Artist: Seeds
Title: The Wind Blows Her Hair
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Saxon/Bigelow
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1967
The Wind Blows Her Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released the whole concept of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news and the single went nowhere.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Henry's Shuffle
Source: CD: The Very Best Of Canned Heat
Writer(s): Henry Vestine
Label: Capitol
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2005
Henry "Sunflower" Vestine was a guitarist who had been a member of one of Frank Zappa's early bands. In 1966 he introduced fellow guitarist and music historian Al "Blind Owl" Wilson to record store employee Bob "the Bear" Hite, the three of them sharing a passion for old blues records. Wilson and Hite soon formed a band of their own, Canned Heat, with Vestine joining them following their first public performance. The band, one of the only electric blues outfits in Los Angeles, began getting gigs, picking up bassist Larry "the Mole" Taylor and drummer Frank Cook in the process. The soon got a contract with Liberty Records and released their self-titled debut LP in 1967. In June the band made an appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival, playing mostly blues covers. Later in the year, Cook, who favored a traditional jazz style of drumming, left the group to be replaced by Mexican immigrant Adolpho "Fito" De La Parra, whose hard-driving rock style was more in tune with the direction the band wanted to go. By early 1968 the members of Canned Heat could usually be found hanging out at Hite's house in Laurel Canyon (referred to in the John Mayall song The Bear), listening to old blues records, working up new material of their own and, in Fito's words, smoking a lot of grass. The end product of this was the album Boogie With Canned Heat, which sold a lot of copies and received a significant amount of airplay on progressive FM radio. The band recorded more material than they could fit on the LP, however, and the track Henry's Shuffle, written by Vestine, remained unreleased until Capitol issued a greatest hits CD in 2005.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: I Love Everybody
Source: LP: Second Winter
Writer(s): Johnny Winter
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
Following the success of Johnny Winter's self-titled Columbia debut LP, the guitarist went to work on a followup LP with a slightly expanded lineup. In addition to future Double Trouble member Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums, the group featured Winter's brother Edgar on keyboards. When it came time to set the final track lineup, however, they realized they had recorded more material than they could fit on a standard LP, but not enough for a double album. Not wanting to leave any of the material they had recorded off the album, they decided to release Second Winter as a three-sided LP (the fourth side being left totally blank). Although not a conventional solution, a listen to tracks like I Love Everybody (which opens side three of the LP) shows that it was totally justified.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Sookie Sookie
Source: CD: Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Covay/Cropper
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
For years I was under the impression that the follow-up single to Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild was Magic Carpet Ride, from the album Steppenwolf The Second. I was wrong. In fact, Born To Be Wild was not even the first single released from the band's first LP. That honor goes to A Girl I Knew, which was released in 1967, several months before the first Steppenwolf album hit the record racks. The third single from that debut LP was Sookie Sookie, the opening track of the album. The song, co-written by Steve Cropper, had been a minor R&B hit for Don Covay before coming to the attention of Steppenwolf, who cranked up the volume for their version of the tune.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Baby, You're A Rich Man
Source: LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
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: Herman's Hermits
Title: Listen People
Source: Mono CD: Their Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
Herman's Hermits were unique among British Invasion groups in that they were far more popular in the US than they were in their native land. Several of their best-known songs, such as Listen People, were not even released as singles in the UK. The song itself was written by Graham Gouldman, who was also responsible for hits for the Yardbirds (For Your Love/Heart Full Of Soul) and the Hollies (Look Through Any Window/ Bus Stop), despite the fact that he was unable to get any records by his own band, the Mockingbirds, on the charts.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Rock And Roll Woman
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth). Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Neil Young, Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Stephen Stills. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock and Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 40 years after it was recorded.
