Artist: Albert King
Title: Please Love Me
Source: LP: Live Wire/Blues Power
Writer(s): King/Taub
Label: Stax
Year: 1968
When the name Fillmore comes up in discussions of famous rock venues, most people are aware that there was a Fillmore East (in New York) and a Fillmore West (in San Francisco). What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that there was actually a third Fillmore Auditorium that predated the other two. Promoter Bill Graham's original Fillmore Auditorium was a relatively small place that was perfectly suited to the needs of the Bay Area music scene of 1966, which was at that time a strictly local affair. By 1968, however, several of the city's bands had become internationally famous and other venues such as the Carousel Ballroom (operated by a consortium of local musicians) were drawing larger crowds than the Fillmore could handle. Graham responded by taking over the Carousel in July of 1968 and renaming the place the Fillmore West, closing out his original auditorium at the corner of Fillmore Street and Geary Blvd. One of the last events at the original Fillmore was a blues concert headlined by a Albert King, who, despite having been active since the early 1950s, had only two LPs to his credit by 1968. The concert, featuring such crowd pleasers as Please Love Me (a B.B. King cover), was recorded and released later that year as King's first live LP.
Artist: Cream
Title: Those Were The Days
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): Baker/Taylor
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Drummer Ginger Baker only contributed a handful of songs to the Cream repertoire, but each was, in its own way, quite memorable. Those Are The Days, with its sudden changes of time and key, presages the progressive rock that would flourish in the mid-1970s. As was often the case with Baker-penned songs, bassist Jack Bruce provides the vocals from this Wheels Of Fire track.
Artist: T.I.M.E.
Title: Tripping Into Sunshine
Source: CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: T.I.M.E. and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nicholas/Richardson/Byron/Rumph
Label: Zonophone (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
After the demise of the Canadian band Sparrow, bassist Nick St. Nicholas gravitated to San Francisco, where he met up with former members of the San Diego-based Hard Times to form T.I.M.E. (Trust In Men Everywhere). The band recorded two albums for Liberty, the first of which opens with the track Tripping Into Sunshine. After the group's demise St. Nicholas rejoined his former Sparrow bandmates in their new band Steppenwolf. He was eventually joined by guitarist Larry Byrom.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: Visions Of Your Reality
Source: Mono LP: Behold And See
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The second Ultimate Spinach LP continued in the same musical vein as the Boston group's debut album. Much of this is due to the fact that all the material on both albums was written by keyboardist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who would leave the band after the release of Behold And See in 1968. A solid, if unspectacular, example of the band at that point is the track Visions Of Your Reality. The group would continue in name only after Bruce-Douglas's departure, and there is even a band somewhere in the Pacific Northwest today calling itself Ultimate Spinach, but none of these sound anything like the original group.
Artist: Sagittarius
Title: Keeper Of The Games (demo version)
Source: CD: Present Tense
Writer(s): Curt Boettcher
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1968
Curt Boettcher is one of the unsung geniuses of the psychedelic era. His first major success as a producer was the first Association album, including the song Along Comes Mary, which he reportedly co-wrote (although Tandyn Almer took sole credit for the song, causing a permanent rift between the two). It was around this time that he first came to the attention of Columbia Records staff producer Gary Usher and his friend, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Both were impressed by the talent and creativity of Boettcher, so much so that Usher helped Boettcher get a job at Columbia the following year. By then, Boettcher was working on his own project, the Ballroom, for a company called Our Productions. One of the conditions that Our Productions set for Columbia to buy out Boettcher's contract was that the larger company would also buy all the Ballroom masters. As a result, some of those masters ended up as part of the debut Sagittarius album, Present Tense, which Boettcher co-produced with Usher.
