Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Stuck in the psychedelic Era # 1418 (starts 4/30/14)

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    Country Girl
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    The second Crosby, Stills and Nash album, déjà vu, was enhanced by the addition of singer/songwriter/guitarist Neil Young, along with bassist Dallas Taylor and drummer Greg Reeves. The LP itself was printed on textured cardboard with gold offset lettering, giving the package a unique look. But it was the music itself that made the album one of the top sellers of 1970, with three singles going into the top 40. One of the non-single tracks was Country Girl, a medley of three uncompleted Neil Young songs that would not have been out of place on a Young solo album.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Her Favorite Style
Source:    LP: Ball
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Despite a lack of hit singles, the third Iron Butterfly LP, Ball, was also the group's highest charting album. Part of this is attributable to the fact that, unlike In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, which took over a year to catch on, Ball had strong sales right from the start. The music on Ball was more varied as well, reflecting a maturing of the songwriting skills of organist/vocalist Doug Ingle, who wrote the bulk of the band's material, including Her Favorite Style. Ball was the last album to feature guitarist Erik Brann, however, and subsequent releases did not fare as well.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    The Beat Goes On
Source:    LP: The Beat Goes On
Writer(s):    Sonny Bono
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    The second Vanilla Fudge LP was an ambitious concept album based on the title of the Sonny & Cher hit The Beat Goes On. The album features, among other things, no less than six variations of the song itself, most of which are fairly short in duration. One of the longest iterations of the song is the opening track for side two of the album, which, using tape effects, starts off infinitely speeded up and then slows down to a normal speed. The arrangement on this particular track is set to a bossa nova beat that was still popular in hotel lounges in 1968.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Children Of Rain
Source:    CD: Underground
Writer(s):    Williams/Williams
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After the success of the first Electric Prunes album, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger allowed the band a bit more freedom to choose what material to record on their next LP, the majority of which was written by the band members themselves. As a result, Underground is probably more representative of the group's actual musical vision than anything else ever released by the band. Still, there were several songs from outside sources, including Children Of Rain, which is the first of three consecutive tracks on side one that, in one way or another, use imagery associated with childhood against a psychedelic backdrop. Unfortunately for the band, the album was not a commercial success, and, perhaps spurred by the difficulties he was having with another band he was producing, the Grateful Dead, Hassinger (who legally owned the name "Electric Prunes") asserted total control over the group's subsequent albums.

Artist:    Humans
Title:    Warning
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Bill Kuhns
Label:    Audition
Year:    1966
    Throughout the history of rock and roll there have been bands named after various species of fauna, such as crickets, beetles, hawks, and eagles. In seems inevitable, then, that someone would decide to name themselves after the dominant species on the planet. The Humans were formed in Albion, NY in 1964 by six members of the local high school marching band during summer break. In 1966 they went into Riposo Studios in Syracuse, NY to record their only single, a folk-rocker called Take A Taxi. The B side of that single was Warning, a song that has come to be considered a garage-rock classic. The record was released on the Audition label and was successful enough to get the band gigs in Miami and New York City, opening for such name acts as the Animals and the Hollies. Animals bassist Chas Chandler even invited the band members to go with him to the Cafe Wha in the summer of '66 to see a band called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames that featured a hot new guitarist that everyone was talking about. That guitarist was Jimi Hendrix, and Chandler was able to talk him into going back to London with him, an event of major significance for the future of rock music. Meanwhile, the Humans were struck by tragedy that September when lead vocalist Danny Long was killed in a car accident, and other band members began receiving draft notices. Finally, in November, the remaining members of the band decided to call it quits, and the Humans were history. Special thanks to Bill Vosteen for sending me a copy of that Humans single.

Artist:    Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Title:    A Study In Inaccuracy
Source:    LP: Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Writer(s):    Manfred Mann
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    In 1969, following a series of highly successful singles in the UK (including the international smashes Do Wah Diddy Diddy and The Mighty Quinn), keyboardist Manfred Mann decided to disband the group that shared his name and move in a new, more progressive musical direction. The new group, called Manfred Mann Chapter Three showed strong jazz influences, especially on the free-form track A Study In Inaccuracy, which sounds more like early King Crimson than anything the original Manfred Mann had recorded. Although Manfred Mann Chapter Three was not a major commercial success, it did set the stage for Mann's next group, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, which had a major hit in 1975 with Blinded By The Light. A big thank you to Dave Oswald to sending me a copy of the first Manfred Mann Chapter Three album (there were two in all). I'll be playing other tracks from the album in the future.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Wish Me Well
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1968
    The second Procol Harum album, Shine On Brightly, saw the group moving in an increasingly progressive direction, incorporating elements of a variety of styles, including Indian, classical and even gospel music. An example of the latter is Wish Me Well, which finishes out side one of the LP. Gary Brooker's bluesy piano work is enhanced by some tasty fills from guitarist Robin Trower.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    House For Everyone
Source:    CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind (aka Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s):    Dave Mason
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    Although Traffic is now known mostly as a Steve Winwood band, many of their earliest songs were the creation of guitarist Dave Mason, whose songs tended to be a bit more psychedelic than Winwood's. One example is House For Everyone from the band's 1967 debut LP, which creatively uses tape edits to simulate a music box being wound up with short snippets of song sneaking through between turns of the key at the beginning of the track.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Mr. Tambourine Man
Source:    CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Bringing It All Back Home)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1964
    As hard as it may be to believe now, Mr. Tambourine Man, as recorded by Bob Dylan in 1964, was not a hit record. It took the Byrds electrifying of the song in 1965 to take it to the top of the charts. By then, Dylan himself was using electric instruments on his records, although not to update his older material. Nonetheless, the original five and a half minute version of the song from the album Bringing It All Back Home is considered one of Dylan's most iconic recordings.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It
Source:    LP: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    The first Neil Young song I ever heard was Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, which was issued as the B side of For What It's Worth in 1967. I had bought the single and, as always, after my first listen flipped the record over to hear what was on the other side. (Years later I was shocked to learn that there were actually people who never listened to the B side of records they bought. I've never been able to understand that.) Anyway, at the time I didn't know who Neil Young was, or the fact that although Young was a member of Buffalo Springfield it was actually Richie Furay singing the song on the record. Now I realize that may seem a bit naive on my part, but I was 14 at the time, so what do you expect? At least I had the good taste to buy a copy of For What It's Worth in the first place (along with the Doors' Light My Fire and the Spencer Davis Group's I'm A Man if I remember correctly). Where I got the money to buy three current records at the same time is beyond me, though.

Artist:    Liberation News Service
Title:    Mid-Winter's Afternoon
Source:    Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ed Esko
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Esko)
Year:    1967
    Liberation News Service was a Philadelphia band founded in 1965 by the Esko brothers, Ed and Jeff. Their first release was Mid-Winter's Afternoon, released on the band's own Esko label in 1967. Not long after its release the band added a new lead vocalist and changed their name to the Esko Affair, eventually getting a contract with Mercury Records and releasing singles in 1968 and 1969.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Market Place
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Lane/Pulley
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    I've often mentioned the lost WEOS vinyl archives that were found in a storage room on the Hobart & William Smith Colleges campus a few years ago. Of the thousands of albums we found I ended up keeping about 200. Of those nearly half were unusable, mostly due to their condition. The remainder I divided into three piles. The largest of these piles were the marginal albums that may have one or two songs that might be worked into the show once in a while. The next pile was mostly duplicates of albums I already had on CD, although there were a few cases of stereo albums I had mono copies of, or vice versa. Only a handful of albums made the third pile, but these were the real gems of the bunch: genuine relics of the psychedelic era in playable condition that I didn't already have. Of these, two of the most valuable finds (for my purposes at any rate) were the two post-Van Morrison Them albums released by Tower Records in 1968 that feature new vocalist Kenny McDowell. Market Place is from the second of these, Time Out! Time In! For Them.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Lazy Day
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Martin
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
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:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Short-Haired Fathers
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Circus Maximus was formed in Greenwich Village by guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in 1967. The group originally wanted to call itself the Lost Sea Dreamers, but changed it after the Vanguard Records expressed reservations about signing a group with the initials LSD. Of the eleven tracks on the band's debut LP, only four were written by Walker, and those were in more of a folk-rock vein. Bruno's seven tracks, on the other hand, are true gems of psychedelia, ranging from the jazz-influenced Wind to the proto-punk rocker Short-Haired Fathers. The group fell apart after only two albums, mostly due to the growing musical differences between Walker and Bruno. Walker, of course, went on to become one of the most successful songwriters of the country-rock genre. As for Bruno, he's still in New York City, concentrating more on the visual arts in recent years.

