Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2140 (starts 9/27/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/387135-pe-2140

 
    This week we have a couple of artists' sets (Santana and the Rolling Stones), an Advanced Psych segment, and the long overdue first appearance of Iggy Pop's band, the Stooges, on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. And all that accounts for less than a third of the music on this week's show. It all starts with the opening of a music box...

Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Music Box
Source:    LP: Spaceship Earth
Writer(s):    Robert Yeazel
Label:    Liberty
Year:    1971
    Following the release of their 1970 debut album, Sugarloaf recruited Robert Yeazel to be the band's second lead guitarist, joining Jerry Corbetta, Bob Webber, Bob Raymond and Bob MacVittie to record the band's second LP, Spaceship Earth. Yeazel brought strong songwriting skills to the band, and either wrote or co-wrote every song on Spaceship Earth. The album covered a lot more ground musically as well, including the unique and somewhat whimsical Music Box, a Yeazel composition that immediately preceeds the hard-rocking Tongue In Cheek to close out the LP's second side.

Artist:    Blind Faith
Title:    Had To Cry Today
Source:    LP: Blind Faith
Writer(s):    Steve Winwood
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Blind Faith, the self-titled debut album of a group consisting of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker from Cream, Steve Winwood from Traffic and Rich Grech, who had played bass with a band called Family. The buzz about this new band was such that the rock press had to coin a brand-new term to describe it: supergroup. On release, the album shot up to the number one spot on the charts in record time. Of course, as subsequent supergroups have shown, such bands seldom stick around very long, and Blind Faith set the pattern early on by splitting up after just one LP and a short tour to promote it. The opening track of the album was a pure Winwood piece that showcases both Winwood and Clapton on separate simultaneous guitar tracks.

Artist:    Del Shannon
Title:    I Think I Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover)
Writer(s):    Del Shannon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Del Shannon? The guy who did Runaway back in '62? Yep. Also the same Del Shannon who Tom Petty has acknowledged as his number one inspiration and who was on the verge of being asked to replace the late Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys when he himself became the late Del Shannon. Unlike many of his early 60s contemporaries such as Bobby Vee or Fabian, Shannon was able to keep up with the times, as this piece of pure psychedelia (penned by Shannon himself) from the album The Further Adventures of Charles Westover demonstrates.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Cat Talking To Me
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2010
    The 1967 recording of Cat Talking To Me sat on the shelf for over thirty years before being released as the B side to the Valleys Of Neptune single in 2010. The song is notable for two reasons. The first is rather obvious in that it features a rare lead vocal by drummer Mitch Mitchell. The second thing that makes the song stand out from other Experience recordings is a bit more subtle. Cat Talking To Me is musically much more consistent with Hendrix's later tracks, especially those heard on various posthumous releases, than anything else he was working on in 1967.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    There were actually three slow versions of Hey Joe released in 1966. The first was a summer single by folk singer Tim Rose, who reportedly brainstormed the idea of slowing down the popular garage-rock tune with his friend Sean Bonniwell, leader of the Music Machine. Although Rose's version was the first released, it did not appear on an LP until 1967. The first stereo version of the song was on the Music Machine's first LP, released in the fall. In December a third slow version of Hey Joe was released, but only in the UK and Europe. That version was by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Like Rose's single, the Hendrix version of Hey Joe was originally released only in a mono version, which was remixed in stereo by engineers at Reprise Records for inclusion on the US version of the debut Hendrix LP in 1967. Like the Rose version, the Music Machine arrangement of Hey Joe focuses squarely on the vocals, with the instrumental track serving purely to set the mood for the piece. Unlike with other recordings of Hey Joe released in 1966, the label on the album Turn On The Music Machine correctly credited Billy Roberts as the song's writer.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I Need You
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    After a series of hard-rocking hits in 1964 such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks mellowed out a bit with songs like Set Me Free and Tired Of Waiting For You the following year. Lurking on the other side of Set Me Free, though, was a song that showed that the band still knew how to rock out: I Need You.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Persuasion
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer(s):    Santana (band)
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Santana was originally a free-form jam band, but at the insistence of manager Bill Graham began to write more structured songs for their first studio LP. Released in 1969, the album received less than glowing reviews from the rock press, but following the band's successful appearance at Woodstock, the LP eventually peaked at # 4 on the Billboard album charts. One of the lesser known tracks on the album was Persuasion, a good example of the band doing what their manager told them to do.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Black Magic Woman
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Abraxas and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Peter Green
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    A common practice among San Francisco bands was to record their first album in a matter of days then spend months on the follow up. Such was the case with Carlos Santana's band, who resisted pressure from their label to crank out a new album following their successful appearance at Woodstock. The result was Abraxas, released in spring of 1970, still considered to be one of the best rock albums ever made. The album opened with a medley that included their own version of the 1968 Fleetwood Mac song Black Magic Woman. An edited version of the song was released as a single and became the group's biggest hit.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Waiting
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer:    Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Possibly the most successful (in the long term) of the musicians to emerge from late 60s San Francisco was Carlos Santana, a Mexican-born guitarist who still plays to sellout crowds worldwide. Santana's band originally got lukewarm reviews from the rock press, but after their legendary performance at Woodstock found themselves among rock's royalty. Waiting, the opening track from the group's 1969 debut LP, is an instrumental that was also released as the B side of the band's first single, Evil Ways.

Artist:    Stooges
Title:    Little Doll (original John Cale mix)
Source:    CD: The Stooges (bonus track)
Writer(s):    The Stooges
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2005
    Producer John Cale's original mixes for the first Stooges album, done in a style emulating Lou Reed's "closet mix" of the third Velvet Underground LP, were considered "too arty" by Elektra Records honcho Jac Holzman, so he and Iggy Pop went back and remixed the entire album before it was released. The original Cale mixes sat on the shelf for years, finally surfacing as bonus tracks on the 2005 CD reissue of The Stooges. The version of Little Doll heard here is one of those John Cale mixes, albeit pitch corrected.

Artist:    John McLaughlin
Title:    Extrapolation
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Extrapolation)
Writer(s):    John McLaughlin
Label:    Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year:    1969
    Best known as the founder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, guitarist John McLaughlin performed with a number of legendary British artists before recording his solo debut album, Extrapolation, for Giorgio Gomelsky's Marmalade label in 1969. As can be heard on the title track, McLaughlin was already quite accomplished on his instrument at this point in his career. When Marmalade folded McLaughlin moved to New York, where he joined up with Miles Davis (on the Bitches Brew album) before forming the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971. Now known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, the guitarist remains one of the world's most highly respected jazz guitarists.

rtist:     Pleasure (featuring Billy Elder)
Title:     Poor Old Organ Grinder
Source:     CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Tandyn Almer
Label:     Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:     1969
     Tandyn Almer had one of the most innovative minds in late 60s L.A., both in and out of the recording studio (he was the inventor of the dual-chamber bong, for instance). Poor Old Organ Grinder was a song originally intended for Tommy Flanders, the original lead vocalist for the Blues Project. Flanders, however, was not able to hit the high notes. As Almers was about to cancel the entire project one of the recording engineers, Billy Elder, convinced Almer to let him take a shot at the song, and the result is the recording heard here.
    
Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    Children Of The Sun
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):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1969
    Formed in Riverside, California in 1965, the Misunderstood relocated to London in 1966, where they soon became one of the top bands on the local underground scene. Unfortunately, the band was plagued by issues involving draft eligibility, resulting in original rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter Greg Treadwell returning to the states soon after arriving in the UK. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as his replacement, Londoner Tony Hill, teamed up with vocalist Rick Brown to write even better songs, augmented by the talents of Glenn Ross Campbell, who played his leads on a pedal steel guitar.  The band soon signed with Fontana, releasing a single in December of 1966 before once again running into problems with the draft board, this time concerning Brown. With their frontman gone, the Misunderstood soon disbanded, with the remaining American members returning to California. Two years later Fontana released a second single by the Misunderstood, Children Of The Sun, which has since come to be regarded as a classic example of garage-flavored psychedelic music.

Artist:     Mountain
Title:     Theme From An Imaginary Western
Source:     European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Mountain Climbing)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Windfall)
Year:     1970
     Keyboardist Felix Pappaliardi worked closely with the band Cream in the studio, starting with the album Disraeli Gears, so it was only natural that his new band Mountain would perform (and record) at least one song by Cream's primary songwriting team, Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. If Mississippi Queen was guitarist Leslie West's signature song, then Theme From An Imaginary Western was Felix's, at least until Nantucket Sleighride came along.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Get Me To The World On Time
Source:    CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (originally released on LP: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Jones
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for two more tracks to include on their debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Black Fish
Source:    CD: 50
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rag Baby
Year:    2017
    The first track that really jumped out at me on Country Joe McDonald's 2017 album 50 was a tune called Black Fish. As is characteristic of McDonald's work, the song is both musically interesting and lyrically savvy. Good stuff!

Artist:    Vertacyn Arc Materializer
Title:    El Dorado
Source:    LP: Tasting The Sea
Writer(s):    Vertacyn Arc Materializer
Label:    10 GeV
Year:    2018
    The city of San Francisco seems to produce more than its share of bands that go out of their way to maintain their anonymity. In the early 1970s the Residents even recorded an album called Not Available, intending to not release it until all of the band members had forgotten about its existence (it eventually got released in 1978 during a creative dry spell). These days the San Francisco anonymous band torch is carried by Vertacyn Arc Materializer, a band that is just as hard to describe as the Residents themselves. Their second LP, Tasting The Sea, is only available on Vinyl, and it's packaging is nothing less than spectacular. The front cover is the famous Rolling Stones "mouth" logo dissected by an actual zipper, mimicking the Stones' own Sticky Fingers cover, against a stark white background. Opening the zipper reveals a "circle c" copyright symbol. The back cover featuring "portraits" of each of the four band members: the Starbucks logo (bass, guitar), the US $20 bill version of President Andrew Jackson (drums, trumpet), Marilyn (guitar, bass, keyboards) and Homeland Security, represented by a snarling wolf (vocals, keyboards, guitar). There's even more fun stuff on the inside of the gatefold cover, but I'll let you find your own copy to check it out yourself (if you can find one; apparently there were only 500 pressed). Musically, Tasting The Sea is harder to describe; I'd put it with bands like Killing Joke and Nine Inch Nails, with a little Pere Ubu thrown in, but even that comparison falls short of the reality of Vertacyn Arc Materializer. Perhaps the most accessible track on the album is El Dorado, that has a bit of an early Pink Floyd (and slightly later King Crimson) vibe to it. Enjoy!

Artist:    Romeo Void
Title:    I Mean It
Source:    LP: itsacondition
Writer(s):    Iyall/Zincavage/Woods/Bossi
Label:    415
Year:    1981
    Formed in 1979 at the San Francisco Art Institute by vocalist Deborah Iyall and bassist Frank Zincavage, Romeo Void also included saxophonist Benjamin Bossi, guitarist Peter Woods, and a (shades of Spinal Tap!) succession of drummers. Their first LP, Itsacondition (sometimes referred to as It's A Condition) was released in 1981. I first ran across this album while doing a contemporary alternative rock show called Rock Nouveaux on KUNM in Albuquerque in the early 1980s. Although most of the album was fast-paced and punkish in nature, it was I Mean It, the haunting closing track from side one, that stood out from just about everything else that was happening musically at the time.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    I'm Going Home
Source:    European import CD: Undead
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1968
    Ten Years After was one of those bands that had to be heard live to be truly appreciated. Producer Mike Vernon certainly thought so at any rate, so, midway through recording tracks for a second studio album, he decided to instead rent a small club in London and record the band's performance there. The result was the 1968 album Undead, which includes the original live version of I'm Going Home, the song that would propel the band into the ranks of rock royalty the following year at Woodstock.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    I Need A Man To Love
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Joplin/Andrew
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded their first album at the Chicago studios of Mainstream records in 1967. Mainstream, however, was a jazz label and their engineers had no idea how to make a band like Big Brother sound good. When the band signed to Columbia the following year it was decided that the best way to record the band was onstage. Unfortunately, none of the live recordings the band made were considered good enough to be released, so they ended up making studio versions of most of the songs, including I Need A Man To Love, and then added ambient audience noise to them to make them sound like live recordings. Apparently it worked, as the resulting album, Cheap Thrills, ended up being the most successful album of 1968.

Artist:     Johnny Winter
Title:     Bad Luck And Trouble
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer:     Johnny Winter
Label:     United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year:     1968
     Johnny Winter first started getting attention while playing the Texas blues circuit. His first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the regional Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who got caught up in the whole glam rock thing, Johnny Winter remained a respected blues artist for his entire career.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Rambling On
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M/Rebound
Year:    1968
    Procol Harum is generally considered to be one of the first progressive rock bands, thanks in part to their second LP, Shine On Brightly. In addition to the album's showpiece, the seventeen minute In Held Twas I, the album has several memorable tracks, including Rambling On, which closes out side one of the original LP. The song's rambling first-person lyrics (none of which actually rhyme) tell the story of a guy who, inspired by a Batman movie, decides to jump off a roof and fly. Oddly enough, he succeeds.

Artist:    Southwest F.O.B.
Title:    Tomorrow
Source:    LP: Smell Of Incense
Writer(s):    Colley/Seals
Label:    Hip
Year:    1968
    If Tomorrow, from the 1968 LP Smell Of Incense, sounds like an England Dan and John Ford Coley song, it's because it IS an England Dan and John Ford Coley song. The duo, along with Larry "Ovid" Stevens, were the core members of Southwest F.O.B., a popular Dallas band that had started off calling themselves the Playboys Five while the members were still in high school. At the time Coley (whose name was originally spelled Colley) and Seals were both 20 years old. They would find success as a soft rock duo in the late 1970s. In the 1980s Seals would become one of the most successful country artists of the decade.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Lady Jane
Source:     British import LP: Aftermath (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:     1966
     One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time in the US was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated separately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Complicated
Source:    LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones' 1967 album Between The Buttons was made amidst growing problems for the band, both with their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and guitarist Brian Jones, whose heavy drug use was beginning to take its toll. Exascerbating the problem was the band's increasing frustration with the limitations of four-track technology, which often necessitated bouncing tracks from one machine to another to make room for more tracks, resulting in a loss of overall quality. In fact, Mick Jagger has called the entire album "garbage" (with the exception of one song that was only included on the British version of the LP), due to the poor audio quality of the finished product. Still, some of the songs, like Complicated, are good representations of where the band was musically at the time the album was recorded.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Think
Source:    CD: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:    1966
    The 1966 album Aftermath marked a turning point for the Rolling Stones, as it was the first Stones album to be entirely made up of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Although, as with all the early Stones releases, there were differences between the US and UK versions of the album, both releases included Think, a song that is fairly representative of the mid-60s Rolling Stones sound.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Hey Bulldog
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:    1969
    The original 1969 Yellow Submarine soundtrack album has always been considered a "non-essential" part of the Beatles catalog, despite containing four songs that were unavailable from any other source. Part of the reason for this is because it was, by all accounts, a "contractual obligation" album, and only two of the four new songs were actually recorded specifically for use in the film. The newest of the four was Hey Bulldog, later described by composer/lead vocalist John Lennon as "a good-sounding record that means nothing". Meaningless or not, Hey Bulldog is indeed a good sounding record, and one of the few to reflect the same sense of whimsy found on the band's annual Christmas records sent to members of their fan club.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2140 (starts 9/27/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/387134-dc-2140

 
    This week it's free-form rock all the way from Procol Harum to Genesis, with a mixture of live recording, B sides, and even an EP track joining the album tracks this time around.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Bringing Home The Bacon
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM promo single
Writer:    Brooker/Reid
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    After the departure of original lead guitarist Robin Trower, the remaining members of Procol Harum continued to record quality albums such as Grand Hotel, although their airplay was limited to sporadic plays on progressive FM stations. One song that probably should have gotten more attention than it did was Bringing Home The Bacon, from the aforementioned Grand Hotel album. The group would experience a brief return to top 40 radio the following year with the release of their live version of Conquistador, a track that originally appeared on the band's 1967 debut LP.

Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    Funky Woman
Source:    LP: Maxoom
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    20th Century
Year:    1972
    Canadian Frank Marino wrote, played guitar, sang lead vocals on and produced the first Mahogany Rush album, Maxoom...at age 17. The LP, released in 1972, was dedicated to the memory of Jimi Hendrix. Indeed, Marino's music in many ways represented possible directions that Hendrix himself may have taken had he lived past the age of 27. Funky Woman is an example of one such direction.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title:    Who Knows
Source:    LP: Band Of Gypsys
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    The first song you hear on an album may not always be the best song on the album, but it is usually the first one that comes to mind whenever that album is mentioned. Such is the case with Who Knows, which opens the Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys album. The thing is, it really isn't much of a song at all, just a sequence of ten notes repeated over and over with occasional vocals and guitar solos on top. It was, however, a fun song to jam on, as it only took a few seconds to learn the basic riff. And, as can be heard on the album itself, talented musicians can keep that simple sequence of ten notes intersting for over nine minutes.

Artist:     The Band
Title:     The Genetic Method/Chest Fever
Source:     CD: Rock Of Ages
Writer:     Hudson/Robertson
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1972
     I guess this is as good a place as any to mention that, given a choice between a live recording and a studio track I'll take the studio track almost every time. My reasoning is this: a live recording, no matter how well recorded, is still nothing more than a documentation of a performance that has already taken place. I believe that there is no possible way to duplicate the actual experience of hearing the song performed live. There are too many aspects of the concert experience that simply can't be captured on an audio (or even visual) medium, such as the emotional and/or mental state of the performers (or the audience members for that matter) at the time of the performance. A studio recording, on the other hand, is a work of, if not art, at least craftmanship. The ability of the artist to go back and make changes to the work until that artist is satisfied with the final product is what makes the studio recording more than just a snapshot of a performance. Just like a sculpture or painting, a studio recording is a set piece, meant to be repeatedly experienced in its final form. That said, here we have a live track from The Band's most popular album, Rock of Ages. Why did I choose this over the studio performance of Chest Fever from Music From Big Pink? Well, the main reason is the first part of the recording, The Genetic Method, which is an improvisational piece from Garth Hudson on the organ. As the two tracks run continuously there was really no choice but to include Chest Fever as well. One small aside: the performances used for Rock of Ages all came from a set of concerts held over the New Year's holidays. The presence of Auld Lang Syne in the middle of The Genetic Method suggests that Hudson started his performance at just a few minutes before midnight and played the familiar strains as the clock struck twelve.
 
Artist:    Leslie West
Title:    Blood Of The Sun
Source:    45 RPM single B side (also released on LP: Mountain)
Writer:    West/Pappaliardi/Collins
Label:    Windfall
Year:    1969
    After the Long Island band The Vagrants disbanded guitarist Leslie Weinstein changed his last name to West and recorded a solo album called Mountain. Helping him with the project was producer Felix Pappaliardi, who had previously worked with Cream on their Disraeli Gears and Wheels Of Fire albums. Among the better tracks on the album was a tune called Blood Of The Sun, which the two of them wrote (along with Pappaliardi's wife Janet Collins). The pair of them meshed so well that they decided to form a band with drummer Corky Laing, using the name Mountain. One of the first gigs by the new band was the Woodstock festival, where they played Blood Of The Sun to an enthusiastic crowd.

Artist:      Black Sabbath
Title:     Electric Funeral
Source:      CD: Paranoid
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1970
     When Black Sabbath first appeared on vinyl they were perceived as the next step in the evolution of rock, building on the acid rock of the late sixties and laying the groundwork for what would become heavy metal. Electric Funeral, from the band's second album, Paranoid, shows that evolution in progress.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict
Source:    CD: Works (originally released on LP: Ummagumma)
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1969
    In 1971 I was in a band called Sunn that played mostly in theaters in western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle . To get the crowd in the right mood for our performance we would play a tape loop of Pink Floyd's Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict through the band's PA system while people were getting seated. We figured most everyone in the audience had not yet heard of Pink Floyd, since there were no progressive rock FM stations in that part of the country (and damned few AM stations playing anything but country for that matter). Composer Roger Waters later said of the piece: "It's not actually anything, it's a bit of concrete poetry. Those were sounds that I made, the voice and the hand slapping were all human generated - no musical instruments."
    
Artist:    Kinks
Title:    God's Children
Source:    French import 7" 33 1/3 RPM EP: From the soundtrack of the film "Percy"
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Pye)
Year:    1971
    The final Kinks album released on the Pye label in the UK was the soundtrack album for a film called Percy. In addition to the LP, Pye issued a four-song EP from the album as well, promoted as a "maxi-single", perhaps the first ever use of the term. The opening track from both the album and the EP was God's Children; the song was also released as a single in the UK but did not chart. None of these records, by the way, were ever given a North American release, resulting in the Percy soundtrack being the best selling Kinks import album in the US for several years.

Artist:     Argent
Title:     Closer To Heaven
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Russ Ballard
Label:     Epic
Year:     1972
     After the Zombies split up in 1968 keyboardist Rod Argent set out to form a new band to be known simply as Argent. The new group scored its biggest hit in 1972 with the song Hold Your Head Up. The original single was released on April 11, 1972 and ran 2 minutes and 52 seconds. It was backed with a song called Keep On Rollin', written by Argent and fellow former Zombie Chris White. On May 1st the single was reissued with a longer version of Hold Your Head Up (3:15). For the reissue the B side was replaced with Closer To Heaven, a tune written by guitarist/keyboardist Russ Ballard.

Artist:    Blood, Sweat And Tears
Title:    Spinning Wheel
Source:    CD: Blood, Sweat And Tears
Writer(s):    David Clayton-Thomas
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1969
    After the departure of Blood, Sweat & Tears founder Al Kooper following the group's first LP, the remaining members decided to make a go of it with a new vocalist. They recruited Canada's David Clayton-Thomas, who not only brought a unique vocal sound to the group, but also penned one of their most popular songs, Spinning Wheel. The tune was the band's second consecutive top 5 single and cemented the group's reputation as a force to be reckoned with in the music world.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Harlequin
Source:    CD: Nursery Cryme
Writer(s):    Mike Rutherford
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1971
    Although you would expect a song that is basically a vocal duet between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, Harlequin, from the Genesis album Nursery Cryme, was actually written by bassist Mike Rutherford. Go figure.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2139 (starts 9/20/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/386256-pe-2139 

    This is one of those shows that has no artists sets, instead featuring 32 tracks from 32 different artists, including half a dozen that have never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before. It does, however, include a new Advanced Psych segment with a decidedly garage-rock feel to it.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    We Can Work It Out
Source:    LP: Yesterday...And Today (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966 (single released 1965)
    From 1965 on very few Lennon/McCartney compositions were actually collaborations between the Beatles' two main songwriters. We Can Work It Out, released in December of 1965 as half of a double A side single, is one of those few.

Artist:    Herbal Mixture
Title:    Please Leave My Mind
Source:    British mono CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Tony McPhee
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Columbia UK)
Year:    1966
    After a stint backing up John Lee Hooker, guitarist T.S. McPhee branched out on his own with a band called Herbal Mixture in 1966. The group only cut two singles for the British Columbia label, the second of which featured a song that McPhee wrote called Please Leave My Mind as its B side. Eventually Tony McPhee would gain greater fame as leader of the Groundhogs in the early 70s.

