https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/444038-pe-2242
It's once again time for a battle of the bands on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, and this one, for only the second time, does not include either the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Instead we have two bands, one British, one American, each known to have gotten into trouble for their onstage antics. Of course Doors vocalist Jim Morrison's arrest for public indecency after allegedly exposing himself onstage in Miami is one of the great legends of rock history. Not as well known, probably because it was an ongoing thing, was the unruly behavior by the Kinks, including fistfights between band members in the middle of a performance, that got them banned from playing in the US for nearly five years in the late 1960s. For an encore we have a set from the aforementioned Rolling Stones, along with nearly two dozen other tunes this week.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Positively 4th Street
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Positively 4th Street, recorded at the same time as the Highway 61 Revisited album, was held back for single release later the same year. The tactic worked, scoring Bob Dylan his second top 10 hit.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: Somewhere They Can't Find Me
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds of Silence)
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Simon and Garfunkel's success as a folk-rock duo was actually due to the unauthorized actions of producer John Simon, who, after working on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album, got Dylan's band to add new tracks to the song Sound of Silence. The song had been recorded as an acoustic number for the album Wednesday Morning 3AM, which had, by 1966, been deleted from the Columbia catalog. The new version of the song was sent out to select radio stations, and got such positive response that it was released as a single, eventually making the top 10. Meanwhile, Paul Simon, who had since moved to London and recorded an album called the Paul Simon Songbook, found himself returning to the US and reuniting with Art Garfunkel. Armed with an array of quality studio musicians they set about making their first electric album, Sounds of Silence. The song Somewhere They Can't Find Me was one of the new songs recorded for that album. From a lyrical standpoint, the song is actually a reworking of the title track of Wednesday Morning 3AM. Musically, the song shows a strong influence from British folk guitarist Bert Jansch, whom Simon greatly admired.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: D.C.B.A.-25
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1967
One of the first songs written by Paul Kantner without a collaborator was the highly listenable D.C.B.A.-25 from Surrealistic Pillow. Kantner said later that the title simply referred to the basic chord structure of the song, which is built on a two chord verse (D and C) and a two chord bridge (B and A). That actually fits, but what about the 25 part? [insert enigmatic smile here].
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Barterers And Their Wives
Source: LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s): Brown/Feher
Label: Smash/Sundazed
Year: 1967
The Left Banke made a huge impact with their debut single, Walk Away Renee, in late 1966. All of a sudden the rock press (such as it was in 1966) was all abuzz with talk of "baroque pop" and how it was the latest, greatest thing. The band soon released a follow-up single, Pretty Ballerina, which made the top 10 as well, which led to an album entitled (naturally enough) Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina. The album featured several more songs in the same vein, such as Barterers And Their Wives, which was also released as a B side later that year. An unfortunate misstep by keyboardist Michael Brown, however, led to the Left Banke's early demise, and baroque pop soon went the way of other sixties fads.
