Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1605 (starts 1/27/16)

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Come Together
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    After the Beatles released their 1968 double LP (the so-called White Album), they went to work on their final film project, a documentary about the band making an album. Unfortunately, what the cameras captured was a group on the verge of disintegration, and both the album and the film itself were shelved indefinitely. Instead, the band went to work recording an entirely new group of compositions. Somehow, despite the internal difficulties the band was going through, they managed to turn out a masterpiece: Abbey Road. Before the album itself came out, a single was released. The official A side was George Harrison's Something, the first Harrison song ever to be released as a Beatle A side. The other side was the song that opened the album itself, John Lennon's Come Together. In later years Come Together came to be Lennon's signature song and was a staple of his live performances.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Oh! Darling
Source:    CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1969
    Paul McCartney reportedly recorded vocals for the Abbey Road track Oh! Darling on several consecutive days (always using the first take) in an effort to make it sound like he had been performing it night after night in a club. In an interview shortly before his death, former bandmate John Lennon had this to say about the song: "Oh! Darling was a great one of Paul's that he didn't sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better—it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he's going to sing it."

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Abbey Road Medley #1
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    Much of the second side of the last album to be recorded by the Beatles, Abbey Road, is taken up by (depending on whose view you take) either one long medley or two not-quite-so-long medleys of songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Personally I take the former view, as there is just a bit too much quiet space at the end of She Came In Through The Bathroom Window for me to consider it linked to the next song, Golden Slumbers. Regardless, the whole thing starts with You Never Give Me Your Money, a Paul McCartney composition reputed to be a jab at the band's second (and last) manager, Allen Klein. This leads into three John Lennon pieces, Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam, ending finally with another McCartney piece, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, that was inspired by a real life break-in by an overzealous Beatle fan.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The Crystal Ship
Source:    CD: The Doors
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Ever feel like you've discovered something really special that nobody else (among your circle of friends at any rate) knows about? At first you kind of want to keep it to yourself, but soon you find yourself compelled to share it with everyone you know. Such was the case when, in the early summer of 1967, I used my weekly allowance to buy copies of a couple of songs I had heard on the American Forces Network (AFN). As usual, it wasn't long before I was flipping the records over to hear what was on the B sides. I liked the first one well enough (a song by Buffalo Springfield called Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, the B side of For What It's Worth), but it was the second one, the B side of the Doors' Light My Fire, that really got to me. To this day I consider The Crystal Ship to be one of the finest slow rock songs ever recorded.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Bleak City Woman
Source:    LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic
Year:    1967
    Donovan is one of those rare artists whose early work actually sounds less dated than their later efforts. Although no one can say for sure why this is, I suspect it may have something to do with Donovan's trying to live up to what was expected of him, both from fans and members of the press, who, following the success of Sunshine Superman, tried to set the singer/songwriter up as some sort of hippy messiah, similar to Bob Dylan. Before long, Donovan found himself making trips to India with the Beatles and writing Aquarian anthems like Wear Your Love Like Heaven and Atlantis. Before succumbing to all this, however, he put out one fine album in the form of Mellow Yellow in early 1967. Like Sunshine Superman, Mellow Yellow is an adventurous album, mixing folk, psychedelic rock and old-time jazz in unique configurations. Even the arguably weakest track on the LP, Bleak City Woman, stands above 90% of what was being released at the time (and closer to 100% of what has come out this century).

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Apples And Oranges
Source:    CD: An Introduction To Syd Barrett (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    The third Pink Floyd single, Apples And Oranges, was also the last one written by Syd Barrett. Recorded in stereo but released in mono, the record suffered from muddy production on the mono mix and failed to chart. The band's US label, Tower, chose not to issue the song at all, instead releasing the tune Flaming as a single. The much better sounding stereo mix of Apples And Oranges remained unreleased for several years, but is now available on a CD called An Introduction To Syd Barrett as well as the 40th anniversary edition of the first Pink Floyd album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
       
