https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/481852-pe-2328
This week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era start's with an emphasis on the familiar, including several hit singles and a 1965 Beatles set. From there we start to work in a few album tracks, leading up to our second hour featuring Jefferson Airplane tracks from 1967. We finish the week with mostly album tracks, with one obscure British single thrown in for good measure.
Artist: Animals
Title: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (US version)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1965
In 1965 producer Mickey Most put out a call to Don Kirschner's Brill building songwriters for material that could be recorded by the Animals. He ended up selecting three songs, all of which are among the Animals' most popular singles. Possibly the best-known of the three is a song written by the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil called We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. The song (the first Animals recording to featuring Dave Rowberry, who had replaced founder Alan Price on organ) starts off with what is probably Chas Chandler's best known bass line, slowly adding drums, vocals, guitar and finally keyboards on its way to an explosive chorus. The song was not originally intended for the Animals, however; it was written for the Righteous Brothers as a follow up to (You've Got That) Lovin' Feelin', which Mann and Weil had also provided for the duo. Mann, however, decided to record the song himself, but the Animals managed to get their version out first, taking it to the top 20 in the US and the top 5 in the UK. As the Vietnam war escalated, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place became a sort of underground anthem for US servicemen stationed in South Vietnam, and has been associated with that war ever since. Incidentally, there were actually two versions of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place recorded during the same recording session, with an alternate take accidentally being sent to M-G-M and subsequently being released as the US version of the single. This version (which some collectors and fans maintain has a stronger vocal track) appeared on the US-only LP Animal Tracks in the fall of 1965 as well as the original M-G-M pressings of the 1966 album Best Of The Animals. The original UK version, on the other hand, did not appear on any albums, as was common for British singles in the 1960s. By the 1980s record mogul Allen Klein had control of the original Animals' entire catalog, and decreed that all CD reissues of the song would use the original British version of the song, including the updated (and expanded) CD version of The Best Of The Animals. This expanded version of the album first appeared on the ABKCO label in 1973, but with the American, rather than the British, version of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. With all this in mind, I looked for, and finally found, a copy of the original US single.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Shapes Of Things
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label: Priority (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
Unlike earlier Yardbirds hits, 1966's Shapes Of Things was written by members of the band. The song, featuring one of guitarist Jeff Beck's most distinctive solos, just barely missed the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Lucifer Sam
Source: Mono LP: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Tower
Year: 1967
Beyond a shadow of a doubt the original driving force behind Pink Floyd was the legendary Syd Barrett. Not only did he front the band during their rise to fame, he also wrote their first two singles, Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, as well as most of their first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. In fact it could be argued that one of the songs on that album, Lucifer Sam, could have just as easily been issued as a single, as it is stylistically similar to the first two songs. Sadly, Barrett's mental health deteriorated quickly over the next year and his participation in the making of the band's next LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, was minimal. He soon left the group altogether, never to return (although several of his former bandmates did participate in the making of his 1970 solo album, The Madcap Laughs).
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room (single version)
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of the Cream classic White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.
Artist: Stone Circus
Title: Mr. Grey
Source: British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Stone Circus)
Writer(s): Jonathan Caine
Label: Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
Formed in Montreal as the Funky Farm, the Stone Circus had already relocated to New York when they signed with Bob Shad's Mainstream label. Their first single, Mr. Grey, was released in October of 1968, and led to an album's worth of songs in the same socio-satirical vein the following year.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Flying High
Source: LP: You Baby
Writer(s): Al Nichol
Label: White Whale
Year: 1966
In their original incarnation as the teenaged Crossfires, the band that would become the Turtles was led by guitarist Al Nichol. He continued to be, along with Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, a core member of the band once they became recording artists, and even wrote some of the band's earliest tunes such as Flying High, which opens the Turtles' second LP, You Baby.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
The Music Machine was one of the most sophisticated bands to appear on the L.A. club scene in 1966, yet their only major hit, Talk Talk, was deceptively simple and straightforward punk-rock, and still holds up as two of the most intense minutes of rock music ever to crack the top 40 charts.
Artist: Count Five
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label: Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year: 1966
San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities are considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page and had come under the influence of producer Mickey Most).
Artist: Beatles
Title: If I Needed Someone
Source: LP: Yesterday...And Today
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1965 (US 1966)
Generally considered to be George Harrison's best song up to that point, If I Needed Someone is the earliest song to be included on the former Beatle's own Greatest Hits album. The song was covered by the Hollies, whose single version was actually released in the UK before Rubber Soul came out, leading some to believe that the Beatles were covering the Hollies. In the US the song was held back for release the following June on the Yesterday...And Today album, an LP that only appeared in North America.
