https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/435371-pe-2235
Doing 31 songs from 31 artists last week was so much fun we thought we'd do it again this week. But this time we're throwing in seven tracks that have never been heard on the show before. In fact, the last two songs this week are by artists making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Title: Can't You See That She's Mine
Source: LP: The Dave Clark Five
Writer(s): Clark/Smith
Label: Epic
Year: 1964
Originally formed in 1958 as a backup band for north London vocalist Stan Saxon, the band that would become the Dave Clark Five split with the singer in 1962, eventually settling on a lineup that included Clark on drums, Mike Smith on lead vocals and keyboards, Rick Huxley on bass, Lenny Davidson on lead guitar, and Dennis Payton on saxophone, harmonica and rhythm guitar. Unlike most other British Invasion bands, the DC5 were self-produced, with Clark himself in control of the band's master tapes. Between 1964 and 1967 the group charted over a dozen top 40 singles in the US & UK, including some that were only released in North America. Although a few of those hits were cover songs, most, such as the US-only 1964 hit Can't You See That She's Mine, were written by Clark and Smith. By the end of 1967 the band's popularity had waned in the US, although they continued to chart top 40 songs in the UK through 1970, when they officially disbanded.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Colours
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Golden Days Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sire (original US label: Hickory)
Year: 1965
On the heels of the success of his 1965 debut single, Catch The Wind (#4 UK, #23 US), Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch followed it up with the similarly styled Colours. Although not a hit in the US, Colours matched the success of Catch The Wind in the UK. Both songs were included on an EP, also called Colours, that was issued in Europe and the UK in December of 1965.
Artist: Cream
Title: Spoonful
Source: British import LP: Cream (released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. Instead the song was released on two sides of a single in 1967, with 90 seconds removed from the song between parts one and two. The single never charted and now is somewhat difficult to find a copy of (not that anybody would want to). A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1969 compilation album Best Of Cream that the uncut studio version was finally released in the US.
Artist: Status Quo
Title: Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Francis Rossi
Label: Rhino (original label: Cadet Concept)
Year: 1967
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 currently in existence. 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: Paul Jones
Title: The Dog Presides
Source: British import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Paul Jones
Label: Zonophone (original UK label: Columbia)
Year: 1968
Like many frontmen in the mid-60s Manfred Mann's Paul Jones decided to leave the group for a solo career right at the height of the band's success. Also like many former frontmen, Jones's solo career, beginning in 1966, was less than stellar. Most of Jones's records were done in an almost lounge lizard style. One notable exception is The Dog Presides, the B side of a forgettable 1968 single called And The Sun Will Shine. In addition to Jones on vocals and harmonica, The Dog Presides features former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck and bassist Paul-Samwell Smith and some guy named Paul McCartney on drums. This bit of psychedelic insanity was officially credited to Jones himself, but in all likelihood was a collaborative effort by the four of them.
Artist: Open Mind
Title: Magic Potion
Source: CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Michael Brancaccio
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1969
Originally known as the Drag Set, the Open Mind adopted their new name in late 1967. Not long after the change they signed a deal with Philips Records and recorded an album with producer Johnny Franz in 1968. Their greatest achievement, however, came the following year, when they released Magic Potion as a single. By that time, unfortunately, British psychedelia had run its course, and Open Mind soon closed up shop.
