https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/369679-pe-2121
This week, in our second hour, we present another full LP side; this time it's The Twain Shall Meet, the second album by Eric Burdon And The Animals, followed by a long set of tracks from 1967. Meanwhile, back in the first hour we have artists' sets from Love and the Monkees, among other things.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Sunny Afternoon
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
My family got our first real stereo in late summer of 1966, just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio through decent speakers for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off). Unfortunately, Denver's first FM rock station was still a few months off, so the decent speakers were handicapped by being fed an AM radio signal.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: D.C.B.A.-25
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1967
One of the first songs written by Paul Kantner without a collaborator was the highly listenable D.C.B.A.-25 from Surrealistic Pillow. Kantner said later that the title simply referred to the basic chord structure of the song, which is built on a two chord verse (D and C) and a two chord bridge (B and A). That actually fits, but what about the 25 part? [insert enigmatic smile here].
Artist: Them
Title: Market Place
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
I've often mentioned the lost WEOS vinyl archives that were found in a storage room on the Hobart & William Smith Colleges campus a few years ago. Of the thousands of albums we found I ended up keeping about 200. Of those nearly half were unusable, mostly due to their condition. The remainder I divided into three piles. The largest of these piles were the marginal albums that may have one or two songs that might be worked into the show once in a while. The next pile was mostly duplicates of albums I already had on CD, although there were a few cases of stereo albums I had mono copies of, or vice versa. Only a handful of albums made the third pile, but these were the real gems of the bunch: genuine relics of the psychedelic era in playable condition that I didn't already have. Of these, two of the most valuable finds (for my purposes at any rate) were the two post-Van Morrison Them albums released by Tower Records in 1968 that feature new vocalist Kenny McDowell. Market Place is from the second of these, Time Out! Time In! For Them.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Cry Baby Cry
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1968
Unlike many of the songs on The Beatles (white album), Cry Baby Cry features the entire band playing on the recording. After a full day of rehearsal, recording commenced on July 16, 1968, with John Lennon's guitar and piano, Paul McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's drum tracks all being laid down on the first day. The remaining overdubs, including most of the vocals and George Harrison's guitar work (played on a Les Paul borrowed from Eric Clapton) were added a couple of days later. At the end of the track, McCartney can be heard singing a short piece known as Can You Take Me Back, accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar in a snippet taken from a solo session the following September.
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: The Things That Concern You
Source: LP: Cauldron
Writer(s): L. Evans
Label: Limelight
Year: 1968
Fifty Foot Hose was undoubtably the most avant-garde band in San Francisco to get a record contract. Possibly inspired by the Beach Boys' hit Good Vibrations (or maybe Denver's Lothar And The Hand People) the band was led by Cork Marcheschi, who used a theramin extensively, along with other self-made electronic instruments. The group also featured the husband and wife team of David and Nancy Blossom, both of which left Fifty Foot Hose after the band's first and only LP to become cast members for the San Francisco production of the musical Hair (Nancy in fact landing the role of female lead Sheila).