Artist: Blues Image
Title: Outside Was Night
Source: LP: Blues Image
Writer(s): Blues Image
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
There are striking similarities between the Hour Glass of Los Angeles and Miami's Blues Image. Both were club bands that visiting musicians would go out of their way to catch when they were in town, often sticking around for a bit of after hours jamming. Both bands featured guitarists (Duane Allman and Mike Pinera) who would go on to greater fame with other bands. And both bands, for whatever reasons, were never able to generate the same kind of excitement in the studio that they did when they played live. Unlike the Hour Glass, however, Blues Image managed to at least play the same style of music in the studio as they did in their club sets; Outside Was Night, from their debut LP, is a good example of this.
Artist: Santana
Title: Incident At Neshabur
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer(s): Gianquito/Santana
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.
Artist: Sound Barrier
Title: (My) Baby's Gone
Source: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Paul Hess
Label: BFD (original label: Zounds)
Year: 1967
A couple weeks after playing (My) Baby's Gone for the first time, I got an e-mail from Paul Hess, leader and lead vocalist of Salem, Ohio's Sound Barrier. Hess confirmed that he indeed was the writer of the song in question, as well as the record's B side (which I'm still waiting for him to send me a copy of).
Artist: Leaves
Title: Too Many People
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pons/Rinehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1965
The Leaves are a bit unusual in that in a city known for drawing wannabes from across the world, this local band's members were all native L.A.ins. Formed by members of a fraternity at Cal State Northridge, the Leaves had their greatest success when they took over as house band at Ciro's after the Byrds vacated the slot to go on tour. Like many bands of the time, they were given a song to record as a single by their producer (Love Minus Zero) and allowed to write their own B side. In this case that B side was Too Many People, written by bassist Jim Pons and guitarist Bill Rhinehart. The song ended up getting more airplay on local radio stations than Love Minus Zero, making it their first regional hit. The Leaves had their only national hit the following year with their third attempt at recording the fast version of Hey Joe, the success of which led to their first LP, which included a watered down version of Too Many People. The version heard here is the 1965 original. Eventually Pons would leave the Leaves, hooking up first with the Turtles, then Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Angel
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
Shortly after the untimely death of Jimi Hendrix in September of 1970, Reprise released the first of many posthumous Hendrix albums, The Cry Of Love. Like millions of other Hendrix fans, I immediately went out and bought a copy. I have to say that there are very few songs that have ever brought tears to my eyes, and even fewer that did so on my very first time hearing them. Of these, Angel tops the list.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Are You Experienced?
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Until the release of Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience the emphasis in rock music (then called pop) was on the 45 RPM single, with albums seen as a luxury item that supplemented an artist's career rather than defined it. Are You Experience helped change all that. The album was not only highly influential, it was a major seller, despite getting virtually no airplay on top 40 radio. The grand finale of the LP was the title track, which features an array of studio effects, including backwards masking and tape loops. Interestingly enough, the album was originally issued only in a mono version in the UK, with European pressings using a simulated stereo mix. After Reprise bought the rights to release the LP in the US it hired its own engineers to create stereo mixes of the songs from the four-track master tapes.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Purple Haze
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Following up on the success of their first UK single, Hey Joe, the Jimi Hendrix Experience released Purple Haze in early 1967. The popularity of the two singles (released only in Europe) led to a deal with Reprise Records to start issuing the band's material in the US. By then, however, the Experience had already released Are You Experienced without either of the two hit singles on it. Reprise, hedging their bets, included both singles (but not their B sides), as well as a third UK single, The Wind Cries Mary, deleting several tracks from the original version of Are You Experienced to make room for them.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Take It Easy
Source: Looking In
Writer(s): Simmonds/Peverett
Label: Deram (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1970
In mid-1970 lead vocalist Chris Youlden and the rest of Savoy Brown parted company, leaving Dave Peverett to double up as vocalist and guitarist for the band. The remaining four members (Peverett, bassist Tone Stevens, drummer Roger Earl and guitarist/founder Kim Simmonds) immediately went to work on what would be Savoy Brown's sixth LP. Looking In, when released, ended up being the most successful album in the band's entire run, and the only one to make the British charts (Savoy Brown had always done better with US audiences than in their native UK). Among the many listenable tunes on Looking In is Take It Easy, written by Peverett and Simmonds. Unfortunately, this particular Savoy Brown lineup was not to last, as Simmonds summarily dismissed the rest of the group shortly after Looking In was released, citing musical differences. Simmonds set about putting together a new lineup, while the other three erstwhile members formed their own band, Foghat, a band that would ironically have far more commercial success than Savoy Brown ever achieved.
