Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1425 (starts 6/18/14)

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     Dead End Street
Source:     Mono British import CD: Face To Face (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Ray Davies
Label:     Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year:     1966
     The last big US hit for the Kinks in the 60s was Sunny Afternoon in late 1966. The follow-up, Deadend Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success (although it was a hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola in 1970.

Artist:    John Mayall
Title:    Cancelling Out
Source:    LP: The Blues Alone
Writer(s):    John Mayall
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    After three consecutive top 10 albums in the UK with his band the Bluesbreakers, John Mayall decided to experiment with multi-track technology for The Blues Alone, released in late 1967. Unlike the previous albums, which tended to put the emphasis on the outstanding guitarists (first Eric Clapton, then Peter Green) in the Bluesbreakers, The Blues Alone was (with the exception of Keef Hartley's drumming) a true solo effort, with Mayall playing all the instruments and providing all the vocals. Although there were a few cover songs on the album, the best tracks were Mayall originals such as Cancelling Out.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    To The Light
Source:    Mono CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Sean Bonniwell and his band the Music Machine hit the big time with their hit single Talk Talk in late 1966. Unfortunately, due in large part to circumstances beyond the band's control, they were never able to duplicate that success. Eventually, the band's grueling touring schedule took its toll, and all of the original members, save Bonniwell himself, were gone by the middle of 1967. Bonniwell was not quite ready to give up, however, and soon had a new Music Machine in place, recording a handful of new tunes and releasing them (along with several previously released singles by the original lineup) on an album called The Bonniwell Music Machine in late 1967. The new group's recording career did not stop there, however. Whenever possible, using whatever facilities were available, the band would book studio time for new tunes such as To The Light, which was released on 45 RPM vinyl in 1968. Bonniwell himself described the song as "Clip-Clop brevity and a vocal rendering almost too coy for platonic love nurturing a tormented libido", adding that the end result is a question: "Can friends become lovers and remain friendly?"

Artist:    Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck
Title:    One Ring Jane
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on Canadian LP: Home Grown Stuff)
Writer(s):    McDougall/Ivanuck
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1969
    Sometimes called Canada's most psychedelic band, Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck was formed in British Columbia in 1967. After recording one unsuccessful single for London, the Duck switched to Capitol Records' Canadian division and scored nationally with the album Home Grown Stuff. After a couple more years spent opening for big name bands such as Alice Cooper and Deep Purple and a couple more albums (on the Capitol-owned Duck Records) the group disbanded, with vocalist/guitarist Donny McDougall joining the Guess Who in 1972.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Mexico
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1970
    The last Jefferson Airplane single to include founding member (and original leader) Marty Balin was Mexico, a scathing response by Grace Slick to President Richard Nixon's attempts to eradicate the marijuana trade between the US and Mexico. The song was slated to be included on the next Airplane album, Long John Silver, but Balin's departure necessitated a change in plans, and Mexico did not appear on an LP until Early Flight was released in 1974.

Artist:     Stephen Stills
Title:     Love the One You're With
Source:     45 RPM single (stereo promo pressing)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
     Depending on your point of view Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) have either split up several times over the years or have never actually split up at all. It was during one of these maybe split-ups that Stills recorded Love the One You're With, one of his most popular tunes. Presumably he and singer Judy Collins were no longer an item at that point.

Artist:    Warlocks
Title:    Can't Come Down
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer:    Garcia/Kreutzmann/Lesh/McKernan/Weir
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1965
    In 1965 Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters were travelling around conducting the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, basically an excuse to turn on people to LSD. Part of Kesey's entourage was a group of young musicians calling themselves the Warlocks, who had formed earlier that year. Around the time of the first acid test in November of 1965 group made their first visit to a recording studio, cutting a set of demos for Autumn Records. After hearing that there was already a band named the Warlocks making records, they booked studio time under the name Emergency Crew. The songs themselves, which were produced by Autumn Records' owners Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue and Bobby Mitchell, did not get released until 1999, when the Warlocks (who began calling themselves the Grateful Dead just days after the recording sessions) decided to include them on an anthology album. The lead vocals on Can't Come Down are by guitarist Jerry Garcia, although they don't sound much like his later Grateful Dead recordings.

Artist:    Chants R&B
Title:    I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in New Zealand as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Mayall
Label:    Rhino (original label: Action)
Year:    1966
    The Chants R&B were formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1964 and were heavily influenced by such punkish UK bands as the Pretty Things and Them. Shortly after the released of their first single in mid-1966, the group got a new guitarist, Max Kelly, whose efforts helped make their second single, a wild cover of John Mayall's I'm Your Witch Doctor, a national hit. Before they could return to the studio however, it was discovered that Kelly, whose real name was Matt Croke, was actually a deserter from the Australian Air Force, and was soon deported. The rest of the band followed him to Sydney, but things didn't work out and the band split up in early 1967.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Love
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer:    McDonald/Melton/Cohen/Barthol/Gunning/Hirsch
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
     In the mid 60s the primary performance venues for rock bands were dances, and the audiences (mostly middle-class baby boomers) demanded a healthy dose of both rock and soul. Rather than to record covers of Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding songs, Country Joe McDonald chose to write his own brand of rock and soul music. Love, from the Fish's first album, is a good example of this.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    The first track on the original UK release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was buried toward the end of side 2 (and misspelled "Foxey Lady").

