Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: Monterey
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
One of the first appearances of the New Animals on stage was at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The experience so impressed the group that they wrote a song about it. The song was issued both as a single and on the LP: The Twain Shall Meet. The single used a mono mix; the LP version, while in stereo, was overlapped at both the beginning and end by adjoining tracks, and was missing the first few seconds of the single version. The version used here was created by splicing the mono intro onto the stereo main portion of the song, fading out at the end a bit early to avoid the overlap from the LP. This process (called making a "cut down") was first done by a company called Drake-Chenault, which supplied tapes to radio stations using the most pristine stereo versions of songs available. Whether Polydor used the Drake-Chenault version or did the cut down itself, the version is the same.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Boogie Music
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Living The Blues and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): L.T.Tatman III
Label: United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of Bay Area blues purists. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout their existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. An edited version of Boogie Music, also from Living the Blues, was issued as the B side of that single. This is a stereo mix of that version, featured on a United Artists anthology album released in 1969.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Light Your Windows
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Quicksilver Messenger Service)
Writer: Duncan/Freiberg
Label: Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
One of the last of the legendary San Francisco bands that played at Monterey to get signed to a major label was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Inspired by a conversation between Dino Valenti and guitarist John Cippolina, there are differing opinions on just how serious Valenti was about forming a new band at that time. Since Valenti was busted for drugs the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in jail), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pictures And Designs
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s): Saxon/Hooper
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The first Seeds album was somewhat unusual for its time in that all the songs on the album (including both singles from the album) were written by members of the band itself. Unfortunately this resulted in a sort of formulaic sameness from one track to the next, with many tunes sounding like attempts to recapture the magic of their most famous song, Pushin' Too Hard. The second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, also was made up of (mostly) original material, but this time Sky Saxon and company made an effort to expand beyond the formula with tracks like Pictures And Designs, which starts off sounding a bit like the Yardbirds, but soon becomes a snarling punk drone that manages to break new ground for the band while maintaining the distinctive Seeds sound.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In)
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: No Way Out)
Writer(s): McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in truth the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year: 1967
Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a 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) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.
Artist: Them
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: Mono 12" single (reissue)
Writer: Joe Williams
Label: A&M
Year: 1964
Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Led by Van Morrison, the band 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 rock and roll version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the single was never issued 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.
Artist: Who
Title: Top Gear/Glittering Girl/Coke
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA
Year: 1967
The Who Sell Out was designed to sound like Radio London, the most successful of the pirate radio stations that broadcast from floating transmitters outside of the three-mile limit surrounding Great Britain in the mid 1960s. At least that's how the album starts out. For some reason the entire concept disappears about a third of the way through side two of the original LP. At first one might think that the band simply ran out of the various jingles and faux commercials that are heard between the songs throughout side one, but that theory is belied by the inclusion of several of these bits as bonus tracks on the 1993 reissue of The Who Sell Out on CD. Among those are commercials for Top Gear and Coca-Cola, heard before and after the bonus track Glittering Girl, an unreleased track recorded sometime before the sessions for the album itself got under way in July of 1967.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Fields of Sun
Source: Heavy
Writer(s): Ingle/DeLoach
Label: Rhino
Year: 1968
Before In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida there was Heavy. The debut LP from Iron Butterfly featured vocalist/tambourinist Darryl DeLoach, guitarist Danny Weis and bassist Jerry Penrod, all of whom would leave the band after the album was recorded, along with drummer Ron Bushy and keyboardist Doug Ingle, who would find themselves having to recruit two new members before recording the classic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album. One of the best-known tracks from Heavy is Fields of Sun, with its Baroque-influenced instrumental bridge played and sung (an octave higher) by Ingle.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Gentle As It May Seem
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: 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. Gentle As It Seems, written by 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: Iron Butterfly
Title: Iron Butterfly Theme
Source: CD: Heavy
Writer(s): Doug Ingle
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
Although much of the material on the first Iron Butterfly album, Heavy, has a somewhat generic L.A. club sound to it, the final track, the Iron Butterfly Theme, sounds more in line with the style the band would become known for on their In-A-Gadda-Vida album a few months later.
Artist: Move
Title: My Marge
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Wood/Lynne
Label: United Artists
Year: 1971
The Move were a hugely successful British band that couldn't buy a hit in the US, despite scoring several top 10 singles in their native UK in the latter part of the 1960s. By 1971 the band was in the middle of a transition period that would see them give birth to two new bands: Roy Wood's Wizzard and Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra. In fact, the same group of musicians were actually working on two albums in the same studio at the same time that summer: the first ELO album and the last Move LP. One of the tracks from the latter, My Marge, was used as a B side of a final Move single in the US shortly after ELO had their first American hit, Roll Over Beethoven, in 1973.