Artist: Tomorrow
Title: My White Bicycle
Source: Poorly done fake stereo CD: Acid Daze (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hopkins/Burgess
Label: Uncut (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1967
One of the most popular bands with the mid-60s London Mods was a group called the In Crowd. In 1967 the band abandoned its R&B/Soul sound for a more psychedelic approach, changing its name to Tomorrow in the process. Their debut single, My White Bicycle, was inspired by the practice in Amsterdam of leaving white bicycles at various stategic points throughout the city for anyone to use (Ithaca, NY currently does the same thing, except theirs are yellow and green). The song sold well and got a lot of play at local discoteques, but did not chart. Soon after the record was released, however, lead vocalist Keith West had a hit of his own, Excerpt From A Teenage Opera, which did not sound at all like the music Tomorrow was making. After a second Tomorrow single failed to chart, the individual members drifted off in different directions, with West concentrating on his solo career, guitarist Steve Howe joining Bodast, and bassist Junior Wood and drummer Twink Alder forming a short-lived group called Aquarian Age. Twink would go on to greater fame as a member of the Pretty Things and a founder of the Pink Fairies, but it was Howe that became an international star in the 70s after replacing Peter Banks in Yes.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle was the official leader on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic folk-rock to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: The Raik's Progress
Title: All Night Long
Source: Mono LP: Sewer Rat Love Chant
Writer(s): Krikorian/Shapazian/van Maarth/Olson/Scott
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2003
"A bunch of 17-year-old quasi-intellectual proto-punks" was how Steve Krikorian, later to be known as Tonio K, described his first band. Krikorian, along with friends Alan Shapazian, Steve Olson, Nick van Maarth, and Duane Scott, formed The Raik's Progress in 1966 in Fresno, California. By the end of the year they had already cut a single for a major label (Liberty) and would soon find themselves opening for Buffalo Springfield at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium. Although the band did not release any more records, they did gain a reputation for their stage show, which included sitting down and playing a game of poker between songs and other strange antics. Their music was equally unusual, in that it combined influences from the more blues oriented British Invasion bands like the Animals and Them with an avant-garde sensibility more in line with what Frank Zappa's Mothers were doing at the time. Both of these elements can be heard on All Night Long, a track that also shows early traces of the outrageous vocal style that characterizes later Tonio K recordings.
Artist: Troggs
Title: Lost Girl
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): Reg Presley
Label: Rhino (original label: CBS)
Year: 1966
Wild Thing was not the first single released by the Troggs (although it was certainly the biggest). That honor goest to Lost Girl, a song written by the band's lead vocalist, Reg Presley, and released in February of 1966. One listen to the track with its primitive energy and it's easy to see why the band named themselves after a race of cavemen.
Artist: Leaves
Title: Too Many People
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pons/Rinehart
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1965
The Leaves are a bit unusual in that in Los Angeles, a city known for drawing wannabes from across the world, this local band's members were all native Ellayins. Formed by members of a fraternity at Cal State Northridge, the Leaves had their greatest success when they took over as house band at Ciro's after the Byrds vacated the slot to go on tour. Like many bands of the time, they were given a song (Bob Dylan's Love Minus Zero) to record as a single by their producer and allowed to write their own B side. In this case the intended B side was Too Many People, written by bassist Jim Pons and guitarist Bill Rhinehart. Before the record was released, however, the producers decided that Too Many People was the stronger track and designated it the A side. The song ended up getting more airplay on local radio stations than Love Minus Zero, making it their first regional hit. The Leaves had their only national hit the following year with their third attempt at recording the fast version of Hey Joe, the success of which led to their first LP, which included a watered down version of Too Many People. The version heard here is the 1965 original. Eventually Pons would leave the Leaves, hooking up first with the Turtles, then Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
In late 1966 five guys from San Jose California managed to sound more like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds that the Yardbirds themselves (a task probably made easier by the fact that by late 1966 Jeff Beck was no longer a member of the Yardbirds). One interesting note about this record is that as late as the mid-1980s the 45 RPM single on the original label was still available in record stores, complete with the original B side. Normally (in the US at least) songs more than a year or two old were only available on anthology LPs or on reissue singles with "back-to-back hits" on them. The complete takeover of the record racks by CDs in the late 1980s changed all that, as all 45s (except for indy releases) soon went the way of the 78 RPM record. The resurgence of vinyl in the 2010s has been almost exclusively limited to LP releases, making it look increasingly unlikely that we'll ever see (with the exception of Record Store Day special releases) 45 RPM singles on the racks ever again.
Artist: Knaves
Title: Leave Me Alone
Source: Mono CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (possibly released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Berkman/Hulbert
Label: Sundazed (original labels: Glen/Dunwich)
Year: Recorded 1966/1967
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. Unlike the label's most famous band, the Shadows Of Knight, the Knaves had actually released their first single, Leave Me Alone, on the tiny Glen label in 1966, with Dunwich reissuing it the following year. The song itself has a strong anti-establishment sentiment that would be echoed by countless punk-rock bands a decade later, and became a top 5 hit in Chicago thanks to heavy airplay on WCFL, one of the city's two major top 40 stations. Unfortunately the band had difficulty lining up paying gigs and disbanded in 1967.