Artist: Action
Title: Only Dreaming
Source: German import CD: Mighty Baby
Writer(s): Ian Whiteman
Label: Big Beat
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1993
Formed in 1965, the Action was a North London band best known for their dead-on covers of then-current US R&B crossover hits. Producer George Martin signed the band to his own Air Productions, and the band issued five singles on the Parlophone label from 1965-67. The band, which by late 1966 was starting to sound more like a California band, was dropped by the label before releasing a sixth single, and went into hibernation for several months, adding a new member, keyboardist/flautist Ian Whiteman, and developing a more jazz-influenced improvisational style. The group, which at that point also included guitarists Bam King and Martin Stone, bassist Michael Evans and drummer Roger Powell, eventually resurfaced under a new name, Mighty Baby, releasing their first LP in 1969. The band had not been completely inactive in the intervening years, however. Shortly after Whiteman joined, the Action made several studio recordings that acquired legendary status over the years before finally being released on a mini-LP in 1985 with no documentation whatsoever. The recordings, including the track Only Dreaming, were finally reissued in the EU in 1993 as bonus tracks on the CD version of the Mighty Baby album.
Artist: Fat Water
Title: Mistress De Charmaign
Source: Promo LP: Fat Water
Writer(s): Boris
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1969
Virtually nothing is known about the band called Fat Water, other than a) they were probably from somewhere outside the Chicago area, b) they only used their first names, even on songwriting credits, and c) they released one self-titled LP on the M-G-M label in 1969. Mistress De Charmaign, written by Boris the bassist, is one of the more listenable tracks on the LP.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Dupree's Diamond Blues
Source: CD: Aoxomoxoa
Writer(s): Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1969
The third Grateful Dead LP, Aoxomoxoa, was one of the first albums to be recorded using state-of-the-art sixteen track equipment, and the band, in the words of guitarist Jerry Garcia, "tended to put too much on everything...A lot of the music was just lost in the mix, a lot of what was really there." Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh would return to the master tapes in 1971, remixing the entire album for the version that has appeared on vinyl and CD ever since then. All of the music on the LP, including Dupree's Diamon Blues (which was also released as a single) is credited to guitarist Jerry Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh, with lyrics by poet Robert Hunter.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: April
Source: LP: Deep Purple
Writer(s): Blackmore/Lord
Label: Tetragrammaton
Year: 1969
The most ambitious track on the third Deep Purple album was a piece called April. The track, which runs over twelve minutes in length, is divided into three sections. The first is an instrumental featuring keyboardist Jon Lord and guitarist Richie Blackmore, the writers of the piece. This leads into an orchestral section featuring strings and woodwinds. The final section of April features the entire band, including vocalist Rod Evans, who would be leaving Deep Purple shortly after the album was released.
Artist: Who
Title: Magic Bus
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1968
While working on their landmark Tommy album, the Who continued to crank out singles throughout 1968. One of the most popular was Magic Bus, a song that remained in the band's live repertoire for many years. Like most of the Who's pre-Tommy singles, the song was never mixed in true stereo, although a fake stereo mix was created for the US-only LP Magic Bus-The Who On Tour. The original mono version of the song heard here is also shorter than the LP version, clocking in at slightly over three minutes.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Winds Of Change
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: BGO (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
In late 1966 the original Animals disbanded, and Eric Burdon began working on a new solo album called Eric Is Here. Unsatisfied with the results of the pratject, Burdon set about creating a new version of the Animals, which was at first known as the New Animals but would soon come to be called Eric Burdon And The Animals. The new band's first LP was Winds of Change, an ambitious album 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 album's title track, which opens the LP, 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: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nagle/Cuff
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds of Silence)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK, and were deleted at Simon's request.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Plastic Fantastic Lover
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
Following the success of Somebody To Love, Jefferson Airplane quickly followed up with their third single from the Surrealistic Pillow album, White Rabbit. Although it didn't get the same amount of top 40 airplay, Marty Balin's Plastic Fantastic Lover, issued as the B side of White Rabbit, has proved just as enduring as the A side. So much so that, when the Airplane reunited in 1989 and issued their two-disc retrospective, 2400 Fulton Street, they issued a special pressing of both songs on white vinyl as a way of promoting the collection. More recently, Sundazed has reissued the entire Surrealistic Pillow album in its original mono mix, which differs considerably from the more familiar stereo version.
