Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1548 (starts 11/25/15)

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    Woodstock
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    It's somewhat ironic that the most famous song about the Woodstock Music and Art Festival was written by someone who was not even at the event. Joni Mitchell had been advised by her manager that she would be better off appearing on the Dick Cavett show that weekend, so she stayed in her New York City hotel room and watched televised reports of what was going on up at Max Yasgur's farm. Further inspiration came from her then-boyfried Graham Nash, who shared his firsthand experiences of the festival with Mitchell. The song was first released on the 1970 album Ladies Of The Canyon, and was made famous the same year when it was chosen to be the first single released from the Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young album déjà vu. The CSNY version peaked just outside of the Billboard top 10.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Humpty's Blues/American Woman (Epilogue)
Source:    LP: American Woman
Writer(s):    Bachman/Cummings/Peterson/Kale
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1970
    Guitarist Randy Bachman of the Guess Who was, in the words of lead vocalist Burton Cummings, "chomping at the bit" to use some new guitar effects equipment he had acquired (fuzz boxes and Herzog sustain pedals, mostly). So the rest of the band obliged him by coming up with a Led Zeppelin style blues number called Humpty's Blues. Cummings's lyrics for the song were about the band's drummer, Garry Peterson, who had somehow acquired the nickname "Humpty Mix". The finished song ended up being the longest track on the album, which, combined with a short reprise of the opening section of American Woman, closes out the Guess Who's most popular album.

Artist:    Tangerine Dream
Title:    Ashes To Ashes
Source:    British import CD: Electronic Meditation (originally released in Germany)
Writer(s):    Schnitzler/Froese/Schultze
Label:    Reactive/Esoteric (original German label: Ohr)
Year:    1970
            Tangerine Dream is generally acknowledged to be the band that started the entire electronic rock genre. Although they became famous for their use of synthesizers, their first LP, Electronic Meditation, was recorded in a rented factory in Berlin in October 1969, using just a two-track Revox tape recorder. It was the only album recorded by the group's original lineup of Edgar Froese, Klaus Schulze, and Conrad Schnitzler. The album itself is highly experimental, with the most accessible piece being Ashes To Ashes.
       
Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Mr. Farmer
Source:    LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer:    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    With two tracks (Can't Seem To Make You Mine and Pushin' Too Hard) from their first album getting decent airplay on L.A. radio stations in 1966 the Seeds headed back to the studio to record a second LP, A Web Of Sound. The first single released from the album was Mr. Farmer, a song that once again did well locally. The song has long been rumored to be a subtly-disguised drug song but songwriter/bandleader Sky Saxon would never either confirm or deny the possibility.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    No Escape
Source:    Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs 1965-1970 (originally released on LP: The Seeds and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Saxon/Savage/Lawrence
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    L.A.'s Seeds released their first album in 1966, following up on the local success of their first single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine, the previous year. Several more singles followed, including Mr. Farmer in December of 1966. For some unknown reason (a stylistic similarity to Pushin' Too Hard, perhaps?) No Escape, a song from the band's first album, was initially chosen for the B side of that single, despite the fact that the group's second LP, A Web Of Sound, was released around the same time. Whatever the reason, Mr. Farmer was reissued with a different B side the following month.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Tripmaker
Source:    LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s):    Tybalt/Hooper
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    For some strange reason whenever I hear the song Tripmaker from the second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, I am reminded of a track from the Smash Mouth album Astro Lounge. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which one came first.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Capt. Glory
Source:    CD: Underground
Writer(s):    James Lowe
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
        Electric Prunes lead vocalist James Lowe says one of his favorite vocals on the second Electric Prunes album, Underground, was on the song called Capt. Glory. Although he cites the song's "loose, silly" quality, my cynical side thinks it may have something to do with the fact that it is the only track on the album with writing credits going solely to Lowe himself.
       
Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Lucifer Sam
Source:    Mono CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Beyond a shadow of a doubt the original driving force behind Pink Floyd was the legendary Syd Barrett. Not only did he front the band during their rise to fame, he also wrote their first two singles, Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, as well as most of their first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. In fact it could be argued that one of the songs on that album, Lucifer Sam, could have just as easily been issued as a single, as it is stylistically similar to the first two songs. Sadly, Barrett's mental health deteriorated quickly over the next year and his participation in the making of the band's next LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, was minimal. He soon left the group altogether, never to return (although several of his former bandmates did participate in the making of his 1970 solo album, The Madcap Laughs).

Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Mr. Soul
Source:     LP: Buffalo Springfield Again
Writer:     Neil Young
Label:     Atco
Year:     1967
     Executives at Atco Records originally considered Neil Young's voice "too weird" to be recorded. As a result many of Young's early tunes (including the band's debut single Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing), were sung by Richie Furay. By the time the band's second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released, the band had enough clout to make sure Young was allowed to sing his own songs. In fact, the album starts with a Young vocal on the classic Mr. Soul.

Artist:    Peter, Paul And Mary
Title:    Puff
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Yarrow/Lipton
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1963
    If Peter, Paul and Mary's Puff doesn't put you in touch with your inner child, chances are nothing will. The 1963 classic about a childhood friend (who happens to be a magic dragon) has long been considered one of the most memorable tunes to come out the folk music movement of the late 50s-early 60s and helped to cement the trio of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers' reputation as one of those rare acts whose appeal transcends the generational gap.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    She Said Yeah
Source:    The Animals On Tour
Writer(s):    Elias McDaniel
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1965
    The Animals' second US album, On Tour, is made up almost entirely of covers of songs originally recorded by US blues artists like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley. One example is She Said Yeah, which appears toward the end of the album. The song was credited on the label as being written by Diddley, although some of my sources contradict this. Whatver the case, it is almost certain that Diddley (real name Elias McDaniel), was the first to record the tune.
       
Artist:    Kim Fowley
Title:    Strangers From The Sky
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Fowley/Lloyd
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The 1960s Los Angeles music scene contained more than its share of colorful characters, so it takes quite a bit to stand out from even that group. Kim Fowley, however, definitely fits the bill, as he is more than willing to tell anyone who will listen. His first claim to fame is being the voice of the Hollyood Argyles, a studio concoction that had a huge hit with the novelty song Alley Oop in the early 1960s. Fowley met prodigy Michael Lloyd when Lloyd was only 13, and immediately recognized his potential. In late 1966 he was instrumental in hooking Lloyd up with the Harris brothers and local hipster Bob Markley, who together formed the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It was while a member of the WCPAEB that Lloyd produced Fowley's Strangers From The Sky, recorded in Lloyd's own home 4-track studio with Lloyd playing all the instruments himself. In it's own way, Strangers From The Sky is every bit as bizarre as Alley Oop, although nowhere near as successful on the charts.    
       
Artist:     Cream
Title:     N.S.U.
Source:     LP: Fresh Cream
Writer:     Jack Bruce
Label:     Atco
Year:     1966
     The first Cream album starts off the with powerful one-two punch of I Feel Free and N.S.U. Although I Feel Free was a purely studio creation that never got performed live, N.S.U. became a staple of the band's concert performances, and was even performed by various other bands that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce was a member of over the years.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes
Source:    Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s):    Blind Willie Johnson
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1966
    One lasting legacy of the British Invasion was the re-introduction to the US record-buying public to the songs of early Rhythm and Blues artists such as Blind Willie Johnson. This emphasis on classic blues in particular would lead to the formation of electric blues-based US bands such as the Butterfield Blues Band and the Blues Project. Unlike the Butterfields, who made a conscious effort to remain true to their Chicago-style blues roots, the Blues Project was always looking for new ground to cover, which ultimately led to them developing an improvisational style that would be emulated by west coast bands such as the Grateful Dead, and by Project member Al Kooper, who conceived and produced the first rock jam LP ever, Super Session, in 1968. As the opening track to their second (and generally considered best) LP Projections, I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes served notice that this was a new kind of blues, louder and brasher than what had come before, yet tempered with Kooper's melodic vocal style. An added twist was the use during the song's instrumental bridge of an experimental synthesizer known among band members as the "Kooperphone", probably the first use of any type of synthesizer in a blues record.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    I'm Gonna Make You Mine
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bayer/Carr/D'errico
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Possibly the loudest rockin' recordings of 1966 came from the Shadows of Knight. A product of the Chicago suburbs, the Shadows (as they were originally known) quickly established a reputation as the region's resident bad boy rockers (lead vocalist Jim Sohns was reportedly banned from more than one high school campus for his attempts at increasing the local teen pregnancy rate). After signing a record deal with the local Dunwich label, the band learned that there was already a band called the Shadows and added the Knight part (after their own high school sports teams' name). Their first single was a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that changed one line ("around here" in place of "up to my room") and thus avoided the mass radio bannings that had derailed the original Them version. I'm Gonna Make You Mine was the follow up to Gloria, but its lack of commercial success consigned the Shadows to one-hit wonder status until years after the band's breakup, when they finally got the recognition they deserved as one of the founding bands of garage/punk, and perhaps its greatest practicioner.

