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".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment