Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1925 (starts 6/17/19)

     This time around we feature an artists' set in every segment of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, plus all kinds of other good stuff.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Last Train To Clarksville
Source:    CD: The Monkees
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1966
    The song that introduced the world to the Monkees, Last Train To Clarksville, was actually a bit of an anomaly for the group. For one thing, most of the early Monkees recordings utilized the services of various Los Angeles based studio musicians known collectively as the Wrecking Crew. Last Train To Clarksville, however, was recorded by the Candy Store Prophets, a local band that included Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote and produced the song (Boyce and Hart originally had hopes of being members of the Monkees themselves, but had to wait until the 1980s to see that happen). The song was released as a single on August 16, 1966,  two months in advance of the first Monkees album, and hit the #1 spot on the charts in early November. Last Train To Clarksville was also included in seven episodes of the Monkees TV show, the most of any song.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
Source:    CD: Battle Of The Bands-Vol. II (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Neil Diamond
Label:    Era (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1967
    The members of the Monkees were already royally pissed off at Don Kirschner in early 1967 for releasing the album More Of The Monkees without the knowledge or input of the band itself (other than vocal tracks that had been recorded the previous year for use on The Monkees TV show). Things only got worse two months later when, after flying Davy Jones out to New York to record vocal tracks for a pair of new tunes with producer Jeff Barry, Kirschner released promo copies of the recordings to select radio stations as the third Monkees single, along with a promo package referring to Jones as "my favorite Monkee". This time, however, it was not only the band that was kept in the dark; apparently nobody associated with the Monkees knew anything about the release, which was intended to strengthen Kirschner's position as the Monkees' musical director. As a result Kirschner found himself fired for taking the unauthorized action, the single was cancelled, and the band members were given control over their own musical destiny. The Monkees immediately went to work on what would become their third consecutive #1 LP, Headquarters, but agreed to release one of the new songs, a Neil Diamond number called A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, with a different B side as their next single.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Gonna Buy Me A Dog (unused original backing track)
Source:    CD: The Monkees
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2006
    In an effort to follow a Beatles template, it was decided early on that the first Monkees album would have one novelty song, similar to Ringo getting to sing on one song per Beatle album. That song was Gonna Buy Me A Dog, a Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart composition that featured Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones playing off each other for about three minutes against a background provided by an array of top studio musicians and produced by Boyce and Hart themselves. Two weeks earlier Michael Nesmith had produced an instrumental version of the same song using an entirely different lineup of studio musicians, including (among others) drummer Hal Blaine, organist Billy Preston and guitarists Glen Campbell and fellow Monkee Peter Tork (but not Nesmith himself). The Nesmith version has a faster tempo than the released track, with more of a country-blues-rock feel to it.

Artist:    Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title:    Abba Zaba
Source:    45 RPM single (originally issued as B side and included on LP: Safe As Milk)
Writer(s):    Don Van Vliet
Label:    Sundazed/Buddah
Year:    1967
    After an aborted recording career with A&M Records, future avant-garde rock superstar Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) signed a contract with the newly formed Buddah record label. The first record ever released by Buddah was the album Safe As Milk, which included the single Yellow Brick Road, backed with Abba Zaba. Although the Captain's music was at that time still somewhat blues-based, the album was not a commercial success, and Buddah cut Beefheart and his Magic Band from the label in favor of more pop oriented groups like the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. Captain Beefheart then moved to yet another fledgling label, Blue Thumb, before finding a more permanent home with his old high school classmate Frank Zappa's Bizarre Records, where he released the classic Trout Mask Replica. More recently, Sundazed has re-released the Buddah single, but with Abba Zaba as the A side.