Artist: Orange Wedge
Title: From The Womb To The Tomb
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): L.S.P.
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Blue Flat Ownsley Memorial)
Year: 1968
Recorded in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1968, From The Womb To The Tomb was the B side of the only single from Orange Wedge, a forerunner of more famous Michigan bands such as the Stooges and the MC5.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Midnight
Source: CD: South Saturn Delta (originally released on LP: War Heroes)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year: Recorded 1969, released 1972
One of the last recordings made by the original Jimi Hendrix Experience, Midnight first appeared on the post-humous LP War Heroes in 1972. After War Heroes went out of print, Midnight appeared on the CD album Voodoo Soup, Alan Douglas's 1995 attempt at creating a "fourth" Jimi Hendrix studio album. Less than two years later Experience Hendrix, the family business which ousted Douglas and took over control of the guitarist's recordings, released First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, which used Hendrix's own personal notes as a guide to track selection. Midnight, which was not included on First Rays, later appeared on the 1997 CD South Saturn Delta.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Run Through The Jungle
Source: LP: More Creedence Gold (originally released on LP: Cosmos Factory and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1970
One of the most popular songs on the 1970 Creedence Clearwater Revival album Cosmos Factory was a tune by John Fogerty called Run Through The Jungle. At the time of the album's release, many people assumed the song was about the Viet-Nam war. However, Fogerty, in a 1993 interview with the Los Angeles Times, said,“ I think a lot of people thought that because of the times, but I was talking about America and the proliferation of guns, registered and otherwise. I'm a hunter and I'm not antigun, but I just thought that people were so gun-happy -- and there were so many guns uncontrolled that it really was dangerous, and it's even worse now." As one half of a double-sided single (paired with Up Around The Bend), the song became the sixth single to break into the top 10, and has been covered by several artists over the years. In the late 1980s the song was at the center of a lawsuit brought by the owner of Fantasy Records, Saul Zaentz, claiming that a 1984 Fogerty song, The Old Man Down The Road, was actually Run Through The Jungle with different lyrics. Zaentz had basically screwed Fogerty out of publishing rights for all of CCR's material, resulting in Fogerty being unable to perform any of the band's tunes, and was now suing Fogerty for plagiarizing himself. In a rare victory for common sense Fogerty eventually won the lawsuit (although the judge did grant Zaentz some concessions), but Fogerty had to countersue Zaentz in order to recover the money he had spent on attorneys. Eventually Fogerty won that lawsuit as well, and is happily performing old Creedence songs as well as new material.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: It's A Deal
Source: CD: Live At The Carousel Ballroom-1968
Writer(s): Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
There are very few recorded songs attributed to the entire lineup of Big Brother And The Holding Company. It's A Deal, from their Live At The Carousel Ballroom-1968 CD, is one of them. The recording itself was made by the legendary Owsley "Bear" Stanley, who designed the equally legendary Grateful Dead sound system. Owsley's technique was to record all the vocals on one channel of a stereo tape recorder and all instruments on the other. This was done mainly so that the band members themselves could listen to and critique their own performances. According to the liner notes for Live At The Carousel Ballroom-1968 the best way to listen to the recording is to place both speakers right next to each other. If your system has a mono mode that would probably work even better.