Artist:        Randy Newman
Title:        Last Night I Had A Dream
Source:      Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:        Randy Newman
Label:        Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:        1968
        Randy Newman has, over the course of the past fifty-plus years, established himself as a Great American Writer of Songs. His work includes dozens of hit singles (over half of which were performed by other artists), nearly two dozen movie scores and eleven albums as a solo artist. Newman has won five Grammys, as well as two Oscars and Three Emmys. Last Night I Had A Dream was Newman's second single for the Reprise label  (his third overall), coming out the same year as his first LP, which did not include the song.

Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Fanfare-Fire Poem/Fire
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Writer(s):    Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label:    Polydor (mono version not released in US)
Year:    1968
    By 1968, mono pressings of albums were almost non-existent in the US, as most record players could play either stereo or mono LPs without doing any damage to the record itself. This was not this case in the UK, however, where a greater percentage of record buyers still had older mon equipment that could ruin a stereo record. As a result, producers in the UK continued to concentrate on making monoraul mixes, often not even creating stereo mixes at all. One such case was The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. When the master tapes were sent over to the US, the engineers at Atlantic Records created their own stereo mixes for American release. The people at Atlantic, however, were not happy with the overall sound of the record, and made extensive changes to side one of the album, including the addition of strings and the deletion of short audio bits between tracks. The band's drummer, Drachen Theaker, was especially upset with the changes, as he felt his drums were buried in the new mix. According to Brown, when the band first heard an acetate copy of the new mix, Theaker jumped over a table, took the record off the turntable and smashed it on the wall. The version of Fanfare-Fire Poem and the song Fire heard here is actually an alternate version of the original mono mix.

Artist:    Liquid Scene
Title:    The Mad Potter Of Biloxi
Source:    CD: Revolutions
Writer(s):    becki diGregorio
Label:    Ziglain
Year:    2014
            In March of 2015 I received an e-mail from Vincent Sanchez, who had been involved in the making of an album called Revolutions by a band called Liquid Scene that had been released in December of 2014. I invited him to send me a copy of the album and was highly impressed with the CD. I had already been toying with the idea of finding a way to occasionally work newer psychedelic/garage rock material into the show, and listening to Liquid Scene was just the push I needed to create a new segment called Advanced Psych. Like the rest of Liquid Scene's material, The Mad Potter of Biloxi was written by multi-instrumentalist bodhi (becki diGregorio), who also sings on the tune.

Artist:    King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
Title:    Paper Mache
Source:    CD: Paper Mache Dream Balloon
Writer(s):    King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
Label:    ATO
Year:    2015
    The final track on the latest CD by King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard is an instrumental called Paper Mache. It's a nice sounding track featuring lots of flute. In fact, it's so nice the band decided to play it again. At double speed. And again, and quadruple speed. And one more time so fast that it sounds more like a dog whistle than a piece of music (although it might sound like music to a dog). Then it all gets blowed up real good.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Subterranean Homesick Blues
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    1965 was the year Bob Dylan went electric, and got his first top 40 hit, Subterranean Homesick Blues, in the process. Although the song, which also led off his Bringing It All Back Home album, stalled out in the lower 30s, it did pave the way for electrified cover versions of Dylan songs by the Byrds and Turtles and Dylan's own Like A Rolling Stone, which would revolutionize top 40 radio. A line from the song itself, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", became the inspiration for a radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that called itself the Weathermen (later the Weather Underground).

