Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1924 (starts 6/10/19)

    The emphasis is on the unusual and obscure this week, as we search deep and wide for no less than nine tracks that have never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before, three of which are by artists making their debut as well. Of course there are some familiar tunes here as well, such as our opening track...

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Wait
Source:    Mono CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1965
    The oldest song on the Rubber Soul album, Wait was originally recorded for the Help album, but did not make the final cut. Six months later, when the band was putting the finishing touches on Rubber Soul, they realized they would not be able to come up with enough new material in time for a Christmas release, so they added some overdubs to Wait and included it on the new album. The song itself was a collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with the two sharing vocals throughout the tune.

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:    Hideaway
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Underground)
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After the moderately successful first Electric Prunes album, producer David Hassinger loosened the reigns a bit for the followup, Underground. Among the original tunes on Underground was Hideaway, a song that probably would have been a better choice as a single than what actually got released: a novelty tune called Dr. Feelgood written by Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, who had also written the band's first hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).

Artist:    McGough & McGear
Title:    So Much To Love
Source:    Mono CD: McGough & McGear
Writer(s):    McGough/McGear
Label:    Real Gone (original UK label: Parlophone)
Year:    1968
    The Scaffold was a uniquely English performance trio consisting of comic John Gorman, poet Roger McGough and musician Mike McGear formed in 1964 in Liverpool. In 1968 McGough and McGear decided to make a record album, utilizing McGear's contacts in the record industry to secure a contract with EMI's Parlophone label (his older brother was a member of a band signed to the label). Unlike the first Scaffold album, a live performance released later the same year, McGough & McGear was a studio creation that included guest appearances from Jimi Hendrix (who plays guitar on So Much To Love), and drummer Mitch Mitchell. Mike McGear, incidentally, was a stage name for Peter Michael McCartney, whose older brother Paul provided backup vocals for So Much To Love as well as being listed (along with McGear and Paul Samwell-Smith) as co-producer of the LP. Other contributors to the album include Graham Nash, Jane Asher and Dave Mason.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Brave New World
Source:    LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1969
    It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the film itself.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Good Thing
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: The Spirit Of '67 and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lindsay/Melcher
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    From 1965 to 1967 Paul Revere And The Raiders were on a roll, with a string of six consecutive top 20 singles, four of which made the top 5. Among these was Good Thing, a tune written by lead vocalist Mark Lindsay and producer Terry Melcher (sometimes referred to as the "Fifth Raider"). The song first appeared on the Spirit Of  '67 LP in 1966, and was released as a single late that year. The song ended up being the Raiders' second biggest hit, peaking at # 4 in early 1967.

Artist:    Bee Gees
Title:    Red Chair Fade Away
Source:    CD: Bee Gees 1st
Writer(s):    Barry & Robin Gibb
Label:    Reprise (original label: Atco
Year:    1967
    The album Bee Gees' 1st, released in 1967, is an eclectic mix of soft rock, experimental and downright psychedic material, all of which features the trademark harmonies of the Gibb brothers. Perhaps the most overtly psychedelic song on the album is Red Chair Fade Away, which features odd time signature changes that manage to work well. The tune was covered by the Cyrkle in 1968 as the B side of their final single.

Artist:    People
Title:    I Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Chris White
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the major labels had signed just about every San Francisco band with any perceived potential. Capitol, having had some success with the Chocolate Watchband from San Jose on its Tower subsidiary, decided to sign another south bay band, People, to the parent label. The most successful single for the band was a new recording of an obscure Zombies B side. I Love You ended up hitting the top 20 nationally, despite the active efforts of two of the most powerful men in the music industry, who set out to squash the song as a way of punishing the record's producer for something having nothing to do with the song or the band itself.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Laughing
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Canned Wheat)
Writer(s):    Bachman/Cummings
Label:    Priority (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1969
    Following the success of their American LP debut, Wheatfield Soul (and the hit single These Eyes), the Guess Who headed back to the studio to record their fifth album, Canned Wheat. RCA Victor had a policy stating that groups signed to the label had to use RCA's own studios, whether they wanted to or not. The Guess Who and their producer, Jack Richardson, however, felt that RCA's New York studios were to inferior to A&R studios, where Wheatfield Soul had been recorded, and to prove their point secretly re-recorded two songs, Laughing and Undun, at A&R. They then sent dubs of the two new recordings to the shirts at RCA, who immediately issued the recordings as the band's next single, unaware that they had been recorded at A&R. By the time RCA realized what was going on, the single was already climbing the charts (eventually hitting the #10 spot), and ended up using the two new recordings on Canned Wheat. The remainded of the album was made up of the tracks recorded at RCA Studios. Their next album, American Woman, would be recorded at RCA's brand new Mid-America Recording Center in Chicago.
       
    If the McGough and McGear track and the Bee Gees LP track weren't obscure enough for you, we present three tunes never played on the show before, two of them from artists never played on the show before (and the third from a CD never featured on the show before)...

Artist:    Knowbody Else
Title:    Free Singer's Island
Source:    British import CD: Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sound of Memphis
Writer(s):    Brewer/Mangrum/Reynolds
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2012
    The Knowbody Else was formed by a bunch of high school friends in 1963 in the area of Monette, Arkansas, located about a dozen miles east of Jonesboro. After stealing the local high school's PA system, the band soon was on the run, living incognito somewhere in northern Arkansas. They surfaced in 1967 at Memphis, Tennessee's Argent Studios, where they recorded an album's worth of material (including Free Singer's Island) for producer Jim Dickinson. The album, tentatively titled Soldiers Of Pure Piece, remains unreleased, but two tracks, including Free Singer's Island, showed up on the British Big Beat label in 2012 on a collection called Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sound of Memphis. The Knowbody Else, meanwhile, signed with Stax Records the following year, releasing one self-titled album in 1969 on Stax's Hip subsidiary label. Not long after that, the Knowbody Else changed their name to Black Oak Arkansas and released the first of 10 LPs for the Atco label in 1971. Incidentally, the band members did end up getting charged (in absentia) for the theft of the Monette high school PA system and received a 26 year sentence that was later suspended. By then, apparently, they were living high on the hog and paid the high school back with interest.

Artist:    Misty Wizards
Title:    It's Love
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ted Lucas
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The Misty Wizards were formed somewhere in the midwestern US by Ted Lucas and Dick Keelan. A trip to New York found them in the studio, working with producer Harvey Brooks, the bass player from the Butterfield Blues Band turned studio guru. The group only cut one single, a tune called It's Love, that was released during the summer of 1967. The rock music world's attention, however, was focused at that time on San Francisco, and the single went nowhere.

Artist:    Ace Of Cups
Title:    Taste Of One
Source:    Mono British import CD: It's Bad For You, But Buy It
Writer(s):    Denise Kaufman
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 196?, released 2003
    Ace Of Cups was one of the first self-contained all-female bands, and an integral part of the late 60s San Francisco music scene. Their greatest strengths were their strong harmonies and their quickly developing abilities as songwriters. Formed in 1966 by bassist Mary Gannon and keyboardist Marla Hunt, the band soon added guitarist Mary Ellen Simpson and drummer Diane Vitalich. The final piece of the puzzle came at a New Year's party at the house where the members of Blue Cheer lived, when Simpson (who hung out there frequently) met Denise Kaufman, one of the most colorful characters on the Bay Area scene. Kaufman's connections led to the band opening regularly for Quicksilver Messenger Service, one of the most popular bands in the area. Despite the band's growing visibility, Ace Of Cups never made any formal studio recordings, although several tapes of demos and live performances were collected an issued in 2003 on a CD called It's Bad For You, But Buy It. Among the tunes on that CD is Kaufman's Taste Of One, which was probably made as a demo on either cassette or home reel-to-reel equipment. Ace Of Cups (minus Marla) finally did get the chance to record professionally decades later, and their 2018 album contains, among other songs, a newly recorded version of Taste Of One.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Strange Brew
Source:    British import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Clapton/Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    RSO (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    One of the most popular songs in the Kinks' catalog, I'm Not Like Everybody Else was originally written for another British band, the Animals. When that group decided not to record the tune, the Kinks did their own version of the song, issuing it as the B side of the 1966 hit Sunny Afternoon. Although written by Ray Davies, it was sung by his brother Dave, who usually handled the lead vocals on only the songs he himself composed. Initially not available on any LPs, the song has in recent years shown up on various collections and as a bonus track on CD reissues of both the Kink Kontroversy and Face To Face albums. Both Davies brothers continue to perform the song in their live appearances.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Astrologically Incompatible
Source:    CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    Astrologically Incompatible, in addition to being one of the first known rock songs to make references to the signs of the zodiac (which would become fashionable in the following decade), marks a transition point in the history of the Music Machine. One of the last tracks recorded by the original lineup, it was also the B side of the first single released under the name Bonniwell Music Machine on Warner Brothers. The horn overdubs were played by Bonniwell himself and organist Doug Rhodes, using then state-of-the-art 8-track technology.

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Surrender To Your Kings
Source:    German import CD: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Writer(s):    Ted Nugent
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    Although they would soon become nothing more than Ted Nugent's backup band, in 1968 the Amboy Dukes were still very much a collective, with rhythm guitarist/vocalist Mark Farmer writing over half of the material on the group's second LP, Journey To The Center Of The Mind. One of the songs not written by Farmer was the album's second track, Surrender To Your Kings, which was all Nugent's, and presages the direction the band would eventually go in.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I'm Yours And I'm Hers
Source:    European import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    1969 was a big year for Johnny Winter. An article the previous year in Rolling Stone magazine referring to the "albino guitarist with long white hair causing a stir in the Southwest" had led to his album The Progressive Blues Experiment being picked up by Imperial Records for national distribution, which in turn led to Winters signing with Columbia, one of the world's largest and most influential record labels. His first album for Columbia, titled simply Johnny Winter, was a critical and commercial success, instantly putting him in the top tier of both blues and rock guitarists. The opening track of the LP was I'm Your And I'm Hers, a Johnny Winter original that utilized the talents of future Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer "Uncle" John Turner, both members of Johnny's band Winter at the time. This same lineup would record a second album for Columbia with Johnny's brother Edgar on keyboards and saxophone before being disbanded in favor of the larger group that would come to be known as Johnny Winter And. 

    Our second hour features an inside look at what happens when you put a perfectionist in charge of a recording session, and a fifteen minute long psychedelic blues jam featuring electric violin played through just about every effect available in 1969. But first, a different version of Jimi Hendrix's Lover Man than the one we heard last month...

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Lover Man
Source:    stereo 45 RPM single B side (originally released on CD box set: The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2000, single released 2016
    When the Jimi Hendrix Experience made their US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 they opened with a high-energy workup of the Muddy Waters classic Killing Floor. Hendrix' arrangement of the song was so radically different from the original that Hendrix eventually decided to write new lyrics for the song, calling it Lover Man. Several attempts were made to get the song recorded in the studio, with the most recent being in 1970 by a group consisting of Hendrix on guitar and vocals, Billy Cox on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. This version was included on the 2000 box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience, leading to speculation that, had Hendrix lived, he would have used that name for the new lineup. Accordingly, when Sundazed issued a new Hendrix single consisting of the same trio's 1969 recording of Stone Free, backed with the 1970 version of Lover Man in 2016, both songs were attributed to the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
   
Artist:    Love
Title:    Your Mind And We Belong Together (tracking sessions & final mix)
Source:    CD: Forever Changes (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1968
    The last record to be released by the classic Love lineup of Arthur Lee, Ken Forssi, Johnny Echols, Bryan MacLean and Michael Stuart was a single, Your Mind And We Belong Together. Although released in 1968, the song is very much the same style as the 1967 album Forever Changes. A bonus track on the Forever Changes CD shows Lee very much in command of the recording sessions, calling for over two dozen takes before getting an acceptable version of the song. The song serves as a fitting close to the story of one of the most influential, yet overlooked, bands in rock history...or would have, if Lee had not tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the band's success with new members several times in the ensuing years.

Artist:    Flock
Title:    Truth
Source:    British import CD: The Flock
Writer(s):    The Flock
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    The city of Chicago is known for spawning rock bands that include a horn section, but the Flock took it a step further by adding electric violin. Jerry Goodman had originally been a roadie for the group, but soon became the focus of the band's performances, combining virtuosity with a willingness to experiment with various electronic effects. Check out the use of a wah-wah pedal, for instance, on Truth, the closing track from the Flock's self-titled 1969 debut LP. After an interesting, but commercially unsuccesful second LP, Dinosaur Swamps, the band started work on a third album, but got derailed when Columbia Records honcho Clive Davis yanked Goodman from the lineup to join John McLaughlin's new project, the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

    Our final half hour is even more unusual and obscure than the previous segments, beginning with perhaps the first pop song ever to deal with interracial romance, followed by several songs that either haven't been played on the show in several years or have never played on the show at all.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Society's Child
Source:    LP: Janis Ian
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1966
    Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one (Now Sounds) to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record got picked up and re-issued in 1966 by M-G-M's experimental label Verve Folkways (soon to be renamed Verve Forecast), a label whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations the song became a major hit when re-released yet another time in early 1967. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement.

Artist:     Chambers Brothers
Title:     Please Don't Leave Me
Source:     CD: The Time Has Come
Writer:    George Chambers
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:     1967
     The Chambers Brothers are best known for their eleven minute long psychedelic classic Time Has Come Today, yet the band has a history dating back to 1954, when they were formed as a gospel group in Lee County, Mississippi. Those gospel roots, as well as a strong blues presence, can be heard on Please Don't Leave Me, a George Chambers composition from the 1967 album The Time Has Come.

Artist:      Beacon Street Union
Title:     The Clown's Overture
Source:      LP: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer:    Larry Fallon
Label:    M-G-M
Year:     1968
     Sounding a bit like Erik Satie (a year before Blood, Sweat & Tears did their Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie), The Clown's Overture, from the second Beacon Street Union LP, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens, is a purely orchestral piece. Just how it got on the album in the first place is a bit of a mystery, however. My best guess is that the producer, Wes Farrell (who would have great success as the producer of several Partridge Family records) thought it was a good idea at the time.

Artist:    Joe Byrd And The Field Hippies
Title:    Gospel Music For Abraham Ruddell Byrd III
Source:    LP: The American Metaphysical Circus
Writer(s):    Joseph Byrd
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Following his departure from the United States Of America, Joseph Byrd embarked upon an even more avant-garde project called The American Metaphysical Circus. Utilizing an array of West Coast musicians (including a young Tom Scott), Byrd created an album that was so far removed from the rock mainstream that Columbia chose to issue it on their classical Masterworks label. This resulted in the album staying in print for 20 years (The United States Of America, on the other hand, was deleted from the Columbia catalog within a year of its initial release). Among the more unexpected tracks on The American Metaphysical Circus was a piece called Gospel Music For Abraham Ruddell III, alternately known simply as Gospel Music. It is exactly what you'd expect a piece called Gospel Music written by Joseph Byrd to sound like (although I have no idea who Abraham Ruddell III is or was).


Artist:    Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Title:    Swinging On A Star
Source:    LP: Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Writer(s):    Burke/Van Heusen
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1967
    As a young child I remember hearing the original Bing Crosby of Swinging On A Star and wanting to hear it again and again. Unfortunately we didn't have a copy of the record, so I only heard it every once in a while on the radio or on TV. Many years later I ran across the 1967 Dave Van Ronk version of the tune from the album Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters. Van Ronk gives the song what he calls a "Buster Keatonish" reading that is even more fun to listen to than the Crosby original.

Artist:    Troggs
Title:    Cousin Jane
Source:    British import CD: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Trogglodynamite; original US release: 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Reg Presley
Label:    Spectrum (original UK label: Page One; original US label: Fontana)
Year:    1967 (US release: 1968)
    When most people hear the name Troggs, they think of the song Wild Thing, which is natural, considering how huge an impact the song has had over the years. But the Troggs were about a lot more than just one song, as a listen to the slightly creepy Cousin Jane will attest. The song itself first appeared in the UK in February of 1967 on the band's second LP, Trogglodynamite, and was later included on an EP called Trogg Tops 2. It's US release didn't happen until 1968, when it appeared as the final track on the album Love Is All Around and as the B side of Surprise Surprise (I Need You). Good luck trying to find a copy of that last one!

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Flaming
Source:    CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (not included on original US release)
Writer:    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    Despite his legendary status as the original driving force behind Pink Floyd there is actually very little recorded material by the band itself that is credited to Syd Barrett. Most of that material is on the first Floyd album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, and on a handful of singles released by the group at a time when single releases in the UK seldom appeared on albums. Unlike Barrett's singles, which managed to be commercial without sacrificing their psychedelic qualities, album tracks such as Flaming (from Piper) show a willingness to go off into unexplored musical territory. It was these types of explorations that would set the direction the band would take once Barrett became unable to continue with the group. Flaming, for many years, was almost impossible to find in US record stores, as it was left off Capitol Records' original 1967 release of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn on their Tower subsidiary.

Artist:    Hollies
Title:    Maker
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK on LP: Butterfly and in US on LP: Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse)
Writer(s):    Clarke/Hicks/Nash
Label:    EMI (original UK label: Parlophone, original US label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    Graham Nash was the one of the three core members of the Hollies who pushed the other two (the other two being Tony Hicks and Allan Clarke) into the band's most psychedelic phase in 1967, first with the single King Midas In Reverse and then with the album Butterfly (which was issued in substantially altered form as Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse in the US). Nash's influence can be heard throughout the album, especially on Maker, which meshes Nash's penchant for experimentation with the group's trademark harmonies. This change in musical direction did not sit well with the rest of the band, however, and ultimately led to Nash's departure from the Hollies in 1968.