Artist: Beatles
Title: We Can Work It Out (originally released as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Yesterday...And Today)
Source: CD: Past Masters vol. 2
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1965
The Beatles last single of 1965 was the double-sided hit Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out. As was common in the UK, the songs were not available on LP until many years later. In the US, however, both songs were included on an LP that never came out in the UK: Yesterday...And Today. Thus American audiences had exclusive access to the stereo versions of these songs throughout the rest of the decade.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Nowhere Man
Source: LP: Yesterday…and Today (originally released in UK on LP: Rubber Soul)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol/EMI (original UK label: Parlophone)
Year: 1965
Altough Nowhere Man had been included on the British version of the Beatles' 1965 Rubber Soul album, it was held back in the US and released as a single in 1966. Later that year the song was featured on the US-only LP Yesterday...And Today.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Love Or Confusion
Source: CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and all the instruments dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. It's actually kind of fun to listen to with headphones on, as I did when I bought my first copy of the album on reel-to-reel tape.
Artist: Smoke
Title: My Friend Jack
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): Rowley/Gill/Luker/Lund
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
My Friend Jack was well on its way to becoming a huge international hit when it was suddenly recalled in the UK by EMI's Columbia label. The reason, as it turns out, is that the "sugar lumps" mentioned throughout the song were in fact LSD-laced sugar cubes; a fact that apparently did not matter so much in Germany, where the song held the #1 spot on the charts for seven weeks. The Smoke was formed in Yorkshire in 1965 as the Shots, and released one single that year that did not go anywhere, in spite of (or perhaps because of) backing by some of London's most notorious mobsters. After the name change the group released My Friend Jack and ended up spending much of 1967 touring in Germany, where they released several more singles before the original lineup split up in 1968 (although Smoke records by various personnel would continue to be released well into the 1970s).
Artist: Small Faces
Title: Itchycoo Park
Source: CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane
Label: K-Tel (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1967
Led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, the Small Faces got their name from the fact that all the members of the band were somewhat vertically challenged. The group was quite popular with the London mod crowd, and was sometimes referred to as the East End's answer to the Who. Although quite successful in the UK, the group only managed to score one hit in the US, the iconic Itchycoo Park, which was released in late 1967. Following the departure of Marriott the group shortened their name to Faces, and recruited a new lead vocalist named Rod Stewart. Needless to say, the new version of the band did much better in the US than its previous incarnation before itself being destroyed by Stewart's solo career.
Artist: Cyrkle
Title: Red Rubber Ball (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Red Rubber Ball)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets
Writer: Simon/Woodley
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Paul Simon moved to London in early 1965, after his latest album with Art Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3 AM, had been deleted from the Columbia Records catalog after just a few weeks due to poor sales. While in the UK Simon found himself performing on the same bill as the Seekers, an Australian band that had achieved some international success with folky pop songs like A World Of Our Own. Needing cash, Simon wrote (with Seekers guitarist/vocalist Bruce Woodley) Red Rubber Ball, selling the song to the group for about 100 pounds. After returning to the US and reuniting with Garfunkel, Simon offered the song to the Cyrkle, who took the song all the way to the #4 spot on the charts.
Artist: Monkees
Title: What Am I Doing Hangin' Round
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer: Murphy/Castleman
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The original writing credits on the label of the 1967 Monkees LP Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. show What Am I Doing Hangin' Round as being written by Lewis and Clarke. These were actually psuedonyms for Michael Martin Murphy and Owen "Boomer" Castleman. Years before the Monkees were a thing, Nesmith and Castleman had formed a band called the survivors. When Nesmith left to join the Monkees, Murphy was brought in as his replacement, and the band soon changed its name to the Lewis & Clarke Expedition. Castleman went on to invent something called the Bigsby Palm Pedal (a variation on what's commonly called a whammy bar) and started his own record label, BNA Records, which he later sold to BMG Music. Murphy scored a huge hit in the mid 70s with Wildfire and went on to have a successful career in country music in the 1980s.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Roadblock
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills (bonus track)
Writer(s): Joplin/Albin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1999
Although producer John Simon was convinced that the best way to record Big Brother And The Holding Company was live, he did have the band cut a few tracks in the studio as well. Some of these, such as Summertime and Piece Of My Heart, ended up on the 1968 album Cheap Thrills. Others, like Roadblock, ended up on the shelf, where they stayed until 1999, when a newly remastered CD of the album included them as bonus tracks. Although it's not a bad song by any means, it's hard to imagine any of the tracks that were used for the original album being cut to make room for it.
