Sunday, October 1, 2023

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2340 (starts 10/2/23)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/498441 


    Things are a bit on the jangly side this week, although it doesn't become noticeable until our Advanced Psych segment, with the Electric Prunes, Crawling Walls and R.E.M. in the second hour. In fact, the show itself starts off in a more folk-rock vein, getting more so toward the end of the first hour. Following the aforementioned Advanced Psych segment, we have several tunes that were (or should have been) hits. The show closes on a more introspective note with Vanilla Fudge covering Curtis Mayfield.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Norwegian Wood
Source:    Mono CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1965
    The first Beatles song to feature a sitar, Norwegian Wood, perhaps more than any other song, has come to typify the new direction songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney began to take with the release of the Rubber Soul album in December of 1965. Whereas their earlier material was written to be performed as well as recorded, songs like Norwegian Wood were first and foremost studio creations. The song itself was reportedly based on a true story and was no doubt a contributing factor to the disintegration of Lennon's first marraige.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Run Around (original uncensored version)
Source:    Mono CD: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1966
    The first Jefferson Airplane album was released three times. The first (extremely rare) version had 12 songs, including Running Round This World, which was also issued as the B side of the band's first single, It's No Secret. Someone at RCA, however, decided Running Round This World was an invitation to take LSD, and the album was quickly withdrawn and reissued with only the remaining eleven tracks on it. RCA wasn't quite done messing with the album, however, and had the group go back into the studio to change the lyrics on two more songs that they considered "sexually suggestive". One of those two songs was Run Around, with the line "Blinded by colors come flashing from flowers that sway as you lay under me" altered to "...that sway as you stay here by me". The album was once again withdrawn, with the third, "censored" version appearing on the shelves in late 1966. Luckily, the remastered CD version og Jefferson Airplane Takes Off includes the uncensored version of Run Around as a bonus track.

Artist:    Jake Holmes
Title:    Dazed And Confused
Source:    LP: Nuggets vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released on LP: The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes)
Writer(s):    Jake Holmes
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    On Auguest 5th, 1967 a little known singer/songwriter named Jake Holmes opened for the Yardbirds for a gig in New York City, performing songs from his debut LP The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes, including a rather creepy sounding tune called Dazed And Confused. Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty, who was in the audience for Holmes's set, went out and bought a copy of the album the next day. Soon after that the Yardbirds began performing their own modified version of Dazed And Confused. Tower Records, perhaps looking to take advantage of the Yardbirds popularization of the tune, released Dazed And Confused as a single in January of 1968. Meanwhile, the Yardbirds split up, with guitarist Jimmy Page forming a new band called Led Zeppelin. One of the songs Led Zeppelin included on their 1969 debut LP was yet another new arrangement of Dazed And Confused, with new lyrics provided by Page and singer Robert Plant. This version was credited entirely to Page. Holmes himself, not being a fan of British blues-rock, was not aware of any of this at first, and then let things slide until 2010, when he finally filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. The matter was ultimately settled out of court, and all copies of the first Led Zeppelin album made from 2014 on include "inspired by Jake Holmes" in the credits.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Feelings
Source:    CD: Temptation Eyes (originally released on LP: Feelings and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Coonce/Entner/Fukomoto
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    In 1968 the Grass Roots decided to assert themselves and take artistic control of their newest album, Feelings, writing most of the material for the album themselves. Unfortunately for the band, the album, as well as its title track single, fared poorly on the charts. From that point on the Grass Roots were firmly under the control of producers/songwriters Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, cranking out a series of best-selling hits such as Sooner Or Later and Midnight Confessions (neither of which get played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, incidentally).

Artist:     Iron Butterfly
Title:     Soul Experience
Source:     LP: Ball
Writer:     Ingle/Bushy/Brann/Dorman
Label:     Atco
Year:     1969
     Following up on the success of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Iron Butterfly released the Ball album in 1969. It was an immediate commercial success, despite none of its tracks getting extensive airplay on either top 40 AM or progressive FM stations. One of the few tracks from Ball to get any attention at all was Soul Experience, a full band composition that was also released as a B side. Subsequent LPs were not able to match the sales of either album and after several personnel changes Iron Butterfly called it quits in 1971, only to reform several more times over the years (sometimes without any of the original members).