Artist:    Third Bardo
Title:    I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Evans/Pike
Label:    Rhino (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1967
    The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Martha (mono single version)
Source:    Mono CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    Jefferson Airplane made no secret of their residence at 2400 Fulton Street in San Francisco. In fact, the place was a known hangout for various freaks, acid-heads and hippy types. One the hangers-on, a young heiress, was the inspiration for Martha, a song from the band's third LP, After Bathing At Baxter's. The song was also released as the B side to Watch Her Ride and used in a promotional film shown on a Perry Como special in 1967. The film, showing the band members cavorting  in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, uses various editing techniques to make the individual members appear, disappear and jump from place to place as well as speed up and slow down, making it one of the first true rock videos.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    I'll Make You Sorry
Source:    CD: Dark Sides (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Back Door Men)
Writer(s):    Joe Kelley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Following the success of the Shadows Of Knight's debut single and LP (both titled Gloria), the band went back into the studio with a bit more experience under their belt and came up with their finest album, Back Door Men. Like Gloria, Back Door Men contained a mixture of Chicago blues and garage/punk, but overall had a greater diversity of style than its predecessor. Surprisingly, every song on the album worked, including the vindictive punk rocker I'll Make You Sorry, which was also released as a B side.

Artist:    Fever Tree
Title:    Unlock My Door
Source:    LP: Fever Tree
Writer(s):    Holtzman/Holtzman/Landes
Label:    Uni
Year:    1968
    Unlike the first side of Fever Tree's 1968 debut LP, which showcased the band's higher energy rockers, side two of the album is very low key, perhaps reflecting the tastes of producers Scott and Vivian Holtzman, who wrote all of the material. A fairly representative example is Unlock My Door, which is tucked away toward the end of the side.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Legend Of A Mind
Source:    CD: In Search Of The Lost Chord
Writer(s):    Ray Thomas
Label:    Deram
Year:    1968
    The Moody Blues started off as a fairly typical British beat band, scoring one major inteernational hit, Go Now, in 1965, as well as several minor British hit singles. By 1967 lead vocalist Denny Laine was no longer with the group (he would later surface as a member of Paul McCartney's Wings), and the remaining members were not entirely sure of where to go next. At around that time their record label, Deram, was looking to make a rock version of a well-known classical piece (The Nine Planets), and the Moody Blues were tapped for the project. Somewhere along the way, however, the group decided to instead write their own music for rock band and symphony orchestra, and Days Of Future Passed was the result. The album, describing a somewhat typical day in the life of a somewhat typical Britisher, was successful enough to revitalize the band's career, and a follow-up LP, In Search Of The Lost Chord, was released in 1968. Instead of a full orchestra, however, the band members themselves provided all the instrumentation on the new album, using a relatively new keyboard instrument called the mellotron (a complicated contraption that utilized tape loops) to simulate orchestral sounds. Like its predecessor, In Search Of The Lost Chord was a concept album, this time dealing with the universal search for the meaning of life through music. One of the standout tracks on the album is Legend Of A Mind, with its signature lines: "Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, he's outside looking in." Although never released as a single, the track got a fair amount of airplay on college and progressive FM radio stations, and has long been considered a cult hit.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Lover Of The Bayou
Source:    LP: (untitled)
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Levy
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    By 1970 the band called the Byrds bore little resemblance to the group that had taken the world by storm with its electrified covers of Bob Dylan songs in 1965. The band had gone through several personnel changes, with only Roger (nee Jim) McGuinn left from the original lineup. The band's sound had changed as well, having emerged from its psychedelic phase of 1966-68 to become one of the world's premier country-rock bands. The band's live performances had improved as well; indeed, the 1970 lineup is considered by many to be the group's best in that regard. No wonder, then, that half of the 1970 double album (untitled) was made up of live tracks. All of these elements can be heard on the album's opening track, Lover Of The Bayou.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Like Crying
Source:    LP: Then Play On
Writer(s):    Danny Kirwan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Danny Kirwan was only 17 and fronting his own band, Boilerhouse, when he came to the attention of Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green. Green invited the band to play a few opening gigs for Fleetwood Mac and before long the two guitarists were participating in after hours jams together. Drummer Mick Fleetwood invited Kirwan to join the band, and Kirwan became the group's fifth official member (Christine McVie still having guest artist status at that point). After making his debut sharing lead guitar duties with Green on an instrumental single, Albatross, Kirwan settled in as a songwriting member of the band in time for their 1969 LP Then Play On, contributing as many songs to the album as Green himself (although the US version left two of those songs off the LP). Another two Kirwan tunes were deleted from the US version when the album was revised to include the eight-minute track Oh Well. Among the few Danny Kirwan songs to be included on every version of Then Play On was the low-key Like Crying, which appears toward the end of the album.

Artist:     Merry-Go-Round
Title:     Listen, Listen!
Source:     CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):     Emmitt Rhodes
Label:     Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:     1968
     In 1968, drummer/vocalist Emmit Rhodes was on the verge of branching out on a solo career. One of the last songs released under the Merry-Go-Round banner was a tune called Listen, Listen! The track shows a strong Beatle influence, although it tends to rock out a bit harder than the average Beatle song.