Artist:    Electric Flag
Title:    Another Country
Source:    LP: The Best Of The Electric Flag (originally released on LP:  A Long Time Comin')
Writer(s):    Polte/Bloomfield
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    In 1967, after leaving the Butterfield Blue Band, guitarist Michael Bloomfield decided to form what he called "An American Music Band." The band would incorporate all of Bloomfield's favorite musical genres, including jazz, rock, soul, and of course blues. Like his friend Al Kooper, Bloomfield wanted to work in a horn section as well. The result was the Electric Flag. After one soundtrack album for a Peter Fonda cult film that was mostly a Bloomfield solo effort (although credited to the band), the Electric Flag made its official debut with the 1968 LP A Long Time Comin'. Perhaps the track that came closest to incorporating all the elements that Bloomfield wanted into a single piece was Another Country, which, along with a short Bloomfield instrumental that served as a coda, takes up the last nine and a half minutes of A Long Time Comin'. Bloomfield would leave the group following the release of the LP, although the remaining members, including Barry Goldberg, Nick Gravenites and Buddy Miles, would record a follow-up without him.

Artist:    Kak
Title:    Disbelievin'
Source:    British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Gary Lee Yoder
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    Every band has its own unique story. Nonetheless, the story of Kak is more unique than most. The genesis of the group came in the summer of 1967 when guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Gary Lee Yoder, former member of the Oxford Circle, was approached by a guy named Gary Grelecki, who, after expressing regret that the Circle had broken up, asked Yoder if he would interested in recording for CBS. Two months later Grelecki, whose father was a CIA agent fronting as a Far East distributor for CBS Records, called back with the news that he had used his dad's contacts to secure Yoder a deal with Epic, a CBS label. In early 1968 Yoder began recruiting local musicians, including fellow Oxford Circle lead guitarist Dehner Patton, bassist Joe-Dave Damrell (Group 'B'), and drummer Chris Lockheed (the Majestics). What started off as a solo project soon turned into a group effort, and by June the band had worked up enough material to start recording. After only one session, however, the project was delayed and work on the album itself did not begin until September. During this time the band continued to work up new material written by Yoder, such as the upbeat Disbelievin', as well as a few songs co-written by Grelecki. The band had very little equipment of their own, however; as a result they did not do any live performances that summer. Once they were able to commence recording in earnest the entire album took about a week to record. In October, with the recording finished, the band was given $10,000 worth of new equipment to go on the road and promote the album, but soon discovered that they did not have the right kind of onstage chemistry. Without strong touring support, the album got lost among the many outstanding records released in 1969, and Kak disbanded soon after.

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    When You Dance I Can Really Love
Source:    CD: After The Gold Rush
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
    Neil Young's first solo LP, released in 1968, was made up mostly of acoustic pieces, showcasing his songwriting abilities. His second LP, with Crazy Horse, emphasized Young's rockier side, with classics like Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl In The Sand and Down By The River. His third release, After The Gold Rush, attempted to strike a balance between the two. Probably the hardest-rocking tune of the album was When You Dance I Can Really Love, which was also released as a single, barely scraping the bottom reaches of the Hot 100. For some unknown reason, when After The Gold Rush was first issued on CD, the song was mistitled When You Dance You Can Really Love on the back cover, in the booklet and on the disc itself.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Here, There And Everywhere
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    In the early days the Beatles did a lot of doubling up of vocals to achieve a fuller sound. This meant that the lead vocalist (usually John Lennon or Paul McCartney) would have to record a vocal track and then go back and sing in unison with his own recorded voice. The process, which Lennon in particular found tedious, often took several attempts to get right, making for long and exhausting recording sessions. In the spring of 1966 engineer Ken Townsend invented a process he called automatic double tracking that applied a tape delay to a single vocal to create the same effect as manual double tracking. The Beatles used the process for the first time on the Revolver album, on tracks like I'm Only Sleeping and Doctor Robert. Oddly enough, the song that sounds most like it used the ADT system, McCartney's Here, There And Everywhere, was actually two separate vocal tracks, which becomes obvious toward the end of the last verse when one of the vocals drops down to harmonize a few notes.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Day Tripper
Source:    LP: Yesterday...And Today (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1965
    One of the few times that the US and British releases of Beatles records were in sync was in December of 1965, when the album Rubber Soul was released in both countries at the same time as a new single that had a pair of songs not on the album itself. Although there were some slight differences in the US and UK versions of the actual album, the single was identical in both countries, with Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out sharing "A" side status. Of course, the synchronization ended there, as the two songs would both end up on a US-only LP (Yesterday...And Today) in mid-1966, but not be available as an album track in the UK until after the Beatles had split up five years later.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Tomorrow Never Knows
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    A few years ago I started to compile an (admittedly subjective) list of the top psychedelic songs ever recorded. Although I never finished ranking the songs, one of the top contenders for the number one spot was Tomorrow Never Knows. The song is one of the first to use studio techniques such as backwards masking and has been hailed as a masterpiece of 4-track studio production.