Artist: Gurus
Title: Shelly In Camp
Source: European import CD: Shape Of Things To Come (originally released in US on LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack)
Writer: Les Baxter
Label: Captain High (original US label:Tower)
Year: 1968
Les Baxter is one of those names that sounds vaguely familiar to anyone who was alive in the 50s and 60s, but doesn't seem to be associated with anything in particular. That might be because Baxter was the guy that movie producers went to when they needed something done at the last minute. Such is the case with the short instrumental Shelly In Camp (referring the actress Shelly Winters, whose character ends up in an internment camp in the movie Wild In The Streets), a strange little piece with lots of sitar that closes out side one of the film's soundtrack LP. I seem to recall seeing some Les Baxter albums at a small town radio station I worked at in the early 70s that alternated between country, soft pop and lounge lizard records; Baxter's were in the third pile. "The Gurus", of course, was an entirely fictional name made up by the producers of the Wild In The Streets soundtrack album. I guess it was cheaper than hiring a real band.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Pleasant Valley Sunday
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Goffin/King
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' single best song.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Words
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The Monkees made a video of the Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart song Words that shows each member in the role that they were best at as musicians: Mickey Dolenz on lead vocals, Peter Tork on guitar, Michael Nesmith on bass and Davy Jones on drums. This was not the way they were usually portrayed on their TV show, however. Neither was it the configuration on the recording itself, which had Nesmith on guitar, Tork on Hammond organ, producer Chip Douglas on bass and studio ace Eddie Hoh on drums. The song appeared on the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD as well as being released as the B side of Pleasant Valley Sunday. Even as a B side, the song was a legitimate hit, peaking at #11 in 1967.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Supplicio/Can You Dig It
Source: LP: Head
Writer(s): Peter Tork
Label: Colgems
Year: 1968
Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings. The first, and most familiar, was For Pete's Sake, which was released on the Headquarters album in 1967 and used as the closing theme for the second season of their TV series. The second Tork solo piece was the more experimental Can You Dig It used in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. Not long after Head was completed, Tork left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Heart Of Stone
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years
Writer(s): Jagger/Richard
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1964
Heart Of Stone, released in December of 1964, was the first Rollong Stones song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to become a top 20 hit in the US. Although never released as a single in the band's native UK, it was a top 10 hit in Australia and the Netherlands, and made it to the #24 spot in France.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: For Your Love
Source: Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: K-Tel (original label: Epic)
Year: 1965
The last Yardbirds song to feature guitarist Eric Clapton, For Your Love was the group's first US hit, peaking in the #6 slot. The song did even better in the UK, peaking at #3. Following its release, Clapton left the Yardbirds, citing the band's move toward a more commercial sound and this song in particular as reasons for his departure (ironic when you consider songs like his mid-90s hit Change the World or his slowed down lounge lizard version of Layla). For Your Love was written by Graham Gouldman, who would end up as a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and later 10cc with Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Hey Joe
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.
Artist: Doors
Title: People Are Strange
Source: CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Strange Days and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first single from the second Doors album was People Are Strange. The song quickly dispelled any notion that the Doors might be one-hit wonders and helped establish the band as an international act as opposed to just another band from L.A. The album itself, Strange Days, was a turning point for Elektra Records as well, as it shifted the label's promotional efforts away from their original rock band, Love, to the Doors, who ironically had been recommended to the label by Love's leader, Arthur Lee.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Gloomy
Source: LP: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Writer(s): John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1968
If there is any one song that reflects the fact that the first Creedence Clearwater Revival album was, in fact, a recording made in San Francisco in 1968, it's Gloomy, from that same album. The song starts off with a "Spoonful" kind of vibe, but soon picks up the tempo and, thanks to some reverse-recorded guitar, becomes almost psychedelic by the end of the track. Songwriter John Fogerty would end up taking the band in an entirely different direction on subsequent albums, but it is interesting to hear them as part of the "San Francisco Sound" in their early days.
Artist: Love
Title: Softly To Me
Source: Australian import CD: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer: Bryan MacLean
Label: Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
Before the signing of Love in 1966, Elektra was a folk and ethnic music label whose closest thing to a rock band was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which was at that time very much into creating as authentic Chicago blues sound as possible for a band of mostly white boys from New York. Love, on the other hand, was a bona-fide rock band that was packing the clubs on the Sunset Strip nightly. To underscore the significance of the signing, Elektra started a whole new numbering series for Love's debut album. Bryan McLean's role as a songwriter in Love was similar to George Harrison's as a Beatle. He didn't have many songs on any particular album, but those songs were often among the best tracks on the album. The first of these was Softly To Me from the band's debut LP.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: German import CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1966
The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll, with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast (from the Elektra sound effects library) followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.