Artist: NRBQ
Title: C'mon Everybody
Source: German import LP: Underground '70 (originally released on LP: NRBQ)
Writer(s): Cochran/Capehart
Label: CBS (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Originally formed in Shively, Kentucky as the New Rhythm and Blues Quintet, by 1969 the band had shortened its name to NRBQ and had undergone a series of personnel changes by the time they released their self-titled debut album on the Columbia label. Along with several original compositions the album included an excellent version of Eddie Cochran's C'mon Everybody.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: LP: 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: Jefferson Airplane
Title: How Suite It Is
Source: CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Kantner/Casady/Dryden/Kaukonen
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1967
The second side of After Bathing At Baxters starts off fairly conventionally (for the Airplane), with Paul Kantner's Watch Her Ride, the first third or so of something called How Suite It Is. This leads (without a break in the audio) into Spare Chaynge, one of the coolest studio jams ever recorded, featuring intricate interplay between Jack Casady's bass and Jorma Kaukonen's guitar, with Spencer Dryden using his drum kit as enhancement rather than as a beat-setter. In particular, Casady's virtuoso performance helped redefine what could be done with an electric bass.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil (live version)
Source: CD: After Bathing At Baxter's (bonus track)
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: Recorded 1967, released 2003
The original plan for Jefferson Airplane's third LP, After Bathing At Baxter's was to open the album with an eleven minute long live version of Paul Kantner's Ballad Of You And Me And Pooniel (the title being a reference to Fred Neil, whose songwriting style heavily influenced that of Kantner), but that idea was scrapped in favor of dividing the album into five suites, the first of which opened with the studio version of the tune. That original live recording sat on the shelf until 2003, when it was included as a bonus track on the remastered version of After Bathing At Baxter's.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Since I've Been Loving You
Source: German import LP: Led Zeppelin III
Writer: Page/Plant/Jones
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1970
The Yardbirds were Britain's premier electric blues band, featuring the guitar work of first Eric Clapton, then Jeff Beck and finally Jimmy Page (who had already established himself as an in-demand studio guitarist by the time he joined the band). As the 60s came to a close, the band began shedding members until Page found himself the only one left. With new vocalist Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John-Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham, the group continued to perform as the Yardbirds before settling on a new name: Led Zeppelin. The group's repertoire was a mixture of original tunes and blues covers arranged to showcase the individual members' strengths as musicians. This mixture served as the template for the band's first two albums. By the third Led Zeppelin album the group was moving away from cover songs and from the blues in general. One notable exeception was Since I've Been Loving You, a slow original that is now considered one of the best electric blues songs ever written.
Artist: Ipsissimus
Title: Hold On
Source: Mono British import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Haskell/Condor/Lynton
Label: Zonophone (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1969
The song Hold On was originally recorded as a B side in 1967 by a band called Les Fleur De Lys, although the label credited the track to Rupert's People, who recorded the A side of the record. Le Fleur De Lys later recorded another version of Hold On with South African-born singer Sharon Tandy. Finally, the heaviest version of the song was cut by an obscure band from Barnet called Ipsissimus. To my knowledge it was their only record.
Artist: Jeff Beck
Title: I Ain't Superstitious
Source: CD: Truth
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
To quote Jeff Beck's own liner notes on the song I Ain't Superstitious from the album Truth, "This number is more or less an excuse for being flash on guitar." I would add that Rod Stewart does an outstanding job on the vocals of this hard rocking version of the Howlin' Wolf classic.
Artist: Doors
Title: You're Lost Little Girl
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors second LP, Strange Days, was stylistically similar to the first, and served notice to the world that this band was going to be around for awhile. Songwriting credit for You're Lost Little Girl (a haunting number that's always been a personal favorite of mine) was given to the entire band, a practice that would continue until the release of The Soft Parade in 1969.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: And The Address
Source: LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s): Blackmore/Lord
Label: Tetragrammaton
Year: 1968
And The Address was, by all accounts, the very first Deep Purple song written by members of the band. In fact, the instrumental piece, which appeared as the opening track on the 1968 LP Shades Of Deep Purple, was actually written before Deep Purple itself was formed. Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore had answered an ad placed by Chris Curtis, a local musician who was trying to put together something called Roundabout, which would feature a rotating set of musicians on a circular stage, with Curtis himself fronting each group. The idea soon fell apart, but the first two people he recruited, Blackmore and Lord, decided to keep working together following Curtis's departure, eventually adding vocalist Rod Evans, bassist Nicky Simper and drummer Ian Paice to fill out the band's original lineup. After securing a record deal, the band went to work on their debut LP, with And The Address being the first song they started to record. The song became the band's set opener for much of 1968, until it was replaced by another instrumental called Hard Road (Wring That Neck), which appeared on the band's second LP, The Book Of Taliesyn. Since then, And The Address has hardly ever been played live.
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