Artist: Wildflower
Title: Coffee Cup
Source: British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers
Writer(s): Ehret/Ellis
Label: Big Beat (original US LP label: Mainstream)
Year: 1967
The Wildflower was somewhat typical of the San Francisco brand of folk-rock; less political in the lyrics and less jangly on the instrumental side. Although Coffee Cup was recorded in 1965, it did not get released until the summer of love two years later on With Love-A Pot Of Flowers, a collection of recordings by a variety of artists on Bob Shad's Mainstream label.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: Gimme Some Lovin'
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label: United Artists
Year: 1966
By mid-1966 the Spencer Davis Group had already racked up an impressive number of British hit singles, but had yet to crack the US top 40. This changed when the band released Gimme Some Lovin', an original composition that had taken the band about an hour to develop in the studio. The single, released on Oct 28, went to the #2 spot on the British charts. Although producer Jimmy Miller knew he had a hit on his hands, he decided to do a complete remix of the song, including a brand new lead vocal track, added backup vocals and percussion and plenty of reverb, for the song's US release. His strategy was successful; Gimme Some Lovin', released in December of 1966, hit the US charts in early 1967, eventually reaching the #7 spot. The US remix has since become the standard version of the song, and has appeared on countless compilations over the years.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Sittin' On My Sofa
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
For most people the Kinks were (and still are, to some extent) known for some outstanding hit singles such as You Really Got Me and Sunny Afternoon. People who bought those singles also knew them for some of the best B sides ever released, including I Need You and I'm Not Like Everybody Else. Not every Kinks single was a major hit, however, especially in the US, where the group spent five years being banned from performing. One of those lesser hits was Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, which stalled out in the #36 spot in the spring of 1966, despite being a top 5 hit in the UK. As a result the B side of the US single, a Ray Davies tune called Sittin' On My Sofa, is one of the most obscure Kinks tracks ever released. It's only LP appearance was on a 1967 compilation album called Sunny Afternoon that wasn't even released in the US.
Artist: Doors
Title: Take It As It Comes
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's hottest bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing a mixture of blues covers and original tunes. One evening in early August Jack Holzman, president of Elektra Records, and producer Paul Rothchild were among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who's band Love had already released their first album on Elektra). After hearing two sets Holzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors the second rock band on Elektra (the Butterfield Blues Band, which had been with the label since 1965, was not considered a rock group in those days). By the end of the month the Doors were in the studio recording songs like Take It As It Comes for their debut LP, which was released in January of 1967.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Tired Of Waiting For You
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Priority (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1965
After a series of hard-rocking hits such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks surprised everyone with the highly melodic Tired Of Waiting For You in 1965. As it turns out the song was just one of many steps in the continually maturing songwriting of Ray Davies.
Artist: Doors
Title: Break On Through (To The Other Side)
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first Doors song to be released as a single was not, as usually assumed, Light My Fire. Rather, it was Break On Through (To The Other Side), the opening track from the band's debut LP, that was chosen to do introduce the band to top 40 radio. Although the single was not an immediate hit, it did eventually catch on with progressive FM radio listeners and still is heard on classic rock stations from time to time.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Berkeley Mews
Source: CD: The Kink Kronikles (originally released in the US on promotional LP Then Now And Inbetween and in the UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969 (US), 1970 (UK)
Unlike the case with many British bands, there is a high correlation between UK and US single releases by the Kinks, with most of the records having the same B sides on both sides of the Atlantic. One notable exception is Berkeley Mews, which was recorded in 1968 during the sessions for the album Arthur, but remained unreleased until 1969, when it appeared on a promotional compilation album called Then Now And Inbetween sent out to radio stations and the rock press in the US as part of the God Save The Kinks campaign to reestablish the band following the four-year long performance ban imposed by the American Federation of Musicians. The song was issued the following year as the B side of the single version of Lola (the one with the words "cherry cola" substituted for "Coca-cola") in the UK.
Artist: Doors
Title: The End
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Prior to recording their first album the Doors' honed their craft at various Sunset Strip clubs, working up live versions of the songs they would soon record, including their show-stopper, The End. Originally written as a breakup song by singer/lyricist Jim Morrison, The End runs nearly twelve minutes and includes the controversial spoken "Oedipus section" that reportedly lost the group their residency at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. My own take on the famous "blue bus" line earlier in the song is that Morrison, being a military brat, was probably familiar with the blue shuttle buses used on military bases for a variety of purposes, including taking kids to school, and simply incorporated his experiences with them into his lyrics. The End got its greatest exposure in 1979, when Oliver Stone used it in his film Apocalypse Now.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Ruby Tuesday
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
One of the most durable songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Ruby Tuesday was originally intended to be the B side of their 1967 single Let's Spend The Night Together. Many stations, however, balked at the subject matter of the A side and began playing Ruby Tuesday instead, which is somewhat ironic considering speculations as to the subject matter of the song (usually considered to be about a groupie of the band's acquaintance, although Mick Jagger has said it was about Keith Richards' ex-girlfriend).
