https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/389976-dc-2143
This week we start off with a bit of guitar rock, and follow it up with a mixture of A and B sides from 1970. A set of LP tracks from the early 1970s finishes out the show.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsys
Title: Changes
Source: LP: Band Of Gypsys
Writer(s): Buddy Miles
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
Jimi Hendrix must have had some sort of sense of irony (at least in the back of his mind) when he worked out a deal to settle a lawsuit for breach of contract brought against him by Capitol Records in 1969. A few years earlier, in 1965, he had sat in on some sessions for Capitol with Curtis Knight, and had signed a generic management contract that covered his participation in the recordings. What he didn't realize at the time is that the contract also covered future recordings, even though he was only a session man for the Knight tracks. After Hendrix became famous, someone at Capitol pulled out their copy of that old contract and used it to leverage the guitarist into doing another album for them. As Hendrix had no studio material anywhere near being ready for release, he instead provided Capitol with a live album, recorded over a period of days at Madison Square Garden. Since the Jimi Hendrix Experience was no longer a viable entity at that time, Hendrix put together a three-piece band consisting of himself, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, who had already established himself as a member of the Electric Flag and leader of the Buddy Miles Express. This was reflected in the fact that of the six songs that appeared on the album Band Of Gypsys, three (including Changes) were written (and sung) by Miles, rather than Hendrix, just as all of the songs from the 1965 sessions had been penned by Curtis Knight.
Artist: Taste
Title: Dual Carraigeway Pain
Source: British import CD: Taste
Writer(s): Rory Gallagher
Label: Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Guitarist Rory Gallagher cuts loose on Dual Carraigeway Pain, from the first Taste album. The song title itself refers to the British term for a divided, limited-access highway, usually known in the US as a freeway or Interstate.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sleepy Time Time
Source: British import LP: Cream (originally released as LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s): Bruce/Godfrey
Label: Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1966
When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.
Artist: Moody Blues
Title: Question
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Justin Hayward
Label: Threshold
Year: 1970
By 1970 the Moody Blues had developed their own unique brand of orchestral rock, and had even started their own label, Threshold (inspired by their 1969 LP On The Threshold Of A Dream). Due to the complexity of their songs, however, they were having difficulty making them sound right when performed live. In an effort to remedy the problem they tried a more stripped-down approach with their 1970 single, Question, and the subsequent LP A Question Of Balance. It worked, too, as Question became their second biggest hit single in the UK, going all the way to the #2 spot. In the long run, the band realized that their best approach was to perform with a full orchestra, which they have been doing regularly since the early 1970s.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Victoria
Source: Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
The Kinks were at their commercial low point in 1969 when they released their third single from their controversial concept album Arthur or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire. Their previous two singles had failed to chart, even in their native England, and the band had not had a top 20 hit in the US since Sunny Afternoon in 1966. Victoria was a comeback of sorts, as it did manage to reach the #62 spot in the US and the #33 spot in the UK.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Truckin'
Source: CD: Skeletons From the Closet (originally released on LP: American Beauty)
Writer: Garcia/Weir/Hunter/Lesh
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
After two performance-oriented albums that mixed live and studio material and one double live LP, the Grateful Dead decided to shift their focus in the studio to their songwriting skills. The result was Workingman's Dead, the band's most commercially successful album up to that point. Five months later the followup album, American Beauty defined the Grateful Dead's sound for all but the most dedicated of concertgoers (the legendary Deadheads), thanks to songs like Truckin', which would stand as the band's most successful single until the mid-1980s.
Artist: Eric Burdon And War
Title: Magic Mountain
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): War/Goldstein
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1970
The 1970 LP Eric Burdon Declares "War" was accompanied by the band's first single from the album, Spill The Wine. The B side of Spill The Wine was a non-album track called Magic Mountain. Written by the band, along with producer Jerry Goldstein, the song remained unavailable in any other form until 1976, when it appeared on a collection of unreleased tracks and B sides called Love Is All Around, creditited to War featuring Eric Burdon. The following year Magic Mountain was released as an A side itself, but did not chart.
Artist: Free
Title: All Right Now
Source: European import CD: All Right Now-The Collection (originally released on LP: Fire And Water)
Writer(s): Fraser/Rodgers
Label: Spectrum/UMC (original US label: A&M)
Year: 1970
Led by Andy Fraser and Paul Rodgers, Free was one of the first "70s" rock bands. They made their biggest splash with All Right Now, a huge hit in 1970. The band lasted until 1973, when two of the members, Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke, split off to form Bad Company.
Artist: Who
Title: Bargain
Source: LP: Who's Next
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1971
The 1971 album Who's Next is generally considered one of the high points of the band's career, thanks to songs like Bargain. Bargain has been described as a love song, but directed toward God, rather than toward a woman. According to the song's writer, Pete Townshend, Bargain was inspired by the writing of Indian mystic Meher Baba, who taught that the way to be at one with God is to lose all the trappings of the material world.
Artist: Santana
Title: Future Primitive/Stone Flower
Source: LP: Caravanserai
Writer(s): Areas/Lewis/Shrieve/Santana/Jobim
Label: Columbia
Year: 1972
In a move that Columbia Records president called "career suicide", Carlos Santana largely abandoned the style that had taken his band into the upper echelons of the rock music world in favor of a more experimental approach for the 1972 album Caravanserai. Several of the original band members had either already left the group, while two core members, Greg Rolie and Neal Schon, would soon be departing to form Journey. The album itself included several guest musicians from the field of latin jazz on tracks such as Future Primitive and and Stone Flower, the latter of which was written by Brazil's Antônio Carlos Jobim, sometimes called the father of bossa nova. Despite the relative commercial failure of Caravanserai, Santana would continue to move away from rock and toward jazz over the next few years.
Artist: Foghat
Title: What A Shame
Source: LP: Appetizers (originally released on LP: Foghat (aka Rock and Roll)
Writer(s): Rod Price
Label: Bearsville
Year: 1973
Apparently the members of Foghat couldn't come up with a good title for their second LP, so they just called it Foghat. Since their first album was also called Foghat, this would have made things a bit confusing if not for the fact that the album cover itself was a picture of a rock and a bread roll against an all-white background. For obvious reasons this has led most people to refer to the album as Rock and Roll. What A Shame was written by guitarist Rod Price, the only Foghat member not to have come from Savoy Brown, which probably explains why it doesn't sound much like Savoy Brown at all.
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