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Remember
Source:    Mono LP: Are You Experienced? (European version)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original UK label: Track)
Year:    1967
    It was common in the 1960s for artists to include "filler" material on their albums, with their best stuff being saved for single releases. Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience made making the best albums a priority, there was still material on their first LP that Hendrix himself considered filler. One of these was Remember, which was also one of three tracks deleted from the US version of the LP to make room for three UK singles that were not on the UK version of Are You Experienced. Still, filler for Jimi Hendrix is as good as or better than 99% of many other artists' best material, as can be heard here.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Love Or Confusion
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and the rhythm section dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. It's actually kind of fun to listen to with headphones on, as I did when I bought my first copy of the album on reel-to-reel tape (the tape deck was in the same room as the TV).

Artist:    Standells
Title:    All Fall Down
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Try It)
Writer(s):    Dodd/Fleck
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Possibly the most overtly psychedelic tune in the Standells catalog, All Fall Down appeared on the band's third LP for Tower, Try It. Coincidentally, the album came out around the same time as Pink Floyd's debut LP on the same label, prompting some critics to make comparisons between All Fall Down and Floyd's Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year:    1967
    Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Winds Of Change
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:    Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    The new Animals first album was Winds of Change, an ambitious effort that gave writing credit to all five band members for all the tracks on the album (with the exception of a cover version of the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black). The opening track is basically Eric Burdon paying tribute to all his musical heroes, and it's quite an impressive list, including jazz and blues greats as well as some of the most important names in the annals of rock and roll.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Omaha
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Skip Spence
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Bleeker Street
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Wednesday Morning, 3AM)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1964
    One of the first of many "slice of life" songs from songwriter Paul Simon, Bleeker Street (a real street in New York's Greenwich Village) appeared on the first Simon And Garfunkel LP, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, in late 1964. The album did not initially sell well, and the duo actually split up shortly after it was deleted from the Columbia catalog. Following the success of an electrified remix of another song from the album, The Sound Of Silence, the pair reunited and Columbia reissued Wednesday Morning, 3AM in 1966.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    Mono LP: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Columbia (original label: Sande)
Year:    1963
    The greatest party song of all time came from the pen of Richard Berry, a west coast singer/bandleader who released his original "soft" version of the song in 1957. In 1963 two west coast bands, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere And The Raiders, recorded competing versions of the song within days of each other. The Kingsmen version, with its raw sound and unintelligible lyrics, became popular on the east coast, while the better-produced (and more professionally performed) Raiders version quickly went to the top of the charts on the west coast and Hawaii. Columbia Records picked up the band's contract and re-released the single nationally. Columbia's top A&R man, Mitch Miller, however, was a notorius rock and roll hater (as a listen to one of his old Sing Along With Mitch TV shows proves) and refused to promote the record. Eventually the Kingsmen version of Louie Louie went gold while the Raiders version has become little more than a footnote (although the band itself has always championed their recording of the song).

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    The Last Time
Source:    Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1965
    Released in late winter of 1965, The Last Time was the first single to hit the top 10 in both the US and the UK (being their third consecutive #1 hit in England) and the first one written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Despite that, it would be overshadowed by their next release: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, which went to the top of the charts everywhere and ended up being the #1 song of 1965.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    She's A Rainbow
Source:    LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    The only song from the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request album to get significant airplay in the US was She's A Rainbow, released as a single in the fall of '67.  Oddly enough it was the single's B side, 2,000 Light Years From Home, that charted in Germany, while yet another song from the album, In Another Land, was released only in the UK and touted as the first Bill Wyman solo song (although still a Rolling Stones record). This perhaps is a reflection of the uncertainty surrounding the Rolling Stones' role in the world of rock at the time. That uncertainty would soon be dispelled when the band hired a new producer, Jimmy Miller, the following year and released Jumpin' Jack Flash, an undisputed classic that helped define the band for years to come.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Play With Fire
Source:    Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1965
    Generally when one thinks of the Rolling Stones the first thing that comes to mind is down to earth rock and roll songs such as Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women. The band has always had a more mellow side, however. In fact, the first Mick Jagger/Keith Richards compositions were of the slower variety, including Heart Of Stone and As Tears Go By. Even after the duo started cranking out faster-paced hits like 19th Nervous Breakdown and The Last Time, they continued to write softer songs such as Play With Fire, which made the charts as a B side in 1965. The lyrics of Play With Fire, with their sneering warning to not mess with the protagonist of the song, helped cement the Stones' image as the bad boys of rock and roll.

