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This week, in our second hour, we're featuring tracks from the newly-released L.A. Woman Sessions four LP vinyl box set. And then we're going to try to give away some extra copies of the aforementioned box set. Of course there's plenty of other stuff going on this week as well, including artists' sets from Donovan and the Beatles.
Artist: ? And The Mysterians
Title: I Can't Get Enough Of You Baby
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Randle/Linzer
Label: Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year: 1967
? And The Mysterians' 1966 hit 96 Tears was the last song on the legendary Cameo label to hit the top 10 before the label went bankrupt in 1967 (and was bought by Allan Klein, who still reissues old Cameo-Parkway recordings on his Abkco label). Shortly before that bankruptcy was declared, however, the group released Can't Get Enough Of You Baby, which, in the absence of any promotion from the label, stalled out in the lower reaches of the charts. The song itself, however, finally achieved massive popularity at the end of the century, when a new version of the tune by Smash Mouth went to the top of the charts.
Artist: Purple Gang
Title: Granny Takes A Trip
Source: British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Purple Gang Strikes)
Writer(s): Bowyer/Beard
Label: Uncut (original label: Transatlantic, LP released in US on Sire label)
Year: 1967
Formed in the Manchester, England area as the Young Contemporaries Jug Band, The Purple Gang took on their new identity when they relocated to London and became part of the psychedelic scene there. Their first single, Granny Takes A Trip, was banned by the BBC for 1) having the word "trip" in the song title (even though it was named for an actual gift shop that had nothing to do with acid) and 2) the lead singer's nickname was Lucifer. Sounds pretty circumstantial to me, but that was the BBC in 1967, the inaugural year of BBC-1, and I suppose they were still a bit on the timid side at that point in time.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Smoke And Water (original mix)
Source: Mono British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released on CD: Ignition)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Big Beat (original label: Sundazed)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2000
Before signing with Original Sound Records in late 1966, Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, recorded several demos, including Smoke And Water. The song was considered too conventional by Bonniwell's standards to be included on the group's debut LP, although it is entirely possible that if the record company had not included several cover songs on the album without the band's knowledge or consent, Smoke And Water, with its outstanding keyboard work from Doug Rhodes, might have made the cut.
Artist: Jeff Beck
Title: Tallyman
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Sundazed/Epic
Year: 1967
Mickey Most (born Michael Peter Hayes) was a British record producer who was responsible for some of the biggest hits of the British Invasion, working with bands like the Animals and Herman's Hermits, as well as individual artists like Donovan and Lulu. In most instances he chose the songs himself for the bands to record, something that did not sit well with Eric Burdon of the Animals in particular. Nonetheless, he had the reputation as the man to go to for the best chance of getting on the charts and he rarely disappointed. In 1967, guitarist Jeff Beck, having recently left the Yardbirds, had dreams of becoming a pop star, and turned to Most for help in making it happen. Most, as usual, picked out the songs for Beck's first two singles, the second of which was Tallyman, a song written by the same Graham Gouldman that had provided the Yardbirds with their first Beck era hit, Heart Full Of Soul. Beck would continue to work with Most for the next couple of years, although by the time the album Beck-Ola was released, Beck himself was choosing the material to record and starting with his next LP, Rough And Ready, would be producing his own records.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Gratefully Dead
Source: Mono British import CD: Winds Of Change (bonus track originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
One of the most successful singles by Eric Burdon And The Animals was a tribute to the summer of Love called San Franciscan Nights taken from their 1967 debut LP, Winds Of Change. The B side of that single was Good Times, from the same album. At first the band's British label was reluctant to release San Francisco Nights as a single, but eventually decided to go for it. Since Good Times had already been released as a single in the UK (making the top 10), the group recorded a new B side for San Franciscan Nights's UK release, a tune written by the band called Gratefully Dead. To my knowledge, the track has never been issued in the US.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Don't Need Your Lovin'
Source: Mono CD: One Step Beyond (originally released on LP: Riot On Sunset Strip soundtrack album)
