Artist: Byrds
Title: Eight Miles High
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s): Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Gene Clark's final contribution to the Byrds was his collaboration with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn, Eight Miles High. Despite a newsletter from the most powerful man in top 40 radio, Bill Drake, advising stations not to play this "drug song", the song managed to hit the top 20 in 1966. The band members themselves claimed that Eight Miles High was not a drug song at all, but was instead referring to the experience of travelling by air. In fact, it was Gene Clark's fear of flying that in part led to his leaving the Byrds.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Don't Slip Away
Source: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Spence
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Don't Slip Away, from the first Jefferson Airplane album, released in 1966, could probably have been a hit if it had been released as a single. It wasn't, however, and the band remained mostly unknown outside of the immediate San Francisco Bay area for several months after the release of Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. This gave the group the opportunity to make a pair of key personnel changes that resulted in Grace Slick and Spender Dryden becoming Airplane members in time to record the group's breakthrough LP, Surrealistic Pillow. On the strength of Slick's vocals in particular, the Jefferson Airplane became a national phenomena in 1967.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source: Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
Artist: Cream
Title: We're Going Wrong
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer: Jack Bruce
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
On Fresh Cream the slowest-paced tracks were bluesy numbers like Sleepy Time Time. For the group's second LP, Disreali Gears, bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce came up with We're Going Wrong, a song with a haunting melody supplemented by some of Eric Clapton's best guitar fills. Ginger Baker put away his drumsticks in favor of mallets, giving the song an otherworldly feel.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: The Black Plague
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Repertoire (original US label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
One of the most interesting recordings of 1967 was Eric Burdon And The Animals' The Black Plague, which appeared on the Winds Of Change album. The Black Plague is a spoken word piece dealing with life and death in a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague (natch), set to a somewhat gothic piece of music that includes Gregorian style chanting and an occasional voice calling out the words "bring out your dead" in the background. The album itself had a rather distinctive cover, consisting of a stylized album title accompanied by a rather lengthy text piece on a black background, something that has never been done before or since on an album cover.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Burning of the Midnight Lamp
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Burning of the Midnight Lamp was the fourth, and at the time most sophisticated single released by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, coming out in mid-1967 between Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love. By this time, Reprise had changed its policy and ended up releasing the Axis album with the same song lineup as the UK original, which left Midnight Lamp a kind of orphan. Hendrix, though, having put a lot of work into the song, was not content to let the mono single release be the last word on the cut, and created a new stereo mix from the original tapes for inclusion on Electric Ladyland the following year.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Star Collector
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Colgems
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.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Get Me To The World On Time
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer(s): Tucker/Jones
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for two more tracks to include on their debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).
Artist: Kinks
Title: Sunny Afternoon
Source: Mono Canadian CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
1966 was the year that Ray Davies's songwriting began to take a sardonic turn. Sunny Afternoon, using a first person perspective, manages to lampoon the idle rich through mock sympathy. Good stuff.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Gotta Get The First Plane Home
Source: Mono LP: The Kink Kontroversy
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
1965 saw the Kinks' Ray Davies begin to blossom as a songwriter, particularly on the LP The Kinks Kontroversy. Whereas previous albums had contained several cover tunes, Kontroversy was made up entirely of Davies compositions such as Gotta Get The First Plane Home. Although Davies was still experimenting with writing in different styles at this point he would soon settle into a groove as rock's most wry commentator on modern British society.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Death Of A Clown
Source: Canadian CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Something Else By The Kinks)
Writer(s): Ray and Dave Davies
Label: Polygram/PolyTel (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Kinks lead guitarist Dave Davies has always been overshadowed by his brother Ray, who wrote the vast majority of the band's material, including all their hit singles. As a way to make up for this, the Davies brothers wrote Death Of A Clown, which was then recorded by the band with Dave on vocals and released in the UK as a solo Dave Davies single. The song was an immediate hit with the British buying public, going into the top five on the influential Radio Luxumbourg and fueling talk of a possible Dave Davies solo LP. Meanwhile, the recording was included on the 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks, the first Kinks album to feature identical track lineups in both the US and the UK (and presumably elsewhere).
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Walk Away Renee
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Brown/Calilli/Sansune
Label: Smash
Year: 1966
The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee is one of the most covered songs in rock history, starting with a version by the Four Tops less than two years after the original recording had graced the top 5. The Left Banke version kicked off what was thought at the time to be the latest trend: baroque rock. The trend died an early death when the band members themselves made some tactical errors resulting in radio stations being hesitant to play their records.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Epistle To Dippy
Source: Mono CD: Mellow Yellow (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1967
Following up on his successful Mellow Yellow album, Donovan released Epistle To Dippy in the spring of 1967. The song, utilizing the same kind of instrumentation as Mellow Yellow, was further proof that the Scottish singer was continuing to move beyond the restrictions of the "folk singer" label and was quickly becoming the model for what would come to be called "singer/songwriters" in the following decade.