Artist:      Rolling Stones
Title:     On With the Show
Source:      LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:     London
Year:     1967
     The Rolling Stones' psychedelic period came to an abrupt end with the release of Their Satanic Majesties Request in late 1967. Although it sold well at first, it was critically panned and soon dropped off the charts. Considering the ultimate longevity of the Stones, the title of the last track on the LP, On With The Show, seems positively prophetic today.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Badge
Source:    CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s):    Clapton/Harrison
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    Famously co-written by Eric Clapton and a psuedononomous George Harrison, Badge remains one of the best-loved songs in Clapton's repertoir. Both guitarists are featured prominently on this recording. Felix Pappaliardi (the unofficial 4th member of Cream and co-founder of Mountain) plays the tinkly piano.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sleepy Time Time
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Godfrey
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Doing That Scrapyard Thing
Source:    CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    In its original form, the album Goodbye Cream had three new studio tracks on it, one for each member of the band. Jack Bruce's contribution was Doing That Scrapyard Thing, co-written (as were the majority of Bruce's compositions) by poet Pete Brown. Lyrics don't get much more psychedelic than this.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day
Source:    LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s):    Tommy Boyce
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Tommy Boyce actually had a songwriting career separate from his many collaborations with Bobby Hart. One of his early songs was Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day, which was first recorded as a single by the Colorado-based Astronauts (which gave producer Steve Venet co-writing credit) before getting included on the first Monkees album. Along the way the song got recorded by a handful of garage bands, including Chicago's Shadows Of Knight, whose version closely parallels the Astronauts' original.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Fire
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Although never released as a single, Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener.
   
Artist:    Ultimate Spinach
Title:    Baroque # 1
Source:    LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer(s):    Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1967
    Of the six major US record labels of the time, only two, Decca and M-G-M, failed to sign any San Francisco bands. Decca, which had been bought by MCA in the early 60s, was fast fading as a major force in the industry (ironic considering that Universal, the direct descendant of MCA, is now the world's largest record company). M-G-M, on the other hand, had a strong presence on the Greenwich Village scene thanks to Jerry Schoenbaum at the Verve Forecast label, who had signed such critically-acclaimed artists as Dave Van Ronk, Tim Hardin and the Blues Project. Taking this as an inspiration, the parent label decided to create interest in the Boston music scene, aggressively promoting (some would say hyping) the "Boss-Town Sound". One of the bands signed was Ultimate Spinach, which was led by keyboardist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote all the band's material, including the instrumental Baroque # 1.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Shotgun
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Autry DeWalt
Label:    Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
           For their fourth LP, Vanilla Fudge returned to the formula that they found their original success with for the album Near The Beginning. Whereas their third LP, Renaissance, contained mostly original material, Near The Beginning was dominated by an extended version of the Junior Walker hit Shotgun. The single version of the song, which the group performed on the Ed Sullivan show, was the group's last song to hit the Billboard top 100, peaking at # 68. According to drummer Carmine Appice, it was the Vanilla Fudge version of Shotgun that convinced Jeff Beck to later form a band with Appice and bassist Tim Bogert.
       
Artist:    Move
Title:    Flowers In The Rain
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Roy Wood
Label:    A&M
Year:    1967
    The Move was one of Britain's most popular acts in the mid to late 1960s. That popularity, however, did not extend to North America, where the band failed to chart even a single hit. The closest they came was Flowers In The Rain, a song that made it to the # 2 spot in England and was the very first record played on BBC Radio One (the first legal top 40 station in the UK). Eventually Roy Wood would depart to form his own band, Roy Wood's Wizzard, and the remaining members would evolve into the Electric Light Orchestra.

Artist:    Tol-Puddle Martyrs
Title:    Psych-Out USA
Source:    Australian import CD: Psych-Out USA
Writer(s):    Rechter/McCoy
Label:    Secret Deals
Year:    2007
    Tol-Puddle Martyrs evolved out of an earlier Australian band, Peter And The Silhouettes, that contributed a pair of tunes to a 1966 anthology album showcasing bands from Northern Victoria. As the Martyrs they recorded a handful of singles that saw some airplay on local radio. Bandleader Peter Rechter then went on to front several other bands over the years, eventually reforming the Martyrs in the 21st century. They have released three CDs since reforming, the first of which is Psych-Out USA, released in 2007.
       