Artist:     Sugarloaf
Title:     The Train Kept A-Rollin' (Stroll On)
Source:     Mono LP: Sugarloaf
Writer:     Relf/Page/Beck/Dreja
Label:     Liberty
Year:     1970
     One of the Yardbirds' best-known early recordings was Train Kept A Rollin', a song credited to the entire band. In 1966  the band reworked the tune, adding a feedback drenched intro, new lyrics, and dueling guitar leads from Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The song, retitled Stroll On, was included in the Michelangelo Antonioni film Blow-Up. Four years later an instrumental version of the newer arrangement appeared on the debut album of the Denver, Colorado band Sugarloaf, using the title The Train Kept A-Rollin' (Stroll On). For reasons unknown, the Sugarloaf track was a mono recording on an otherwise stereo LP, leading me to theorize that it had possibly started off as a demo tape, or maybe an unreleased single, that ended up being included on the album itself. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Hello, Goodbye
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1967
    1967 was unquestionably a good year for the Beatles. Their first release was a double A sided single, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, both sides of which were major hits. They followed that up with the #1 album of the year, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and another hit single, All You Need Is Love. To finish out the year they released yet another major hit single, Hello Goodbye. The only downside to the year was the cool reception that was afforded their December telefilm, Magical Mystery Tour, although the songs themselves were well-received when released in the UK as a double-EP set (complete with full color booklet containing stills from the film, as well as lyric sheets). As EPs were not considered a viable format in the US, Capitol Records put together an LP that included all six tracks from the telefilm on one side of the album and the five single sides (Hello Goodbye had used I Am The Walrus from Magical Mystery Tour as a B side) on the other. That album has since become the official version of Magical Mystery Tour, although the EP continued to be available in the UK for several years following its initial release.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Abbey Road Medley #1
Source:    CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1969
    Much of the second side of the last album to be recorded by the Beatles, Abbey Road, is taken up by (depending on whose view you take) either one long medley or two not-quite-so-long medleys of songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Personally I take the former view, as there is just a bit too much quiet space at the end of She Came In Through The Bathroom Window for me to consider it linked to the next song, Golden Slumbers. Regardless, the whole thing starts with You Never Give Me Your Money, a Paul McCartney composition reputed to be a jab at the band's second (and last) manager, Allen Klein. This leads into three John Lennon pieces, Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam, ending finally with another McCartney piece, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, that was inspired by a real life break-in by an overzealous Beatle fan.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Baby, You're A Rich Man
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1967
    Baby, You're A Rich Man was one of the last collaborations between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and addresses the Beatles' longtime manager Brian Epstein, although not by name.  Lennon came up with the basic question "how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" (a popular term for the young and hip in late 60s London), which became the basis for the song's verses, which were combined with an existing, but unfinished, Paul McCartney chorus (Baby, You're A Rich Man, too). The finished piece was issued as the B side of the Beatles' second single of 1967, All You Need Is Love, and later remixed in stereo and included on the US-only LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    It's A Hard Life
Source:    LP: The Seeds
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    If there was any real weakness in the first Seeds album, it was a certain sameness among the songs on the LP. There were exeptions, however, such as It's A Hard Life, which manages to stay true to the Seeds' style without sounding too much like Pushin' Too Hard.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    No Time Like The Right Time
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Al Kooper
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1967
    The Blues Project were ahead of their time. They were the first jam band. They virtually created the college circuit for touring rock bands. Unfortunately, they also existed at a time when having a hit single was the considered a necessity. The closest the Blues Project ever got to a hit single was No Time Like The Right Time, which peaked at # 97 and stayed on the charts for all of two weeks. Personally, I rate it among the top 5 best songs ever recorded.

Artist:    Truth
Title:    P.S. (Prognosis Stegnoisis)
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jose Sanchez
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    The truth about Truth is that nobody seems to know the truth about Truth. What is known is: 1)Truth recorded a single for Warner Brothers and released it in 1968. 2)The A side of that single was a song written by Jose Sanchez called P.S. (Prognosis Stegnoisis). 3)The record was produced by Dave Hassinger, engineer of the Rolling Stones' recordings made at RCA studios in Hollywood and producer of the first couple of Grateful Dead albums as well as the Electric Prunes. 4) The song P.S. (Prognosis Stegnoisis) is a nice example of acid rock. Enjoy!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1417 (starts 4/23/14)

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Talk Talk
Source:    CD: Turn On The Music Machine
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
   
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:    Leaves
Title:    Words
Source:    CD: Hey Joe
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    One Way (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1965 the songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart recorded a demo of their song Words, in the hopes of either finding a band to record the tune or a getting a record contract for themselves. The following year a local Los Angeles band, the Leaves, included the song on their debut LP for the Mira label. For about a year the Leaves' recording was considered the definitive version of Words until the Monkees took the song into the top 40 as the B side of Pleasant Valley Sunday in the summer of '67.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Star Collector (alternate mix)
Source:    CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1967
    The Monkees were one of the first bands to utilize the Moog synthesizer on a rock record. One of the two tracks that uses the device extensively is Star Collector, a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and sung by the late Davy Jones. Usually Jones was picked to sing the band's love ballads. Star Collector, on the other hand, is a wild, almost humorous look at rock groupies; the type of song that on earlier Monkees albums would have been given to Peter Tork to sing. The synthesizer in Star Collector was programmed and played by Paul Beaver (of Beaver and Krause). Tork later said that he didn't think much of Beaver's performance, saying "he played it like a flute or something" rather than exploit the unique sounds the Moog was capable of producing. This alternate mix of the song has a longer running time and considerably more experimentation on Beaver's part than the released version of the tune, and as far as I'm concerned is far superior to what was originally included on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Just A Game
Source:    LP: Instant Replay
Writer(s):    Mickey Dolenz
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1969
    Mickey Dolenz was the Monkees member with the most acting experience, having starred in the late '50s TV series Circus Boy. He was also the producers' singer of choice when it came to most of the band's upbeat tunes, including their first two hits, Last Train To Clarksville and I'm A Believer. As a songwriter, however, he was less than prolific, with only a handful of tunes to his credit. One of the few he received sole credit for was Just A Game, a light little number from the 1969 album Instant Replay.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Love Is Only Sleeping (alternate mix)
Source:    CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weill
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1967
    The Monkees's began work on their fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD., using four-track tape recorders, the standard technology at the time. At some point during the making of the album the group was able to get access to state-of-the-art eight-track recorders, and in August of 1967 all the recordings made up to that point were copied over to the new machines. This mixdown of Love Is Only Sleeping, a song originally intended to be released as a single, was made from the original four-track master tape on July 7th.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    My Sunday Feeling
Source:    LP: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    For years my only copy of Jethro Tull's first LP, This Was, was a cassette copy I had made myself. In fact, the two sides of the album were actually on two different tapes (don't ask why). When I labelled the tapes I neglected to specify which tape had which side of the album; as a result I was under the impression that My Sunday Feeling was the opening track on the album. It turns out it was actually the first track on side two, but I still tend to think of it as the "first" Jethro Tull song, despite the fact that the band had actually released a single, Sunshine Day, the previous year for a different label.

Artist:    Caravan
Title:    Grandma's Lawn
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Caravan)
Writer(s):    Sinclair/Hastings/Coughlin/Sinclair
Label:    Polydor (original label: MGM-Verve)
Year:    1968
    From a business standpoint, the British and American record industries were worlds apart for the first several decades of their respective existences. In fact, some UK labels had the same names as US labels but were owned by different companies altogether. Columbia, for example, was the flagship label of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in the US. In the UK, however, Columbia was one of the major labels making up the EMI group. Even familiar trademarks such as the iconic dog and phonograph were associated with different companies in the two countries (RCA Victor in the US, His Master's Voice in the UK). Toward the end of the 1960s, however, this was beginning to change, with companies such as Polydor starting up their own US label (and signing the godfather of soul himself, James Brown, in the process), or acquiring a majority share of existing labels, as EMI did with Capitol Records. One major US label, M-G-M, decided to open their own British division, MGM/Verve, in 1968. The first band signed to the new label was Caravan, one of the most enduring progressive bands to emerge from the so-called Canterbury scene. A highlight of Caravan's debut LP was Grandma's Lawn. Unfortunately, MGM/Verve ceased operations the following year, leaving Caravan to sign with another British label with the same name as an unrelated US label: Decca.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Punky's Dilemma
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Originally written specifically for the 1967 soundtrack of the movie The Graduate but rejected by the producers, Punky's Dilemma sat on the shelf until the following year, when it became the only track on side two of Simon And Garfunkel's Bookends LP that had not been previously released. The lyrics are about as psychedelic as Simon And Garfunkel ever got.

Artist:    Rockin' Ramrods
Title:    She Lied
Source:    Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Linnane/Campisi
Label:    BFD (original label: Bon Bon)
Year:    1964
    The Rockin' Ramrods were one of Boston most popular bands in the mid-1960s. They were also among the most prolific, cutting several singles for various labels over a period of years. One of their most memorable tracks was She Lied, released in 1964. Ronn Campisi, who co-wrote She Lied, went on to have a moderately successful career as a professional songwriter.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    Strychnine
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Here Are The Sonics)
Writer:    Gerry Roslie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1965
    From 1965 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered one of the foundation stones of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics are often cited as the first true punk rock band.