Writer(s): Dave Aguilar
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The Chocolate Watchband was famously unprepared virtually every time they entered a recording studio (although it might be more accurate to say they just didn't give a damn). Their appearance on the set of the film Riot On Sunset Strip was no exception. The band actually did have one song prepared for the film, a Dave Aguilar original called Don't Need Your Lovin'. The track was recorded live on the Paramount soundstage and is a better representation of what the band was all about than any of their studio tracks.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Wonderful
Source: Mono CD: Good Vibrations-Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys
Writer(s): Wilson/Parks
Label: Capitol
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1993
After spending several months perfecting his masterpiece single Good Vibrations, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys set out to create an entire album using the same production style, recording segments of each piece separately, often at entirely different studios, then assembling them into coherent finished tracks and adding vocal overdubs. One of the first pieces recorded for this new album (to be called Smile), was Wonderful, recorded on September 1st of 1966. Although Smile was eventually scrapped in favor of the much less complex Smiley Smile album, released in late 1967, many of the original Smile tracks were preserved in the Capitol Records vaults, with bootleg copies occasionally making the rounds among collectors. Finally, in 1993, some of these tracks (including Wonderful) were released on the box set Good Vibrations-Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, that the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit. Although progressive FM stations often played the longer LP version, it was the mono single edit heard here that was most familiar to listeners of top 40 radio.
Artist: Max Frost And The Troopers (aka the 13th Power)
Title: Captain Hassel
Source: European import CD: Shape Of Things To Come (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Beckner/Hector/Martin/McClain/Wibier
Label: Captain High (original US label: Sidewalk)
Year: 1967
If anyone needed proof that the fictional band known as Max Frost And The Troopers was in reality the 13th Power, it is provided by Captain Hassel, which, along with I See A Change Is Gonna Come was released as the only 13th Power single on Mike Curb's Sidewalk label in 1967, a year before the film Wild In The Streets (featuring Max Frost And The Troopers) came out. Further proof is provided on the soundtrack album of the 1968 film, on which a reworked version of Captain Hassel retitled Free Lovin' is credited to the 13th Power. Later that same year, Tower Records released an entire LP credited to Max Frost And The Troopers that included a stereo mix of the original recording of Captain Hassel with its original title restored.
Artist: Taste
Title: Same Old Story
Source: British import CD: Taste
Writer(s): Rory Gallagher
Label: Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Sometimes a band's frontman so dominates the band's sound that the band itself becomes little more than a footnote in the history of the frontman himself. Such was the case with Taste, a band formed in Cork, Ireland in 1966 by Rory Gallagher. By the time Taste cut its 1969 debut LP, Gallagher was the only original member of the trio, and the band's sole songwriter as well as vocalist and lead guitarist. The song Same Old Story is fairly typical of the group's sound. Taste disbanded in 1970, with Gallagher going on to have a successful solo career.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Legend Of A Girl Child Linda
Source: Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Sundazed
Year: 1966
Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch first met Linda Lawrence in the green room of the TV series Ready Steady Go shortly after her breakup with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Soon after that Donovan started referring to her as his muse, and has written several songs for her, including Legend Of A Girl Child Linda from his Sunshine Superman album, as well as the album's title track. Although she spent the next few years in California, the two of them eventually reunited and have been married since 1970.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunshine Superman
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released in edited form as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Donovan's hugely successful Sunshine Superman is sometimes credited as being the tsunami that launched the wave of psychedelic music that washed over the shores of pop musicland in 1967. OK, I made that up, but the song really did change the direction of American pop as well as Donovan's own career. Originally released as a three and a quarter minute long single, the full unedited four and a half minute long stereo mix of the song heard here did not appear on vinyl until Donovan's 1969 Greatest Hits album.