Artist:    Splinterfish
Title:    Milo's Sunset
Source:    LP: Splinterfish
Writer(s):    Chuck Hawley
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    Albuquerque, NM, like most medium-sized cities, had a vibrant club scene throughout the rock and roll era, with many of these clubs featuring live music. Until the late 1980s, however, very few bands were able to find gigs performing their own material. This began to change, however, with the emergence of alternative bands such as Jerry's Kidz and F.O.R., and underground venues such as the Club REC and the refurbished El Rey theater. One of the best bands to emerge at this time was Splinter Fish. Formed by guitarist/vocalist Chuck Hawley in 1988, the band also featured Jeff Bracey on bass, former F.O.R. member Deb-O on vocals, and the prolific Zoom Crespin on drums. The group released one self-titled LP in 1989, which featured a strong set of tunes, including Milo's Sunset, a song somewhat reminiscent of the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     D.C.B.A.-25
Source:     Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer:     Paul Kantner
Label:     Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:     1967
     D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25"...it was 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    White Rabbit
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer:    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Embryonic Journey
Source:    Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s):    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1967
    Jorma Kaukonen originally considered Embryonic Journey to be little more than a practice exercise. Other members of Jefferson Airplane insisted he record it, however, and it has since come to be identified as a kind of signature song for the guitarist, who played the tune live when the band was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

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:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    All Is One
Source:    CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 it was pretty obvious that Eric Burdon And The Animals were far more popular in the US than in their native England. The group had moved its base of operations to California, where their second LP, The Twain Shall Meet, was recorded. The album was about as psychedelic as anything ever recorded, and included two hit singles, Monterey and Sky Pilot. Each side of the original LP played as a continuous suite of songs, with the first side consisting of five songs while the second had three longer tracks. The final section of side two is a piece called All Is One, which features a unique blend of rock instrumentation combined with sitar, bagpipes, studio effects, and drone vocals that builds to a frenetic climax, followed by a spoken line by Burdon to end the album.

Artist:    Butterfield Blues Band
Title:    Two Trains Running
Source:    CD: East-West
Writer(s):    McKinley Morganfield
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    By the 1960s, the blues had fallen out of favor with its traditional audience base. Jazz adherents considered it too primitive to take seriously, while those who listened regularly to gospel were convinced that the blues was "the Devil's music". Even R&B was abandoning its roots in favor of a more mainstream approach, especially in Detroit, where the Motown label was becoming a major force in pop music. There were still a few places left where blues was not a dirty word, however. Chicago, in particular, always took pride in its blues heritage, while in New York's Greenwich Village, a full-scale blues revival was underway. Within this revival there were both traditionalists and those who favored a more improvisational approach to the blues. Paul Butterfield's traditionalist approach can be heard on the Butterfield Blues Band's cover of the Muddy Waters tune Two Trains Running. Unlike the better-known Blues Project version of the tune, the Butterfield track (from the 1966 album East-West), maintains the song's original tempo and basic structure, clocking in at slightly under four minutes.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Two Trains Running
Source:     LP: radio promo sampler (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer:     McKinley Morganfield
Label:     Verve Forecast
Year:     1966
     My first two years as a student at the University of New Mexico were spent living off-campus in a large house shared by five other people (a varying number of which were also students). One day while rummaging through the basement I ran across a couple boxes full of reel-to-reel tapes. As I was the only person living there with a reel-to-reel machine and nobody seemed to know where the tapes had come from, I appropriated them for my own use. Unfortunately, many of the tapes were unlabeled, so all I could do was make a guess as to artists and titles of the music on them. One of those tapes was labelled simply "Love Sculpture". It wasn't until a fortuitous trip to a local thrift store a couple of years later that I realized that the slow version of Two Trains Running on the tape was not Love Sculpture at all, but was in fact the Blues Project, from their Projections album. This slowed down version of the Muddy Waters classic has what is considered to be one of the great accidental moments in recording history. About 2/3 of the way through Two Trains Running, Danny Kalb realized that one of the strings on his guitar had gone out of tune, and managed to retune it on the fly in such a way that it sounded like he had planned the whole thing.

Artist:    Chicago
Title:    South California Purples
Source:    LP: The Chicago Transit Authority
Writer(s):    Robert Lamm
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Chicago never considered themselves a jazz-rock band, despite all the hype from the rock press and the publicity people at Columbia Records. Rather, the defined themselves as a rock band with a horn section. Songs like Robert Lamm's South California Purples, which is basically a blues progression, lend credence to this view. The track, which showcases the guitar work of Terry Kath, was one of the most popular songs on the band's debut album and continued to be a concert staple until Kath's death in 1978.