Artist:    Cyrkle
Title:    Cry
Source:    Mono LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s):    Danneman/Dawes
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The Cyrkle is best known as a light-pop band, as evidenced by their two biggest hits, Red Rubber Ball and Turn Down Day. The band did have its edgier side, however, as can be heard on Cry, an album track from their 1966 debut LP. Despite the group's obvious talent and brand name manager (none other than Brian Epstein) the Cyrkle suffered diminishing returns with each record they released, and in 1968 decided to call it quits.

Artist:    Immediate Family
Title:    Rubiyat
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on CD: What A Way To Come Down)
Writer(s):    Kovacs/Khayyam
Label:    Rhino (original label: Big Beat)
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1997
    The members of the Immediate Family hailed from the city of Concord, a conservative suburb east of San Francisco bay. They didn't actually make music in their hometown, however. Instead they practiced at the home of organist Kriss Kovacs's mother Judy Davis (the vocal coach to the stars who numbered such diverse talents as Grace Slick, Barbra Streisand and even Frank Sinatra among her pupils). The band was able to get the backing to lay down some tracks at Golden State Recorders (the top studio in the area at the time), but reportedly lost their record deal due to emotional instability on the part of Kovacs. The song Rubiyat is an adaptation of the Rubiyat Of Omar Khayyam. Ambitious to be sure, but done well enough to make one wonder what it could have led to.

Artist:    Temptations
Title:    Cloud Nine
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Motown Yesteryear (original label: Gordy)
Year:    1968
    Motown's psychedelic soul producers were Barrett Strong (whose song Money (That's What I Want) had provided the start up cash for Motown itself in the early 60s) and his partner Norman Whitfield. When the Temptations started to falter in late 1968, the Whitfield-Stong team took over production for the group. Cloud Nine, a song with a frenetic tempo and a strong (no pun intended) anti-drug message, was released in December, and hit its peak in early 1969. The Whitfield-Strong team would continue to produce the Temptations for several years, cranking out hits like Psychedelic Shack, I Can't Get Next To You and Papa Was A Rolling Stone until Whitfield left Motown to form his own label in 1974.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    What A Bringdown
Source:    CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s):    Ginger Baker
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Right around the time that Cream's third LP, Wheels Of Fire, was released, the band announced that it would be splitting up following its upcoming tour. Before starting the tour the band recorded three tracks, each one written by one of the three band members. Both Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce worked with collaborators on their songs, while drummer Ginger Baker was given full credit for his tune, What A Bringdown (which was sung by Bruce). As it turned out those would be the only studio recordings on the final Cream album, Goodbye Cream, released in 1969, which in addition to the three new songs had several live tracks from a 1968 performance at the Los Angeles Palladium.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    The Last Thing I Remember, The First Thing I Knew
Source:    British import CD: Turtle Soup (originally released on EP: Turtles 1968)
Writer(s):    The Turtles
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Rhino)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1978
    In 1968 the Turtles rebelled against their record company. They did not attempt to break the contract or go on strike, though. Instead, they simply went into the studio and produced four songs that they themselves wrote and chose to record. The record company, however, chose not to issue any of the self-produced recordings (although one, Surfer Dan, did end up on their Battle of the Bands album a few months later). Finally, in the late 1970s a small independent label known for issuing oddball recordings by the likes of Barnes and Barnes (Fish Heads) and professional wrestler Fred Blassie (Pencil-Neck Geek) put out a 12-inch picture disc featuring the four tunes. That label also began reissuing old Turtles albums, starting it on a path that has since become the stock in trade for Rhino Records.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    She's My Girl
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967
    A favorite among the Turtles' members themselves, She's My Girl is full of hidden studio tricks that are barely (if at all) audible on the final recording. Written by the same team as Happy Together, the song is a worthy follow up to that monster hit.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    To See The Sun
Source:    Mono British import CD: Turtle Soup (bonus track originally released on 12" 45 RPM extended play picture disc: The Turtles-1968)
Writer(s):    The Turtles
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Rhino)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1978
    In 1968 the Turtles, feeling restricted by the dictates of producers and record company people, decided to rent studio time to produce some tracks of their own. The result was four songs, three of which were rejected outright by their label, White Whale. (The fourth track, Surfer Joe, was included on their Battle of the Bands album). Several years later a new local L.A. record label, Rhino Records, was looking to move beyond the niche it had carved out for itself as a novelty label. The chance to make previously unreleased material such as To See The Sun from a band as well-known as the Turtles was just what the label was looking for, and, along with re-releasing long out-of-print Turtles albums, got the label moving in a whole new direction that they continue to excel at.
   
Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    EXP/Up From The Skies
Source:    LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The second Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Axis: Bold As Love, is very much a studio creation. Hendrix had been taking a growing interest in what could be done with multiple tracks to work with, and came up with a masterpiece. What makes the achievement even more remarkable is the fact that he actually only had four tracks to work with (compared to the virtually unlimited number available with modern digital equipment). EXP, which opens the album, is an exercise in creative feedback bouncing from speaker to speaker. The intro to the piece is a faux interview of a slowed-down Hendrix (posing as his friend Paul Caruso) by bassist Noel Redding. The track leads directly into Up From The Skies, the only song on the album to be issued as a single in the US. Up From The Skies features Hendrix's extensive use of a wah-wah pedal, with vocals and guitar panning back and forth from speaker to speaker over the jazz-styled brushes of drummer Mitch Mitchell.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Easy Blues
Source:    LP: People, Hell And Angels
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2013
    Jimi Hendrix did not record with other guitarists very often, making this 1969 jazzy blues jam somewhat of a novelty. In addition to second guitarist Larry Lee (who would join Hendrix onstage at Woodstock), Easy Blues features Hendrix's old army buddy and former bandmate Billy Cox on bass and the Experience's Mitch Mitchell on drums.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Little Miss Lover
Source:    LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The second of two songs to use the wah-wah effect extensively on the album Axis: Bold As Love, Little Miss Lover is an example of Jimi Hendrix's funky side, a side not often heard on the three Jimi Hendrix Experience albums.

Artist:    Great! Society
Title:    Free Advice (alternate version 2)
Source:    CD: Born To Be Burned
Writer:    Darby Slick
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    1966
    This alternate take of Free Advice shows the Great! Society for what they were: a talented garage band with a lot of rough edges that they never got the opportunity to smooth out.

Artist:    Zakary Thaks
Title:    Bad Girl
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gerniottis/Stinson/Moore/Gregory/Lopez
Label:    Rhino (originally labels: J-Beck and Mercury)
Year:    1966
    Carl Becker, owner of the J-Beck and Cee Bee record labels in Corpus Christie, Texas, discovered the Zakary Thaks blowing away the competition in early 1966 at a battle of the bands at a local hangout known as the Carousel Club. At the time the lead vocalist, Chris Gerniottis, was all of fifteen years old; in fact, the oldest member of the band was only seventeen. Becker took the band into the studio in nearby McAllen to cut a pair of sides for J-Beck: a hot cover of the Kinks' I Need You and the Thaks' own composition, Bad Girl. Bad Girl became a big enough hit around South Texas to get picked up by Mercury for national distribution, becoming the first of half a dozen singles for the band.

Artist:     Human Beinz
Title:     Nobody But Me
Source:     Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Ron Isley
Label:     LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year:     1968
    The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Roll With It
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Children Of The Future)
Writer:    Steve Miller
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Right from the beginning, the Steve Miller band stood out stylistically from other San Francisco area bands. This was in part because Miller was only recently arrived from Chicago, which had a music tradition of its own. But a lot of the credit has to go to Miller himself, who had the sense to give his bandmates (such as his college buddy Boz Scaggs) the freedom to provide songs for the band in addition to his own material. One example of the latter is Roll With It from the group's 1968 debut LP, Children Of The Future.