Artist: Del Shannon
Title: Magical Musical Box
Source: British import CD: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover
Writer(s): Shannon/Perkins
Label: BGO (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Del Shannon managed to keep active in the recording studio for many years after hitting the top of the charts in the early 1960s with songs like Runaway and Hats Off To Larry. One of the ways he did this was by adapting to the times rather than try to coast on his early fame. His 1968 LP, The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover (his birth name), can be described as psychedelia with strings, as typified by songs like Magical Musical Box, which was also issued as a B side that year.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Long Gone Geek
Source: LP: The Best Of Procol Harum (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid/Fisher
Label: A&M
Year: 1969
The last Procol Harum record with Matthew Fisher on organ was a single called Long Gone Geek. The tune, released in 1969, was co-written by Fisher, along with the band's regular writers Gary Brooker and Keith Reid.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Hey, Hey, What Can I Do
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1970
In their entire existence Led Zeppelin only issued one non-album track. Hey, Hey, What Can I Do was originally released as the B side of the Immigrant Song in 1970, and was not available in any other form until 1990, when it was included in the first Led Zeppelin box set. It has since been made available as a bonus track on the Led Zeppelin III CD.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Crosstown Traffic
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
By 1968 it didn't matter one bit whether the Jimi Hendrix Experience had any hit singles; their albums were guaranteed to be successful. Nonetheless the Electric Ladyland album had no less that three singles on it (although one was a new stereo mix of a 1967 single). The first single to be released concurrently with Electric Ladyland was Crosstown Traffic, a song that has been included on several anthologies over the years.
Artist: Oracle
Title: Don't Say No
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single).
Writer(s): Ruthann Friedmann
Label: Rhino
Year: 1968
Before the days of arena rock, with two or three bands touring together and putting on virtually the same show night after night, headliner bands often looked to local talent for their opening act, making each stop on the tour a unique event. Sometimes the local opening band made enough of an impression to create a path to stardom for themselves as well, or at least to get a record contract. Take the case of a Lake Charles, Lousiana band known locally as the Great Society. Although they had not made any records, they had developed enough of a reputation to be able to score gigs across the state line in East Texas. One of those gigs was opening for the Music Machine in mid 1967. The Music Machine, at this point, was experiencing the frustration of being unable to score a successful follow up to their 1966 hit Talk Talk and was on the verge of dissolving, with the various individual members starting to explore other options. Among those members was bassist Keith Olsen, who liked Great Society enough to convince them to come out to Los Angeles and let Olsen produce them. Things did not go exactly as planned, however, as a bad acid trip left the band in no shape to cut a record. Olsen, however, working with co-producer Curt Boettcher, did get the group to provide vocals for a studio project the two of them were working on, a Ruthann Friedmann song called Don't Say No. As there had already been a band in California called Great! Society as recently as 1966, it was decided to rename the group the Oracle for the release of Don't Say No on the Verve Forecast label in 1968. Although the record was not a hit, it did help open doors for Olsen, who would go on to discover and produce the duo known as Buckingham Nicks, along with their breakthrough album as members of Fleetwood Mac. Since then Olsen has become one of the top producers in the history of rock music, working with such well known artists as the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, Eddie Money, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Heart, Joe Walsh, Starship, Santana, Kim Carnes, Jethro Tull, The Babys, Ozzy Osbourne, the Scorpions, .38 Special, Bad Company, Sammy Hagar, Russ Ballard, Whitesnake, Foreigner, Sheena Easton, Journey, Loverboy, and Lou Gramm. Not bad for a bass player.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: The Look Of Love
Source: Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Bacharach/David
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
For a group known as one of the original album-rock bands, Vanilla Fudge had an inordinately high number of tracks that were only released on 45 RPM vinyl. Among these was a Fudged up version of Bert Bacharach and Hal David's The Look Of Love. Dusty Springfield had already made the song famous, and the group decided to put it on the B side of a song they wrote themselves called Where Is My Mind as their second single, released in early 1968.
