Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1644 (starts 11/2/16)

Artist:    Todd Rundgren
Title:    Little Red Lights
Source:    LP: Something/Anything?
Writer(s):    Todd Rundgren
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1972
    By mid-1971, Todd Rundgren had already released two solo albums, using studio musicians to support his guitar and keyboards (and of course vocals). For his third solo effort he decided to do it all himself, temporarily relocating to Los Angeles for the project. Most of the backing tracks for the album were recorded at I.D. Sound Studios, one of the few studios not associated with any particular record label. This gave him a relaxed environment in which he could take his time and use state of the art equipment to its fullest potential. He also set up equipment at his home, where he could experiment on his own time. Unfortunately, after about three sides' worth of material was completed, an earthquake hit the L.A. area, prompting Rundgren to return to New York, where he completed the album with the help of studio musicians. The resulting album was Something/Anything?, released in 1972. Each of the three solo sides has a subtitle, with side three being The Kid Gets Heavy. The accuracy of this subtitle is underlined by the final track on the side, a ponderous rocker called Little Red Lights. In the classic California tradition, the song is about cars.

Artist:    Captain Beyond
Title:    Mesmerization Eclipse
Source:    LP: Captain Beyond
Writer(s):    Evans/Caldwell
Label:    Capricorn
Year:    1972
    In the early 1970s it was normal for three bands to be on the playbill at a rock concert. Generally the headliner was someone with a hit record currently on the charts, while the middle act was someone on the way up. The opening act was either a popular local band or, in some cases, a brand new group that had just released their first album. It was not entirely uncommon for the second act to actually get a better audience response than the headliner, especially if the headliner turned out to be a one-hit wonder with no staying power. It was extremely rare, however, for the opening act to blow both of the other two bands out of the water. In fact, I can think of only one time that happened when I was in the audience. It was 1972, and I don't even remember who the headliner was. The middle band was Jo Jo Gunne, featuring front man Jay Ferguson, formerly of Spirit. They weren't bad, although the only songs I remember them performing were Run Run Run and 99 Days. The opening act, however, totally blew me away with their outstanding musicianship and strong material. That band was Captain Beyond, formed by former members of Iron Butterfly (bassist Lee Dorman and guitarist Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt), Deep Purple (vocalist Rod Evans) and drummer Bobby Caldwell, who would eventually go on to have a moderately successful solo career. I was so impressed with their set that I went to the record store the very next day and bought their album (which has this really cool 3D cover, by the way). Mesmerization Eclipse, from that debut LP, was written by the entire band, although only Evans and Caldwell got official writing credits on the album, due to Rhino and Dorman still being under contract to Iron Butterfly at the time.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Walk Like A Man
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Farner/Brewer
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1974
    After starting off in 1969 with a series of highly successful albums, Grand Funk Railroad found itself in a bit of a slump by late 1973. To shake things up the band fired their longtime manager/producer, Terry Knight, and began working on a new album, We're An American Band, with producer Todd Rundgren. At the same time the group made a conscious decision to shift their emphasis away from LP tracks and concentrate more on single releases. The band also added a fourth member, keyboardist Craig Frost. A final, and perhaps more significant change, saw drummer Don Brewer take over lead vocals on several tracks, including the singles We're An American Band and Walk Like A Man, both of which were co-written by Brewer.

Artist:    Mahavishnu Orchestra
Title:    Open Country Joy
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    John McLaughlin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    John McLaughlin. Billy Cobham. Rick Laird. Jan Hammer. Jerry Goodman. All were destined to become jazz-rock fusion stars by the end of the decade, but in 1971 the term fusion, as applied to music, was not yet in use. Yet fusion was indeed the most appropriate word for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, whose five members came from five different countries: England, Ireland, Panama, Czechoslovakia (as it was then known) and the US, respectively. The members came from a variety of music backgrounds as well. McLaughlin (who wrote all the group's material) and Cobham had met while working on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew album, while Goodman had recorded two albums with the Chicago-based Flock. The Mahavishnu Orchestra was known for its ability to quickly shift between music styles on such tracks as Open Country Joy, which appeared on the group's second LP, Birds of Fire, as well as being released as a single.The original group disbanded after only two albums, but McLaughlin would later revive the band with a different lineup in the 1980s.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Witch's Promise
Source:    CD: Benefit
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    The remastered version of Jethro Tull's third album, Benefit, includes several songs that were released as singles in the UK, but were virtually invisible in the US until the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past. Among those is Witch's Promise, recorded just weeks before the sessions for Benefit began.