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    I Can Take You To The Sun
Source:    Before The Dream Faded
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Cherry Red
Year:    1966
    The story of the legendary band the Misunderstood actually started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most of the bands at the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock and roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, and Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were eventually joined by Ravencroft himself, who changed his name to John Peel and became arguably the most famous DJ in the history of British top 40 radio. Ravencroft's brother Alan got the band a deal with Fontana Records, resulting in a single in late 1966, I Can Take You To The Sun, that took the British pop scene by storm. Problems having nothing to do with music soon derailed the Misunderstood, who soon found themselves being deported back to the US, and in one case, drafted into the US Army.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Wild Horses
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: Rolling Stones)
Year:    1971
    Although it was recorded in 1969, the release of Wild Horses was held up for over a year because of ongoing litigation between the Rolling Stones, who were in the process of forming their own record label, and Allen Klein, who had managed to legally steal the rights to all of the band's recordings for the British Decca label (most of which had appeared in the US on the London label). Eventually both Wild Horses and Brown Sugar (recorded at the same sessions) became the joint property of the Rolling Stones and Klein and were released as singles on the new Rolling Stones label in 1971.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Mother's Little Helper
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1966
    By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Memo From Turner
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: Decca)
Year:    1970
    Originally released as a single by Mick Jagger in 1970, Memo From Turner was taken from the film Performance, in which Jagger plays a performer named Turner. The track itself features some nice slide guitar work from Ry Cooder.

Artist:    Koobas
Title:    Barricades
Source:    British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: Koobas)
Writer(s):    Ellis/Stratton-Smith/Leathwood
Label:    Zonophone (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:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Triad
Source:     LP: Crown of Creation
Writer:     David Crosby
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1968
     It's interesting to contrast the attitudes of the band members of the Byrds and Jefferson Airplane to David Crosby's Triad. Whereas both Jim McGuinn and Chris Hillman expressed discomfort with the song (to the point of not releasing it), the Airplane members, particularly Paul Kantner and Grace Slick, embraced the tune, giving it a featured spot on the Crown of Creation album. The song itself is based on ideas put forth by Robert A. Heinlein in his Science Fiction masterpiece Stranger In A Strange Land.

Artist:    Blackburn And Snow
Title:    Stranger In A Strange Land
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    If Blackburn And Snow's version of David Crosby's Stranger In A Strange Land had been released at around the time it was recorded, it might have become, at the very least, a cult hit among the Hippy crowd just starting to colonize San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. As it was, the song sat on the shelf for over a year; by the time it was released as a single in early 1967 the love crowd was almost exclusively into LPs and the record went virtually unnoticed. Crosby's song was inspired by the Robert Heinlein book that has sometimes been called the "Hippy Bible".

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1416 (starts 4/16/14)

Artist:    Los Bravos
Title:    Going Nowhere
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK and EU as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Levitt/Sexter
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 Spain's Los Bravos made history by becoming the first band from a non-English speaking country to score a top 5 hit in both the US and the UK with a song called Black Is Black. The band, which in addition to its Spanish rhythm section (originally known as Los Sonor) included lead vocalist Mike Kogel, a West German who had hooked up with the band while on tour with his own group, Mike And The Runaways. Following the success of Black Is Black, Los Bravos recorded a string of singles for the British Decca label, including Going Nowhere, which was released in November of 1966.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Strange Brew
Source:    British import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Clapton/Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    RSO (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.

Artist:    Factory
Title:    Path Through The Forest
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Rollings
Label:    Rhino (original label: MGM)
Year:    1968
    Originally known as the Souvenier Badge Factory, the Factory was a British power trio who released their first of two singles, Path Through The Forest, while the band members (Jack Brand, Ian Oates and Bill MacLeod) were still in their teens. When a second single failed to chart the following year the group faded off into obscurity.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Driving Song
Source:    CD: Stand Up (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Island)
Year:    1969
    By 1969 the presence of "underground" FM radio stations in most major US cities playing what would come to be called album rock was making it possible for an artist to be considered successful without having the benefit of a top 40 hit record. This was not the case in the UK, where top 40 itself was considered an underground format heard on illegal AM pirate stations broadcasting from offshore transmitters. This meant that British bands such as Jethro Tull were continuing to put out singles that were either only available as album cuts or not released at all in the US. Driving Song was originally released as the B side of Living In the Past in 1969; neither song appeared in the US until the Living In the Past LP was released in 1973.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Run Around
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    The first Jefferson Airplane album was dominated by the songwriting of the band's founder, Marty Balin, both as a solo writer and as a collaborator with other band members. Run Around, from Balin and rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner, is fairly typical of the early Jefferson Airplane sound.

Artist:    Third Bardo
Title:    I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source:    Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Evans/Pike
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1967
    The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Mike Settle
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    The First Edition was formed by Mike Settle and Kenny Rogers, both members of the New Christy Minstrels, a group that made more appearances on TV variety shows than on the record charts (imagine a professional version of a high school madrigal choir). The two wanted to get into something a little more hip than watered-down choral versions of Simon and Garfunkel songs and the like, and recorded an album that included folk-rock, country-rock and even the full-blown psychedelia of Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), which ended up being their first single. For the B side of that single one of Settle's songs, Shadow In The Corner Of Your Mind, was selected. The song, a decent piece of folk-rock with reasonably intelligent lyrics, would have been hit record material itself if it weren't for the fact that by 1968 folk-rock had pretty much run its course.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Lost Woman
Source:    CD: Yer' Album
Writer(s):    Dreja/McCarty/Beck/Relf/Samwell-Smith
Label:    MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year:    1969
    The first James Gang album was primarily designed to show off the performing talents of guitarist Joe Walsh, bassist Tom Kriss and drummer Jim Fox. As such, most of the album was made up of cover songs such as the Yardbirds' Lost Woman. Like other covers on Yer' Album, Lost Woman turns into a long extended jam, running a total of nine minutes before all is played and done. Subsequent albums would focus more on the songwriting talents of the band members, particularly Walsh.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Come Together
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    After the Beatles released their 1968 double LP (the so-called White Album), they went to work on their final film project, a documentary about the band making an album. Unfortunately, what the cameras captured was a group on the verge of disintegration, and both the album and the film itself were shelved indefinitely. Instead, the band went to work recording an entirely new group of compositions. Somehow, despite the internal difficulties the band was going through, they managed to turn out a masterpiece: Abbey Road. Before the album itself came out, a single was released. The official A side was George Harrison's Something, the first Harrison song ever to be released as a Beatle A side. The other side was the song that opened the album itself, John Lennon's Come Together. In later years Come Together came to be Lennon's signature song and was a staple of his live performances.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Fixing A Hole
Source:    CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    Until 1967 every Beatle album released in the US had at least one hit single included that was not on the British version of the album (or was never released as a single in the UK). With the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, however, the track lineup became universal, making it the first Beatle album released in the US to not have a hit single on it. Nonetheless, the importance (and popularity) of the album was such that virtually every song on it got top 40 airplay at one time or another, although some tracks got more exposure than others. One of the many tracks that falls in between these extremes is Fixing A Hole, a tune by Paul McCartney that features the harpsichord prominently.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Oh! Darling
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    Paul McCartney reportedly recorded vocals for the Abbey Road track Oh! Darling on several consecutive days (always using the first take) in an effort to make it sound like he had been performing it night after night in a club. In an interview shortly before his death, former bandmate John Lennon had this to say about the song: "Oh! Darling was a great one of Paul's that he didn't sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better—it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he's going to sing it."

