https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/367021-pe-2118
This week's show features a couple of artists' sets that feature more than one incarnation of the bands in question. We also have sets that climb and descend through the years of the psychedelic era, as well as a few sets from individual years. We start with an all-vinyl set from 1966...
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: LP: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution (at least according to Dylan). On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.
Artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title: Hungry
Source: LP: Spirit of '67
Writer: Mann/Weil
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
1966 was an incredibly successful year for Paul Revere and the Raiders. In addition to starting a gig as the host band for Dick Clark's new afternoon TV show, Where The Action Is, the band managed to crank out three consecutive top 10 singles. The second of these was Hungry, written by Brill building regulars Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Pet Sounds
Source: Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s): Brian Wilson
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1966
Originally titled Run James Run, Brian Wilson's instrumental Pet Sounds was intended for a James Bond film, but instead ended up as the title track of the Beach Boys' most celebrated album (although it actually appears close to the end of the album itself). The track somewhat resembles a 60s update of the Tiki room recordings made by Martin Denny in the 1950s, with heavily reverberated bongos and guiro featured prominently over a latin beat. Although credited to the Beach Boys, only Brian Wilson appears on the track (on piano), with the remainder of the instruments played by various Los Angeles studio musicians collectively known as the Wrecking Crew.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Misty Lane
Source: Mono British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Martin Siegel
Label: Big Beat (original US label: Uptown)
Year: 1967
The third Chocolate Watchband single, Misty Lane, was made, according to rock historian Alec Paleo, "under duress". Reportedly, the band hated the single so much that they took turns tossing copies in the air and shooting at them. Written by British songwriter Martin Siegel, the song sounds nothing like the garage-punk club band that lived to outstage the big name acts they often opened for, but was provided to them by producer Ed Cobb, who later admitted that he didn't really know what to do with the band in the studio.
Artist: Kinks
Title: This Is Where I Belong
Source: Mono French import 45 RPM EP: Till Death Do Us Part (originally released internationally as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: BMG (original label: Pye)
Year: 1967
Long considered the most obscure Kinks song ever recorded, This Is Where I Belong was originally slated to be the non-album B side of a song called Mr. Pleasant. The record was prepared for release in the UK, Europe and Asia in April of 1967, but withdrawn in the UK in favor of Waterloo Sunset. The single did get released in nine countries, however, including France, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands. Mr. Pleasant was also released in the US, but with a different B side. This Is Where I Belong is now a bit more accessible, appearing as a bonus track on the British CD reissue of the Face To Face album and on a 4-song EP issued in France and distributed in the US for Record Store Day in 2016.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Heaven And Hell
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino (original US label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Throughout the mid-60s Australia's most popular band was a group of immigrants calling themselves the Easybeats. Often referred to as the "Australian Beatles", their early material sounded like slightly dated British Beat music (Australia had a reputation for cultural lag, and besides, half the members were British). By late 1966 guitarist Harry Vanda (one of the two Dutch members of the group) had learned enough English to be able to replace vocalist Stevie Wright as George Young's writing partner. The new team was much more adventurous in their compositions than the Wright/Young team had been, and were responsible for the band's first international hit, Friday On My Mind. By then the Easybeats had relocated to England, and continued to produce fine singles such as Heaven And Hell.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Catfish Blues
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Canned Heat)
Writer: Robert Petway
Label: United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year 1967
Like many other US cities in the 1960s, San Francisco had a small but enthusiastic community of blues record collectors. A group of them got together in 1966 to form Canned Heat, and made quite an impression when they played the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. This led to a contract with Liberty Records and an album consisting entirely of cover versions of blues standards. One standout track from that album is Robert Petway's Catfish Blues, expanded to over six minutes by the Heat.