Artist: Them
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Backtrackin' (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Joe Williams
Label: London (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1965
Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Led by Van Morrison, Them quickly got a reputation for being rude and obnoxious, particularly to members of the English press (although it was actually a fellow Irishman who labeled them as "boorish"). Their first single was what has come to be considered the definitive version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the song did not appear on any of the band's original US albums. Finally, in 1974, London Records included Baby, Please Don't Go on a collection of UK singles and album tracks that had not been previously released in the US. Oddly enough, the song's B side ended up being the song most people associate with Them: the classic Gloria, which was released as Them's US debut single in 1965 but promptly found itself banned on most US radio stations due to suggestive lyrics. Them's recording of Baby, Please Don't Go enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980s when it was used in the hit movie Good Morning Vietnam.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
The title track of the second Amboy Dukes album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind, is by far their best known recording, going all the way to the #16 spot on the top 40 in 1968. The song features the lead guitar work of Ted Nugent, who co-wrote the song with guitarist/vocalist Steve Farmer. Journey To The Center Of The Mind would be the last album to feature lead vocalist John Drake, who left the band for creative reasons shortly after the album's release.
Artist: Who
Title: Melancholia
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA
Year: 1968
One of the most psychedelic pieces ever recorded by the Who remained in the vaults until the early 1990s, when it was included in the box set 30 Years Of Maximum R&B. Melancholia, recorded in 1968, was also included as a bonus track on the CD version of The Who Sell Out, despite the fact that it was recorded three months after the original album's release in December of 1967. This version includes one of the Who's many radio commercials intended for use on the original LP but left off when it was decided that side two of the album, unlike side one, would be nearly commercial free. This particular one, for Coca-Cola, could conceivably been recorded as a real commercial by the band (such as their spot for roto-sound strings on side one), but at this point it's difficult to know exactly what the band's intentions were.
Artist: Rationals
Title: I Need You
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Rhino (original label: A Squared)
Year: 1968
The Rationals were formed in 1965 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They soon got the attention of local label A2 (A Squared), and had a series of regional hits in the same Detroit soul-rock style favored by such notables as Mitch Ryder and Bob Seger. One of the best of these was a cover of a Kinks B side, I Need You, which the Rationals released in 1968.
Artist: Turtles
Title: She's My Girl
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1967
After a moderate amount of success in 1965 with a series of singles starting with a cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles found themselves running out of steam by the end of 1966. Rather than throw in the towel, they enlisted the services of the Bonner/Gordon songwriting team and recorded their most successful single, Happy Together, in 1967. They dipped into the same well for another major hit, She's My Girl, later the same year.