Artist:     Moby Grape
Title:     Sitting By The Window
Source:     LP: Moby Grape
Writer:     Peter Lewis
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1967
     Moby Grape's powerful 1967 debut managed to achieve what few bands have been able to: a coherent sound despite having wildly different writing styles from the individual members. One of Peter Lewis's contributions to the album was Sitting By The Window, one of those rare songs that sounds better every time you hear it.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Thoughts And Words
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Chris Hillman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    In addition to recording the most commercially successful Dylan cover songs, the Byrds had a wealth of original material over the course of several albums. On their first album, these came primarily from guitarists Gene Clark and Jim (now Roger) McGuinn, with David Crosby emerging as the group's third songwriter on the band's second album. After Clark's departure, bassist Chris Hillman began writing as well, and had three credits as solo songwriter on the group's fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. Hillman credits McGuinn, however, for coming up with the distinctive reverse-guitar break midway through the song.

Artist:    Humane Society
Title:    Knock Knock
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Minnick/Wheetman
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1967
    The Humane Society, from Simi Valley, California, formed in 1965 as the Innocents. The band featured singer/guitarist Danny Wheetman, lead guitarist Jim Pettit, rhythm guitarist Woody Minnick, bassist Richard Majewski, and drummer Bill Schnetzler. As was often the case, The A side of the group's first single was chosen by the band's producers, while the band itself provided the B side. In this case that B side was Knock Knock, a classic piece of garage-punk that far outshines the now-forgottten A side of the record.

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     Yes, I'm Experienced
Source:     British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer:     Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     BGO (originally released in US on M-G-M)
Year:     1967
     A grand tradition dating back to the early Rhythm and Blues recordings was something called the "answer song". Someone would record a song (Hound Dog, for example), that would become popular. In turn, another artist (often a friend of the original one), would then come up with a song that answered the original tune (Bear Cat, in our example earlier). This idea was picked up on by white artists in the late 50s (Hey Paula answered by Hey Paul). True to the tradition, Eric Burdon answered his friend Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced with this song, done in a style similar to another Hendrix tune, Manic Depression.
   
Artist:    Who
Title:    Batman
Source:    CD: A Quick One (bonus track originally released in UK on EP: Ready Steady Who)
Writer(s):    Neal Hefti
Label:    MCA (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1966
    Ready Steady Go was Britain's answer to American Bandstand. A hugely popular one-shot special edition of the show called Ready Steady Who aired in 1966. The EP (a 45 RPM extended play record with five songs instead of the usual two) had an entirely different set of songs than the TV special. This version of the Batman TV show theme was credited on the EP to Dean Torrance (Jan And Dean had included a version of the tune on their Little Old Lady From Pasedena LP), instead of actual composer Neal Hefti. The entire EP was included in the 1990s CD reissue of the Who's second album, A Quick One, with the erroneous song credit fixed.
         
Artist:    Ultimate Spinach
Title:    Jazz Thing
Source:    LP: Behold And See
Writer(s):    Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    Although the second Ultimate Spinach album, Behold And See, is generally considered inferior to the group's debut effort, there are a few high points that are among the best tracks the band ever recorded. Perhaps the strongest track on the album is Jazz Thing, which almost sounds like a Bob Bruno Circus Maximus track.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Wintertime Love
Source:    CD: Waiting For The Sun
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    It is generally accepted that most of the songs from the first two Doors albums were already in the band's repertoire when the group signed their first contract with Elektra Records. The third LP, Waiting For The Sun, on the other hand was made up of newer material. As a result, the album has a different overall feel from the earlier efforts. Among the more unusual tracks on the album is Wintertime Love, perhaps the closest the Doors ever got to country rock.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Who's Driving Your Plane
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    By 1966 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were writing everything the Rolling Stones recorded. As their songwriting skills became more sophisticated the band began to lose touch with its R&B roots. To counteract this, Jagger and Richards would occasionally come up with tunes like Who's Driving Your Plane, a bluesy number that nonetheless is consistent with the band's cultivated image as the bad boys of rock. The song appeared as the B side of their loudest single to date, the feedback-drenched Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Celeste
Source:    Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sundazed/Epic
Year:    1966
    Although most major labels were issuing LPs in both mono and stereo versions in the mid-1960s, a handful of artists were still only doing monoraul mixes of their recordings as late as 1967. One of the most prominent of these "mono only" artists was the Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan, whose material appeared in the US on the Epic label, the largest subsidiary of the second largest label in the world (CBS/Columbia). In fact, only a handful of songs from Donovan's two most successful albums, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, have ever been mixed in stereo. Among those still only available in mono is Celeste, the last track on Sunshine Superman.

Artist:    Zombies
Title:    She's Not There
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Rod Argent
Label:    Priority (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1964
    Most of the original British invasion bands were guitar-oriented, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. One notable exception was the Zombies, whose leader, Rod Argent, built the group around his electric piano. Their first single, She's Not There, was a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic and is ranked among the top British rock songs of all time.

Artist:    Zombies
Title:    Tell Her No
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Rod Argent
Label:    London (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1965
    Rod Argent was responsible for writing four well-known hit songs, which were spread out over a period of eight years (and two bands). The second of these was the Zombies' Tell Her No, released in 1965. The song got mixed reviews from critics, all of which measured the tune against Beatle songs of the same period.

Artist:     Vanilla Fudge
Title:     Vanilla Fudge-side two (You Keep Me Hangin' On, Take Me For a Little While and Eleanor Rigby interspersed with short instrumental segments known as Illusions of my Childhood)
Source:     LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer(s):    Holland/Dozier/Holland/Martin/Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Atco
Year:     1967
     Although not exactly a concept album, the first Vanilla Fudge LP did attempt to tie the songs on side two of the album together through the use of something called Illusions of My Childhood, short instrumental versions of children's songs such as The Farmer In The Dell overlaid with sound effects that would fade in at the end of each track and fade out into the next one. The songs themselves make for an interesting lyrical collage, going from one that demands a commitment to a relationship into a song that says almost the exact opposite, followed by Paul McCartney's famous observations of people without relationships at all.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Steeled Blues
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Jeff Beck
Label:     Epic
Year:     1965
     The Yardbirds were not known for their original material. They did, however, come up with a few tunes of their own, such as Steeled Blues, an instrumental penned by vocalist/harmonicat Keith Relf and guitarist Jeff Beck. The title pretty much describes the song itself, as it is essentially a blues jam with Beck playing slide guitar with steel strings.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Jeff's Boogie
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Dreja/Relf/Samwell-Smith/McCarty/Beck
Label:     Epic
Year:     1966
     The second half of our Yardbirds instrumental pair is one of the hottest rock B sides ever issued: Jeff's Boogie, which appeared as the flip side of Over, Under, Sideways Down in 1966 and was included on an LP with the same name (that LP, with a different track lineup and cover, was issued in the UK under the name Yardbirds, although it has since come to be known as Roger The Engineer due to its cover art). Although credited to the entire band, the song is actually based on Chuck Berry's guitar boogie, and features some outstanding guitar work by Jeff Beck.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Heart Full Of Soul
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Graham Gouldman
Label:    Epic
Year:    1965
    Heart Full Of Soul, the Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who was then a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and would later be a founding member of 10cc.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1415 (starts 4/9/14)

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Volunteers
Source:     CD: Volunteers
Writer:     Balin/Kantner
Label:     BMG/RCA
Year:     1969
     By 1969 Jefferson Airplane's music was a staple of progressive FM stations but had all but disappeared from the top 40 charts. Still, the band continued to release singles from their albums, including the title track to their fifth (and final with the classic JA lineup) LP, Volunteers.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Hey Frederick
Source:    LP: Volunteers
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1969
    Grace Slick's songwriting continued to move in an avant-garde direction with Hey Frederick, the longest track on the Volunteers album. The song opens with an ominous chord sequence and an exhortation to "either go away or go all the way". From there the lyrics are somewhat free-form, and soon give way to a long improvisational section that showcases the talents of guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady in particular, as well as guest pianist Nicky Hopkins, who would join the band on stage at the Woodstock festival that year.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Turn My Life Down
Source:    CD: Volunteers
Writer(s):    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    BMG/RCA
Year:    1969
    The fifth Jefferson Airplane studio album has a reputation of being their most political album. While that may be true, Volunteers is also the album that most showcases the growing diversity of writing styles among band members. In particular Jorma Kaukonen's contributions, such as Turn My Life Down, serve as a preview of the style that he and Jack Casady would adopt when they formed Hot Tuna the following year.