Artist: E S B
Title: Mushroom People
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Caldwell/Zinner/Fortunato/Burke/Lagana
Label: InArts
Year: 1967
The Bees (not to be confused with a different band called the Bees that recorded Voices Green And Purple) were a Los Angeles band that cut two singles for Randy Wood's Mira and Mirwood labels in 1965. At least two members of the band, George Caldwell and Robert Zinner, formed a new band,The W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band, in February, 1966, along with Richard Fortunato (formerly of The Vejtables), Patrick Burke and Steve Laguna. In May of 1966 they became the first band to release Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart's I'm Not Your Stepping Stone as a single (on the Mercury label, at around the same time that Paul Revere And The Raiders included the song on their Midnight Ride LP). Later that year they released the legendary Hippy Elevator Operator single on the HBR label. 1967 saw the band shortening their name to E S B and releasing Mushroom People as the second single for the new InArts label in September of that year. Eventually Fortunato, Lagana and Burke would become a power trio called Fields, releasing one LP and single for the Uni label in 1969.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Kozmic Blues
Source: CD: I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s): Joplin/Mekler
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1969
After she parted company with Big Brother and the Holding Company following the Cheap Thrills album, Janis Joplin got to work forming a new band that would come to be known as the Kozmic Blues Band. Unlike Big Brother, this new band included a horn section, and leaned more toward R&B than the earlier band's hard rocking sound. Joplin released only one studio album with the Kozmic Blues Band, 1969's I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although the album sold well, it was savaged by the rock press. Still, there were some standout tracks on the album, including the title tune (of sorts), Kozmic Blues. Joplin made several live appearances with this group, including the Woodstock performing arts festival, before disbanding the unit in favor of a smaller group, the Full-Tilt Boogie Band.
Artist: Dion
Title: Abraham, Martin And John
Source: CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dick Holler
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1968
Although sometimes characterized as a protest song, Dion DiMucci's 1968 hit Abraham, Martin And John is really a tribute to three famous Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy (with a reference to the recently-assassinated Bobby Kennedy included in the final verse of the song). Most people in the business saw Dion, perhaps the most successful doo-wop artist of all time, as being near the end of his career by 1967, although he was one of only two rock musicians included on the cover collage of the Beatles' 1967 LP Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band beside the Beatles themselves (the other being Bob Dylan). In April of 1968, however, Dion experienced what he later called "a powerful religious experience" which led to him approaching his old label, Laurie Records, for a new contract. The label agreed on the condition that he record Abraham, Martin And John. The song, written by Dick Holler (who also wrote, strangely enough, Snoopy vs. The Red Baron), ended up being one of Dion's biggest hits and led to the revitalization of his career.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Pleasant Valley Sunday
Source: CD: The Monkees Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.)
Writer: Goffin/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
After making it a point to play their own instruments on their third LP, Headquarters, the Monkees decided to once again use studio musicians for their next album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. The difference was that this time the studio musicians would be recording under the supervision of the Monkees themselves rather than Don Kirschner and the array of producers he had lined up for the first two Monkees LPs. The result was an album that many critics consider the group's best effort. The only single released from the album was Pleasant Valley Sunday, a song penned by the husband and wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and backed by the band's remake of the Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart song Words, which had been recorded the previous year by the Leaves. Although both songs ended up making the charts, it was Pleasant Valley Sunday that got the most airplay and is considered by many to be Monkees' greatest achievement.
Artist: Beatles
Title: And Your Bird Can Sing
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Yesterday...And Today
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1966
At the time the Revolver album was being made, the Beatles and their producer, George Martin, worked together on the mono mixes of the songs, which were always done before the stereo mixes. In fact, the stereo mixes were usually done without the participation of the band itself, and generally were less time consuming. This led to a rather odd situation in June of 1966. Mono mixes had been made for three of the songs on Revolver at this point, and the band's US label, Capitol, was ready to release a new Beatles album. The problem was that they did not have enough new material for an entire album. Their solution was to use their Duophonic fake stereo process on the mono mixes and include them on the album, which was titled Yesterday...And Today. As a result, when Revolver was released in the US in the fall of 1966, it had three fewer songs than the original British version of the album. One of those three songs was And Your Bird Can Sing, a John Lennon composition that he considered a "throwaway", yet one that contains of the earliest examples of harmony lead guitars (on the intro) in rock. The song's original working title was You Don't Get Me, which lends authenticity to the story told by Cynthia Lennon of John's reaction to her gift of a clockwork bird in a gilded cage.
Artist: Leaves
Title: Too Many People
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pons/Rinehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1965
The Leaves are a bit unusual in that in Los Angeles, a city known for drawing wannabes from across the world, this local band's members were all native Elayins. Formed by members of a fraternity at Cal State Northridge, the Leaves had their greatest success when they took over as house band at Ciro's after the Byrds vacated the slot to go on tour. Like many bands of the time, they were given a song (Bob Dylan's Love Minus Zero) to record as a single by their producer and allowed to write their own B side. In this case the intended B side was Too Many People, written by bassist Jim Pons and guitarist Bill Rhinehart. Before the record was released, however, the producers decided that Too Many People was the stronger track and designated it the A side. The song ended up getting more airplay on local radio stations than Love Minus Zero, making it their first regional hit. The Leaves had their only national hit the following year with their third attempt at recording the fast version of Hey Joe, the success of which led to their first LP, which included a watered down version of Too Many People. The version heard here is the 1965 original. Eventually Pons would leave the Leaves, hooking up first with the Turtles, then Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention.
