Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them have become better known than the original Dylan versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Are You Experienced?
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Before 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 US top 40 radio. The grand finale of the LP was the title track, which features an array of studio effects, including backwards masked guitar 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: Still Raining, Still Dreaming
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Still Raining, Still Dreaming, from the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland, is the second half of a live studio recording featuring guest drummer Buddy Miles, who would later join Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox to form Band Of Gypsys. The recording also features Mike Finnegan on organ, Freddie Smith on tenor sax and Larry Faucett on congas, as well as Experience member Noel Redding on bass.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
Source: LP: Atom Heart Mother
Writer(s): Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label: Harvest
Year: 1970
Side two of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother LP featured four tracks, one from each member of the band. Since drummer Nick Mason was not generally considered a songwriter, his track, Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast, was credited to the entire band. The title refers to Pink Floyd roadie Alan Styles, and features a series of sound recordings of Styles making and eating (and occasionally talking about) breakfast insterspersed with a series of musical interludes. The recording starts and ends with the sound of a faucet dripping, and includes things like bacon frying, rice cereal snap crackle and popping, and plates being shuffled around. The group actually performed the piece live two or three times in 1970.
Artist: Crow
Title: Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Wagner/Weigand/Weigand
Label: Amaret
Year: 1969
Minneapolis has always had a more active local music scene than one might expect from a medium-sized city in the heart of the snow belt. Many of the city's artists have risen to national prominence, including a band called Crow, who's 1969 single Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me), hit close to the top of the charts in early 1970. The band had been formed in 1967 as South 40, changing its name to Crow right around the same time they signed to Amaret Records in 1969.
Artist: Matadors
Title: Get Down From The Tree
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Czechoslovakia on LP: Matadors)
Writer(s): Hladik/Sodoma
Label: Rhino (original label: Supraphon)
Year: 1968
When the words "Czechoslovakia" and "1968" come up in the same sentence it is usually in reference to an invasion by the Soviet Union to crack down on dissident elements in the Eastern Bloc satellite nation. No doubt the Matadors, formed in Prague in 1965 as the Fontanas, were among those elements, thanks to self-penned tracks such as Get Down From The Tree, a song that was originally released on an EP in 1967 and re-recorded for their self-titled debut LP. What happened to the Matadors following the Soviet invasion is unknown.
Artist: Vagrants
Title: Beside The Sea
Source: Mono LP: I Can't Make A Friend 1965-1968 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Collins/Pappalardi/Sommer
Label: Light In The Attic (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Although they did not achieve the same degree of national fame as their Long Island contemporaries the Young Rascals and Vanilla Fudge, the Vagrants were quite popular along the eastern seaboard, and ended up releasing several singles on the Atco label before guitarist Leslie Weinstein decided to change his name to West and embark on a solo career. The band had a sound midway between the two aforementioned bands, although, by some accounts, the Vagrants leaned more toward the latter when performing live. Indeed, there are some who claim that Vanilla Fudge actually lifted their sound directly from the Vagrants. In the studio, however, the Vagrants strove for a more commercial sound, as Beside The Sea (co-written by future Mountain member Felix Pappalardi and his wife Janet Collins along with future Woodstock performer Bert Sommer) demonstrates.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice
Source: Mono British import CD: The Fraternity Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Big Beat (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1966
Mouse (Ronnie Weiss) was, for a time, the most popular guy in Tyler, Texas, at least among the local youth. His band, Mouse and the traps, had a series of regional hits that garnered airplay at stations all across the state (and a rather large state at that). Although Mouse's first big hit, A Public Execution, had a strong Dylan feel to it, the band's 1966 followup single Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice, has come to be considered a garage-rock classic.