Artist:     Human Beinz
Title:     Nobody But Me
Source:     Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Ron Isley
Label:     LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year:     1968
    The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Summer Is The Man
Source:    Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    Following up on their successful debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, the Blues Magoos released Electric Comic Book in March of 1967. Unfortunately the first single from the album had two equally strong songs, one of which was favored by the producers and the other by the band. Radio stations were unsure which song to push, and as a result, neither made the top 40, which in turn had a negative effect on album sales. Most of the remaining tracks on the album were written by the band members, including Summer Is The Man, a song with an interesting chord structure, a catchy melody and somewhat existential lyrics.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Julia
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    John Lennon's songwriting continued to take a more personal turn with the 1968 release of The Beatles, also known as the White Album. Perhaps the best example of this is the song Julia. The song was written for Lennon's mother, who had been killed by a drunk driver in 1958, although it also has references to Lennon's future wife Yoko Ono (Yoko translates into English as Ocean Child). Julia is the only 100% solo John Lennon recording to appear on a Beatle album.

Artist:    Kak
Title:    Lemonade Kid
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Gary Lee Yoder
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    Kak was a group from Davis, California that was only around long enough to record one LP for Epic. That self-titled album did not make much of an impression commercially, and was soon out of print. Long after the band had split up, critics began to notice the album, and copies of the original LP are now highly-prized by collectors. Songs like the Lemonade Kid show that Kak had a sound that holds up better today than many of the other artists of the time. In fact, after listening to this track a couple times I went out and ordered a copy of the import CD reissue of the Kak album.

Artist:    Del-Vetts
Title:    Last Time Around
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dennis Dahlquist
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The Del-Vetts were from Chicago's affluent North Shore. Their gimmick was to show up at a high school dance by driving their matching corvettes onto the gymnasium dance floor. Musically, like most garage/punk bands, they were heavily influenced by the British invasion bands. Unlike most garage/punk bands, who favored the Rolling Stones, the Del-Vetts were more into the Jeff Beck incarnation of the Yardbirds. The 'Vetts had a few regional hits from 1965-67, the biggest being this single issued on the Dunwich label, home of fellow Chicago suburbanites the Shadows of Knight. In retrospect, Last Time Around may well be the very first metal death rock song ever recorded.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    You Go And I'll Go With You
Source:    CD: The Blues Project Anthology (originally released on LP: Live At The Cafe Au Go Go)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1966
    It was a common practice among bluesmen to "borrow" from earlier songs when writing their latest tune. Sometimes it was lyrics, sometimes a guitar or sax riff, and sometimes entire chord structures would be lifted from older songs. This was in part because of the perception of blues records as being "throwaway" items that only had value as long as they were available on the record racks (early rock and roll records would be percieved this way as well). As such, it was perfectly acceptable to reuse old ideas, since otherwise those ideas would be gone forever. Sometimes a writer would even plagiarize himself, as in the case of the Willie Dixon tune You Go And I'll Go With You. The song has the same melody and chord structure as My Babe, a 1955 hit for Little Walter that was the only Willie Dixon-penned song to top the R&B charts. My Babe itself was a secular adaptation of a gospel song, This Train (Is Bound For Glory), which was a 1939 hit for Sister Rosetta Tharp. Years later the Blues Project chose to cover the later tune on their debut album, Live At The Cafe Au Go Go.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sleepy Time Time
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Godfrey
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.

Artist:    Keith Relf
Title:    Shapes In My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Roger The Engineer (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Simon Napier-Bell
Label:    Great American (original label: Epic)
Year:    1966
    In 1966, Yardbirds manager Simon Napier-Bell got it into his head to market vocalist Keith Relf as a pop star in addition to being a member of a band. Whether this was intended to lead to a full-blown solo career for Relf is unclear; the fact that neither of the two singles released under Relf's name in 1966 became a hit made the entire question academic. Regardless, it would seem that Relf himself was not heavily invested in the project; the second single, Shapes In My Mind, seems to be almost entirely a Napier-Bell project, with Relf providing vocals but no real creative input. There are two entirely different mixes of the song (including the second one heard here), and the record's B side is an instrumental that does not include Relf or any other Yardbirds member on it. Nonetheless, both versions have been included as bonus tracks on the recent Great American Recordings release of the Yardbirds' 1966 album Roger The Engineer.

Artist:    Kim Fowley
Title:    The Trip
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hardesty/Fowley/Geddes
Label:    Rhino (original label: Corby)
Year:    1966
    Kim Fowley was well-known among the movers and shakers of the L.A. music scene as an important promoter and record producer, as well as the guy who threw some of the best parties in town. To the general public, however, he remained largely unknown except as the guy who recorded possibly the first, and probably the only, psychedelic novelty record, The Trip, in 1966.

Artist:    Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:    Him Or Me-What's It Gonna Be
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: All-Time Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lindsay/Melcher
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Paul Revere And The Raiders were the first rock band signed to Columbia Records. Only one staff producer, Terry Melcher, had any experience with rock, having worked with Bruce Johnston on the hit single Little Honda for the label in 1964, calling themselves the Hondells. Naturally, Columbia assigned Melcher to work with the label's newest signees. Melcher and the Raiders soon established a symbiotic relationship, with the band providing the raw energy, and Melcher the studio expertise needed to channel that energy into successful recordings. This relationship endured until early 1967, when band members Paul Revere and Mark Lindsay decided to take creative control of the band's recordings. The last collaboration with Melcher was the early 1967 single Him Or Me-What's It Gonna Be. It was also one of the band's last hits, a fact that has led Lindsay in recent years to admit that cutting Melcher loose was perhaps the group's biggest tactical error.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    My Eyes Have Seen You
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    It's strange. Some reviewers seem to think that the album Strange Days is inferior to the first Doors album. They justify this view by citing the fact that almost all the songs on both albums were already in the band's repertoire when they signed their record contract with Elektra. The implication is that the band naturally selected the best material for the first album, making Strange Days a collection of sloppy seconds. There is one small problem with this theory however. Pick a song at random from Strange Days and listen to it and in all likelihood it will sound every bit as good as a song randomly picked from the first album (and probably better than one picked from either of the Doors' next two LPs). In fact, I'll pick one for you: My Eyes Have Seen You. See what I mean?

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Ride With Me
Source:    45 RPM stereo promo
Writer(s):    Mars Bonfire
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1971
    By 1971 Steppenwolf's best years were already behind them. Looking to rekindle the old magic, the band turned to songwriter (and former band member) Dennis Edmonton, who, under the pseudonym Mars Bonfire, had penned their biggest hit, Born To Be Wild. Although Ride With Me was a solid song, it stalled out in the lower reaches of the top 40 charts while being virtually ignored by more progressive album rock stations.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Emotions
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Emotions, the last track on side one of the first Love album, sounds like it could have come directly from the soundtrack of one the spaghetti westerns that were popular with moviegoers in the mid-1960s. Probably not coincidentally, the instrumental is also the only Love recording to carry a writing credit for lead guitarist Johnny Echols (with the exception of the 17-minute jam Revelation on their second LP, which is credited to the entire band).

Artist:    Barnsley And Bradley
Title:    Sister Of Wisdom
Source:    Mono CD: Lost Souls Volume 4 (taken from an unreleased studio acetate)
Writer(s):    Barnsley/Bradley
Label:    Psych Of The South (acetate from Jaggars Recording Studio)
Year:    1967
    Barnsley And Bradley were a folk duo from Little Rock, Arkansas, who recorded Sister Of Wisdom and other songs in mid-1967. Although the recordings were not released, the duo went on to become the core of a group called Country Coalition, which recorded an LP for the Bluesway label in 1969 and made a 1970 appearance on American Bandstand.

Artist:     Blue Cheer
Title:     Out Of Focus
Source:     Mono LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer:     Dickie Peterson
Label:     Philips
Year:     1968
     With the possible exception of the Grateful Dead (when they were using the Owsley-designed sound system), the loudest band to come out of San Francisco was Blue Cheer. The album Vincebus Eruptum, highlighted by the band's feedback-drenched version of Eddie Cochrane's Summertime Blues, is considered by some to be the first heavy metal album ever recorded. Out Of Focus, which opens side 2 of the LP, was issued as the B side of Summertime Blues and got some airplay on progressive FM radio.

Artist:    Jack Bruce
Title:    Weird Of Hermiston
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Songs For A Tailor)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Bassist Jack Bruce became a rock superstar as a member of Cream from 1966-68. Following the breakup of that band, Bruce embarked upon a variety of projects, including a jazz album with guitarist John McLaughlin and an acclaimed solo LP, Songs For A Tailor. Weird Of Hermiston is just one of the many excellent tracks from that album.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix
Title:     In From The Storm
Source:     CD: Voodoo Soup (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1970
     Although nobody knows for sure what the final track lineup would have been for Jimi Hendrix's first studio album since 1968's Electric Ladyland, most everyone associated with him agrees that it would have been a double LP and that In From The Storm would have been included on it. The song was first released on The Cry Of Love, the first posthumus Hendrix album, and subsequently was included on Voodoo Soup, Alan Douglas's first attempt at recreating that legendary fourth album. The song also appears on First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, the CD that has replaced Voodoo Soup in the Hendrix catalog. The recording features Hendrix on guitar, Mitch Mitchell on drums and Hendrix's old army buddy Billy Cox on bass.

Artist:     Seeds
Title:     Pushin' Too Hard
Source:     Simulated stereo CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer:     Sky Saxon
Label:     Priority (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:     1965
     Pushin' Too Hard was originally released to the L.A. market as a single in 1965 and included on side one of the first Seeds album the following year. After being re-released as a single the song did well enough to go national in early 1967, hitting its peak in February of that year.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Caroline No
Source:    Mono CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    According to lyricist Peter Asher, Caroline No was written because Brian Wilson was "saddened to see how sweet little girls turned out to be kind of bitchy, hardened adults". Though the song was originally part of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, it ended up being the only single ever released by Capitol credited to Brian Wilson as a solo artist.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dandelion
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    If there was a British equivalent to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in terms of time and money spent on a single song, it might be We Love You, a 1967 single released by the Rolling Stones. To go along with the single (with its state-of-the-art production) the band spent a considerable sum making a full-color promotional video, a practice that would not become commonplace until the advent of MTV in the 1980s. Despite all this, US radio stations virtually ignored We Love You, choosing to instead flip the record over and play the B side, a tune called Dandelion. As to why this came about, I suspect that Bill Drake, the man behind the nation's most influential top 40 stations, simply decided that the less elaborately produced Dandelion was better suited to the US market than We Love You and instructed his hand-picked program directors at such stations as WABC (New York), KHJ (Los Angeles) and WLS (Chicago) to play Dandelion. The copycat nature of top 40 radio being what it is, Dandelion ended up being a moderate hit in the US in the summer of '67.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Cheating
Source:    LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals Vol. II (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s):    Burdon/Chandler
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    As a general rule, the original Animals wrote very little of their own material, preferring to record covers of their favorite blues songs to supplement the songs from professional songwriters that producer Mickie Most picked for single release. One notable exception is Cheating, a strong effort from vocalist Eric Burdon and bassist Chas Chandler that appeared on the Animalization album. The hard-driving song was also chosen for release as a B side in 1966.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Matilda Mother
Source:    CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Listening to tracks like Matilda Mother, I can't help but wonder where Pink Floyd might have gone if Syd Barrett had not succumbed to mental illness following the release of the band's first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in 1967. Unlike the rest of the band members, Barrett had the ability to write songs that were not only adventurous, but commercially viable as singles as well. After Barrett's departure, it took the group several years to become commercially successful on their own terms (although they obviously did). We'll never know what they may have done in the intervening years were Barrett still at the helm.

Artist:    Pentangle
Title:    Pentangling
Source:    LP: Pentangle
Writer(s):    Cox/Jansch/McShea/Renbourne/Thompson
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Once in a while an album comes along that is so consistently good that it's impossible to single out one specific track for airplay. Such is the case with the debut Pentangle album from 1968. The group, consisting of guitarists John Renbourne and Bert Jansch, vocalist Jacqui McShea, bassist Terry Cox, and drummer Danny Thompson, had more talent than nearly any band in history from any genre, yet never succumbed to the clash of egos that characterize most supergroups. Enjoy all seven minutes of Pentangling.

Artist:    Orange Wedge
Title:    From The Womb To The Tomb
Source:    Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    L.S.P.
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Blue Flat Ownsley Memorial)
Year:    1968
    Recorded in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1968, From The Womb To The Tomb was the only single from Orange Wedge, a forerunner of more famous Michigan bands such as the Stooges and the MC5.

Artist:    Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden
Title:    Tom Northcott
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Tom Northcott
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    Canadian folk singer Tom Northcott temporarily relocated to Los Angeles to record a handful of singles for Warner Brothers Records staff producer Lenny Waronker. Among those was his self-penned B side, Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden, which appeared in 1967.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Some Other Drum
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    Unlike most of the L.A. bands playing the strip in the mid-60s, the Music Machine played an eclectic mix of original material, all composed by bandleader Sean Bonniwell. Whereas some songs, such as the energetic Talk Talk, were prototypical punk-rock, others, such as Some Other Drum, had a softer feel reminiscent of the Lovin' Spoonful without sounding at all derivative.

Artist:    Impressions
Title:    Grow Closer Together
Source:    CD: Curtis Mayfield And The Impressions-The Anthology 1961-1977 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC Paramount)
Year:    1962
    The Impressions first hit the big time with the 1958 single For Your Precious Love, sung by the group's original lead vocalist Jerry Butler. The song was so successful, in fact, that Butler soon left the group for a solo career, leaving the Impressions floundering for the next few years. Although the Impressions were primarily a vocal group, they did have one member, 16-year-old Curtis Mayfield, who played guitar. It was Mayfield who eventually stepped up to fill Butler's shoes, getting the Impressions a contract with ABC Paramount Records and recording their first single, Gypsy Woman, in 1961. The follow-up single, Grow Closer Together, was done in a similar style, with Mayfield up front on lead vocals and the other four members acting as backup singers. As time went on, the Impressions would trim down to a trio, with all three members sharing both lead and harmony vocal parts, supplemented by Mayfield's guitar work.

Artist:    Creation
Title:    Biff! Bang! Pow!
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Pickett/Phillips
Label:    Rhino (original label: Planet)
Year:    1966
    The Creation is generally acknowledged as the first major British psychedelic band, predating Pink Floyd by several months. Oddly enough, they are also considered a Mod band in the mold of the Who, thanks in large part to the B side of their second single, released in 1966. Biff! Bang! Pow! had the same sort of driving beat and power chords as many of the songs on the Who's My Generation album, and even included piano work by top session man Nicky Hopkins.