Artist: Mandrake Paddle Steamer
Title: Strange Walking Man
Source: Mono import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Briley/Engle
Label: Zonophone (UK) (originally label: Columbia UK)
Year: 1969
Mandrake Paddle Steamer was the brainchild of art school students Martin Briley and Brian Engle, who, with producer Robert Finnis, were among the first to take advantage of EMI's new 8-track recording equipment at their Abbey Road studios. The result was Strange Walking Man, a single released in 1969. The track includes a coda created by Finnis by splicing a tape of studio musicians playing a cover version of an Incredible String Band tune, Maybe Someday.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: J.P.P. McStep B. Blues
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track originally released on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
One of the first songs recorded for the Surrealistic Pillow album, J.P.P. McStep B. Blues ended up being shelved, possibly because drummer Skip Spence, who wrote the song, had left the band by the time the album came out.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: High Flyin' Bird
Source: LP: Early Flight
Writer(s): Billy Edd Wheeler
Label: Grunt
Year: Recorded 1965, released 1974
One of the more outstanding performances at the Monterey International Pop Festival was Jefferson Airplane's rendition of High Flyin' Bird, a song usually associated with Buffy St.-Marie. The song had actually been in the band's repertoire almost from the beginning, as this recording from 1965, featuring the original Airplane lineup of Marty Balin and Signe Anderson (vocals), Jorma Kaukonen and Paul Kantner (guitars), Jack Casidy (bass) and Skip Spence (drums), demonstrates.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Go To Her
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track originally released on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Kantner/Estes
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage (original label: Grunt)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
Nearly every major artist acquires a backlog of unreleased songs over a period of time, usually due to lack of space on their official albums. Eventually many of these tracks get released on compilation albums or (more recently) as bonus tracks on CD versions of the original albums. One of the first of these compilation albums was Jefferson Airplane's Early Flight LP, released in 1974. Of the nine tracks on Early Flight, five were recorded during sessions for the band's first two LPs, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off and Surrealistic Pillow. One song originally intended for Surrealistic Pillow was Go To Her, an early Paul Kantner collaboration. At four minutes, the recording was longer than any of the songs that actually appeared on the album, which is probably the reason it didn't make the final cut, as it would have meant that two other songs would have to have been deleted instead.
Artist: Focus
Title: Hocus Pocus
Source: Import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Moving Waves)
Writer(s): van Leer/Akkerman
Label: Polydor UK (original US label: Sire)
Year: 1971
Although it was not a hit until 1973, Hocus Pocus by the Dutch progressive rock band Focus has the type of simple structure coupled with high energy that was characteristic of many of the garage bands of the mid to late 60s. The song was originally released on the band's second LP, known alternately as Focus II and Moving Waves, in 1971. Both guitarist Jan Akkerman and keyboardist/vocalist/flautist Thijs Van Leer have gone on to have successful careers, with Van Leer continuing to use to Focus name as recently as 2006.
Artist: Salvation
Title: Think Twice
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Salvation)
Writer(s): Joe Tate
Label: Rhino (original label: ABC)
Year: 1968
If there is any one band that typifies the San Francisco music scene of 1968 it would have to be Salvation. Originally known as the Salvation Army Banned, the group came to the attention of ABC Records after a series of successful gigs at Golden Gate Park. The band was often seen cruising the streets of San Francisco in a converted bus and often found themselves sharing the playbill with acts like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. After recording their debut LP, Salvation, the group did a coast to coast promotional tour "from the Golden Gate to the Village Gate", only to find themselves stranded on the east coast when their management team absconded with the band's advance money. The band's fate was sealed when they, to quote keyboardist Art Resnick, "acted so incredibly wild at the main offices of ABC In in NYC when going there to meet all the top execs. It was totally insane! Wilder than any rock movie I've ever seen."
Artist: Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck
Title: One Ring Jane
Source: Import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: Home Grown Stuff)
Writer(s): McDougall/Ivanuck
Label: Zonophone UK (original label: Capitol Canada)
Year: 1969
Sometimes called Canada's most psychedelic band, Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck was formed in British Columbia in 1967. After recording one unsuccessful single for London, the Duck switched to Capitol Records Canada and scored nationally with the album Home Grown Stuff. After a couple more years spent opening for big name bands such as Alice Cooper and Deep Purple and a couple more albums (on the Capitol-owned Duck Records) the group disbanded, with vocalist/guitarist Donny McDougall joining the Guess Who in 1972.
Artist: Hysterics
Title: Everything's There
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): David Donaghue
Label: Rhino (original label: Bing)
Year: 1965
Much as San Jose, California had its own thriving teen-oriented music scene within the greater San Francisco media market, the San Bernardino/Riverside area of Southern California was home to several local bands that were able to score recording contracts with various small labels in the area. Among those were the Hysterics, who recorded four songs for two seperate labels in 1965. The best of those was Everything's There, which appeared as the B side of the second single issued by the band. At some point, Everything's There was reissued (along with the A side of the first record, That's All She Wrote) on yet a third label, but this time credited to the Love Ins. Such was the state of the indy record business in the late 60s.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: A Hazy Shade Of Winter
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Originally released as a single in late 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs slated to be used in the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold.