Artist: Five Americans
Title: I See The Light
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Durrill/Ezell/Rabon
Label: Rhino (original label: Abnak)
Year: 1965
For years I was under the impression that the Five Americans were a Texas band, mainly due to Abnak Records having a Texas address. It turns out, though, that the band was actually from Durant, Oklahoma, although by the time they had their biggest hit, Western Union, they were playing most of their gigs in the Lone Star state. I See The Light is an earlier single built around a repeating Farfisa organ riff that leads into a song that can only be described as in your face. The song was produced by the legendary Dale Hawkins, who wrote and recorded the original version of Suzy Q in the late 1950s.
Artist: Monks
Title: Love Came Tumblin' Down
Source: German import CD: Black Monk Time
Writer(s): Burger/Clark/Day/Johnston/Shaw
Label: Repertoire (original label: International Polydor Production)
Year: 1966
By the mid-1960s, the US military draft was in full swing, introducing young men from all over the nation to army life across the globe. Five of these young men ended up stationed in Frankfurt, Germany and discovered that they had a common musical vision and enough talent to make a little side cash playing at the local beer halls. At the time, virtually every band playing those local beer halls sported Beatles haircuts and played covers of Beatles and other popular bands. Being in the US Army, the five young men obviously couldn't wear Beatles haircuts. Instead, they each shaved a square patch at the top of their heads and called themselves the Monks. Their music was equally radical. Rather than top 40 covers they wrote and played their own original compositions, with the emphasis on original. Despite what would appear on the surface to be drawbacks, the Monks soon had a loyal enough following to allow the five young men, Minnesota-born guitarist Gary Burger, drummer Roger Johnston (a Texan), Chicagoan Larry Clark (the organ playing son of a preacher, man), electric banjoist Dave Day (who hailed from Washington) and Californian bassist Eddie Shaw, to remain in Germany following their respective discharges from the Army. In early 1966 they signed with Polydor's German division and recorded their one and only LP, Black Monk Time. Thanks to songs like Love Came Tumblin' Down, the Monks were eventually recognized as the precursor to such bands as AC/DC, the Ramones and the Clash ten years before any of those bands came into existence. Strangely enough, nobody seems to know where any of these five men ended up after the Monks disbanded in 1967. If anyone reading this has any knowledge of the whereabouts of any of them, drop me a line.
Artist: Doors
Title: Unhappy Girl
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
After the success of their first album and the single Light My Fire in early 1967, the Doors quickly returned to the studio, releasing a second LP, Strange Days, later the same year. The first single released from the new album was People Are Strange. The B side of that single was Unhappy Girl, from the same album. Both sides got played on the jukebox at a place called the Woog in the village of Meisenbach near Ramstein Air Force Base (which is where I was spending most of my evenings that autumn).
Artist: Bee Gees
Title: And The Sun Will Shine
Source: 45 RPM promo EP (from the LP: Horizontal)
Writer(s): Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
The Bee Gees found international success with the LP Bee Gees 1st, released in the summer of 1967. The album spawned two international hit singles, New York Mining Disaster 1941 and To Love Somebody, with a third single, Holiday, hitting the US and Canadian charts in September. The rest of the world, however, got a new song called Massachusetts that did not get released in North America until November of 1967. Meanwhile, another new song, World, was released everywhere else. The next Bee Gees single that would be released everywhere was Words, a non-album track that came out in January of 1968. While Words was still climbing the singles charts, the band released a new album, Horizontal, in February of 1968. In the US, Atco released a promotional EP exclusively to radio stations with four songs from Horizontal on it, including World and another song, And The Sun Will Shine, that was simultaneously released as a single in France. The song is notable for Robin Gibb's ad-libbed vocals, which were recorded in one take.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Flowing Smoothly
Source: Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Brett Wade
Label: Real Gone/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
By late 1968, the group was the Electric Prunes in name only. All the original members were gone, replaced by a group of musicians hand picked by producer Dave Hassinger to record the second of two albums written entirely by David Axelrod. Since ownership of the name Electric Prunes had been signed away to manager Lenny Poncher in the group's early days, there was nothing the original band members could do about it. Not long after the release of the fourth Electric Prunes album, Release Of An Oath, in late 1968, the current group recorded a single, Hey, Mr. President, that was released in early 1969. The B side of that single, a tune called Flowing Smoothly, was written by one of the new members, bassist/guitarist Brett Wade. This same lineup, which also included former West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band guitarist Ron Morgan, also recorded the final Electric Prunes LP, Just Good Old Rock And Roll.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Hideaway (live)
Source: CD: Return to Stockholm
Writer(s): Lowe/Tulin
Label: PruneTwang
Year: 2012
By the time the Electric Prunes name was officially retired in 1970 the band was little more than a footnote in the annals of rock history. That began to change, however, in 1972, with the release of Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets collection. The Prunes' best-known song, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), was chosen to open the 30-song collection of psychedelic classics, giving the band much-deserved exposure. As their legend continued to grow, it was given a boost by the release of Stockholm '67, a live recording that came out in 1997 on the British Heartbeat label. This, as it turned out, was enough to motivate the original band members to get back together to perform live and make new records. On Jan 1, 2012, after coming out with three new studio albums over a period of a dozen years, the band released, on their own PruneTwang label, an album called Return To Stockholm made up of performances recorded in 2004. Among the songs on that album is a live extended version of Hideway, an original tune that first appeared, in studio form, on the second Electric Prunes LP, Underground, in 1967.