Artist: Donovan
Title: The Fat Angel
Source: Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sundazed/Epic
Year: 1966
There seems to be some confusion as to what Donovan's 1966 track The Fat Angel is about. Some critics assume it refers to Cass Elliott of the Mamas and the Papas, although that seems to be based entirely on the song title. Others take it as a tribute of some sort to Jefferson Airplane, whose name appears in the lyrics of the song. The problem with this theory is that The Fat Angel appeared on the Sunshine Superman album, which was released just two weeks after the first Jefferson Airplane album (although it is possible that Donovan had come across a copy of the single It's No Secret, which had been released in the US in February of 1966 at the same time that Donovan was recording the Sunshine Superman album). My own view is based on the lyrics themselves, which are about a pot dealer making his rounds. Fly Trans-Love Airlines indeed!
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Catch The Wind
Source: LP: DJ sampler (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
One of the more underrated talents in US rock is guitarist Steve Katz. One of the original members of the Blues Project, Katz always comes across as a team player, subsuming his own ego to the good of the band. When it was time for Andy Kuhlberg to play a flute solo onstage at Monterey, Katz was the one who obligingly shifted over to bass guitar to cover for him. Steve Katz did occasionally get the chance to shine, though. As a singer/songwriter he provided Sometimes In Winter for the album Blood, Sweat and Tears and Steve's Song for the Blues Project's Projections album. One of his more obscure recordings is the Blues Project version of Donovan's Catch The Wind. The song was released as a B side and included on an anthology album distributed to radio stations in 1966.
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: Doors
Title: Light My Fire (single version)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Once in a while a song comes along that totally blows you away the very first time you hear it. The Doors' Light My Fire was one of those songs. I liked it so much that I immediately went out and bought the 45 RPM single. Apparently I was not the only one, as the song spent three weeks at the top of the charts in July of 1967. Despite this success, the single version of the song, which runs less than three minutes, is all but forgotten by modern radio stations, which universally choose to play the full-length album version. Nonetheless, the single version, which was created by editing out most of the solo instrumental sections of the piece, is a historical artifact worth an occasional listen.
The next three tracks are all taken from the recently released 4 LP box set L.A. Sessions. We have three extra copies of the set to give away this week, and we'll be having a drawing after the show airs to see who gets those three extra copies. Details on how to qualify for the drawing are included in the following segment.
Artist: Doors
Title: Riders On The Storm (excerpt)
Source: German import LP: L.A. Woman Sessions (box set)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: Recorded 1970, released 2023
According to recording engineer Bruce Botnick, when Paul Rothchild first heard the Doors playing Riders On The Storm at Sunset Sound Recorders he told Botnick that it sounded to him like "cocktail jazz" and that Botnik and the band should make their new album without him. After moving a bunch of recording equipment into the Doors' own rehearsal space they did just that, completing the album in six days. The last track on the album, Riders On The Storm, was vocalist Jim Morrison's final recording with the band.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Changeling (part 1-excerpt)
Source: German import LP: L.A. Woman Sessions (box set)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1971
Originally chosen by the band to be the first single released from the L.A. Woman album, The Changeling was withdrawn in favor of Love Her Madly at the insistence of Jac Holtzman, president of Elektra Records. The song, which (as heard here) took several takes to perfect, later appeared as the B side of the album's next single, Riders On The Storm, with its title missing the definitive article.
Artist: Doors
Title: L.A. Woman (part 1-excerpt)
Source: German import LP: L.A. Woman Sessions (box set)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1971
For the L.A. Woman sessions, the Doors added two extra musicians to help fill out the band's sound. Guitarist Marc Benno, who had recently completed the Asylum Choir album with Leon Russell, was brought in to free up Robby Krieger to do more fills on the basic tracks rather than going back and overdubbing the parts later. Perhaps more importantly, the band hired Elvis Presley's bassist Jerry Scheff to play on the album, which inspired vocalist Jim Morrison (a huge Presley fan) to show up on time and sober for the sessions, something he had not been doing much of since the band's first two albums. L.A. Woman's title track (an early take of which is heard here) is often thought of as Morrison's final goodbye to Los Angeles, as he departed for Paris soon after the album's completion and never returned.