Artist: Laura Nyro
Title: Sweet Blindness
Source: LP: Heavy Sounds (originally released on LP: Eli And The Thirteenth Confession)
Writer(s): Laura Nyro
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Laura Nyro always had more success as a songwriter than as a vocalist. Her songs have been covered by such diverse artists as Blood, Sweat & Tears, Three Dog Night and the Fifth Dimension. It was the latter that took Sweet Blindness into the top 20. The original Nyro version of the song appeared on her 1968 album Eli And The Thirteenth Confession heard here.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Everything Is Everything
Source: Mono CD: Ignition
Writer(s): Bonniwell/Garfield
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1968
The original Music Machine scored one huge hit with Talk Talk in late 1966, but due to a number of factors (nearly all of which can be attributed to bad management) was unable to repeat their success with subsequent singles. Finally, after a change of label failed to result in a change of fortunes, the original lineup disbanded. Undaunted, leader Sean Bonniwell assembled an entirely new lineup to complete the band's scheduled tours, stopping to record at various studios along the way whenever possible. Many of these recordings went unreleased for several years, such as the 1968 track Everything Is Everything. The song is a rare instance of Bonniwell collaborating with another songwriter, in this case Harry Garfield. Bonniwell later said of the track "This is what the fool on the hill said, but he didn't collaborate with Harry Garfield. If he did, he would have said 'I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.'" I'm not sure what that means but it sounds good.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Good Day Sunshine
Source: CD: Revolver
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
When the Beatles' Revolver album came out, radio stations all over the US began playing various non-single album tracks almost immediately. Among the most popular of those was Paul McCartney's Good Day Sunshine. It was in many ways an indication of the direction McCartney's songwriting would continue to take for several years.
Artist: Doors
Title: The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)
Source: LP: L.A. Woman
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1971
Following a downward slide starting in 1968, the Doors ended their original run on a high note in 1971 with the L.A. Woman album. Among the strong blues-based tracks on the album is The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat), an anthemic number that ranks up with other Doors album classics such as Five To One, When The Music's Over and The End. Big Beat indeed.
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: Doors
Title: Riders On The Storm
Source: LP: L.A. Woman
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1971
The last major hit single for the Doors was also one of their best: Riders On The Storm. In fact, it still holds up as one of the finest singles ever released. By anyone.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: The Behemoth
Source: CD: Dark Sides (originally released on LP: Back Door Men)
Writer: Pye
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
When it comes to garage punk bands of the sixties there are two that are generally considered to be at the top of the heap. Unlike the Standells, who started off as a bar band and only embraced the punk ethic when they hooked up with writer/producer Ed Cobb, the Shadows of Knight were the real deal. Coming from the Chicago suburbs, they literally got their start practicing in the garage, slowly graduating to parties and high school dances, getting banned from at least one high school campus in the process (something having to do with a female student getting knocked up, rumor has it). The Shadows (as they were originally known) cited the British blues bands as their main influence, with a dose of Chicago blues thrown in for good measure. The Behemoth, an instrumental track from their second album, Back Door Men, was chosen for a 1967 B side as well.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Title: I Need Love
Source: LP: I Like It Like That
Writer(s): Dave Clark
Label: Epic
Year: 1966
I have to admit that I was never a big Dave Clark Five fan. That said, there are a handful of DC5 tunes that really grab me. Among the best of those is I Need Love, the non-US B side of a 1966 single (Nineteen Days) that originally appeared on the 1965 album I Like It Like That. The song has more of a garage feel than the average DC5 song, which is probably why I like it so much.
Artist: Brigands
Title: (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Kris/Arthur Resnick
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Virtually nothing is known about the Brigands, other than the fact that they recorded in New York City. Their only single was a forgettable piece of imitation British pop, but the B side, (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man, holds up surprising well. The song itself was written by the husband and wife team of Kris and Artie Resnick, who would end up writing a series of bubble gum hits issued under various band names on the Buddah label in 1968.