Artist:    Masters Apprentices
Title:    Hot Gully Wind
Source:    Australian import CD: The Master's Apprentices
Writer(s):    Michael Bower
Label:    Aztec (original label: Astor)
Year:    1967
    Formed in 1964 by guitarists Mick Bower and Rick Morrison, drummer Brian Vaughton and bassist Gavin Webb, the Mustangs were an instrumental surf music band from Adelaide, South Australia that specialized in covers of Ventures and Shadows songs. In June of that year the Beatles came to Adelaide and were greeted by the largest crowd of their career (around 300,000 people). The popularity of the Beatles among the locals prompted the Mustangs to add vocalist Jim Keays and switch to British-influenced Beat music. In late 1965, having been introduced to the blues through records by bands like the Yardbirds and Rolling Stones, the band changed its name to the Masters Apprentices, with Bower explaining that  "we are apprentices to the masters of the blues—Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James and Robert Johnson". The band decided to relocate to Melbourne in early 1967, taking on Steve Hopgood as the band's new drummer when Vaughton decided to stay in Adelaide. They released their debut LP in 1967, although the people at Astor Records mistakenly added an apostrophe to Masters on the album cover. Among the many Bower originals on the album was Buried And Dead, which was also released as the band's second single. Unfortunately, Bower suffered a nervous breakdown in September, and the band was left without a songwriter. By the end of 1967 the Masters Apprentices were on the verge of disintegrating, which led Keays to reorganize the band in January of 1968 with several new members, retaining only Gavin Webb from the original Mustangs lineup. He also ended up leaving the group due to stomach ulcers in April of 1968.

Artist:    Steppendog
Title:    I'm Feeling Down
Source:    Mono CD: Lost Souls-volume 4
Writer(s):    Benny Grigsby
Label:    Psych Of The South
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2013
    Benny Grigsby had already released one single as the leader of Benny And The Hittites for the Batesville, Arkansas label Zay-Dee sometime around 1965 or 1966 when he decided to take another shot at recording one of his own tunes in 1968. To do so he assembled a group of local musicians, mostly from a local group called Purple Haze and, using the tongue-in-cheek name Steppendog, recorded I'm Feeling Down. The song never got released, however, and for years the only copy was an acetate in the possession of lead guitarist Danny Dozier. The acetate has since disappeared, but Dozier had already made a cassette copy of it, which is now available on Lost Souls-volume 4, a collection of mid-60s garage/psych tunes from Arkansas.

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.
        
Artist:    Doors
Title:    Waiting For The Sun
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Morrison Hotel)
Writer(s):    Jim Morrison
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1970
    The third Doors album, Waiting For The Sun, released in 1968, is notable for at least two things that were not on the album itself. The first, and most well-known, was the epic piece Celebration Of The Lizard, which was abandoned when the group couldn't get it to sound the way they wanted it to in the studio (although one section of the piece was included under the title Not To Touch The Earth). The second, and perhaps more obvious omission was the title track of the album itself. The unfinished tapes sat on the shelf until 1970, when the band finally completed the version of Waiting For The Sun that appears on the Morrison Hotel album.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Alone Again Or
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    The Wind Blows Your Hair
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Saxon/Bigelow
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1967
    The Wind Blows Your Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released as a single in October of 1967 the whole idea of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news (at least in ultra-hip L.A.) and the single went nowhere.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dandelion
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    If there was a British equivalent to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in terms of time and money spent on a single song, it might be We Love You, a 1967 single released by the Rolling Stones. To go along with the single (with its state-of-the-art production) the band spent a considerable sum making a full-color promotional video, a practice that would not become commonplace until the advent of MTV in the 1980s. Despite all this, US radio stations virtually ignored We Love You, choosing to instead flip the record over and play the B side, a tune called Dandelion. As to why this came about, I suspect that Bill Drake, the man behind the nation's most influential top 40 stations, simply decided that the less elaborately produced Dandelion was better suited to the US market than We Love You and instructed his hand-picked program directors at such stations as WABC (New York), KHJ (Los Angeles) and WLS (Chicago) to play Dandelion. The copycat nature of top 40 radio being what it is, Dandelion ended up being a moderate hit in the US in the summer of '67.
        
Artist:     Simon and Garfunkel
Title:     Bookends Theme/Save The Life Of My Child/America
Source:     CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer:     Paul Simon
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1968
     An early example of a concept album (or at least half an album) was Simon And Garfunkel's fourth LP, Bookends. The side starts and ends with the Bookends theme. In between they go through a sort of life cycle of tracks, from Save The Life Of My Child (featuring a synthesizer opening programmed by Robert Moog himself), into America, a song that is very much in the sprit of On The Road, the novel that had inspired many young Americans to travel beyond the boundaries of their own home towns.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Oh, Sweet Mary
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    The only song credited to the entire membership of Big Brother And The Holding Company on their Cheap Thrills album was Oh, Sweet Mary (although the original label credits Janis Joplin as sole writer and the album cover itself gives only Joplin and Peter Albin credit). The tune bears a strong resemblance to Coo Coo, a non-album single the band had released on the Mainstream label before signing to Columbia. Oh, Sweet Mary, however, has new lyrics and, for a breath of fresh air, a bridge section played at a slower tempo than the rest of the tune.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Going Up The Country
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released on LP: Living The Blues)
Writer(s):    Alan Wilson
Label:    Capitol (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Canned Heat built up a solid reputation as one of the best blues-rock bands in history, recording several critically-acclaimed albums over a period of years. What they did not have, however, was a top 10 single on the US charts. The nearest they got was Going Up The Country from their late 1968 LP Living The Blues, which peaked in the #11 spot in early 1969 (although it did hit #1 in several other countries). The song was written and sung by guitarist Alan "Blind Own" Wilson, who died at age 27 on September 3, 1970.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Can't You Hear The Cows
Source:    Mono CD: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    The Turtles
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1968
    By late 1968 the Turtles already had their best times behind them. After a failed attempt at self-production (the record company refused to release all but one of the tracks they had recorded), the band went back into the studio to cut a Harry Nilsson tune, The Story of Rock and Roll. Can You Hear the Cows, sort of a twisted throwback to their days as the surf music band known as the Crossfires and sounding oddly like the mid-80s Beach Boys, appeared on the B side of that single.

Artist:    Brigands
Title:    (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Kris/Arthur Resnick
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1966
    Virtually nothing is known about the Brigands, other than the fact that they recorded in New York City. Their only single was a forgettable piece of imitation British pop, but the B side, (Would I Still Be) Her Big Man, holds up surprising well. The song itself was written by the husband and wife team of Kris and Artie Resnick, who would end up writing a series of bubble gum hits issued under various band names on the Buddah label in 1968.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Louise
Source:    LP: Spirit Of '67
Writer(s):    Jesse Lee Kincaid
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    One interesting by-product of the popular (but hard to define) Los Angeles club band The Rising Sons being signed to Columbia in 1966 was that, although their album was never released, singer/songwriter Jesse Lee Kincaid did get the opportunity for his songs to be heard by people at the label, including producer Terry Melcher. This led to one of his compositions being recorded by Columbia's most successful rock band at the time, Paul Revere and the Raiders (also produced by Melcher). Louise was included on the Raiders' third top 10 LP of 1966, ironically titled The Spirit of '67.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Bass Strings
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Rag Baby)
Year:    1966
    One of the more original ways to get one's music heard is to publish an underground arts-oriented newspaper and include a record in it. Country Joe and the Fish did just that; not once, but twice. The first one was split with another artist and featured the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The second Rag Baby EP, released in 1966, was all Fish, and featured two tracks that would be re-recorded for their debut LP the following year. In addition to the instrumental Section 43, the EP included a four-minute version of Bass Strings, a track with decidedly psychedelic lyrics.

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:    Undisputed Truth
Title:    Ball Of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today)
Source:    British import CD: Nothing But The Truth (originally released on LP: The Undisputed Truth
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Kent (original US label: Gordy)
Year:    1971
    Just about everybody is at least somewhat familiar with the Temptations' 1970 hit Ball Of Confusion. What most people don't realize, though, is that the instrumental backing track, performed by Motown's Funk Brothers, originally ran over ten minutes in length, and was cut down to less than four minutes for the Temptations' single version of the song. Now normally, in a case like this the album track would be the full-length version of the song, but, to my knowledge, no such version exists. This is because the only time the Temptations version of the song was released on an LP was on a greatest hits compilation, which of course used the hit single version. The producers of the track, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, did find a way to get the full-length version of the backing track on vinyl, however, albeit with a different vocal group entirely. The Undisputed Truth was a second-tier Motown group that recorded exclusively for Whitfield and Strong. They had a pretty big hit themselves in the spring of 1971 with a song called Smiling Faces Sometimes, but had been unable to come up with a strong followup single. Their self-titled debut LP, released in July, included the full version of Ball Of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today) heard here.