Artist: Doors
Title: Back Door Man
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
In their early days as an L.A. club band, the Doors supplemented their growing body of original material with covers of classic blues tunes (rather than covers of top 40 hits like many of their contemporaries). Perhaps best of these was Willie Dixon's Back Door Man, which had been a mid-50s R&B hit for Howlin' Wolf. The Doors themselves certainly thought so, as it was the only cover song to appear on their debut LP.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Parachute Woman
Source: CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1968
The last Rolling Stones album with the original lineup was Beggar's Banquet, released in 1968. The album itself was a conscious effort on the part of the band to get back to their roots after the psychedelic excesses of Their Satanic Majesties Request. Sadly, Brian Jones was fast deteriorating at the time and his contributions to the album are minimal compared to the band's earlier efforts. As a result, Keith Richards was responsible for most of the guitar work on Beggar's Banquet, including both lead and rhythm parts on Parachute Woman.
Artist: Others
Title: I Can't Stand This Love, Goodbye
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brand/Costa/Shepley
Label: BFD (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1965
Not much is known about the Rhode Island band known as the Others (not to be confused with either the California or Florida bands called the Others), other (sorry) than the fact that they were apparently popular enough to land a contract with the largest record label in the world, RCA Victor, recording two singles for the label in late 1965. The first of these was I Can't Stand This Love, Goodbye, released in September of that year.
Artist: Bees
Title: Voices Green And Purple
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Writer(s): Wood/Willsie
Label: Rhino (original label: Liverpool)
Year: 1966
One of the shortest, as well as most demented, singles ever released, Voices Green And Purple recounts a bad acid trip in just over a minute and a half. The Bees themselves were an early indy punk band from LaVerne, California, an obscure L.A. suburb.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Lucifer Sam
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Beyond a shadow of a doubt the original driving force behind Pink Floyd was the legendary Syd Barrett. Not only did he front the band during their rise to fame, he also wrote their first two singles, Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, as well as most of their first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. In fact it could be argued that one of the songs on that album, Lucifer Sam, could have just as easily been issued as a single, as it is stylistically similar to the first two songs. Sadly, Barrett's mental health deteriorated quickly over the next year and his participation in the making of the band's next LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, was minimal. He soon left the group altogether, never to return (although several of his former bandmates did participate in the making of his 1970 solo album, The Madcap Laughs).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Crosstown Traffic
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
By 1968 it didn't matter one bit whether the Jimi Hendrix Experience had any hit singles; their albums were guaranteed to be successful. Nonetheless the Electric Ladyland album had no less that three singles on it (although one was a new stereo mix of a 1967 single). The first single to be released concurrently with Electric Ladyland was Crosstown Traffic, a song that has been included on several anthologies over the years.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Searching For Madge
Source: CD: Then Play On
Writer(s): John McVie
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
Fleetwood Mac was founded by Peter Green in 1967. Green had been a member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and as a Christmas gift, Mayall bought Green some studio time to use as he saw fit. Green used the time to record a set of tunes with drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer in the hope that the three of them might form a new band. Green chose the name Fleetwood Mac as a way of enticing Bluesbreakers bassist John McVie into joining the band as well. It wasn't until after the album was released and the new band started getting gigs that McVie did indeed come on board, eventually bringing his girlfriend, Christine Perfect, into the band as well. In 1969 another guitarist, Danny Kirwan, joined the lineup for Then Play On, the first Fleetwood Mac LP to be released in the US. It was also Green's last album with the band. Two of the tracks on Then Play On are actually sections of a long jam session, both containing the word Madge in their official title. The longer of these is Searching For Madge, which runs nearly seven minutes.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Waterloo Sunset
Source: LP: Something Else
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the most beautiful tunes ever recorded by the Kinks is Waterloo Sunset, a song that was a hit single in the UK, but was totally ignored by US radio stations. The reason for this neglect of such a stong song is a mystery, however it may have been due to the fear that American audiences would not be able to relate to all the references to places in and around London in the song's lyrics.
Artist: Bee Gees
Title: One Minute Woman
Source: CD: Bee Gees 1st
Writer(s): Barry and Robin Gibb
Label: Reprise (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The Bee Gees had actually released two albums in Australia before relocating to England in 1967 and recording the album Bee Gees 1st. Nonetheless the LP, which included three songs that would become hits (New York Mining Disaster-1941, To Love Somebody and Holiday) as well as several notable album tracks such as One Minute Woman, was their first to be released internationally, and in a very sense marks the true beginning of their rise to major stardom.
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