Artist: Les Fleur De Lys
Title: Circles
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Rhino (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1966
Circles was a song by the Who that was originally slated to be released in the UK on the Brunswick label as a follow-up to the highly successful My Generation. A dispute between the band and the label and their producer, Shel Talmy, led to the Who switching labels and releasing another song, Substitute, in its place, with Circles (retitled Instant Party) on the B side of the record. When Talmy slapped the band with a legal injunction, the single was withdrawn, and another band, Les Fleur De Lys, took advantage of the situation, recording their own version of Circles and releasing it on the Immediate label. Just to make things more confusing Brunswick issued the Who's version of Circles as the B side of A Legal Matter later the same month.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Page/McCarty
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from their blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. The band had recently picked up a new producer, Mickey Most, known mostly for his work with Herman's Hermits and the original Animals. Most had a tendency to concentrate solely on the band's single A sides, leaving Page an opportunity to develop his own songwriting and production skills on songs such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, a track that also shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style (including an instrumental break played with a violin bow) that would help define 70s rock.
Artist: Traffic
Title: (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM B side and on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s): Capaldi/Winwood
Label: United Artists
Year: 1968
The second Traffic album saw the band taking in a broader set of influences, including traditional English folk music. (Roamin' Through The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released as the B side to the Dave Mason tune No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
Detroit was one of the major centers of pop music in the late 60s. In addition to the myriad Motown acts, the area boasted the popular retro-rock&roll band Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the harder rocking Bob Seger System, the non-Motown R&B band the Capitols, and Ted Nugent's outfit, the Amboy Dukes, who scored big in 1968 with Journey To The Center Of The Mind.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: We Love You
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
After the less than stellar chart performance of the LP Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Stones decided to pull out all the stops with a double 'A' sided single. We Love You was their most expensive production ever, and included a promotional film that is considered a forerunner of the modern music video. Oddly enough, the other side of the record, Dandelion, ended up getting more airplay, at least in the US.
Artist: Love
Title: My Little Red Book
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Bacharach/David
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
The first rock record ever released by Elektra Records was a single by Love called My Little Red Book. The track itself (which also opens Love's debut LP), is a punked out version of a tune originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the What's New Pussycat movie soundtrack. Needless to say, Love's version was not exactly what Burt Bacharach and Hal David had in mind.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Title: Tales Of Lucy Blue (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Source: LP: Ramblin' Gamblin' Man
Writer: Bob Seger
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
For many years the only Bob Seger record I owned was the single Ramblin' Gamblin' Man that I bought new in 1969 at the Base Exchange at Ramstein Air Force Base Germany for about 50 cents. The B side was the song Tales of Lucy Blue. After that single disappeared from my collection I never bought another Bob Seger record (although I did score a promo copy of Turn The Page from a radio station I was working at in the mid 90s). More recently I was allowed to pillage the WEOS vinyl archives (found on the Hobart and William Smith campus in a storage area in one of the dorms) and found this copy of the Ramblin' Gamblin' Man album. The cover features a young blond woman dressed in blue satin against a blue background. It turns out that the album (Seger's first) was originally going to be titled Tales of Lucy Blue but was changed at the last minute by the shirts at Capitol in order to capitalize on the popularity of the single that I had bought a copy of. Luckily they didn't change the cover art as well, as a picture of Seger in blue satin probably wouldn't have worked.
Artist: Odyssey
Title: Little Girl, Little Boy
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jerry Berke
Label: Rhino
Year: 1968
As far as I can tell, the Odyssey, a band of L.A. garage-rockers, only cut one record before disbanding, a tune called Little Girl, Little Boy that appeared on White Whale Records. The record was produced by Howard Kaylan, lead vocalist of White Whale's biggest act, the Turtles.
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