Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: Absolutely Free (1st in a series of underground oratorios)
Source: LP: Absolutely Free
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Verve
Year: 1967
In the liner notes of the first Mothers Of Invention album, Freak Out, Frank Zappa included a long list of influences, both musical and conceptual. For the 1967 follow-up LP, Absolutely Free, Zappa seemingly drew on every one of those influences to create a complex musical tapestry that amazed, and often baffled, everyone who heard it. Zappa would continue to amaze and baffle critics and fans alike until his untimely death from cancer at age 47 in the early 1990s, leaving behind the most unique and varied body of work in musical history.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Dream Within A Dream
Source: LP: The Family That Plays Together
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic (original label: Ode)
Year: 1968
Rock bands who work their way up from humble beginnings (as opposed to supergroups made up of established stars) tend to establish relationships within the group that parallel those found in a typical family. One of the best examples of this is Spirit. Not only did they all live in the same house, the oldest member, drummer Ed Cassidy, was the stepfather of lead guitarist Randy California. So it should come as no surprise that the band decided to call its second album The Family That Plays Together. Like Spirit's debut LP, The Family That Plays Together was a synthesis of rock, folk and jazz, although it did place more emphasis on rock elements in songs such as Dream Within A Dream than on the previous effort.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Maple Fudge
Source: CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer(s): Bachman/Cummings/Matheson
Label: Iconoclassic (original labels: Nimbus [Canada] RCA Victor [US])
Year: 1968 (Canada), 1969 (US)
Although they had only been writing songs together for about a year, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings of the Guess Who had already come up with more than enough material to fill an entire album by late summer, 1968. Earlier in the year the band, which also included bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson, had recorded a pair of tunes that had been released with moderate success in their native Canada; now they had an opportunity to record at Phil Ramone's A&R Studios in New York City. With the help of producer Jack Richardson, who had taken out a second mortgage on his house to finance the band's trip, the Guess Who managed to record and mix Wheatfield Soul in four days. The album was then released in Canada on the Nimbus label in late 1968. Meanwhile, Richardson began shopping the master tapes to US labels in hopes of getting the Guess Who an American record deal. Sure enough, when RCA A&R man Don Burkheimer heard the tapes he signed the band on the spot, noting that "nothing [about Wheatfield Soul] needed to be changed or altered in any way." Oddly enough, the harshest critics of the album were Bachman and Cummings, who felt that some of the songs they wrote, such as Maple Fudge, were ill-conceived. Personally I find it one of the more creative tracks on the album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: As I Recall It
Source: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI
Year: 1968
In addition to being one of the first artists identified with the psychedelic era, Donovan Leitch was a fan of both traditional and modern jazz and incorporated elements of both on his late 60s recordings. One example is As I Recall It, from his 1968 LP The Hurdy Gurdy Man, which has a bit of a traditional jazz feel, yet remains firmly within the realm of British psychedelia. One oddity about As I Recall It is that the mix switches from mono to stereo and back again several times during the song, making for an unusual sonic experience.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Red House
Source: Mono LP: Are You Experienced (UK version)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original UK label: Track)
Year: 1967
One of the first songs recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Red House was omitted from the US version of Are You Experienced because, in the words of one recording company executive: "America does not like blues". At the time the song was recorded, Noel Redding was not yet comfortable using a bass guitar, and would work out his bass parts on a slightly-detuned hollow body six-string guitar with the tone controls on their muddiest setting (I learned to play bass the same way myself). The original recording of Red House that was included on the UK version of Are You Experienced features Redding doing exactly that. A second take of the song, with overdubs, was included on the 1969 Smash Hits album, but the original mono version heard here was not available in the US until the release of the Blues CD in 1994.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Man
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Setting any work of art in the relatively near future is always risky business (remember 1984?), but then again 33 years seems like forever when you yourself are still in your twenties. I mean who, including the Rolling Stones themselves, could have imagined that Mick, Keith, Charlie and company would still be performing well into the 21st century when they recorded 2000 Man for their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request? It's actually kind of interesting to listen to the lyrics now and see just how much of the song turned out to be an accurate prediction of what was to come.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Lazy Old Sun