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Let's Spend The Night Together
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    When Let's Spend The Night Together was climbing the charts, the Rolling Stones made one of their many appearances on the Ed Sullivan show. The show's producers (or maybe Ed himself) asked Mick Jagger to change the words to "Let's Spend Some Time Together", and he actually complied! I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now (nor can I imagine the band agreeing to it).

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Mandrake Root
Source:    LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Evans/Lord
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    Deep Purple was formed in early 1968 by former Searchers drummer Chris Curtis, who recruited organist Jon Lord and guitarist Richie Blackmore, then left to go do something else. Blackmore and Lord added bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice, as well as frontman Rod Evans, to complete the band's first lineup. The group's debut LP, Shades Of Deep Purple, was recorded in three days in May of 1968. One of the four original compositions on the album was a song called Mandrake Root, which was also the name of the band that Blackmore had been trying to put together in Germany before hooking up with Deep Purple. The song started off as an instrumental, but Evans added lyrics to the tune during rehearsals just prior to the band going into the studio to record.

Artist:    Infinity
Title:    Venetian Glass
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution
Writer(s):    Baldwin/De Costa/Calver/Chesterton)
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2013
    Infinity was formed in 1969 and quickly became a popular opening act for such groups as Marmalade and the Searchers. Between gigs they worked on a concept album to be called "Science? Fiction!", but were unable to find a record company willing to take a chance on a band that mixed progressive rock and light pop. One of the tracks that was completed before the band split up was Venetian Glass, a song that captures the group's sound fairly accurately.
       
Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Today
Source:    CD: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    BMG/RCA
Year:    1967
    Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to Today, an early collaboration between rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner and bandleader Marty Balin on Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Let Go Of You Girl
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Cameron/Martin/Brown
Label:    Sundazed/Smash
Year:    1967
    Most of the tracks on the Left Banke album Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina were played by studio musicians rather than members of the band itself. There were, however, two tracks that featured only the band members themselves. One of those tracks, Lazy Day, was also issued as the B side of the group's second single. The other was Let Go Of You Girl, which is only available as an album cut.
       
Artist:    Love
Title:    Alone Again Or
Source:    Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1967
    The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Waltz Of The Flies
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Tom Lane
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    Once you get past the facts that 1) this a band best known as the starting place of a singer (Van Morrison) who was no longer with the group by the time this album was recorded, and 2) this album came out on Tower Records, the audio equilivant of AIP movie studios, you can appreciate the fact that Time Out! Time In! For Them is actually a pretty decent album.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Magic Carpet Ride
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s):    Moreve/Kay
Label:    Priority (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:     Frumious Bandersnatch
Title:     Hearts To Cry
Source:     British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on self-titled EP)
Writer:     Jack King
Label:     Big Beat (original label: Muggles Gramophone Works)
Year:     1968
     Rock music and the real estate business have something in common: location can make all the difference. Take the San Francisco Bay Area. You have one of the world's great Cosmopolitan cities at the north end of a peninsula. South of the city, along the peninsula itself you have mostly redwood forest land interspersed with fairly affluent communities along the way to Silicon Valley and the city of San Jose at the south end of the bay. The eastern side of the bay, on the other hand, spans a socio-economic range from blue collar to ghetto and is politically conservative; not exactly the most receptive environment for a hippy band calling itself Frumious Bandersnatch, which is a shame, since they had at least as much talent as any other band in the area. Unable to develop much of a following, they are one of the great "should have beens" of the psychedelic era, as evidenced by Hearts To Cry, the lead track of their 1968 untitled EP.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Feelin' Alright
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s):    Dave Mason
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    Although Traffic is generally known as an early underground rock band heard mostly on progressive FM stations in the US, the band had its share of hit singles in its native England as well. Many of these early hits were written by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, who would leave the band in 1968, only to return for the live Welcome To The Canteen album before leaving again, this time for good. One of Mason's most memorable songs was Feelin' Alright, from Traffic's self-titled second LP. The song very quickly became a rock standard when Joe Cocker sped it up and made it his own signature song. Grand Funk Railroad slowed it back down and scored a hit with their version in 1971, and Mason himself got some airplay with a new solo recording of the song later in the decade. Even comedian John Belushi got into the act with his dead-on cover of Cocker's version of the song on the Saturday Night Live TV show.