Artist:    Missing Links
Title:    You're Driving Me Insane
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Australia as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Baden Hutchins
Label:    Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year:    1965
    Long before AC/DC emerged from down under, the Missing Links were known as "Australia's wildest group". The name Missing Links was first used in 1964 by a group that released only one single in 1964. The following year an entirely new lineup made up of friends and associates of the original group began using the name, releasing three singles (the first of which was You're Driving Me Insane) and an album before disbanding in April of1966.

Artist:    Eyes
Title:    When The Night Falls
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Terry Nolder
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1966
    The Eyes formed in Whealing, West London in late 1962 as the Renegades, changing their name to Gerry Hart And The Hartbeats and finally The Eyes in 1964. The band was part of the Mod movement in mid-60s London, and was known as much for their visual image (they all wore rugby shirts and pink parkas with tire tracks across the back) as for the music they made. Like all Mod bands, the Eyes went for simply-structured tunes with repeated riffs, as can be heard on their 1966 debut single for the Mercury label, When The Night Falls. After three more singles and an EP failed to make them stars, the group decided to disband the following year.

Artist:    Felius Andromeda
Title:    Cheadle Heath Delusions
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry & Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Denis Couldry
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    Often thought to be a studio project, Felius Andromeda was actually a London-based blues band called Morgan's Roots backing up vocalist/keyboardist Denis Couldry. Cheadle Heath, as it turns out, is the name of the neighborhood in Southport where Couldry lived.

Artist:        Bob Dylan
Title:        Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Source:   Highway 61 Revisited
Writer:        Bob Dylan
Label:        Columbia
Year:        1965
        Although Bob Dylan is not usually thought of as a psychedelic artist, he was the first major folk artist to go electric and was instrumental in introducing several of his fellow musicians to mind-expanding substances. 1965's Highway 61 Revisited album is generally regarded as being among the most influential of Dylan's albums, thanks to tracks like Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    While not as commercially successful as the Jefferson Airplane or as long-lived as the Grateful Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about, which is itself ironic, since the band operated out of Berkeley on the other side of the bay. Of all the tracks on their first album, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine probably got the most airplay on various underground radio stations that were popping up on the FM dial at the time (some of them even legally).

Artist:     Beacon Street Union
Title:     Speed Kills
Source:     British import CD: The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union/The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer:     Ulaky/Wright
Label:     See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year:     1967
     Boston's Beacon Street Union had an interesting mix of tunes on their debut LP. Despite the title, Speed Kills is not an anti-drug song. Rather, the song addresses the frenetic pace of life the band members had encountered since relocating to New York City shortly before recording The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Hoochie Coochie Man
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a tune originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work from Michael Monarch.

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:     Steppenwolf
Title:     The Pusher
Source:     CD: Steppenwolf
Writer:     Hoyt Axton
Label:     MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1968
    A kid in his mid teens often finds himself torn between his own upbringing and sometimes unbearable peer pressure, especially when it comes to trying new things. A growing awareness of the disconnect between what the older generation preaches and what its members themselves actually do leads to a general distrust of any advice they might dispense. Luckily, at certain points in time, something or someone comes along to serve as a guide. In 1968 that guide, for some teenagers at least, was Steppenwolf's recording of Hoyt Axton's The Pusher, which clearly defined the difference between pot smoking and the use of harder drugs, condemning the latter in the strongest possible language. For that, Hoyt Axton, John Kay and the rest of Steppenwolf, I thank you. Your song gave me the strength to say no when it counted (and to know when it was OK to say yes).