Artist: Love
Title: The Everlasting First
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Blue Thumb
Year: 1970
After disbanding the original Love in 1968, Arthur Lee soon resurfaced with a new version of the band, recording one more LP for Elektra, as well as a double LP for the fledgling Blue Thumb label. Yet another lineup made its debut on the 1970 album False Start, the final Love album for Blue Thumb. The album features Lee's old friend Jimi Hendrix as co-arranger and lead guitarist on the album's opening track, a tune called The Everlasting First. The track was likely put together from a series of jams that Lee and Hendrix recorded at Island Records' London studios in March of 1970.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Heroes And Villains (alternate take)
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Smiley Smile/Wild Honey)
Writer(s): Wilson/Parks
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1995
The last major Beach Boys hit of the 1960s was Heroes And Villains, released as a follow-up to Good Vibrations in early 1967. The song was intended to be part of the Smile album, but ended up being released as a single in an entirely different form than Brian Wilson originally intended. Eventually the entire Smile project was canned, and a considerably less sophisticated album called Smiley Smile was released in its place. Nearly 30 years later Smiley Smile and its follow-up album, Wild Honey, were released on compact disc as a set. One of the bonus tracks in that set was this alternate version of Heroes And Villains, which was also included in the box set Good Vibrations-Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys. Finally, in 2004, Brian Wilson's Smile, featuring all new stereo recordings, was released, with a nearly identical arrangement of Heroes And Villains to the one heard here.
Artist: Kenny And The Kasuals
Title: Journey To Tyme
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Smith/Lee
Label: Rhino (original labels: Mark Ltd. and United Artists)
Year: 1966
One of the most popular Dallas area bands in the mid-1960s was Kenny and the Kasuals. Formed in 1962, the band was best known for playing high school dances and such. They got their shot at stardom in 1966 when they recorded Journey To Tyme for Mark Ltd. Productions. The song was picked up later in the year for national distribution by United Artists and made it all the way to the # 1 spot in Buffalo, NY and Pittsburgh, Pa. Despite this success the band was unable to get a long-term contract with United Artists (thanks in part to problems with their own manager) and soon disbanded.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: The Twain Shall Meet (side one)
Source: LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
Eric Burdon And The Animals were among the many acts that appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967. Although the band did make an impression at the festival, the festival itself made an even bigger impression upon the band. This was demonstrated in the best way possible with the late 1967 release of the band's next single, Monterey, which name-checked many of the other artists on the scene. The group followed that single up with their second LP, The Twain Shall Meet, in 1968. Each side of the LP was a continuous track, with each song fading into the one following it. The album begins with a short sitar introduction with spoken vocals by Burdon that leads into the stereo version of Monterrey, which is missing the first few notes from the single version. As Monterey fades out, it is replaced by the contemplative Just The Thought, sung by bassist Danny McCulloch. Studio effects highlight the blues-based Closer To The Truth, which fades into No Self Pity. Songwriting credits for all of the above are given to the entire group, but the final track on side one, Orange And Red Beams, was both written and sung my McCulloch.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: I'm A Man
Source: Mono LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Miller
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer. The group itself continued on for several years, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes. As for Steve Winwood, he quickly faded off into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Except as the leader of Traffic. And a member of Blind Faith. And Traffic again. And some critically-acclaimed collaborations in the early 1980s with Asian musicians. Oh yeah, and a few major solo hits (Back In The High Life, Roll With It...that kinda thing) in the mid-to-late 1980s. Other than that, nothing.
Artist: Move
Title: (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Roy Wood
Label: A&M
Year: 1967
The most successful British band of the psychedelic era not to have a US hit was the Move, a band that featured Roy Wood and (later) Jeff Lynne, among other notables. The band was already well established in the UK by 1967, when their single Flowers In The Rain was picked to be the first record played on the new BBC Radio One. The B side of that record was the equally-catchy (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree. Both songs were written by Wood, although he only sang lead vocals on the B side.
