https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/397518-dc-2151
With just a couple of exceptions, it's been over two years since any of this week's tracks have been played on either Rockin' in the Days of Confusion or our companion show, Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. One of those exceptions is a Jimi Hendrix tune that tends to pop up around the Fourth of July every year (no, not the Star-Spangled Banner) while the other, a Joni Mitchell tune, is making its first appearance on either show. We start with three tunes from 1969. From there, it's 1970 all the way.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Good Times Bad Times
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s): Page/Jones/Bonham
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
When I was a junior in high school I used to occasionally hang out at the teen club on Ramstein AFB in Germany. One evening I was completely blown away by a new record on the jukebox. It was Good Times Bad Times by a group called Led Zeppelin. Although the members of my band knew better than to attempt to cover the song, another neighborhood group did take a shot at it with somewhat disastrous results at a gig that our two groups split on New Year's Eve of 1969-70. As I had a personal vendetta going against their bass player, I didn't feel too bad about the fact that we basically blew them out of the water that night, but over time I have come to regret doing that to the rest of the band (well, actually they did it to themselves), particularly their lead guitarist, who was actually a really nice guy. Sorry Jeff.
Artist: Cream
Title: Politician (live version)
Source: LP: Goodbye
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
Usually the bluesier numbers performed by Cream were covers of classic works by guys like Willie Dixon (Spoonful), Muddy Waters (Rollin' and Tumblin') or Albert King (Sitting On Top Of The World). One notable exception is Politician, which was written by Cream's bassist Jack Bruce, with his songwriting partner Pete Brown. Usually the team came up with the band's more psychedelic stuff, but in this case proved that they could crank out a blues tune with the best of 'em when they wanted to. Originally released on the 1968 album Wheels Of Fire, the live version of Politician (which runs in excess of six minutes) was featured on the band's final LP, Goodbye Cream, which came out the following year.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Life's One Act Play
Source: British import CD: A Step Further
Writer(s): Chris Youlden
Label: Deram (original US label: Parrot)
Year: 1969
Like many British blues bands, Savoy Brown had almost as many lineup changes as they did albums. In fact, it wasn't until their fourth LP, A Step Further, released in 1969, that the same group of musicians appeared on two consecutive albums. This would, however, be the last Savoy Brown album to include lead vocalist and frontman Chris Youlden, who wrote several songs on the album, including Life's One Act Play. The band is supplemented on the track by a rather large string and horn section that would be absent from the group's next LP, Looking In.
Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title: Helpless
Source: CD: déjà vu
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1970
Many of the songs on the second Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album, Deja Vu, sound as if they could have been on solo albums by the various band members, particularly Neil Young, whose style really didn't mesh well with the others. A prime example of this is Helpless. Despite this (or maybe because of it) Helpless got more radio airplay than most of the other songs on the album.
Artist: Bloodrock
Title: Gotta Find A Way
Source: CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s): Rutledge/Taylor/Pickens/Grundy/Cobb
Label: One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
A friend of mine in Alamogordo, NM, went to El Paso for a Grand Funk Railroad concert in 1970 and was blown away by the opening band, a group from Dallas called Bloodrock. At the time Bloodrock has just released their first LP, and my friend immediately went out and bought a copy, playing it for the members of my own band, Friends, at the first opportunity. It wasn't long before we were learning to play the first track on the album, a song called Gotta Find A Way. We were so enthusiastic about the song we made it the first song on our own demo tape. Soon after that Bloodrock released their second album, which included their most famous track, DOA, and the band soon found itself pigeonholed by its own success. A shame, since that first album showed so much potential.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience (MkII)
Title: Freedom
Source: LP: Heavy Metal (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Warner Special Products (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
Jimi Hendrix was working on a new double album when he died, but nobody else seemed to be sure where he was going with it. As there were several tracks that were unfinished at the time, Reprise Records gathered what they could and put them together on an album called The Cry Of Love. Freedom, a nearly finished piece (the unfinished part being a short "placesetter" guitar solo that Hendrix never got around to replacing with a final take), is the opening track from the album. Soon after that, a new Hendrix concert film called Rainbow Bridge was released along with a soundtrack album containing most of the remaining tracks from the intended double album. Finally, under the auspices of the Hendrix family in 1997, MCA (with the help of original engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell) pieced together what was essentially an educated guess about what would have been that album and released it under the name First Rays of the New Rising Sun.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Wasp/Behind The Wall Of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B.
Source: CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers/Rhino
Year: 1970
While feedback-laden bands like Blue Cheer are often credited with laying the foundations of what would come to be called heavy metal, Black Sabbath is generally considered to be the first actual heavy metal band. Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward didn't set out to create a whole new genre. They simply wanted to be the heaviest blues-rock band around. After seeing a movie marquee for an old Boris Karloff film called Black Sabbath and deciding that would make a good name for a band, however, the group soon began modifying their sound to more closely match their new name. The result was a debut album that would change the face of rock music forever. Probably the best known track on the Black Sabbath album is N.I.B., which closes out the LP's first side. Contrary to popular belief, N.I.B. is not a set of initials at all, but just the word nib done in capital letters with periods after each letter. According to Geezer Butler, who wrote the lyrics for N.I.B. "Originally it was Nib, which was Bill's beard. When I wrote N.I.B., I couldn't think of a title for the song, so I just called it Nib, after Bill's beard. To make it more intriguing I put punctuation marks in there to make it N.I.B. By the time it got to America, they translated it to Nativity In Black." On the album the song is preceded by a short bass solo from Butler, which in turn segues directly out of the previous track, Behind The Wall Of Sleep. For some reason (possibly to garner the group more royalties) Warner Brothers Records added extra song titles to the two tracks on the album cover and label to make them look like four separate pieces. The original British release, however, lists them as Behind The Wall Of Sleep and N.I.B.
Artist: Santana
Title: Incident At Neshabur
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer(s): Gianquito/Santana
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.
Artist: Joni Mitchell
Title: For Free
Source: LP: Superecord Contemporary (originally released on LP: Ladies Of The Canyon)
Writer(s): Joni Mitchell
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
For her third album, Ladies Of The Canyon, Joni Mitchell began writing more piano-oriented songs such as For Free, which foreshadows her move toward jazz that would characterize her later career. The song itself deals with the dichotomy between pure art and commercial success, a theme that she would return to on albums like Court And Spark and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns.
Artist: Blues Image
Title: Fugue U/Parchman Farm/Wrath Of Daisey
Source: CD: Open
Writer(s): Blues Image/Allison
Label: Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
Despite drawing decent crowds in Florida (and, later, Los Angeles) and getting rave reviews from the rock press, as well as their fellow musicians, Blues Image was never able to sell a lot of albums. This is a shame, as almost all of their material was as good or better than anything else being recorded in 1969-70. A classic example is the medley of Fugue U (emulating J.S. Bach), a jazz-rock arrangement of Mose Allison's Parchman Farm and the latin-rock instrumental Wrath Of Daisey). Guitarist Mike Pinera went on to replace Eric Brann in Iron Butterfly the following year.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: Sugar The Road
Source: LP: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Deram
Year: 1970
Ten Years After's fourth LP, Cricklewood Green, was the band's first release following their appearance at Woodstock, and by all accounts they made the best of the situation with what is generally considered to be their best studio album. In addition to progressive FM radio favorites Love Like A Man and 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain, the album contains several tunes that show the group's diversity, such as Sugar The Road, which opens side one of the LP.
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