Artist:    Huns
Title:    Love Is Gone
Source:    Mono CD: The Huns Conquer Ithaca, NY 1966
Writer(s):    Steve Dworetz
Label:    Jargon
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2017
    Like most college towns, Ithaca, NY (home of both Ithaca College and Cornell University) has always had a thriving local music scene. In the mid-1960s that scene was dominated by bands doing mostly covers of current top 40 hits. Bassist Frank Van Nostrand and organist John Sweeney, however, wanted to do something different. The two Ithaca College juniors were fans of the more rebellious bands like the Animals, Kinks and especially the Rolling Stones, who were already establishing themselves as the bad boys of British rock. As their fellow students began to stream in to register for the upcoming school year, Sweeney and Van Nostrand were camped out at their own table, looking to recruit like-minded musicians to form a new band that would soon come to be known as the Huns. By the time the school year was over, the Huns had racked up a total of 51 gigs at a combination of local clubs, frat houses and parties. They even made an appearance on a mock TV show produced by fellow student Lynn Cates as a class project. Although the video of that performance is long gone, the audio dub survived for over 50 years, and has been made into a CD called The Huns Conquer Ithaca, NY 1966. Recorded on March 10, the album captures the Huns at the peak of their popularity, before hassles with the college dean over hair length (among other things) led to the dismissal of both Sweeney and Van Nostrand and the subsequent breakup of the band itself. The opening track of the CD, Love Is Gone, shows a band pretty far removed from what was popular in the Eastern US at the time; in fact it feels more like the cutting edge bands populating the mid-60s club scene in Los Angeles.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Burning of the Midnight Lamp
Source:    Mono German import 45 RPM single
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1967
    For the first few months of their existence as a band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience were an entirely European phenomena, despite being led by an American guitarist/vocalist. By mid-1967 the group had released three singles that made the charts all over Europe and the UK, as well as an album that was only kept out of the # 1 spot by something called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The band's next project was Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, the most complex piece of production yet attempted by the band, and their first using state of the art eight-track recording equipment. The song had two notable firsts: it was the first song to feature Hendrix playing a keyboard instrument (a harpsichord) in addition to his usual guitar, and it was his first recording to use the new "wah-wah" effect. The original mono mix of the song heard here has never been released in the US, as Hendrix himself supervised a remix of the song for inclusion on his 1968 Electric Ladyland LP, which was only released in stereo.

Artist:    Love Sculpture
Title:    Don't Answer The Door
Source:    British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s):    Jimmy Johnson
Label:    EMI (original US label: Rare Earth)
Year:    1968
    Although many people are familiar with Dave Edmunds' early 1970s version of Fats Domino's I Hear You Knockin', not all are aware of his earlier work fronting the band Love Sculpture. The group cut two LPs for the Parlophone label, both of which were dominated by blues covers such as Don't Answer The Door, which was originally recorded by Jimmy Johnson and his Band featuring Hank Alexander in 1964. Although the song was released on the independent Magnum label in the US, it was picked up for release in the UK on Sue Records, which is probably where Edmunds heard it. The Love Sculpture version features outstanding guitar work by Edmunds, surely one of the most underrated players in rock history.

Artist:    Eric Burdon & War
Title:    Pretty Colors/Gun/Jimbo
Source:    CD: The Black Man's Burdon
Writer(s):    War
Label:    UMe (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1970
    The second and final collaboration between Eric Burdon and the Los Angeles band War, 1970's The Black Man's Burdon, is a double-length collection of long free-form jams, many of which, such as Pretty Colors, Gun and Jimbo, segue into each other to create even longer continuous pieces. This particular one runs a total of seventeen and a half minutes and includes many of the elements that would become the trademark sound of War in the 1970s.

Title:    All The Madmen
Source:    CD: Sound+Vision Catalogue Sampler #1 (originally released on LP: The Man Who Sold The World)
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1970
    Although most critics agree that the so-called "glitter era" of rock music originated with David Bowie's 1972 LP The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, a significant minority argue that it really began with Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold The World, released in 1970 in the US and in 1971 in the UK. They point out that World was the first Bowie real rock album (the previous two being much more folk oriented), and cite songs such as All The Madmen, as well as the album's title cut, as the prototype for Spiders From Mars. All The Madmen itself is one of several songs on the album that deal with the subject of insanity, taking the view that an insane asylum may in fact be the sanest place to be in modern times. Whenever I hear the song I think of the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which makes a similar statement.