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Light Years From Home
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more noticeable than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover featured the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines and pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interesting enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) made the top 40 charts.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
I seem to recall some TV show (Ed Sullivan, maybe?) making Mick Jagger change the words of Let's Spend The Night Together to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now.
Artist: Rare Earth
Title: (I Know I'm) Losing You
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Grant/Holland/Whitfield
Label: Rare Earth
Year: 1970
Although Rare Earth was not the first white act signed to Motown, it was the first successful one. When the band was signed in 1969 it was decided to retool (and rename) one of Motown's existing labels and put Rare Earth on that label. During discussions about what to rename the label one of the band members joking suggested Rare Earth Records. Oddly enough, Motown went with that suggestion, and the band soon scored two consecutive top 10 singles with remakes of previous Motown hits. The first, Get Ready, used virtually the same arrangement as the Temptations original and actually did better on the charts. The follow-up, (I Know I'm) Losing You, was more adventurous, and showed that the group was more than just one hit wonders.
Artist: Muddy Waters
Title: I'm Ready
Source: LP: Fathers And Sons
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Chess
Year: 1969
Muddy Waters caught some flack for his 1968 album Electric Mud, which was, in a loose way, a concept album presenting the legendary bluesman in the role of a psychedelic rock star. He returned to his roots in a big way, however, with the 1969 double-LP album Fathers And Sons. The album came about when guitarist Michael Bloomfield told Marshall Chess that he and Paul Butterfield would be in Chicago for a charity concert and wanted to record an album with Waters while they were in town. Chess then recruited Donald "Duck" Dunn (from Booker T. & the M.G.s), pianist Otis Spann and drummer Sam Lay for the project. The group spent three days recording studio tracks, followed by a live concert on the following night that was recorded as well. Also appearing on the studio tracks is rhythm guitarist Paul Asbell, who did not play in the live concert group.The first LP contained the studio tracks, including a remake of Muddy's 1954 hit I'm Ready, while the second record included live versions of classic tunes. Fathers And Sons ended up being Muddy Waters's highest charting album of his career, reaching #70 on the Billboard top 200 album chart.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: On The Road Again
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jones/Wilson
Label: Liberty
Year: 1968
Canned Heat was formed by a group of blues record collectors in San Francisco. Although their first album consisted entirely of cover songs, by their 1968 album Boogie With Canned Heat they were starting to compose their own material, albeit in a style that remained consistent with their blues roots. On The Road Again, the band's second and most successful single (peaking at # 16) from that album, is actually an updated version of a 1953 recording by Chicago bluesman Floyd Jones (which was in turn adapted from delta bluesman Tommy Johnson's 1928 recording of a song called Big Road Blues) that guitarist/vocalist Al "Blind Owl" Wilson reworked, adding a tambura drone to give the track a more psychedelic feel. Wilson actually had to retune the sixth hole of his harmonica for his solo on the track. I didn't even know a harmonica could BE retuned!
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Try A Little Tenderness
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer: Woods/Campbell/Connelly
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the most electrifying performances at the legendary Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 happened on Saturday night during a rainstorm. Otis Redding (backed by Booker T. and the MGs, with Wayne Jackson on trumpet and Andrew Love on sax) was scheduled for the closing slot, but due to technical problems earlier in the day found himself with only enough time for five songs before the festival had to shut down for the night. At the end of his closing song, Try A Little Tenderness, Redding can be heard saying "I've got to go now. I don't want to go" as the festival's organizers, mindful of the terms of their permit, were rushing him off the stage.
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