Artist: Screaming Lord Sutch
Title: Wailing Sounds
Source: CD: Lord Sutch And Heavy Friends
Writer(s): Sutch/Page
Label: Wounded Bird (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1970
Named in a 1998 BBC poll as the worst album of all time, Lord Sutch And Heavy Friends was made under somewhat false pretenses, according to guitarist Jimmy Page, who later said of the album: "I just went down to have a laugh, playing some old rock 'n' roll, a bit of a send-up. The whole joke sort of reversed itself and became ugly." Apparently Page and the other musicians who played on the 1970 album, including drummer John Bonham and bassist Deniel Edwards, both of whom can be heard on Wailing Sounds, were under the impression that they were making demo recordings that would not be commercially released. Two years later Sutch would invite several prominent musicians, including members of Deep Purple, to perform with him at the Carshalton Park Rock 'n' Roll Festival, secretly taping the performance and releasing it on an album called Hand Of Jack The Ripper without the musicians' knowledge or consent. Sutch's reputation with the British musical community never recovered from the debacle.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Going Up The Country
Source: Mono Italian import 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Alan Wilson
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. This Italian pressing, for some reason, cuts off the song's 20 second-long coda.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Don't Slip Away
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Spence
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Don't Slip Away, from the 1966 LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, could probably have been a hit if it had been released as a single. It wasn't, however, and the band remained mostly unknown outside of the immediate San Francisco Bay area for several months after the release of the album. This gave the group the opportunity to make a pair of key personnel changes that resulted in Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden becoming Airplane members in time to record the group's breakthrough LP, Surrealistic Pillow. On the strength of Slick's vocals in particular, the Jefferson Airplane became a national phenomena in 1967.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Perhaps more than any other band, Country Joe and the Fish capture the essence of the San Francisco scene in the late 60s (which is rather ironic, considering that they were actually based in Berkeley on the other side of the bay and rarely visited the city itself, except to play gigs). Their first two releases were EPs included in Joe McDonald's self-published Rag Baby underground newspaper. In 1967 the band was signed to Vanguard Records, a primarily folk-oriented prestige label that also had Joan Baez on its roster. Their first LP, Electric Music For the Mind and Body had such classic cuts as Section 43, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, and the political parody Superbird on it, as well as the mostly-instrumental tune The Masked Marauder. Not for the unenlightened.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: America
Source: 45 RPM single B side (song originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Year: 1968/1972
Four years after the release of the album Bookends (and two years after the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel), Columbia decided to release the song For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her, from their final album Bridge Over Troubled Water, as a single, to coincide with the release of their Greatest Hits album. For the B side, they went even further back, pulling out the original tapes for the song America. The tracks on the Bookends album were deliberately overlapped to form a continuous audio montage, making this the first standalone version of America to be released by the duo.
Artist: Glass Family
Title: Agorn (Elements Of Complex Variables)
Source: LP: Electric Band
Writer(s): Glass Family
Label: Maplewood (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1969
The final track on the released version of Glass Family's Electric Band album is a track called Agorn (Elements Of Complex Variables). The song, credited to keyboardist/bassist David Capilouto and percussionist Gary Green, features a drum solo by Green.
Artist: Frijid Pink
Title: End Of The Line
Source: German import CD: Frijid Pink
Writer: Thompson/Beaudry
Label: Repertoire (original US label: Parrot)
Year: 1970
Frijid Pink was extremely popular in their native Detroit. So popular, in fact, that in 1969 Led Zeppelin was their warm-up act. Unfortunately for the band, their first single to become a national hit, a feedback-drenched version of House Of The Rising Sun, became a bit too popular on top 40 radio, causing the new progressive FM stations to avoid them like the plague. The band was never able to get airplay for their later records such as End Of The Line, the B side of their follow-up single Sing A Song Of Freedom.
Artist: Kinks
Title: When I See That Girl Of Mine
Source: LP: The Kink Kontroversy
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
Although the Rolling Stones had the reputation as the bad boys of rock, it was the Kinks that stirred up the most controversy with their rowdy behavior (and that of their fans) while touring in Europe. The situation got so bad that for several years, starting in 1965, the Kinks were actually banned from touring in the US. This led to the group's third studio LP being named The Kink Kontroversy. Up until that point record sales for the band had been good on both sides of the Atlantic. As was the case with many British bands, the Kinks had actually released more LPs in the US than in their native UK, due to US LPs having shorter running times and the UK policy of not including songs that had been released on 45 RPM vinyl (singles and EPs) on LPs. In fact, the two US-only LPs had actually outsold the two official studio albums in the US. The Kink Kontroversy, unlike the group's previous studio albums, was released in the US with the same track lineup as its UK counterpart. With the ban on touring in the US, however, the group was unable to fully promote the new LP and US sales suffered, despite the presence of some fine tunes like When I See That Girl Of Mine.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Kicks
Source: Simulated stereo CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released on 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Kicks was not the first pop song with a strong anti-drug message, but it was the first one to be a major hit, making it to the number four spot on the US charts and hitting number one in Canada. It was also the biggest hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders until Indian Reservation went all the way to the top of the charts five years later.
Artist: Every Mother's Son
Title: The Proper Four Leaf Clover
Source: Mono LP: Every Mother's Son's Back (promo copy)
Writer(s): Milner/Larsen
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
For being the largest city in the world (at the time) New York had relatively few popular local bands. Perhaps this is because of the wealth of entertainment and cultural choices in the Big Apple. In fact, the only notable local music scene was in Greenwich Village, which was more into folk and blues than mainstream rock. In fact, it was in the Village where brothers Dennis and Larry Larden, who had been performing for several years as a folk duo, met keyboardist Bruce Milner, who had been sitting in with several folk bands but was looking for something a little more permanent. They soon recruited bass player Schuyler Larsen and drummer Christopher Augustine to form Every Mother's Son in 1966. Their first single, Come On Down To My Boat, was an international hit, giving the band an opportunity to record two LPs for the M-G-M label in 1967. Most of the material on both albums were written by band members, including The Proper Four Leaf Clover, a track from the second LP written by Milner and Larsen.