Artist:     Chocolate Watchband
Title:     Sweet Young Thing
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:     Rhino (original label: Uptown)
Year:     1967
     There is actually very little on vinyl that captures the flavor of how the Chocolate Watchband actually sounded when left to their own devices, as most of their recorded work was heavily influenced by producer Ed Cobb. One of the few recordings that does accurately represent the Watchband sound is Sweet Young Thing, the first single released under the band's real name (Blues Theme, an instrumental Watchband recording credited to the Hoggs, had been released in 1966 by Hanna-Barbera records).

Artist:     Young Rascals
Title:     What Is The Reason
Source:     LP: Collections
Writer:     Cavaliere/Brigati
Label:     Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:     1967
     My first high school dance was a Sadie Hawkins Day dance held at the General H. H. Arnold High School gym in Weisbaden, Germany. Onstage was a band of military brats calling themselves the Collections, so called because they covered every tune on the second Young Rascals album. That night (probably the best night of my entire freshman year, thanks to a sophomore whose name I've long since forgotten but who looked a lot like Cindy Williams in American Graffiti) inspired me to A): talk my parents into buying a cheap guitar and amp so I could join up with other guys who lived in our housing area to form "The Abundance Of Love", aka "The Haze And Shades Of Yesterday", aka "The Shades", and B) find and buy a copy of the Collections album (which ended up taking over 40 years to do).

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Magic Carpet Ride
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf the Second
Writer(s):    Moreve/Kay
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.

Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Volt
Year:    1966
    Some may have questioned the appearance of a "soul" band like Sly and the Family Stone at what was essentially a rock festival at Woodstock, but there was precedent: Otis Redding had stolen the show at the first of the great rock festivals at Monterey two years earlier. One of the songs he electrified the crowd with was a hard-driving version of the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, heard here in its 1966 studio version, featuring the MGs and the Bar-Kays backing up the "big O".

Artist:    Fugs
Title:    I Couldn't Get High
Source:    CD: The Fugs First Album (originally titled The Village Fugs)
Writer(s):    Ken Weaver
Label:    Fantasy (original labels: Broadside & ESP)
Year:    1965
    Formed in 1964, the Fugs were the first (in their own words) "anarcho-socialist" street band of the rock era. Most of their songs contained language that was forbidden on the radio. Those that did not contain forbidden language had drug references, which essentially had the same result as far as getting top 40 airplay went. Not that anything by the Fugs would have ever been played on top 40 radio anyway. It was too raw, too sloppy, and too, well, uncommercial to ever get heard by the masses. Nonetheless, the Fugs managed to achieve legendary status over the years, serving as inspiration to groups like David Peel and the Lower East Side, the Ramones and the Patti Smith Group, among others. A fairly representative track that can be played without incurring any FCC sanctions is I Couldn't Get High, from the Fugs First Album. The album itself originally appeared in 1965 as The Village Fugs on the independent Broadside label. The following year the album was remixed and re-released on the ESP label as the Fugs First Album, and was digitally remastered and committed to CD by Fantasy Records in 1994.

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Reverberation
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    From the original liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators: "Reverberation is the root of all inability to cope with environment. Doubt causes negative emotions which reverberate and hamper all constructive thought. If a person learns and organizes his knowledge in the right way---with perfect cross-reference---he need not experience doubt or hesitation." Pretty heady stuff for the year that brought us the Monkees.

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:    Doors
Title:    The Unknown Soldier
Source:    LP: 13 (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    One of the oddest recordings to get played on top 40 radio was the Door's 1968 single The Unknown Soldier. The song is notable for having it's own promotional film made by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had been a film major at UCLA when the Doors were formed. It's not known whether the song was written with the film in mind (or vice versa), but the two have a much greater synergy than your average music video.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Mellow Yellow
Source:    Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic
Year:    1966
    Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to his ongoing contract dispute with Pye Records.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Season Of The Witch
Source:    CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer:    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year:    1966
     Season Of The Witch has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring tracks on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the album was not released in the UK until late 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Like all tracks from both Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, Season Of The Witch was only available in a mono mix until 1969, when a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track masters for the singer/songwriter's first greatest hits compilation. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    The Observation
Source:    Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer:    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic
Year:    1967
    Donovan was at first hailed as Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, but by 1967 he was proving that he was much more than that. The Observation, with its distinctive use of an acoustic double-bass, is one of many innovative tunes that helped redefine Donovan from folk singer to singer/songwriter, transforming the entire genre in the process.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Love Seems Doomed
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    Unlike most of the tracks on the Blues Magoos' 1966 Debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, Love Seems Doomed is a slow, moody piece with a message. Along with the Paul Revere and the Raiders hit Kicks from earlier that year, Love Seems Doomed is one of the first songs by a rock band to carry a decidedly anti-drug message. While Kicks warned of the addictive qualities of drugs (particularly the phenomenon of the need larger doses of a drug to achieve the same effect over time), Love Seems Doomed focused more on how addiction affects the user's relationships, particularly those of a romantic nature. Love Seems Doomed is also a more subtle song than Kicks, which tends to hit the listener over the head with its message.