Artist: Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title: On Tomorrow
Source: CD: Safe As Milk (previously unreleased bonus track)
Writer(s): Don Van Vliet
Label: Rev-Ola
Year: 1967
Following the release of their 1967 debut LP for the Buddah label, Safe As Milk, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band began work in November of that year on a proposed double LP called It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper. For reasons that are not entirely clear the project was never completed, although several of the unfinished tracks were reworked for the band's 1968 LP Strictly Personal for the Blue Thumb label. Among those unfinished tracks was an instrumental version of On Tomorrow; a somewhat tamer vocal version of the composition would become opening track of side two of Strictly Personal.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Rugs Of Wood And Flowers
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kaylan/Nichols
Label: White Whale
Year: 1967
The Turtles were best known for their big hit records like Happy Together and She'd Rather Be With Me, both of which came from outside songwriters. The band had a weird side, however, that usually showed up on their self-penned B sides and an occasional album track. One example is Rugs Of Wood And Flowers, which appeared as the B side of You Know What I Mean in 1967. The song, written by vocalist Howard Kaylan and guitarist Al Nichol, features Kaylan using a semi-operatic style that he would revive for his legendary performances with the Mothers at the Fillmore East in 1971.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Take It Or Leave It
Source: CD: Flowers
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
It was a common practice in the 1960s for US record labels to radically change the track lineup of albums recorded and originally released in the UK. For one thing, British albums ran about five to ten minutes longer than their American counterparts. Also, British LPs as a rule did not include songs that had already been released on 45 RPM vinyl, either as singles or on Extended Play 45s. This resulted in a large inventory of songs that the US labels would from time to time compile on albums that had no direct British counterparts. There was even one case of an album, the Rolling Stones' Aftermath, that was actually released in the US several weeks before its British counterpart. As a result, the British version had several new tracks that, as of 1967, had still not appeared in the US. Following the release of Between The Buttons in early 1967, London Records compiled a new US-only album called Flowers, which included all the tracks from the British Aftermath album, including Take It Or Leave It, that had not yet been released in the US.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1966
After the reunion of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel following the surprise success of an electrified remix of The Sound Of Silence, the duo quickly recorded an album to support the hit single. Sounds Of Silence was, for the most part, a reworking of material that Simon had recorded for 1965 UK LP the Paul Simon Songbook. The pressure for a new album thus (temporarily) relieved, the duo got to work on their first album of truly new material since their unsuccessful 1964 effort Wednesday Morning 3AM (which had in fact been re-released and was now doing well on the charts). In October the new album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, hit the stands. The title track was a new arrangement of an old English folk ballad, Scarborough Fair, combined with a reworking of a song from the Paul Simon Songbook, The Side Of A Hill, retitled Canticle. The two melodies and sets of lyrics are set in counterpoint to each other, creating one of the most sophisticated folk song arrangements ever recorded. After being featured in the film The Graduate, Scarborough Fair/Canticle was released as a single in early 1968, going on to become one of the duo's most instantly recognizable songs.
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: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1966
After the surprise success of the Sound Of Silence single, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who had disbanded their partnership after the seeming failure of their Wednesday Morning 3 AM album in 1964, hastily reunited to record a new album of electrified versions of songs written by Simon, many of which had appeared on his 1965 solo LP the Paul Simon Songbook. With their newfound success, the duo set about recording an album's worth of new material. This time around, however, Simon had the time (and knowledge of what was working for the duo) to compose songs that would play to both the strengths of himself and Garfunkel as vocalists, as well as take advantage of the additional instrumentation available to him. The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme, featuring tracks such as The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine, an energetic piece that effectively combines folk and rock with intelligent (if somewhat satirical) lyrics.
Artist: Troggs
Title: Night Of The Long Grass
Source: British simulated stereo CD: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Chip Taylor
Label: Spectrum (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1967
After scoring a huge international hit in 1966 with Wild Thing, the Troggs (originally known as the Troglodytes) cranked out a series of singles that did well in the UK but for the most part were never heard by US listeners. One of the best of those British hits was Night Of The Long Grass, which got airplay across Europe in the summer of '67. Like many of the Troggs' hits, Night Of The Long Grass has somewhat suggestive lyrics that probably hurt its chances for airplay on US top 40 radio stations.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Perhaps more than any other band, Country Joe and the Fish capture the essence of the San Francisco scene in the late 60s. Their first two releases were floppy inserts included in Joe McDonald's self-published Rag Baby underground newspaper. In 1967 the band was signed to Vanguard Records, a primarily folk-oriented prestige label that also had Joan Baez on its roster. Their first LP, Electric Music For the Mind and Body had such classic cuts as Section 43, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, and the political parody Superbird on it, as well as the mostly-instrumental tune The Masked Marauder. Not for the unenlightened.
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