with the song Sky Pilot, that you could now take on the religious establishment in a rock song and end up with a hit record. Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, soon followed with the release of Christmas Song later that same year. It turned out that Christmas Song was only a hint of what would come three years later. Most (if not all) of the second side of the 1971 LP Aqualung presented a scathing criticism of what Anderson perceived as rampant hypocrisy within the Anglican church. Aqualung still stands as Jethro Tull's best-selling album, with over seven million copies sold worldwide. Hymn 43, a song that focuses more on America's heavy-handed use of religion as a tool, was released as a single, going to the #91 spot on the Billboard charts, despite being effectively banned on AM radio. 

    You'd think that war would be the way it ends (and that may yet be the case), although some would argue that religion will get there first. Still, it's probably a good idea to take a step back and consider the state of the Union, both then and now, before coming to a final conclusion.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)
Source:    CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    By mid-1966 Hollywood's Sunset Strip was being taken over every night by local teenagers, with several underage clubs featuring live music being a major attraction. Many of the businesses in the area, citing traffic problems and rampant drug and alcohol abuse, began to put pressure on city officials to do something about the situation. The city responded by passing new loitering ordinances and imposing a 10PM curfew on the Strip. They also began putting pressure on the clubs, including condemning the popular Pandora's Box for demolition. On November 12, 1966 fliers appeared on the streets inviting people to a demonstration that evening to protest the closing of the club. The demostration continued over a period of days, exascerbated by the city's decision to revoke the permits of a dozen other clubs on the Strip, forcing them to bar anyone under the age of 21 from entering. Stephen Stills, a member of Buffalo Springfield, one of the many bands appearing regularly in these clubs, wrote a new song in response to the situation, and the band quickly booked studio time, recording the still-unnamed track on December 5th. The band had recently released their debut LP, but sales of the album were lackluster due to the lack of a hit single. Stills reportedly presented the new recording to label head Ahmet Ertegun with the words "I have this song here, for what it's worth, if you want it." Ertegun, sensing that he had a hit on his hands, got the song rush-released two days before Christmas, 1966, using For What It's Worth as the official song title, but sub-titling it Stop, Hey What's That Sound on the label as well. As predicted, For What It's Worth was an instant hit in the L.A. market, and soon went national, where it was taken by most record buyers to be about the general sense of unrest being felt across the nation over issues like racial equality and the Vietnam War (and oddly enough, by some people as being about the Kent State massacre, even though that happened nearly three years after the song was released). As the single moved up the charts, eventually peaking at #7, Atco recalled the Buffalo Springfield LP, reissuing it with a modified song selection that included For What It's Worth as the album's openng track. Needless to say, album sales picked up after that. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever even seen a copy of the Buffalo Springfield album without For What It's Worth on it, although I'm sure some of those early pressings must still exist.

Artist:    Temptations
Title:    Ball Of Confusion
Source:    CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Rhino (original label: Gordy)
Year:    1970
    By 1970 an interesting situation had developed at Motown Records. Various production teams had achieved a degree of autonomy not usually seen in the record industry, resulting in a variety of styles coming from the label, each of which was identified with a particular team. The psychedelic branch of the label was run by Norm Whitfield and Barrett Strong, whose work mostly appeared on the Gordy label. Their stable of artists included Edwin Starr, the Undisputed Truth and the Temptations, the latter of which had gone through several lineup changes that left them without original lead vocalist David Ruffin. Whitfield and Strong used this situation to their best advantage by splitting the lead vocals among several group members within each song. One of the first songs to take this approach was Ball Of Confusion, released in 1970. A longer version of the song, using a less edited version of the same Funk Brothers instrumental track, was released by the Undisputed Truth as a B side.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Season Of The Witch
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer:    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sony (original label: Epic)
Year:    1966 (stereo version, 1969)
     Season Of The Witch has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring tracks on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the album was not released in the UK until late 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Like all tracks from both Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, Season Of The Witch was only available in a mono mix until 1969, when a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track masters for the singer/songwriter's first greatest hits compilation. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.

Artist:     Barry McGuire
Title:     Eve of Destruction
Source:     CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     P.F. Sloan
Label:     Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1965
     P.F. Sloan had already established a reputation for writing songs that captured the anger of youth by the time he wrote Eve Of Destruction, which Barry McGuire took into the top 10 in 1965. It would be McGuire's only major hit, and represented folk-rock at the peak of its popularity. 

    With the state of the Union being basically a state of confusion, there seemed to be only one appropriate response to it. But of course, there were consequences.

Artist:     Bob Dylan
Title:     Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source:     CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Writer:     Bob Dylan
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution (at least according to Dylan). On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet. 

Artist:     Steppenwolf
Title:     Don't Step On The Grass, Sam
Source:     CD: Steppenwolf the Second
Writer:     John Kay
Label:     MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1968
     Never afraid to make his social and political views known, Steppenwolf's John Kay wrote Don't Step On The Grass, Sam for the band's second LP, released in 1968. It's taken nearly 50 years, but it looks like Kay's finally starting to get his wish. 

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Mexico
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1970
    The B side of the last Jefferson Airplane single to include founding member (and original leader) Marty Balin was Mexico, a scathing response by Grace Slick to President Richard Nixon's attempts to eradicate the marijuana trade between the US and Mexico. The song was slated to be included on the next Airplane album, Long John Silver, but Balin's departure necessitated a change in plans, and Mexico did not appear on an LP until Early Flight was released in 1974.

Artist:    Graham Nash
Title:    Prison Song
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    Graham Nash's Prison Song is one of those songs that by all rights should have been a huge hit. It was by a name artist. It had a catchy opening harmonica riff and a haunting melody. I can only surmise that once again Bill Drake (the man who controlled top 40 radio in the 60s and early 70s) decided that the lyrics were too controversial for AM radio and had the song blacklisted, much as he had done with the Byrds Eight Miles High a few years earlier. Those lyrics center on a subject that is unfortunately still relevant today: the utter absurdity of drug laws and the unequal sentences for violation of those laws in the US and its various states.