Artist:    Strawberry Zots
Title:    Pretty Flowers
Source:    LP: Cars, Flowers, Telephones
Writer(s):    Mark Andrews
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    Albuquerque's Strawberry Zots were led by Mark Andrews, who either wrote or co-wrote all of the band's original material. Their only LP, Cars, Flowers, Telephones, was released locally on the StreetSound label and reissued on CD the following year by RCA records. My personal favorite track on the album is Pretty Flowers, which starts off the LP's second side. Unfortunately the song is handicapped by its low-fidelity production, which may have been a deliberate attempt to emulate the sound of 60s psychedelia, but ends up sounding over-compressed (like much of the music of the 1980s).
        
Artist:    Higher State
Title:    I Suppose You Like That Now?
Source:    CD: Volume 27
Writer(s):    Paul Messis
Label:    13 O'Clock
Year:    2016
    Formed in the town of Sandgate, Kent in the UK in 2005, the Higher State are one of the best examples of modern garage rock. The group, featuring Marty Ratcliffe on guitar, vocals and organ, Paul Messis on bass and guitar and Scarlett Rickard on drums, has four album's the their credit, including their 2016 release Volume 27. All the tracks on Volume 27 were written by either Ratcliffe or Messis, including this Messis song with the delightfully snarky title I Suppose You Like That Now?

Artist:    Tol-Puddle Martyrs
Title:    Two Hearts
Source:    CD: Flying In The Dark
Writer(s):    Peter Rechter
Label:    Secret Deals
Year:    2011
    The original Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of farmers in the English village of Tolpuddle who had the temerity to try organizing what amounts to a union in the 19th century. For their efforts they found themselves deported to the penal colony now known as Australia. But that doesn't really concern us. What I wanted to talk about was the original Tol-Puddle Martyrs (note the hyphen), the legendary Australian band that evolved from a group called Peter And The Silhouettes. Well, not exactly. What I really wanted to talk about is the current incarnation of the Tol-Puddle Martyrs. Still led by Peter Rechter, the Martyrs have released a series of CDs since 2007 (including a collection of recordings made by the 60s incarnation of the band). Among those CDs is the 2011 album Flying In The Dark, which contains several excellent tunes such as Two Hearts. Thanks to Peter Rechter for sharing these CDs with Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.
        
Artist:     Bob Dylan
Title:     It Ain't Me Babe
Source:     LP: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Another Side Of Bob Dylan)
Writer:     Bob Dylan
Label:     Columbia/Legacy
Year:     1964
     One of Bob Dylan's best known songs was It Ain't Me Babe, from his 1964 album Another Side Of Bob Dylan. The song was electrified by the Turtles the following year, becoming their first hit single.

Artist:    Ban
Title:    Bye Bye
Source:    Mono British import CD: A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tony McGuire
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year:    1965
    One of the first garage bands signed to Bob Shad's Brent label was The Ban (not to be confused with the basement group The Band). Based in Lompoc, California, the Ban was led by guitarist/vocalist Tony McGuire, who also wrote the band's original material. The group released their first single, Bye Bye in late 1965, and for a while it looked like the Ban had a legitimate shot at fame. In early 1966, however, it all came crashing down when McGuire received his draft notice. The remainder of the band regrouped, first in Hollywood as the Now and later (after moving to San Francisco) the Tripsichord Music Box.
     
Artist:    Standells
Title:    Dirty Water
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
    Dirty Water has long since been adopted by the city of Boston (and especially its sports teams), yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes for frat parties in the early 60s. Lead vocalist/drummer Dickie Dodd, incidently, was a former Mouseketeer who had played on the surf-rock hit Mr. Moto as a member of the Bel-Airs.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Mother's Lament
Source:     Mono European import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer:     Trad. Arr. Cream
Label:     Lilith (original US label: Atco)
Year:     1967
     The shortest-ever Cream recording was an old English drinking song called Mother's Lament. Vocals on the song were led by drummer Ginger Baker, and the track was chosen to close out the Disraeli Gears album. By one of those odd coincidences of the music industry, the album was issued in Europe on the Polydor label (as were many cutting-edge bands of the time, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Procol Harum and the Who), which at the time did not issue records in the US. By the late 1980s, however, Polydor was well established in the US and all the Cream albums on Compact Disc were released under the Polydor imprint. The mono LP used here, however, is a more recent European pressing on the Lilith label.

Artist:     Moby Grape
Title:     Sitting By The Window
Source:     Mono LP: Moby Grape
Writer:     Peter Lewis
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1967
     Moby Grape's powerful 1967 debut managed to achieve what few bands have been able to: a coherent sound despite having wildly different writing styles from the individual members. One of guitarist Peter Lewis's contributions to the album was Sitting By The Window, one of those rare songs that sounds better every time you hear it.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Comin' Back To Me
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s):    Marty Balin
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    Uncredited guest guitarist Jerry Garcia adds a simple, but memorable recurring fill riff to this Marty Balin tune. Balin, in his 2003 liner notes to the remastered release of Surrealistic Pillow, claims that Comin' Back To Me was written in one sitting under the influence of some primo stuff given to him by Paul Butterfield. Other players on the recording include Paul Kantner, Jack Casady and Balin himself on acoustic guitars and Grace Slick on recorder.

Artist:     Arlo Guthrie
Title:     Coming Into Los Angeles
Source:     CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On-Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer:     Arlo Guthrie
Label:     Rhino
Year:     Recorded 1969, released 2009
    When the original Woodstock soundtrack album came out in 1970 it included a handful of recordings that were not made at the Woodstock festival itself. Among those was a version of Arlo Guthrie's Coming Into Los Angeles that segued directly out of a truncated version of Rock And Soul Music by Country Joe And The Fish. As can be heard on the box set Woodstock: 40 Years On-Back To Yasgur's Farm, the performance of Coming Into Los Angeles is marred by the sound system being adjusted throughout the song, resulting in instruments and even vocals fading in and out on the recording. Still, this is what the people in the crowd heard on that August day in 1969.

Artist:    Max Frost And The Troopers
Title:    She Lied
Source:    CD: Shape Of Things To Come
Writer(s):    Beckner/Martin
Label:    Captain High (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    The first thing you need to know about Max Frost And The Troopers is that they were a fictional rock band featured in the film Wild In The Streets. Sort of. You see, in the movie itself the band is never actually named, although Max (played by Christopher Jones) does refer to his followers as his "troops" throughout the film. The next thing you need to know is that Shape Of Things To Come was a song used in the film that became a hit record in 1968. The song itself was written by the Brill building songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (who also wrote Kicks and Hungry for Paul Revere and the Raiders) and was recorded by studio musicians, with vocals by Paul Wibier. The song, along with several other Barry/Weil tunes used in the film, was credited not to Max Frost and the Troopers, but to the 13th Power on the film's soundtrack LP, which was released on Capitol's Tower subsidiary label. After Shape Of Things To Come (the song) became a hit, producer Mike Curb commissioned an entire album by Max Frost And The Troopers called, naturally, Shape Of Things To Come. The 13th Power, who had already released a couple of singles on Curb's own Sidewalk label, ghosted the album, writing most of the songs on it, including She Lied, themselves. The name Max Frost And The Troopers popped up in a couple more film soundtracks before being permanently retired by the end of the year.

Artist:     Status Quo
Title:     Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Source:     Simulated stereo CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Francis Rossi
Label:     K-Tel (original label: Cadet Concept)
Year:     1968
     The band with the most charted singles in the UK is not the Beatles or even the Rolling Stones. It is, in fact, Status Quo, quite possibly the nearest thing to a real life version of Spinal Tap. Except for Pictures of Matchstick Men, the group has never had a hit in the US. On the other hand, they remain popular in Scandanavia, playing to sellout crowds on a regular basis (yes, they are still together).

Artist:    Hollies
Title:    Not That Way At All
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Allan Clarke
Label:    Epic
Year:    1969
    After the departure of Graham Nash in December of 1968 the Hollies continued to find success on the British charts with Terry Sylvester (formerly of the Swinging Blue Jeans) taking Nash's place in the band. The first post-Nash single by the group was Sorry Suzanne, which hit the #3 spot on the UK singles chart. The B side of that record was an Allan Clarke composition called Not That Way At All that is stylistically consistent with the Hollies' older material.