Artist: Claypool/Lennon Delirium
Title: Monolith Of Phobos
Source: LP: Monolith Of Phobos
Writer(s): Claypool/Lennon
Label: Ato
Year: 2016
In 2015, Sean Lennon's Ghost Of A Saber Toothed Tiger opened for Les Claypool's band, Primus, and, as often is the case, members of the two bands ended up jamming together backstage. Lennon and Claypool became friends, and eventually, after a wine-enhanced viewing of the Monkees movie, Head, at Claypool's Sebastapol, California guest house, formed the Claypool-Lennon Delirium to explore common psychedelic musical interests (as Lennon put it: "We have similar taste in notes. We tend to like the notes that other people hate"). Notes like those can be heard on the title track of their first album, Monolith Of Phobos. The name comes from a Buzz Aldrin appearance on C-SPAN talking about how there is a monolith (actually a large boulder about 279 ft across and 300 ft tall) on Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons. According to Lennon "We were just hanging out watching that video, and Les came back the next day with a full song about it."
Artist: Residents
Title: Loser≅Weed
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): The Residents
Label: Ralph
Year: 1976 (?)/1978
Loser≅Weed is the B side of a single released on translucent gold colored vinyl in 1978. The text on the back of the sleeve of that single claims that the record, featuring an avant-garde version of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, had originally been released in 1976, but knowing the Residents' reputation for deliberately obscuring the truth, I have to take that claim with a grain of salt, since none of my sources have any info regarding a 1976 issue. The sign ≅ that appears between the words "loser" and "weed", incidentally, is known as a congruence, or isomorphic sign, essentially meaning, in this instance, "structurally identical".
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Child Of The Moon
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
Child Of The Moon was, essentially, the last gasp of the Rolling Stones' psychedelic period, and one of the last Stones tracks to feature founder Brian Jones prominently (on saxophone). Following the poor critical response to their self-produced late 1967 LP Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Stones had brought in producer Jimmy Miller for their next album, Beggar's Banquet. Miller, who had previously produced several hit records for Steve Winwood, including Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man (both by the Spencer Davis Group), tended to favor straight-ahead rock and roll with a touch of soul. This was reflected in the first single Miller produced for the Rolling Stones, Jumpin' Jack Flash. Although Miller is also credited as the producer of Child Of The Moon, which appeared as the single's B side, it is more likely that the song was more or less produced by the band itself as Miller was still getting his footing.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Born Cross-Eyed
Source: CD: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): The Grateful Dead
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After cranking out their first LP in a matter of days, San Francisco's Grateful Dead took a full six months to record, edit and mix the follow-up album, Anthem Of The Sun. Most of the tracks on the album run together and feature an experimental mix of live and studio material. The sole exception is Born Cross-Eyed, which has a running time of barely over two minutes. As near as I can tell, it is also the only actual studio track on the album. Although the song is credited to the entire band, Bob Weir's lyrics are rumoured to be autobiographical in nature.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: Gentle As It May Seem
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Heavy)
Writer(s): DeLoach/Weis
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
Personnel changes were pretty much a regular occurrence with Iron Butterfly. After the first album, Heavy, everyone except keyboardist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy left the band. This was accompanied by a drastic change in style as well, as Ingle, who had already been carrying the lion's share of lead vocals, became the group's primary songwriter as well. Gentle As It Seems, written by Daryl DeLoach and lead guitarist Danny Weis, is a good example of the band's original sound, back when they were scrounging for gigs in a rapidly shrinking L.A. all-ages club scene.