rtist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released as a single in 1965 (under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard), but did not make an immediate impression. The following year the tune started getting some local airplay on Los Angeles area stations. This in turn led to the band recording their first album, The Seeds, which was released in spring of 1966. A second Seeds LP, A Web Of Sound, hit L.A. record stores in the fall of the same year. Meanwhile, Pushin' Too Hard started to get national airplay, hitting its peak position on the Billboard charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Hole In My Shoe
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Dave Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Since the 1970s Traffic has been known as Steve Winwood's (and to a lesser degree, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood's) band, but in the early days some of the group's most popular songs were written and sung by co-founder Dave Mason. Hole In My Shoe was a single that received considerable airplay in the UK, despite being disliked by the rest of the band members. As was common practice in the UK at the time, the song was not included on the band's debut album. In the US, however, both Hole In My Shoe and the other then-current Traffic single, Paper Sun, were added to the album, replacing (ironically) a couple of Mason's other tunes.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Empty Pages
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Silver Spotlight (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1970
Traffic was formed in 1967 by Steve Winwood, after ending his association with the Spencer Davis Group. The original group, also featuring Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood, put out two and a half albums before disbanding in early 1969. Shortly thereafter, following a successful live reunion album, Welcome to the Canteen, Winwood got to work on what was intended to be his first solo LP. For support Winwood called in Capaldi and Wood to back him up on the project. It soon became apparent, however, that what they were working on was actually a new Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. Although Empty Pages was released as a single (with a mono mix heard here), it got most of its airplay on progressive FM stations, and as those stations were replaced by (or became) album rock stations, the song continued to get extensive airplay for many years.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Heaven Is In Your Mind was, for a short time, the title track of the first Traffic album released in the US. Although the album title was soon changed to Mr. Fantasy to match the European version, the song Heaven Is In Your Mind remained one of the band's most popular early tracks, and has been included on virtually every Traffic compilation ever released. The mono and stereo mixes are noticably different from each other, and even feature entirely different guitar breaks.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: 969 (The Oldest Man)
Source: CD: American Woman
Writer(s): Randy Bachman
Label: Buddha/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1970
Although Burton Cummings was known primarily for his role as the Guess Who's lead vocalist, he got a chance to strut his stuff instrumentally as a flautist on 969 (The Oldest Man), an instrumental by Randy Bachman. Bachman himself showed a glimpse of the guitar prowess that he would become known for with his next band, Bachman Turner Overdrive, in the mid-1970s on the track.
Artist: John D. Loudermilk
Title: Goin' To Hell On A Sled
Source: LP: The Open Mind Of John D. Loudermilk
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1969
John D. Loudermilk was one of the most respected songwriters of the 1960s, best known for Tobacco Road, a hit for the Nashville Teens in 1964. In 1969 Loudermilk recorded an album for RCA Victor entitled The Open Mind Of John D. Loudermilk. The album featured songs in a variety of styles. Goin' To Hell On A Sled is a kind of ironic country song that paved the way for later artists such as Jerry Reed or David Allen Coe.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer: 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 fact 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: Spirit
Title: Free Spirit
Source: CD: Spirit (bonus track)
Writer: John Locke
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1967
When Spirit entered the recording studio to work on their first album they recorded more music than they could fit on an LP. One of the tracks that got cut from the final lineup was Free Spirit, an instrumental piece written by keyboardist John Locke. Like most of Spirit's early material, Free Spirit incorporates jazz into the band's sound to a much greater degree than on later recordings.
Artist: Spirit
Title: 1984
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Randy California
Label: Epic
Year: 1969
One of Spirit's best known songs is 1984, a non-album single released in 1969 in between the band's second and third LPs. Unlike the Rolling Stones' 2000 Man, 1984 was not so much a predictive piece as an interpretation of concepts first expressed in George Orwell's book of the same name. Of course, by the time the actual year 1984 arrived it had become obvious that politics had moved in an entirely different direction than predicted, although some of the mind control techniques described in both the book and song were already being used, while others had to wait until the 21st century to come to pass.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Mechanical World
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Andes/Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
In 1967 the members of Spirit all lived in a large house in Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there, bassist Mark Andes came down with a bad case of the flu and was confined to his room for several weeks. During this time Andes was, according to guitarist Randy California, feeling "very depressed and mechanical". Toward the end of Andes's forced isolation, vocalist Jay Ferguson visited him often, and the two of them collaborated on what would become Mechanical World, one of the most sophisticated and complex tracks on Spirit's 1968 debut LP. The song was also included on the band's first "best of" collection a few years later.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Smell of Incense
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Morgan
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the commercially strongest songs on the second West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album for Reprise was Smell of Incense. The length of the track, however, (over five minutes) meant it would never get airplay on AM radio, although England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley took it to the # 56 spot on the charts while still in high school in 1968 with their band Southwest F.O.B.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: I Won't Hurt You
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer: Harris/Lloyd/Markley
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Unlike more famous L.A. groups like Love and the Doors, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was not a Sunset Strip club band. In fact, the WCPAEB really didn't play that many live performances in their career, although those they did play tended to be at high profile venues such as the Hollywood Bowl. The band was formed when the Harris brothers, sons of an accomplished classical musician, decided to record their own album and release it on the small Fifa label. Only a few copies of that album, Volume One, were made and finding one now is next to impossible. That might have been the end of the story except for the fact that they were acquaintances of Kim Fowley, the Zelig-like record producer and all-around Hollywood hustler. Fowley invited them to a party where the Yardbirds were playing; a party also attended by one Bob Markley. Markley, who was nearly ten years older than the Harris brothers, was a former TV show host from the midwest who had moved out to the coast to try his luck. Impressed by the flock of young girls surrounding the Yardbirds, Markley expressed to Fowley his desire to be a rock and roll star and have the girls flock around him, too. Fowley, ever the deal-maker, responded by introducing Markley to the Harris Brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born. With the addition of guitarist Michael Lloyd and the influence of Markley's not-inconsiderable family money, the group soon landed a contract with Reprise Records, where they proceeded to record the album Part One, which includes the turn I Won't Hurt You, which uses a simulated heartbeat to keep the...umm, beat.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Buddha
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer: Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although Bob Markley's lyrics will never win any literary achievement awards, they are memorable in a campy sort of way. A perfect example is Buddha, a track from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album Volume II, which comes across as a childlike impression of a statue of a Buddha, with some adolescent innuendo thrown in.