Artist: Small Faces
Title: Itchycoo Park
Source: CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane
Label: Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1967
Although it seemed for a while in the mid-60s that anything recorded in Britain was a guaranteed hit in the US, a surprising number of top British bands found little or no success on the other side of the Atlantic. Among those was the Small Faces, who had a dozen charted singles in the UK from 1965-1969, including seven top 10 singles. Despite this obvious commercial potential, the band was only able to chart one top 40 hit in the US, Itchycoo Park, which topped out at #16 in the summer of 1967 (it went to #3 in the UK). After the band split up, three of the members hooked up with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood of the Jeff Beck Band to form a new Faces (without the Small), and had considerable success on both sides of the water in the early 1970s.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit. Although progressive FM stations often played the longer LP version, it was the mono single edit heard here that was most familiar to listeners of top 40 radio.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Often credited as the first progressive rock band, Procol Harum drew heavily from classical music sources, such as the Bach inspired theme used by organist Matthew Fisher as the signature rift for A Whiter Shade of Pale. The song itself holds the distinction of being the most-played song on the British airwaves of the past 70 years. A Whiter Shade Of Pale was first released in both the UK and the US as a single. As was the custom at the time, the band's UK debut album did not include the song. For a variety of reasons, the album's release ended up being delayed by several months. Meanwhile, Deram Records issued an American version of the LP that included A Whiter Shade Of Pale. This may be the only known case of a British band's first album being released earlier in the US than in their own country.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Desiree
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brown/Feher
Label: Rhino (original label: Smash)
Year: 1967
For a while it looked as if the Left Banke would emerge as one of the most important bands of the late 60s. They certainly got off to a good start, with back-to-back top 10 singles Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina. But then bandleader Michael Brown and Smash Records made a serious misstep, issuing a Brown solo effort called Ivy Ivy utilizing studio musicians and trying to pass it off as a Left Banke record. The other band members refused to go along with the charade and sent out letters to their fan club membership denouncing the single. The outraged fans, in turn, threatened to boycott any radio stations that played Ivy Ivy. Brown and the rest of the band, meanwhile, managed to patch things up enough to record a new single, Desiree, and released the song in late 1967. By then, however, radio stations were leary of playing anything with the words Left Banke on the label, and the song failed to chart, despite being an outstanding record. Brown left the Left Banke soon after.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Don't Let Me Down
Source: CD: Past Masters-vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1969
One can get a good feel for the Beatles story simply by looking at the films they made. Their first, A Hard Day's Night, was a black and white movie that captured the group at a time that they had the world eating out of their collective hands. Their next film, Help!, was a bit more sophisticated, being both in color and in possession of an actual plot, albeit it a rather silly one. After some short promotional films that were a bit more experimental in nature (Strawberry Fields Forever, for example), they made a telefilm called Magical Mystery Tour in 1967. It was the band's first commercial failure. Their final project was another feature-length movie, but rather than a romp through fictional settings it was meant to be a documentary about the band's recording process. The film ended up documenting something else entirely: a band on the verge of a rather acrimonious breakup. Despite the internal conflicts, the group managed to record some strong tracks such as Don't Let Me Down, which was released as the B side of their first single of 1969, Get Back (both of which included Billy Preston on keyboards). Alternate versions of both songs were included on the final official Beatle album, Let It Be, the following year.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Street Fighting Man
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Beggar's Banquet)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source: Historic Performances Recorded At The Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Otis Redding, who set out in 1964 to fill the shoes of the late Sam Cooke, was just beginning to get noticed by mainstream audiences when he made a show-stopping appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. With a band that featured the famous Memphis Group of Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Al Jackson, Jr., along with Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love of the Bar-Kays, Redding closed out the second night of the festival to an enthusiastic crowd, despite a steady rain. The set was cut short by a pre-arranged curfew, but not before Redding knocked 'em dead with tunes like Respect, Try A Little Tenderness and his high-energy rendition of the Rolling Stones' classic Satisfaction.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: She Has Funny Cars
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
The opening track on the second Jefferson Airplane was She Has Funny Cars, written by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and vocalist/bandleader Marty Balin. The title (which is nowhere to be found in the lyrics), refers to the unusual collecting habits of drummer Spencer Dryden's girlfriend.
Artist: Doors
Title: The End
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Prior to recording their first album the Doors' honed their craft at various Sunset Strip clubs, working up live versions of the songs they would soon record, including their show-stopper, The End. Originally written as a breakup song by singer/lyricist Jim Morrison, The End runs nearly twelve minutes and includes a controversial spoken "Oedipus section". My own take on the famous "blue bus" line is that Morrison, being a military brat, was probably familiar with the blue shuttle buses used on military bases for a variety of purposes, including taking kids to school, and simply incorporated his experiences with them into his lyrics. The End got its greatest exposure in 1979, when Oliver Stone used it in his film Apocalypse Now.
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