Artist: Animals
Title: Cheating
Source: LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals Vol. II (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s): Burdon/Chandler
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
As a general rule, the original Animals wrote very little of their own material, preferring to record covers of their favorite blues songs to supplement the songs from professional songwriters that producer Mickie Most picked for single release. One notable exception is Cheating, a strong effort from vocalist Eric Burdon and bassist Chas Chandler that appeared on the Animalization album. The hard-driving song was also chosen for release as a B side in 1966.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: Monterey
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
One of the first appearances of the New Animals on stage was at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The experience so impressed the group that they wrote a song about it. The song was issued both as a single and on the LP The Twain Shall Meet. The single used a mono mix; the LP version, while in stereo, was overlapped at both the beginning and end by adjoining tracks, and was missing the first few seconds of the single version. The version used here was created by splicing the mono intro onto the stereo main portion of the song, fading out at the end a bit early to avoid the overlap from the LP. This process (called making a "cut down") was first done by a company called Drake-Chenault, which supplied tapes to radio stations using the most pristine stereo versions of songs available. Whether M-G-M, which included Monterey on The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals Volume 2, used the Drake-Chenault version or did the cut down itself, the result is the same.
Artist: Animals
Title: She'll Return It
Source: Simulated stereo LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals-Vol. II (originally released on LP: Animalization and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Rowberry/Burdon
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
As a general rule the Animals, in their original incarnation, recorded two kinds of songs: hit singles from professional songwriters such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and covers of blues and R&B tunes, the more obscure the better. What they did not record a lot of was original tunes from the band members themselves. This began to change in 1966 when the band began to experience a series of personnel changes that would ultimately lead to what amounted to an entirely new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, the following year. One of the earliest songs to carry a byline from band members was She'll Return It, an Eric Burdon/Dave Rowberry composition that was erroneously credited to the entire band. She'll Return It was released as the B side of See See Rider in August of 1966 and included on the Animalization album. In retrospect, it is one of the strongest tracks on one of their strongest LPs.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Colours
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Golden Days Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sire (original US label: Hickory)
Year: 1965
Following the success of his 1965 debut single, Catch The Wind (#4 UK, #23 US), Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch followed it up with the similarly styled Colours. Although not a hit in the US, Colours matched the success of Catch The Wind in the UK. Both songs were included on an EP, also called Colours, that was issued in Europe and the UK in December of 1965.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
After the surprise success of the Sound Of Silence single, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (who had disbanded their partnership after the seeming failure of their Wednesday Morning 3 AM album in 1964) hastily reunited to record a new LP, Sounds Of Silence. The album, released in early 1966, consisted mostly of electrified versions of songs previously written by Simon, many of which had appeared in the UK in acoustic form on his 1965 solo LP The Paul Simon Songbook. With their newfound success, the duo set about recording an album's worth of new material. This time around, however, Simon had the time (and knowledge of what was working for the duo) to compose songs that would play to both the strengths of himself and Garfunkel as vocalists, as well as take advantage of the additional instrumentation available to him. The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme, featuring tracks such as The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine, an energetic piece satirizing rampant consumerism and the advertising industry.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Rock Me, Baby
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer(s): King/Josea
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Despite having recorded and released over a dozen original songs in Europe and the UK prior to their US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival, the Jimi Hendrix Experience chose to fill their set with more cover songs than originals at the festival itself. Of the five cover songs, two were high-energy reworkings of blues classics such as B.B. King's Rock Me, Baby. Hendrix would eventually rework this arrangement into an entirely original song with new lyrics.
Artist: Frumious Bandersnatch
Title: Hearts To Cry
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on self-titled EP)
Writer: Jack King
Label: Rhino (original label: Muggles Gramophone)
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: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Are You Ready
Source: CD: On Time
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
One of the most appropriate opening songs for a debut album ever recorded, Are You Ready was one of eight tracks laid down by Grand Funk Railroad during a marathon two-day session at Cleveland Recording on June 18-19, 1969. The band had recorded two songs in April that Capitol Records wanted to release as a single, but producer Terry Knight insisted that the band be allowed to record an entire LP. Surprisingly, Knight won that battle, and Grand Funk Railroad's On Time was released in August of 1969. Despite being universally panned by the rock press, On Time went gold in 1970, thanks in large part to the band's willingness to perform large outdoor festivals for no pay (but massive exposure). Within two years they would be one of the first bands to successfully fill large sports arenas, ushering in a new age in the history of rock concerts (and no longer working for no pay).
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