Artist:    Millennium
Title:    I'm With You
Source:    LP: Begin
Writer(s):    Lee Mallory
Label:    Columbia/Sundazed
Year:    1968
    Curt Boettcher, despite looking about 15 years old, was already at 24 an experience record producer by early 1968, having worked with the Association on their first album, as well as co-producing Sagittarius with Gary Usher and producing his own group, the Ballroom, in 1967. Among the many people he had worked with were multi-instrumentalist Keith Olsen, drummer Ron Edgar and bassist Doug Rhodes, all of which had been members of Sean Bonniwell's Music Machine in 1966-67. Following the release of the debut Eternity's Children album, which Olsen and Boettcher had co-produced, the two formed a new group called the Millennium. In addition to the aforementioned Music Machine members, the Millennium included guitarist/singer/songwriters Lee Mallory (who wrote I'm With You), Sandy Salisbury, and Michael Fennelly, all of who Boettcher had worked with on various studio projects, and Joey Spec, who would go on to form his own Sonic Past Music label many years later. Working on state-of-the-art 16 track equipment at Columbia's Los Angeles studios, they produced the album Begin, which, at that point in time, was the most expensive album ever made and only the second (after Simon & Garfunkel's Bookends) to use 16-track technology. The only problem was that by the time the album was released in mid-1968, public tastes had changed radically from just a year before, with top 40 listeners going for the simple bubble-gum tunes coming from the Buddah label and album fans getting into louder, heavier groups like Blue Cheer and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. There was no market for the lavishly produced Begin album, which failed to chart despite getting rave reviews from the press. A second Millennium album was shelved, and the members went their separate ways. In more recent years the album has attained legendary status as, in the words of one critic, "probably the single greatest 60s pop record produced in L.A. outside of the Beach Boys".

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2139 (starts 9/20/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/386255-dc-2139

 
    Two sets this week: the first one takes us from 1968 to 1973, one year at a time, while the second is for the most part centered on 1968. Of course it all rocks.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Mark Says Alright
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Farner/Brewer/Schacher
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Grand Funk Railroad's Live Album, released in 1970, continued the group's pattern of getting universally negative reviews from the rock press while selling millions of copies to the band's fans. Unlike most live albums, the double LP contained no overdubs or remixes, reflecting the band's desire to present an accurate, if flawed, representation of how the band actually sounded in concert. Although most of the songs on the Live Album are also available as studio tracks on their first three albums, one track, the five-minute long instrumental piece called Mark Says Alright, was nearly exclusive to the Live Album. I say "nearly" because the track was also issued as the B side of the album's first single, Heartbreaker.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    It's Breaking Me Up
Source:    CD: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull originally was part of the British blues scene, but even in the early days the band's principal songwriter Ian Anderson wanted to expand beyond the confines of that particular genre. Ironically It's Breaking Me Up, from Jethro Tull's first LP, is an Anderson composition that is rooted solidly in the British blues style.

Artist:    Mighty Baby
Title:    I've Been Down So Long
Source:    British import CD: Mighty Baby
Writer(s):    Powell/Whiteman/Stone/Evans/King
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Head)
Year:    1969
    After the departure of frontman Reggie King, the Action, which had been in existence since 1965, decided to change not only its name, but its entire sound as well. Originally a Merseybeat band doing Motown covers, the band had slowly been incorporating elements of California bands such as the Byrds and the Association. With the addition of Ian Whiteman, they began to delve into improvisational rock as well, and by the time they officially became Mighty Baby in 1969 they were being hailed as England's answer to the Grateful Dead. As can be heard on tracks like I've Been Down So Long, they certainly had the talent to pull it off, but even the Dead themselves were generally received with indifference by the British, and Mighty Baby fared no better there than the band that inspired them.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Think About The Times
Source:    CD: Watt
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:    1970
    The first Ten Years After I ever bought was Stonedhenge, which I picked up because a) I liked the cover, and b) it was the featured album of the month at the BX at Ramstein Air Base, costing a buck and a half instead of the usual $2.50. Not long after that my dad got transferred back to the States, and I somehow missed the release of the next TYA album, Cricklewood Green. A friend of mine had a copy, though, that we spent a lot of time listening to, so when I saw the next TYA album, Watt, on the racks I immediately picked it up. I wore that copy out, and only later learned that the album had gotten mostly negative reviews from the rock press. I think that's when I started to suspect that most rock critics were self-righteous individuals with no talent of their own, because I thought Watt was a good album then and I still think it's a good album. Take a listen to Think About The Times and tell me I'm wrong.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Time To Live (alternate version)
Source:    British import CD: Salisbury
Writer(s):    Box/Byron/Hensley
Label:    Sanctuary
Year:    Recorded 1971, released 2003
    For their second LP, Salisbury, Uriah Heep attempted to explore new ground while maintaining their "heavy" image established on their first effort. For the most part they succeeded. One of the heavier tunes on the album, Time To Live, was actually put together in the recording studio itself, and tells the story of a man being released from prison after serving a 20-year sentence. Obviously, the song was not written from personal experience, since the band members were all in their early 20s at the time. The alternate version of Time To Live heard here was mixed and edited for a possible single release, but never issued. Oddly enough, it is actually about 15 seconds longer than the LP version.

Artist:    Todd Rundgren
Title:    Couldn't I Just Tell You
Source:    LP: Something/Anything?
Writer(s):    Todd Rundgren
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1972
    Three of the four sides of Todd Rundgren's 1972 album Something/Anything were 100% solo efforts done in Rundgren's own home studio. Among the other things he accomplished with this album was pretty much single-handedly inventing the power pop genre with the song Couldn't I Just Tell You.

Artist:    Queen
Title:    Doing All Right
Source:    LP: Queen
Writer(s):    May/Staffell
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1973
    Before there was a band called Queen, there was Smile. Formed by guitarist Brian May and bassist Tim Staffell, the group soon recruited drummer Roger Taylor and, eventually, keyboardist/vocalist Farrokh Basada, who suggested the band change its name to Queen. Staffell left the band before the group's first album (replaced by John Deacon), but not before co-writing a song called Doing All Right, which Staffell originally sang lead vocals on. When Queen finally got a record contract in 1973, they included Doing All Right on the debut LP, with Basada, who by then had taken the stage name Freddie Mercury, doing the vocals in a style deliberately similar to that of Staffell.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Source:    CD: Relics (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label:    Capitol (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    Despite being originally released only as a B side of a non-charting single (and not being released in the US at all) Be Careful With That Axe, Eugene is one of the most popular Pink Floyd tracks from the 1960s. This is due in part to the inclusion of a live version of the song on the 1969 LP Ummagumma. The original studio version was also included on the 1971 compilation album Relics. It is one of the first songs credited to all four band members following the departure of founder Syd Barrett.

Artist:    Pentangle
Title:    Pentangling
Source:    LP: Superecord Contemporary (originally released on LP: The Pentangle)
Writer(s):    Cox/Jansch/McShea/Renbourne/Thompson
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Once in a while an album comes along that is so consistently good that it's impossible to single out one specific track for airplay. Such is the case with the debut Pentangle album from 1968. The group, consisting of guitarists John Renbourne and Bert Jansch, vocalist Jacqui McShea, bassist Terry Cox, and drummer Danny Thompson, had more talent than nearly any band in history from any genre, yet never succumbed to the clash of egos that characterize most supergroups. Enjoy all seven minutes of Pentangling.

Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    Nathan La Franeer
Source:    LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook (originally released on LP: Song To A Seagull)
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Producer David Crosby came up with the idea of using the architecture of a grand piano to help shape Joni Mitchell's voice on her debut LP, Song To A Seagull, using extra microphones to capture the sound of her voice reverberating off the piano strings. Unfortunately, this idea resulted in excessive tape hiss, which was equalized out during the mastering process, leaving the entire album with a somewhat muddy sound that Mitchell later described as sounding like it was recorded under a Jello bowl. Nonetheless, Warner/Reprise chose Nathan La Franeer from that album for inclusion on The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook, the first of a series of budget-priced albums known as "Loss Leaders" that were available directly from the record company itself and advertised on all their record sleeves.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills and Nash
Title:    Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Source:    LP: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer:    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    After the demise of Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills headed for New York, where he worked with Al Kooper on the Super Session album and recorded several demo tapes of his own, including a new song called Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (reportedly written for his then-girlfriend Judy Collins). After his stint in New York he returned to California, where he started hanging out in the Laurel Canyon home of David Crosby, who had been fired from the Byrds in 1967. Crosby's house at that time was generally filled with a variety of people coming and going, and Crosby and Stills soon found themselves doing improvised harmonies on each other's material in front of a friendly, if somewhat stoned, audience. It was not long before they invited Graham Nash, whom they heard had been having problems of his own with his bandmates in the Hollies, to come join them in Laurel Canyon. The three soon began recording together, and in 1969 released the album Crosby, Stills and Nash. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was chosen as the opening track for the new album and was later released (in severely edited form) as a single.

Artist:    Edgar Winter's White Trash
Title:    Keep Playin' That Rock 'N' Roll
Source:    45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Edgar Winter
Label:    Epic
Year:    1972
    Edgar Winter has often been accused of riding his brother Johnny's coattails to fame. Keep Playin' That Rock 'N' Roll, released by Edgar Winter's White Trash in 1972, is sort of an admission that that is exactly what happened.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2138 (starts 9/13/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/385387-pe-2138

 
    The first thing that comes to mind for most people when they hear the words "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is a really long rock song with a drum solo. This week, though, those words describe three other songs from the same album. We also have a set of songs credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney that were actually written entirely by Lennon. There are a few more oddities, as well as a healthy dose of classics, on this week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    White Bird
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: It's A Beautiful Day)
Writer(s):    David & Linda LaFlamme
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    San Francisco's It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were desperately trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's San Francisco Sound label.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Dupree's Diamond Blues
Source:    CD: Aoxomoxoa
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    The third Grateful Dead LP, Aoxomoxoa, was one of the first albums to be recorded using state-of-the-art sixteen track equipment, and the band, in the words of guitarist Jerry Garcia, "tended to put too much on everything...A lot of the music was just lost in the mix, a lot of what was really there." Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh would return to the master tapes in 1971, remixing the entire album for the version that has appeared on vinyl and CD ever since then. Recently, however, Warner Brothers and Rhino have released a limited edition pressing of the original mix on vinyl. All of the music on the LP, including Dupree's Diamond Blues (which was also released as a single) is credited to guitarist Jerry Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh, with lyrics by poet Robert Hunter.
    
Artist:    Kak
Title:    I've Got Time
Source:    British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Gary Lee Yoder
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    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 I've Got Time, 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:    Byrds
Title:    The Girl With No Name
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Chris Hillman
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    As is often the case, a failed relationship was the inspiration for The Girl With No Name, one of five songs written or co-written by Byrds bassist Chris Hillman for the group's fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. The tune has a strong country feel to it, presaging Hillman's future career as a member of the Desert Rose Band in the 1980s. Guitarist Clarence White, who would soon become a member of the band, makes an early appearance on the track.
    
Artist:    Simon Dupree And The Big Sound
Title:    Kites
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road-1965-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pockriss/Hackaday
Label:    EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1967
    Almost all of the British beat bands of the 1960s played R&B covers in their early days. Most, like the Animals and Rolling Stones, covered blues artists like John Lee Hooker or early rock and rollers like Chuck Berry. Simon Dupree And The Big Sound, however, saw themselves more as a "soul" band in the image of such American artists as Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. Led by the Shulman brothers (Derek, Ray and Phil), the band was formed in early 1966 and was soon signed to EMI's Parlophone label. After their first few singles failed to chart, the band's label and management convinced them to record the more psychedelic-sounding Kites. Although the band hated the record, it ended up being their only top 10 single in the UK, and after subsequent records went nowhere, the group, finally realizing that they were not destined to hit the big time as a blue-eyed soul band, disbanded in 1969. The Shulman brothers, however, did achieve success in the 1970s with their new band Gentle Giant, which was about as far removed from blue-eyed soul as you can get.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    She's My Girl
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967
    A favorite among the Turtles' members themselves, She's My Girl is full of hidden studio tricks that are barely (if at all) audible on the final recording. Written by Gary Bonner and Al Gordon, the same team that came up with Happy Together, the song is a worthy follow up to that monster hit.

Artist:    Executives
Title:    The Ginza Strip
Source:    Mono British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Roy and Tony Carr
Label:    Uncut (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    The Executives were one of the many British beat bands that decided to try their hand at psychedelia in 1967. They had previously been tied closely to the Mod movement however (in fact producer/bandleader Tony Carr had written the 1964 hit March Of The Mods) and, despite the fact that The Ginza Strip is a fine slice of psychedelia, were unable to shed their Mod image enough to gain credibility as a psychedelic band.

Artist:    Red Crayola
Title:    Pink Stainless Tail
Source:    Stereo British import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Thompson/Cunningham/Barthelme
Label:    International Artists
Year:    1967 (single released 2011)
    Rock history is dotted with stories of bands who reputations exceeded their actual recorded output. One such band was Red Crayola, a Texas band who found themselves labelmates with the 13th Floor Elevators in 1967. Although the Red Crayola (who were forced to change their name to Red Krayola in 1968) were only together for a couple of years, their legend continued to grow throughout the punk/new wave era and indy rock movements of the late 20th century and beyond. Which brings us to this curious single issued in 2011. The songs themselves, including B side Pink Stainless Tail, were lifted from the first Red Crayola album, Parable Of Arable Land, and are even on the same label, International Artists...or are they? International Artists, a relatively small label owned by a group of Texas businessmen, ceased to exist in 1971, and this 2011 single is a British import. So what's the deal? Well, as it turns out, one of the original partners in International Artists was a guy named Lelan Rogers. In 1978 Rogers (perhaps with the help of his brother Kenny?) revived the label and reissued all twelve of the LPs that originally been released by the label. This was followed by various compilation albums, some of which included previously released material. By the early 2000s, the revived International Artists had become part of Britian's Charly Records, a company that specializes in archival material. Apparently the people at Charly felt there was enough interest in Red Crayola recordings to issue a yellow vinyl single 2011, with a newly remixed Hurrican Fighter Pilot on the A side and Pink Stainless Tail on the flip. As both these tracks overlap other stuff on the original LP, the single turns out to be a pretty good thing to have around.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Wrong
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of The Music Machine-Turn On
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    Sean Bonniwell was a member of the mainstream (i.e. lots of appearances on TV variety shows hosted by people like Perry Como and Bob Hope) folk group the Lamplighters in the early 60s. By 1966 he had morphed into one of the more mysterious figures on the LA music scene, leading a proto-punk band dressed entirely in black. Bonniwell himself wore a single black glove (Michael Jackson was about seven years old at the time), and was one of the most prolific songwriters of the day. His recordings, often featuring the distinctive Farfisa organ sound, were a primary influence on later L.A. bands such as Iron Butterfly and the Doors. A classic example of the Music Machine sound was the song Wrong, which was issued as the B side of the group's most successful single, Talk Talk.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Jaguar
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track originally released in box set: 30 Years Of Maximum R&B)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1994
    The Who included a short "commercial" for Premier Drums on their late 1967 LP The Who Sell Out, and ended up getting gifted a set of drums as a result. Perhaps they had hopes for a similar result when they recorded Jaguar?

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Call On Me
Source:    45 RPM single B side from box set: Move Over)
Writer(s):    Sam Andrew
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2012
    Call On Me was one of the songs from the first Big Brother And The Holding Company album that everyone, including the band, felt had not been properly recorded. Accordingly, the band made a new recording of the song for possible inclusion of their second LP, Cheap Thrills, but ultimately decided to shelve that version indefinitely. Finally, in 2012, someone came up with the idea of releasing a box set of previously unreleased 45 RPM Janis Joplin singles called Move Over for Record Store Day 2012, and the second version of Call On Me was included in the set.
 
Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Fortunate Son
Source:    LP: Willy And The Poor Boys
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1969
    John Fogerty says it only took him 20 minutes to write what has become one of the iconic antiwar songs of the late 1960s. But Fortunate Son is not so much a condemnation of war as it is an indictment of the political elite who send the less fortunate off to die in wars without any risk to themselves. In addition to being a major hit single upon its release in late 1969 (peaking at #3 as half of a double-A sided single), Fortunate Son has made several "best of" lists over the years, including Rolling Stone magazine's all-time top 100. Additionally, in 2014 the song was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Tangerine
Source:    German import LP: Led Zeppelin III
Writer(s):    Jimmy Page
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    The third Led Zeppelin album, released in 1970, saw the band expanding beyond its blues-rock roots into more acoustic territory. This was in large part because the band had, after an exhausting North American concert tour, decided to take a break, with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page renting an 18th century cottage in Wales that had no electricity. While there, the two composed most of the music that would become Led Zeppelin III. Once the music was written, the band reunited in a run-down mansion at Headley Grange to rehearse the new material, giving the entire project a more relaxed feel. Only one song on the album, Tangerine, is credited solely to Jimmy Page; as it turns out Tangerine would be the last original Led Zeppelin song that Plant did not write lyrics for (excepting instrumentals of course).
    
Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Most Anything You Want
Source:    CD: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Iron Butterfly will forever be known for the seventeen minute long In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, but, contrary to popular believe, they did record other songs as well, releasing four studio albums from 1968-1971. The In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida lineup of Doug Ingle (vocals, organ), Ron Bushy (drums), Lee Dorman (bass) and Erik Brann (guitar) was only around for two of those LPs, however, and can be heard on tracks like Most Anything You Want, which opens the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Termination
Source:    LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Brann/Dorman
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Although most Iron Butterfly songs were written by keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle, there were a few exceptions. One of those is Termination, from the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album, which was written by guitarist Erik Brann and bassist Lee Dorman. From a 21st century perspective Termination sounds less dated than most of Ingle's material.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    My Mirage
Source:    CD: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    One thing about Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida album is that almost nobody remembers any of the songs from the other side of the album. That's a bit of a shame, because there are a couple of really good tunes on there, such as My Mirage, a Doug Ingle composition that helped lay the groundwork for the progressive rock movement of the 1970s.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    You're A Lonely Girl
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Sloan/Barri
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1966
    In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that there was no band called the Grass Roots (or so they claimed), so Sloan and Barri decided to recruit an existing band and talk them into changing their name. The band they found was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones (Ballad Of A Thin Man). The B side was You're A Lonely Girl, a Sloan/Barri composition. The Bedouins would soon grow disenchanted with their role and move back to San Francisco, leaving Sloan and Barri the task of finding a new Grass Roots. Eventually they did, and the rest is history. The Bedouins never recorded again.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Run For Your Life
Source:    LP: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI/Apple
Year:    1965
    Compared to some of John Lennon's later songs, Run For Your Life comes across as a sexist, even violent expression of jealous posessiveness. However, in 1965 such a viewpoint was quite common; in fact it was pretty much the acceptable norm for the times. Scary, huh?

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
    According to principal songwriter John Lennon, Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite was inspired by a turn of the century circus poster that the Beatles ran across while working on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Most of the lyrics refer to items on the poster itself, such as Henry the Horse and the Hendersons.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Girl
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI/Apple
Year:    1965
    Some people think Girl is one of those John Lennon drug songs. I see it as one of those John Lennon observing what's really going on beneath the civilized veneer of western society songs myself. Your choice.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Pressed Rat And Warthog
Source:     LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:     Baker/Taylor
Label:     RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Pressed Rat And Warthog, from Cream's third LP, Wheels Of Fire, is one of those songs you either love or hate. I loved it the first time I heard it but had several friends that absolutely despised it. As near as I can tell, drummer Ginger Baker actually talks that way. Come to think of it, all the members of Cream had pretty heavy accents.

Artist:     Steppenwolf
Title:     Take What You Need
Source:     CD: Steppenwolf
Writer:     Kay/Mekler
Label:     MCA
Year:     1968 (original label: Dunhill)
    Not long after the first Steppenwolf album came out, I borrowed a copy from a friend and taped it on my dad's Akai reel-to-reel recorder. I must have been getting kind of tired toward the end of the album, because I failed to catch a skip in the next to last track on the album. The song, Take What You Need, was one of two tunes on the LP that were co-written by producer Gabriel Mekler. Those same two songs both appeared as B sides of singles as well, guaranteeing Mekler a share of royalties from both singles. Although the one with Take What You Need on flip was a flop, the next one, Born To Be Wild (with its B side, Everybody's Next One, bearing a Mekler co-writing credit), ended up making lots of money for quite a few people, Mekler included.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    The Fool
Source:    CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service (bonus track originally released on CD: Unreleased Quicksilver: Lost Gold And Silver)
Writer(s):    Duncan/Freiberg
Label:    Rock Beat (original label: Collector's Choice)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2000
    There are differing opinions on just how serious legendary San Francisco singer/songwriter and general iconoclast Dino Valenti was being when, at a jam session with guitarist John Cippolina one night, he suggested that the two of them form a band. Since Valenti was busted for drugs the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in jail), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love. In one way this actually worked to the band's advantage, since by 1968 record companies were more willing to include lengthy improvisational tracks like The Fool, which took up the entire second side of the group's debut LP.  

Artist:    Cyrkle
Title:    Money To Burn
Source:    LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s):    Don Dannemann
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    By late 1966 surf music was pretty much gone from the top 40 charts. The Beach Boys, however, had managed to adapt to changing audience tastes without abandoning the distinctive vocal harmonies that had made them stand out from their early 60s contemporaries. In fact, several other bands had sprung up with similar vocal styles. One of the most successful of these (at least in the short term) was the Cyrkle. Led by vocalist/guitarist Don Dannemann, the group hit the scene with two consecutive top 10 singles, both of which were included on the band's debut LP, Red Rubber Ball. Although manager Brian Epstein had the group recording mostly songs from outside sources, there were a handful of Cyrkle originals on the album, including Danneman's Money To Burn, which was also issued as the B side to the band's third single.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Rainy Day In June
Source:    British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Ray Davies let his imagination run free on a Rainy Day In June, from the 1966 Kinks LP Face To Face. The result was a song "about fairies and little evil things within the trees that come to life".

Artist:    Them
Title:    Hey Girl
Source:    LP: Backtrackin' (originally released in UK on LP: Them Again)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    London (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    Of the five Van Morrison originals on the album Them Again, only four were included on the US version of the LP. The missing song, Hey Girl, finally appeared in the US in 1974 on the album Backtrackin'. Stylistically, Hey Girl has more in common with Van Morrison's first solo LP, Astral Weeks, than with anything else Them recorded.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    If 6 Was 9
Source:    LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Before 1967 stereo was little more than an excuse to charge a dollar more for an LP. That all changed in a hurry, as artists such as Jimi Hendrix began to explore the possibilities of the technology, in essence treating stereophonic sound as a multi-dimensional sonic palette. The result can be heard on songs such as If 6 Were 9 from the Axis: Bold As Love album, which is best listened to at high volume, preferably with headphones on. Especially the spoken part in the middle, when Jimi says the words "I'm the one who's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want." It sounds like he's inside your head with you.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Moonlight Drive
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    Much of the second Doors album consisted of songs that were already in the band's repertoire when they signed with Elektra Records but for various reasons did not record for their debut LP. One of the earliest was Jim Morrison's Moonlight Ride. As was the case with all the Doors songs on their first three albums, the tune was credited to the entire band.
    
Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Wind
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Circus Maximus was formed out of the chance meeting of multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in Greenwich Village in 1967. From the start the band was moving in different directions, with Bruno incorporating jazz elements into the band while Walker favored country-rock. Eventually the two would go their separate ways, but for the short time the band was together they made some of the best, if not best-known, psychedelic music on the East Coast. The band's most popular track was Wind, a Bruno tune from their debut album. The song got a considerable amount of airplay on the new "underground" radio stations that were popping up across the country at the time.