Source: CD: Something Else By The Kinks
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Although the Kinks had major hits on both sides of the ocean from 1964-66, by 1967 their success was limited to the UK, despite fine singles such as Dead End Street and Waterloo Sunset. Their 1967 LP, Something Else By The Kinks, continued the band's expansion into slightly satirical explorations of sociopolitical issues. At the same time, the album also shows a more experimental side musically, as Lazy Old Sun, with its staggered tempo and unusual chord progression, demonstrates. The song also shows a willingness to experiment with studio effects, as Something Else was the first Kinks album to be mixed in stereo.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Gloria
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Dunwich
Year: 1966
The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Help, I'm A Rock (single mix)
Source: Mono CD: Part One (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Ya gotta hand it to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It takes cojones to record a cover of a Frank Zappa tune, especially within a year of the original Mothers of Invention version coming out. To top it off, the W.C.P.A.E.B. even released Help, I'm A Rock as a single.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: Your Head Is Reeling
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer: Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
Ultimate Spinach was one of a group of bands signed by M-G-M in 1967 and marketed as being representative of the "Boss-town sound". Unfortunately for all involved, there really was no such thing as a "Boss-town sound" (for that matter there was no such thing as a "San Francisco sound" either, but that's another story). All the hype aside, Ultimate Spinach itself was the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Ian Bruce-Palmer, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. The opening track of side two of the band's debut album is a piece called Your Head Is Reeling, which, despite the somewhat cheesy spoken intro, is as good or better than any other raga styled song of the time.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
After releasing a fairly well produced debut solo album utilizing the talents of several well-known studio musicians in late 1968, Neil Young surprised everyone by recruiting an unknown L.A. bar band and rechristening them Crazy Horse for his second effort, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. The album was raw and unpolished, with Young's lead vocals recorded using a talkback microphone normally used by engineers to communicate with people in the studio from the control room. In spite of, or more likely because of, these limitations, the resulting album has come to be regarded as one of the greatest in the history of rock, with Young sounding far more comfortable, both as a vocalist and guitarist, than on the previous effort. Although the album is best known for three songs he wrote while running a fever (Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl In The Sand, and Down By The River), there are plenty of good other songs on the LP, including the title track heard here.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: As The Sun Still Burns Away
Source: CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
Generally considered to be Ten Years After's best album, Cricklewood Green featured such FM radio staples as Me And My Baby, 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain and Love Like A Man. Another song to get airplay was As The Sun Still Burns Away, the final track on the album. Like Love Like A Man and other popular TYA tunes, As The Sun Still Burns Away is built on a repeating bass riff that is paralleled and sometimes embellished by Lee's guitar and Chick Churchill's keyboards.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Upsetter
Source: Canadian import CD: Heavy Hitters (originally released on LP: E Pluribus Funk and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1971
Grand Funk Railroad was something of an enigma. Due to universally negative reviews in the rock press, progressive FM stations avoided them like the plague. At the same time, top 40 radio was in the process of being supplanted as the voice of the mainstream by the Adult Contemporary (A/C) format, which tended to ignore hard rock. Nonetheless Grand Funk Railroad had a following. In fact, GFR was the first band to book (and sellout) entire sports arenas, setting attendance records wherever they played. This translated into major record sales, as they became the first band to have three LPs hit the million-seller mark in the same year (1970). That year they also had their first mainstream hit with I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home). From that point on the band would continue to release singles, although most, such as Upsetter, were still ignored by A/C radio (although they did get a fair amount of airplay from the remaining "true" top 40 stations). As the group's album sales were beginning to drop off, the singles became increasingly important to the band's continued success, and from 1973 on (starting with We're An American Band) Grand Funk became pretty much a singles-oriented group, cranking out tunes like Bad Time and Some Kind Of Wonderful.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Lazy Day
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Brown/Martin
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.