Artist: Who
Title: I Can't Reach You
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
One day during my freshman year of high school my friend Bill invited a bunch of us over to his place to listen to the new console stereo his family had bought recently. Like most console stereos, this one had a wooden top that could be lifted up to operate the turntable and radio, then closed to make it look more like a piece of furniture. When we arrived there was already music playing on the stereo, and Bill soon had us convinced that this new stereo was somehow picking up the British pirate radio station Radio London. This was pretty amazing since we were in Weisbaden, Germany, several hundred miles from England or its coastal waters that Radio London broadcast from. Even more amazing was the fact that the broadcast itself seemed to be in stereo, and Radio London was an AM station. Yet there it was, coming in more clearly than the much closer Radio Luxembourg, the powerhouse station that we listened to every evening, when they broadcast in a British top 40 format. Although a couple of us were a bit suspicious about what was going on, even we skeptics were convinced when we heard jingles, stingers, and even commercials for stuff like the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course interspersed with songs we had never heard, such as I Can't Reach You, that were every bit as good as any song being played on Radio Luxembourg. Well, as it turned out, we were indeed being hoaxed by Bill and his older brother, who had put on his brand new copy of The Who Sell Out when he saw us approaching the apartment building they lived in. I eventually picked up a copy of the album for myself, and still consider it one of the best Who albums ever made.
Artist: Firesign Theatre
Title: I Was A Cock Teaser For Roosterama
Source: LP: Dear Friends
Writer(s): Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
When it comes to counterculture humor, nobody takes a back seat to the Firesign Theatre, who, in addition to recording several albums for the Columbia label, hosted their own radio show, Dear Friends, in 1970. A couple of years later Columbia put out a double-LP album collecting some of the best bits from the show, including I Was A Cock Teaser For Roosterama. Fun stuff.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Elenore
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): The Turtles
Label: White Whale
Year: 1968
In 1968 White Whale Records was not particularly happy with the recent activities of their primary money makers, the Turtles. The band had been asserting its independence, even going so far as to self-produce a set of recordings that the label in turn rejected as having no commercial potential. The label wanted another Happy Together. The band responded by creating a facetious new song called Elenore. The song had deliberately silly lyrics such as "Elenore gee I think you're swell" and "you're my pride and joy etcetera" and gave production credit to former Turtles bassist Chip Douglas for the "Douglas F. Hatelid Foundation", which was in itself an in-joke referring to the pseudonym Douglas was forced to use as producer for the Monkees in 1967. Then a strange thing happened: the record became a hit. I suspect this was the event that began Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman's eventually metamorphosis into rock parody act Flo and Eddie.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Black Sabbath
Source: German import CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Creative Sounds (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1970
This track has to hold some kind of record for "firsts". Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath, from the album Black Sabbath is, after all, the first song from the first album by the first true heavy metal band. The track starts off by immediately setting the mood with the sound of church bells in a rainstorm leading into the song's famous tri-tone (often referred to as the "devil's chord") intro, deliberately constructed to evoke the mood of classic Hollywood horror movies. Ozzy Osborne's vocals only add to the effect. Even the faster-paced final portion of the song has a certain dissonance that had never been heard in rock music before, in part thanks to Black Sabbath's deliberate use of a lower pitch in their basic tuning. The result is something that has sometimes been compared to a bad acid trip, but is unquestionably the foundation of what came to be called heavy metal.
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