Artist: Ballroom
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Joe Williams
Label: Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
This rather unusual arrangement of Joe Williams classic Baby, Please Don't Go was the creation of producer/vocalist Curt Boettcher. Boettcher had previously worked with the Association, co-writing their first hit Along Comes Mary. While working on the Ballroom project for Our Productions in 1966 he came to the attention of Brian Wilson and Gary Usher. Usher was so impressed with Boettcher's creativity in the studio that he convinced his own bosses at Columbia Records to buy out Boettcher's contract from Our Productions. As a result, much of Boettcher's Ballroom project became part of Usher's own Sagittarius project, with only one single released under the Ballroom name. Boettcher turned out to be so prolific that it was sometimes said that the giant "CBS" logo on the side of the building stood for Curt Boettcher's Studios.
Artist: "Chocolate Watchband"
Title: Expo 2000
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Richie Podolor
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
If you ignore the fact that Expo 2000, from the first Chocolate Watchband album, No Way Out, is performed by uncredited studio musicians (note the quotation marks) and thus is a complete misrepresentation, it's really a pretty decent instrumental. Too bad we'll never know who actually performed it. We do know, however, that it was written by Richard Podolor, who owned the studio where the recording was made.
Artist: H.P. Lovecraft
Title: The White Ship
Source: CD: Two Classic Albums From H.P. Lovecraft (originally released on LP: H.P. Lovecraft II)
Writer(s): Edwards/Michaels/Cavallari
Label: Collector's Choice/Universal Music Special Products (original label: Philips)
Year: 1967
Fans of Chicago's premier psychedelic band, H.P. Lovecraft, generally agree that the high point of the band's 1967 debut LP is The White Ship, which opens the second side of the original LP. The basic song was composed by George Edwards, who came up with it between sessions for other tracks on the album in about 15 minutes. Once the rest of the band got ahold of it, the track was, in the words of co-founder Dave Michaels, "instantly moulded into a new entity", adding that "By itself, the baritone melody and chords are merely a bare-bones beginning. Adding the harmonies, the feedback effects on lead guitar, and conceiving the 'bolero' rhythm all came into being in a group setting." Accordingly, Edwards insisted on sharing songwriting credit with both Michaels and lead guitarist Tony Cavallari. Although the song was also released, in edited form, as a single, it is the six-and-a-half minute long LP version of The White Ship that got a considerable amount of airplay on underground FM radio stations when it was released in 1967.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Morning Dew
Source: CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s): Bonnie Dobson
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
One of the most identifiable songs in the Grateful Dead repertoire, Morning Dew was the first song ever written by Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson, who came up with the song in 1961 the morning after having a long discussion with friends about what life might be like following a nuclear holocaust. She began performing the song that year, with the first recorded version appearing on her 1962 live album At Folk City. The song was not published, however, until 1964, when Fred Neil decided to record his own version of the song for his album Tear Down The Walls. The first time the song appeared on a major label was 1966, when Tim Rose recorded it for his self-titled Columbia Records debut album. Rose had secured permission to revise the song and take credit as a co-writer, but his version was virtually identical to the Fred Neil version of the song. Nonetheless, Rose's name has been included on all subsequent recordings (though Dobson gets 75% of the royalties), including the Grateful Dead version heard on their 1967 debut LP.
Artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title: Hungry
Source: 45 RPM single
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: Count Five
Title: The Morning After
Source: Mono LP: Psychotic Reaction
Writer(s): John Byrne
Label: Bicycle/Concord (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
Following the success of the single Psychotic Reaction, San Jose, Calfornia's Count Five headed for Los Angeles to record an entire album's worth of material. With the exception of two Who covers, all the songs on the album (also called Psychotic Reaction) were written or co-written by John Byrne, the Irish-born rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist for the band. They were also quite short. The Morning After, for instance, runs less than two minutes total.
No comments:
Post a Comment