Artist: Beatles
Title: You Like Me Too Much
Source: LP: Beatles VI
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Apple/Capitol/EMI
Year: 1965
Up until 1965 only one George Harrison composition (Don't Bother Me) had ever appeared on a Beatles album. In June of 1965 his second one, You Like Me Too Much, was included on the US-only LP Beatles VI. Two months later the song was one of two Harrison-penned tunes included on the British version of the Help album. I can't help but think that John Lennon helped George out on this one.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Abbey Road Medley #1
Source: CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1969
Much of the second side of the last album to be recorded by the Beatles, Abbey Road, is taken up by (depending on whose view you take) either one long medley or two not-quite-so-long medleys of songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Personally I take the latter view, as there is just a bit too much quiet space at the end of She Came In Through The Bathroom Window for me to consider it linked to the next song, Golden Slumbers. Regardless, the whole thing starts with You Never Give Me Your Money, a Paul McCartney composition reputed to be a jab at the band's second (and last) manager, Allen Klein. This leads into three John Lennon pieces, Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam, ending finally with another McCartney piece, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, a song with nonsense lyrics and a title inspired by a real life break-in by an overzealous fan.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Tell Me What You See
Source: LP: Beatles VI
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Apple/Capitol/EMI
Year: 1965
Dave Dexter's resequencing of Beatles albums for US release on the Capitol sometimes resulted in songs actually appearing in the US before being officially released on British Beatles albums. An example of this is Tell Me What You See, which came out in June of 1965 on the Capitol LP Beatles VI, two months before it appeared in the UK as one of seven songs included on the Help soundtrack album that were not used in the film itself. Most of the rest of those tunes were not released in the US until 1966, when they were included on the US-only Yesterday...And Today LP.
Artist: Caravelles
Title: Lovin' Just My Style
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): The Caravelles (original label: Onacrest)
Label: BFD
Year: 1966
In the mid-1960s it seemed like every local music scene had one guy who could do a dead-on impression of the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger. In Phoenix, Arizona, that guy was John Fitzgerald, although, as can be heard on the Caravelles' Lovin' Just My Style, there was more than a touch of the Yardbirds' Keith Relf in his approach as well. The band itself was managed and produced by Hadley Murrell, a local DJ who is better known for the many Phoenix soul bands he produced. Although more than one member of the Caravelles went on to become associated with more famous bands such as Alice Cooper and the Tubes, it is unclear whether any them were members of the group in 1966, when Lovin' Just My Style was recorded.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: You're A Better Man Than I
Source: Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released in US on LP: Having A Rave Up With The Yardbirds)
Writer(s): Mike & Brian Hugg
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1965
Perhaps more than any other British Invasion band, the Yardbirds' US and UK catalogs varied considerably. This is because the band only released a pair of LPs in the UK, one of which was a live album, with the bulk of their studio output appearing on 45 RPM singles and EPs. In the US, on the other hand, the group released four (mostly) studio LPs, compiled from the various UK releases. One song, You're A Better Man Than I, actually came out on a US album four months before it was issued as a single B side in February of 1966 in the UK.
Artist: Harbinger Complex
Title: I Think I'm Down
Source: Mono British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label: Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. Freemont, California's Harbinger Complex is a good example. The group was one of many that were signed by Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records and its various subsidiary labels such as Time and Brent. The band had already released one single on the independent Amber label and were recording at Golden State Recorders in San Francisco when they were discovered by Shad, who signed them to Brent. The band's first single for the label was the British-influenced I Think I'm Down, which came out in 1966 and was included on Mainstream's 1967 showcase album With Love-A Pot Of Flowers.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Going To Mexico
Source: LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Number 5)
Writer(s): Miller/Scaggs
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
Although Boz Scaggs had left the Steve Miller Band following their second album, Sailor, the song Going To Mexico, co-written by Miller and Scaggs, did not appear on an album until Number 5 was released in 1970. Miller himself referred to the song as a 1969 track on his Anthology album, however, leading me to believe the song may have been among the last tracks recorded while Scaggs was still with the band. The recording also features future star Lee Michaels on organ.
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