Artist: Twilights
Title: Cathy, Come Home
Source: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Australia as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Terry Britten
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1967
The Twilights were originally formed as a vocal trio in 1964, performing with various backup musicians in the suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. By the end of the year they had joined forces with a local band called the Hurricanes. The now six-piece band soon signed with EMI's Columbia label and released several singles of the next two years, including the chart-topping Needle In A Haystack in September of 1966. At that time they won a national battle of the bands competition that offered a trip to England as first prize. Upon their return to Australia in early 1967 the Twilights recorded several new songs that showed the influence of their British trip, including Cathy, Come Home, which appeared as a B side that spring.
Artist: Small Faces
Title: I'm Only Dreaming
Source: British import 45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane
Label: Immediate/Charly
Year: 1967
As was the usual custom in the UK, the single Itchycoo Park was not included on any Small Faces albums. In the US, however, both the hit single and its B side, I'm Only Dreaming were included on the LP There Are But Four Small Faces, along with about half the songs from the UK LP Small Faces. As stereo LPs were being phased out in the US by the time the album was released, the mono single version has always been a bit of a rarity, even after being re-released in limited quantity (2500 copies) in 2012 by Charly records.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: That's It For The Other One/New Potato Caboose
Source: CD: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): Garcia/Kreutzmann/Lesh/McKernan/Weir/Constanten
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After completing their first album in three days, the Grateful Dead decided to take their time with the 1968 follow-up release. Anthem of the Sun was an attempt at mixing studio and live material into a coherent whole. That's It For The Other One/New Potato Caboose comprise most of the first side of that album. In order to increase the band's share of royalties for the album, That's It For The Other One was arbitrarily broken down into several parts on the album cover, although it is in reality one continuous piece.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: When I Was Young
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
After the Animals disbanded in 1966, Eric Burdon set out to form a new band that would be far more psychedelic than the original group. The first release from these "New Animals" was When I Was Young. The song was credited to the entire band, a practice that would continue throughout the entire existence of the group that came to be called Eric Burdon And The Animals.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Rack My Mind
Source: Mono CD: Roger The Engineer (original US title: Over Under Sideways Down)
Writer(s): Dreja/McCarty/Beck/Relf/Samwell-Smith
Label: Great American (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
It may come as a surprise to some, but, despite their status as one of the most influential bands in rock history, the Yardbirds actually only recorded one studio album. The album, released in 1966, was originally titled The Yardbirds, but has since come to be known as Roger The Engineer, thanks to the distinctive cover drawn by band member Chris Dreja. In the US, the album was released under a different title (Over Under Sideways Down) and had an entirely different cover as well. To add to the confusion, a compilation of British singles and EP tracks had been released in the US under the title Having A Rave Up the previous year. Roger The Engineer was co-produced by Simon Napier-Bell and Yardbirds bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, and was made up entirely of original songs such as Rack My Mind. Samwell-Smith would leave the band to become a full-time producer not long after the album's release; his replacement would be a guitarist named Jimmy Page.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released as a single in 1965 (under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard), but did not make an immediate impression. The following year, however, the tune started getting some local airplay on Los Angeles area stations. This in turn led to the band recording their first album, The Seeds, which was released in spring of 1966. A second Seeds LP, A Web Of Sound, hit L.A. record stores in the fall of the same year. Meanwhile, Pushin' Too Hard, which had been reissued with a different B side in mid-1966, started to get national airplay, hitting its peak position on the Billboard charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. All but Try It were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written some of the Chocolate Watch Band's best stuff as well.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Down In Suburbia
Source: Mono LP: You Baby
Writer(s): Bob Lind
Label: White Whale
Year: 1966
Given his list of accomplishments over the past 60 years, Bob Lind should be a household name. He was one of the originators of folk-rock in the mid-1960s, and his single Elusive Butterfly was an international hit in 1966. Several of his songs, including the satirical Down In Suburbia, have been recorded by other artists such as the Turtles. Lind himself was the inspiration for the character Dinky Summers in the Charles Bukowski novel Women, and has written five novels of his own, as well as the award-winning play Refuge. Perhaps most signficantly, he was the co-creator of Bat Boy, sightings of whom (which?) were a regular feature of the Weekly World News, where he was an editor throughout the 1990s. Lind returned to music in 2004 at the urging of his friend Arlo Guthrie, with his most recent album, Something Worse Than Lonliness, being released in early 2022.
Artist: Phil Ochs
Title: I Ain't Marching Anymore
Source: CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Phil Ochs
Label: Elektra
Year: 1965
Phil Ochs' I Ain't Marching Anymore didn't get a whole lot of airplay when it was released in 1965 (unless you count a handful of closed-circuit student-run stations on various college campuses that could only be picked up by plugging a radio into a wall socket in a dorm room). Ochs was aware of this, and even commented that "the fact that you won't be hearing this song on the radio is more than enough justification for the writing of it." He went on to say that the song "borders between pacifism and treason, combining the best qualities of both." The following year Ochs recorded this folk-rock version of the song (backed up by members of the Blues Project) that was released as a single in the UK.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Luvin'
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Lowe/Tulin
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
Perhaps as a bit of overcompensation for his lack of control over the Grateful Dead, producer David Hassinger kept a tight rein on L.A.'s Electric Prunes, providing them with most of the material they recorded (from professional songwriters). One of the few exceptions is vocalist James Lowe and bassist Mark Tulin's Luvin', which was first released in November of 1966 as the B side of the Prunes' hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night). The song was also included on the band's first LP the following year.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Blue Jay Way
Source: British import stereo 45 RPM EP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1967
One night in 1967, while staying at a rented house on Blue Jay Way in the Hollywood hills, Beatle George Harrison got a phone call. Some friends that he was waiting for had gotten lost in the fog and were trying to find their way to the house. Harrison gave them some directions and suggested they ask a police officer for help. To help keep himself awake while waiting for his friends to show up, Harrison wrote a song about the situation that eventually became his only musical contribution to the band's new project, a telefilm called Magical Mystery Tour. Some people consider it the best track in the movie.
Artist: Syn
Title: 14 Hour Technicolour Dream
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Nardelli/Jackman
Label: Rhino (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Once upon a time there was an underground newspaper that got raided by the local police. In response, several local underground bands got together and staged a 14-hour long happening in support of the paper. As much as this sounds like a slice of San Francisco or maybe Los Angeles history, this actually happened in London, with such notable bands as Pink Floyd, the Pretty Things, the Creation, the Soft Machine, the Move, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and others contributing to what came to be called the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at the Alexandria Palace on April 29-30, 1967. Later that year, mod band the Syn (formerly known as the Selfs) recorded a song celebrating the event and released it as the B side of their second single for Deram. The group disbanded in 1968, with members Peter Banks and Chris Squire eventually going on to form Yes in the early 1970s.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: If You Want This Love
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer: Baker Knight
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The first West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album, Volume One, had a limited print run on Fifa, a small independent label based in Los Angeles. After landing a contract with Reprise, the band recut many of the songs (most of which were cover tunes) from Volume One and called the new album Part One. If You Want This Love, a song written and originally recorded by local L.A. legend Baker Knight, is one of those recut tracks.
Artist: Knaves
Title: Inside Outside
Source: Mono CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (possibly released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Berkman/Hulbert
Label: Sundazed (possible original label: Dunwich)
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1991
The Knaves, Howard Berkman, John Hulbert, Mark Feldman, Neil Pollack, and Gene Lubin, came from the northern suburbs of Chicago, and were one of the last bands to record for the Dunwich label before it converted itself to a production company. In fact, whether or not their second single, Inside Outside, actually got released is in doubt. According to the people at Sundazed, Dunwich had the single ready by summer of 1967, but shut down the label before it could get released. Other sources, however, list it as a legitimate single. Regardless, it's a great piece of garage rock.
Artist: Grammy Fones
Title: Now He's Gone
Source: Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Mike Butler
Label: Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year: 1967
Once upon a time in Houston there was a band called the Druids, made up of Mike Butler, Charlie Knight, Jim Scalise and John Deer. They recorded a pair of tunes for the Brent label at a local studio, but for some reason were identified as the Spectacles on the tape box. When the single itself came out the band's name had changed once again, this time to the Grammy Fones. The somewhat forgettable A side was credited to Scott and Vivian Holtzman, who would go on to write and produce four Fever Tree albums, but the B side, the much stronger Now He's Gone, was written by Butler.
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