Artist: Love
Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Da Capo)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of an enigma. His band, Love, was generally accepted as the top band on the Strip in L.A., yet Lee himself was a bit of a recluse living up on the hill overlooking the scene. With one notable exception, his songs were not hits, yet he was critically acknowledged (especially in the UK) as a musical genius on a par with his friend Jimi Hendrix. Stylistically, his songs varied from intensely hard rock (Stephanie Knows Who, 7&7 Is), to softer, almost jazzy tunes such as She Comes In Colors.
Artist: Lemon Pipers
Title: Green Tambourine
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Green Tambourine)
Writer(s): Leka/Pinz
Label: Priority (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1967
Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label. Unfortunately for the band, it was their only hit. Making it even worse is the fact that, although the Lemon Pipers themselves were a real band, they ended up being grouped in with several "bands" who were in fact studio creations by the Kazenetz/Katz production team that supplied Buddah with a steady stream of bubble-gum hits throughout 1968.
Artist: Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Title: Equestrian Statue
Source: British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: Gorilla)
Writer(s): Neil Innes
Label: Zonophone (Original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band occupies a unique place in British rock history. In fact, calling them a rock band is a bit of a stretch, as they incorporated a wide variety of elements in their music, including skiffle, dance hall and vaudeville. I personally see them as the 60s version of vaudeville, as can be seen in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film with their performance of a piece called Deathcab For Cutie. The Bonzos even had a tap dancer by the name of "Legs" Larry Larson in the band. Equestrian Statue, from their 1967 LP Gorilla, was the first serious attempt by the band's primary songwriter, Neil Innes, to write a hit record. As it turns out, the group would not get a single in the charts until Urban Spaceman made the British top 40 in 1968. Innes himself would go on to greater fame by working with Monty Python member Eric Idle on a Beatle parody called the Rutles. He also provided the soundtrack for the George Harrison-produced feature film Time Bandits.
Artist: Ventures
Title: The Twilight Zone
Source: LP: The Ventures In Space
Writer(s): Marty Manning
Label: Dolton/Sundazed
Year: 1964
Despite having only three top 10 singles to their credit (two of which were different versions of Walk-Don't Run), the Ventures managed to record over 200 albums, by far the most by an instrumental rock band. Most of these albums were based around a particular theme; indeed, the Ventures are generally acknowledged to have invented the concept album. One of their most unusual albums was The Ventures In Space, from 1964. Joining the band for this effort was noted session man Red Rhodes, who created many of the album's unusual sounds using a pedal steel guitar. In fact, all of the effects heard on tracks like The Twilight Zone were created using just guitars, rather than electronic devices such as a theramin. Quite an achievement for 1964, and one that holds up remarkably well nearly 50 years later.
Artist: Who
Title: It's Not True
Source: Mono Canadian import CD: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
Released in December, 1965, the first Who album (called simply My Generation in the UK) was recorded while the band was in their "maximum R&B" phase. The band members themselves were not happy with the album, feeling that they had been rushed through the entire recording process and did not have much say in how the final product sounded. Still, the album is considered one of the most influential debut albums of all time and has made several critics' top albums lists over the years. It's Not True, a song that critically addresses the ridiculousness of unfounded rumors, is fairly typical of the songs Pete Townshend was writing at the time.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Shapes Of Things
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label: Priority (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Unlike earlier Yardbirds hits, 1966's Shapes Of Things was written by members of the band. The song, featuring one of guitarist Jeff Beck's most distinctive solos, just barely missed the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.