Artist:      Blue Cheer
Title:     Summertime Blues
Source:      Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    Cochrane/Capehart
Label:    Philips
Year:     1968
     European electronics giant Philips had its own record label in the 1960s. In the US, the label was distributed by Mercury Records, and was known primarily for a long string of hits by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1968 the label surprised everyone by signing the loudest band in San Francisco, Blue Cheer. Their cover of the 50s Eddie Cochrane hit Summertime Blues was all over both the AM and FM airwaves that summer.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    My Sunday Feeling
Source:    CD: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    For years my only copy of Jethro Tull's first LP, This Was, was a cassette copy I had made myself. In fact, the two sides of the album were actually on two different tapes (don't ask why). When I labelled the tapes I neglected to specify which tape had which side of the album; as a result I was under the impression that My Sunday Feeling was the opening track on the album. It turns out it was actually the first track on side two, but I still tend to think of it as the "first" Jethro Tull song, despite the fact that the band had actually released a single, Sunshine Day, the previous year for a different label.

Artist:    Albert King
Title:    Night Stomp
Source:    LP: Live Wire-Blues Power
Writer(s):    Jackson/King
Label:    Stax
Year:    1968
    Two legends came together when guitarist Albert King played the Fillmore Auditorium in June of 1968, just one month before promoter Bill Graham closed the venue in favor of the larger Fillmore West. The performance was recorded and released later that same year as Live Wire-Blues Power on the Stax label. It was King's first live album.

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 folk-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 to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.

Artist:    Tim Hardin
Title:    Red Balloon
Source:    Mono LP: Tim Hardin II
Writer(s):    Tim Hardin
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1967
    There have always been singer/songwriters whose songs are usually associated by the artists who recorded hit cover versions of those songs. Such is the case with Tim Hardin, who wrote If I Were A Carpenter and recorded it for his 1967 LP Tim Hardin II. Bobby Darin covered the song a couple years later, charting one of his biggest hits in the process. A later version by Johnny Cash and June Carter topped the country charts. Another, lesser-known track from Hardin's second LP is Red Balloon, which is written in a similar vein.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    My Back Pages
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the items of contention between David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the latter's insistence on continuing to record covers of Bob Dylan songs when the band members themselves had a wealth of their own material available. Indeed, it was reportedly an argument over whether or not to include Crosby's Triad on the next album that resulted in Crosby being fired from the band in October of 1967 (although other factors certainly played into it as well). Nonetheless, the last Dylan cover with Crosby still in the band was perhaps their best as well. Although not as big a hit as Mr. Tambourine Man, My Back Pages from the Younger Than Yesterday album did respectably well on the charts, becoming one of the Byrds' last top 40 hits.
 
Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
Source:    Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    Even in 1966 not many artists could get away with issuing an album side that ran for less than eleven and a half minutes, but Bob Dylan, at this point in his career, could do pretty much anything he wanted, including making the Nashville musicians hired for the Blonde On Blonde session wait for several hours while Dylan reworked the lyrics to Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands. The song itself is generally assumed to be about Sara Lowndes, whom Dylan had married three months before sessions for Blonde On Blonde began, and has been both praised and reviled by critics and fans alike. For example Clinton Heylin, author of Dylan: Behind the Shades, said that Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands had "possibly the most pretentious set of lyrics ever penned", but was also "a captivating carousel of a performance". Among those own work was influenced by the song are Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and some guy named George Harrison, who cited it as the musical inspiration for his own Long, Long, Long, which appeared on the 1968 LP The Beatles (aka The White Album).