Artist:    Pavlov's Dog
Title:    Natchez Trace
Source:    LP: Pampered Menial (promo copy)
Writer(s):    Steve Scorfina
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1975
    One of the most unusual voices in rock history belongs to David Surkamp, lead vocalist for a band called Pavlov's Dog. I first heard Pavlov's Dog on Albuquerque's legendary FM rock station, KRST, around 1975. A friend of mine was so enamoured of the group that he bought a copy of their LP, Pampered Menial, and brought it over to my place to listen to (I had one of those massive console stereos that they used to make back then). I later found out more about the group, which had come from Saint Louis originally, and featured, in addition to Surkamp, an outstanding guitarist by the name of Steve Scorfina. It was Scorfina that wrote Natchez Trace, one of the highest-energy tracks on the album.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Reeling In The Years
Source:    CD: Can't Buy A Thrill
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1972
    My first radio gig (sort of), was volunteering at the Voice Of Holloman, a closed-circuit station that served a handful of locations on Holloman AFB, about 10 miles from Alamogordo, NM. I had been taking broadcasting courses through a community college program that was taught by Sgt. Tim Daniels, who was the NCO in charge of the base Information Office, which ran the station, as well as a free weekly newspaper that was distributed on base. After completing the classes, Tim gave me the opportunity to do a daily two-hour show on the VOH, using records that had been sent to the station by various record labels. We got excellent singles service from some labels (Warner Brothers and Capitol in particular), but virtually nothing from others, such as ABC. This was unfortunate, as one of the best songs out at the time was Steely Dan's Reeling In The Years, from their 1972 Can't Buy A Thrill album. Tim, whose previous gig was with the Armed Forces Vietnam Network, was a big rock fan, however, and went out and bought his own copy of the album, making a copy of Reeling In The Years on reel to reel tape, which we then played extensively until the song had run its course on the charts. Thus the Voice Of Holloman, with its audience consisting mostly of guys working out at the base gym, was playing the longer album version of a song that was also getting airplay on Alamogordo's daytime-only top 40 AM station, KINN, in its edited single form. It was just about the nearest the Voice Of Holloman ever got to being an underground rock station (although I did manage to sneak in some Procol Harum, Jethro Tull and Deep Purple from time to time from the aformentioned Warner Brothers singles)

Artist:    J.J. Cale
Title:    The Woman That Got Away
Source:    LP: Troubador
Writer(s):    J.J. Cale
Label:    Shelter
Year:    1976
    There have always been artists that are well-known and highly respected among the musicians' community, yet were never able to achieve any major commercial recognition. One of the best of these was J.J. Cale, who almost single-handedly created what has come to be called the Tulsa Sound. Cale's songs were often covered by other artists (Eric Clapton in particular) who turned them into major hits (including both After Midnight and Cocaine). The first J.J. Cale album I ever came across was the 1976 LP Troubadour, which I ran across while volunteering at KUNM in Albuquerque. I was so impressed with the album that I went out and bought a copy, no small thing for a poor college student. In addition to the aformentioned Cocaine, Troubadour has several outstanding tracks, including the single Travelin' Light and a tune called The Woman That Got Away. The latter track in particular is a classic example of Cale's Tulsa Sound.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Help!
Source:    LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    It takes brass for a band to include a Beatles cover on their debut LP, especially if they have chosen to completely rearrange the song, a la Vanilla Fudge. Nonetheless, that is exactly what happened on the album Shades Of Deep Purple, which hit the stands in 1968. The Beatles cover song in question is the classic Help! Deep Purple gives it a kind of slow, soft treatment that is both light years away from the original, and, in my opinion, quite an enjoyable listen.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Woman From Tokyo
Source:    Japanese import CD: Who Do We Think We Are
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Deep Purple's most successful period came to an end with the band's seventh LP, Who Do We Think We Are. The album, released in 1973, was the last for vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover, both of whom had joined the band three years earlier. Those three years saw the group go from semi-obscurity (especially in their home country) to one of the world's most popular rock bands. Songs like Smoke On The Water and Highway Star had become mainstays of FM rock radio worldwide, but tensions within the band itself were starting to tear it apart. Nonetheless, the final album by the classic lineup of Richie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice featured some of the band's best material, including the LP's opening track, My Woman From Tokyo, which is still heard with alarming regularity on classic rock radio stations.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Tend My Garden/Garden Gate
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer:    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    Cleveland, Ohio's James Gang spent so much time on the road promoting their first album, Takes Off, that they didn't have much material ready when it came time to record a follow-up LP. The group found itself actually writing songs in the studio and recording them practically as they were being written. Guitarist/lead vocalist Joe Walsh, meanwhile, had some acoustic songs he had been working on, and it was decided that the new album would have one side of electric hard rock songs while the other would be an acoustic side. The opening tracks for the second side of the album were Tend My Garden, which features Walsh on both organ and guitar, followed by Garden Gate, a Walsh solo piece.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    What Is And What Should Never Be
Source:    LP: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    Due to contractual obligations, singer Robert Plant did not received any writing credits for songs on the first Led Zeppelin album. By the time the band's second LP was released, Plant had been able to get out of his previous contract, and his name began appearing as co-writer of songs such as What Is And What Should Never Be. The song itself was based on a true story concerning Plant's attraction to his girlfriend's sister.