Artist: Winston's Fumbs
Title: Real Crazy Apartment
Source: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969
Writer(s): Jimmy Winston
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
Vocalist/guitarist Jimmy Winston was a child actor turned musician who was one of the original members of the Small Faces, where he played organ. In 1965 he was basically kicked out of the band for unknown reasons, but soon resurfaced with his own band, Winston's Reflection, which released one single on the British Decca label in 1966. By the following year the band had changed its name to Winston's Fumbs and signed with RCA Records, releasing Real Crazy Apartment before disbanding. By then Winston had switched from organ to guitar, and would next surface as a cast member of the London production of Hair. Meanwhile, Winston's Fumbs organist Tony Kaye had become a founding member of some obscure band called Yes.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Tin Can Beach
Source: Mono CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1968
Phasing, a studio effect caused by playing two identical recordings milliseconds apart into a third recorder, hit its peak popularity in 1968. It's most famous use was in Britain, on the Small Faces song Itchycoo Park. Jimi Hendrix also used the effect on his Electric Ladyland album, as did Sean Bonniwell, with the second incarnation of his band the Music Machine on the 1968 B side Tin Can Beach. The song itself, a deliberately light and bouncy piece, is an example of just how far from the psychotic rock of his biggest hit, Talk Talk, Bonniwell was willing and able to stray.
Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Well, All Right
Source: British import LP: Blind Faith
Writer: Petty/Holly/Allison/Mauldin
Label: Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Supergroup Blind Faith only recorded one LP, and almost all of the material on that album was written by members of the band. The lone exception was a heavily-modified arrangement of Buddy Holly's Well All Right.
Artist: Bloodrock
Title: Gotta Find A Way
Source: CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s): Rutledge/Taylor/Pickens/Grundy/Cobb
Label: One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
A friend of mine in Alamogordo, NM, went to El Paso for a Grand Funk Railroad concert in 1970 and was blown away by the opening band, a group from Dallas called Bloodrock. At the time Bloodrock has just released their first LP, and my friend immediately went out and bought a copy, playing it for the members of my own band, Friends, at the first opportunity. It wasn't long before we were learning to play the first track on the album, a song called Gotta Find A Way. We were so enthusiastic about the song we made it the first song on our own demo tape. Soon after that Bloodrock released their second album, which included their most famous track, DOA, and the band soon found itself in a rut. A shame, since that first album showed so much potential.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Death Sound Blues
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
I generally use the term "psychedelic" to describe a musical attitude that existed during a particular period of time rather than a specific style of music. On the other hand, the term "acid rock" is better suited for describing music that was composed and/or performed under the influence of certain mind-expanding substances. That said, the first album by Country Joe and the Fish is a classic example of acid rock. I mean, really, is there any other way to describe Death Sound Blues than "the blues on acid"?
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Source: CD: The Inner Mystique
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
The first Chocolate Watchband album, No Way Out, sold well enough to warrant a follow-up LP, The Inner Mystique. The only problem was that by the end of 1967 there was no Chocolate Watchband left to record it, although there were a few unreleased recordings in the vaults. Unfazed, producer Ed Cobb once again turned to studio musicians to fill out the album. One of the few actual Watchband recordings on The Inner Mystique was this cover of the Kinks' I'm Not Like Everybody Else, which had appeared as a B side a couple years earlier. This song, along with their cover of I Ain't No Miracle Worker, almost made the album worth buying. In fact, enough people did indeed buy The Inner Mystique to warrant a third and final Watchband album, but by then the group had reformed with almost entirely different personnel and the resulting album, One Step Beyond, actually sounds less like the original group than all those studio musicians did.
Artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title: The Great Airplane Strike (originally released on LP: Spirit Of '67 and as 45 RPM single)
Source: CD: Greatest Hits
Writer: Revere/Melcher/Lindsay
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
In 1966 Paul Revere and the Raiders were at the peak of their popularity, scoring major hits that year with Hungry and Kicks. The last single the band released that year was The Great Airplane Strike from the Spirit Of '67 album. Written by band members Revere and Mark Lindsay, along with producer Terry Melcher, The Great Airplane Strike stands out as a classic example of Pacific Northwest rock, a style which would eventually culminate in the grunge movement of the 1990s.
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