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Blessed
Source:    LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Possibly the most psychedelic track on Simon And Garfunkel's Sounds Of Silence album, Blessed is a classic example of structured chaos, combining a wall of sound approach with tight harmonies and intelligent lyrics. One of the duo's most overlooked recordings.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Out Of Time
Source:    LP: Metamorphosis
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1975
    The history of the Rolling Stones' Out Of Time is actually somewhat convoluted. At over five minutes in length, it was the second longest track on the original British version of the 1966 LP Aftermath, with a shorter alternative mix of the song included on the US-only LP Flowers in 1967. Meanwhile, Jagger recorded a second version of Out Of Time with studio musicians (including guitarist Jimmy Page and drummer Alan White) and a full orchestra as a demo for his friend Chris Farlowe, who then replaced Jagger's vocals with his own and released it as a single in the UK. It ended up being Farlowe's biggest hit and signature song, going all the way to the top of the British charts in 1966. In 1975 Allen Klein, who had acquired the rights to all the Stones' 60s recordings, issued Jagger's demo version as a Rolling Stones track on the LP Metamorphosis, despite the fact that none of the other band members participated in the sessions. Ironically, some critics singled it out as the best track on the album. This version of Out Of Time was also released internationally as a single, enjoying moderate success in the US, UK and other countries.

Artist:    Luv'd Ones
Title:    Walkin' The Dog
Source:    Mono CD: If You're Ready! The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Rufus Thomas
Label:    Sundazed/Here 'Tis (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Originally known as the Tremelons, the Luv'd Ones were one of the first self-contained all-female rock bands. Formed in Niles, Michigan in 1964 by guitarist/vocalist Charlene Vinnedge and her sister Christine on bass, the band, which also included Mary Gallagher on rhythm guitar and Faith Orem on drums, originally played mostly cover songs and was considered by most record company types to be a kind of novelty act. In 1966, tired of conforming to what other people expected of them, the Tremelons became the Luv'd Ones, performing mostly original material written by Char Vinnedge. Their first single for Dunwich, released in 1966, was a band original called I'm Leaving You, but the B side was the only cover song they ever recorded, a solid version of Rufus Thomas's Walkin' The Dog. It was clear that Dunwich had no idea what they had with the Luv'd Ones, and when Christine Vinnedge quit the band due to pregnancy the Luv'd Ones disbanded. Char Vinnedge, by then an acolyte of the Jimi Hendrix school of guitar-slinging, went on to work with Hendrix bassist Billy Cox's Nitro Function, achieving moderate fame in Europe as "The Electric Lady" in the early 1970s

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Frozen Winter
Source:    CD: WaS
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    2014
    By the second decade of the 21st century, the Electric Prunes had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that as long as you maintain the right attitude you are never too old to rock out. Sadly, 2011 brought the demise of bassist Mark Tulin, who was one-half of the key songwriting team that kept coming up with new psychedelic classics for the group's later albums. In 2014 the remaining members of the band, led by James Lowe, released one final album of tunes from the Lowe/Tulin fountain of creativity. The disc is full of tunes like Frozen Winter, which, as far as I'm concerned, more than holds its own against anything else released that year.
    
Artist:    Crawling Walls
Title:    One Last Kiss
Source:    LP: Inner Limits
Writer(s):    Bob Fountain
Label:    Voxx
Year:    1985
    The Crawling Walls were an Albuquerque, NM neo-psychedelic band that recorded one album, Inner Limits, in 1985. Led by keyboardist/vocalist Bob Fountain, the band also included guitarist Larry Otis (formerly of the Philisteens), bassist Nancy Martinez and drummer Richard J. Perez. Fountain wrote and sang lead on all of the LP's tunes, including One Last Kiss, which opens the album's second side.
   
Artist:    R.E.M.
Title:    Wolves, Lower
Source:    12" EP: Chronic Town
Writer(s):    Buck/Berry/Mills/Stipe
Label:    I.R.S.
Year:    1982
    Following the release of the first recording of Radio Free Europe as a single on the independent Hib-Tone label in 1981, R.E.M. returned to Drive-in Studio in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to record Chronic Town, a five-song EP to be released on a proposed new label called Dasht Hopes. Before any of that could happen, however, the band signed a deal with I.R.S. Records, who bought out the band's contracts with both Hib-Tone and Dasht Hopes and released Chronic Town on August 24, 1982, with one significant change. Wolves, Lower, as originally recorded, was not included on the planned EP, but the people at I.R.S. felt that the song Ages Of You was weaker than the rest of the tracks on the EP and had the band re-record it for the released version of Chronic Town. Although the EP itself is long out of print, all five tracks from Chronic Town (as well as the deleted Ages Of You) were included on the CD edition of Dead Letter Office, released in 1987.

Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Crimson And Clover
Source:    CD: The Best Of Tommy James And The Shondells (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    James/Lucia
Label:    Rhino (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1968
    Tommy James And The Shondells were one of the most successful singles bands in the world from 1966 through mid-1968, when they took a three month break from recording to go on tour with Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign. During that time, James and the band came to the realization that the pop music scene was going through some major changes; in fact, the term "pop music" itself was giving way to "rock", just as the former term had supplanted the term "rock 'n' roll" in the late 1950s following the infamous payola scandal of 1959 that had destroyed the career of disc jockey Alan Freed, who had been instrumental in the popularization of rock 'n' roll in the first place. At the same time, albums were becoming more important to a band's success, a fact that was not lost on James. During their hiatus from recording the band worked on a change in style, and a marketing strategy to go with it. One of the first songs they recorded in this new style was Crimson And Clover. In November of 1968, Tommy James brought a rough mix of the song to Chicago's WLS, arguably the world's most listened to radio station at the time, and played it off the air for disc jockey Larry Lujack. Unbeknownst to James, however, Lujack had one of the station's engineers running a second tape deck in record mode, effectively making a bootleg copy of the song. As the story goes, James then left the station and got into a car that had its radio tuned to WLS, which was already playing the bootleg tape of Crimson And Clover. Although Morris Levy, the head of Roulette Records, asked WLS not to play the tape, the overwhelmingly positive response to the song caused him to change his mind and instead insist that a single be pressed using the same rough mix that WLS was playing. Tommy James was finally allowed to record a longer version of Crimson And Clover for the band's new album (also titled Crimson And Clover), but decided to use the already existing tracks and build on them rather than re-record the entire song. Unfortunately, a speed calibration issue between the original and new sections caused the song to change pitch slightly at the transition points. This mismatch was finally corrected using digital technology in 1991, when Rhino Records reissued the combined Crimson And Clover and Cellophane Symphony albums on a single CD. For years, the only way to hear the shorter version of Crimson And Clover was to find a copy of the rough mono mix, but somewhere along the line Drake-Chenault created a "cut down" of the album mix to match the single version of the song that was used on the tapes being sent to automated radio stations. Finally, in 1992, Rhino issued a new version of the Best Of Tommy James And The Shondells that featured a true stereo mix of the single version.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Too Much Talk
Source:    Mono CD: The Legend Of Paul Revere (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mark Lindsay
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    By 1968, Paul Revere And The Raiders were a mere shadow of the band that, for a time in 1966, had rivalled the Beatles in popularity among US teens. A heavy touring schedule coupled with daily appearances on Dick Clark's afternoon ABC network series Where The Action Is left the band little time for the studio, and producer Terry Melcher had begun bringing in studio musicians from the Wrecking Crew to help ease the burdon. This did not sit well with all the band members, and in 1967 all of them except Lindsay and, of course, Paul Revere had left the group to form a new band called the Brotherhood. By the end of the year, Melcher had also parted company with the band, leaving Mark Lindsay as sole songwriter and producer for Paul Revere And The Raiders. The first single without Melcher was a Lindsay tune called Too Much Talk that peaked at #19on the Billboard Hot 100. The band would not reach the top 10 again until 1971, when their cover of John Loudermilk's Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian) became their only #1 hit.

Artist:     Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:     Light Your Windows
Source:     CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Quicksilver Messenger Service)
Writer:     Duncan/Freiberg
Label:     Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:     1968
     One of the last of the legendary San Francisco bands that played at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival to get signed to a major label was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Inspired by a conversation between Dino Valenti  and guitarist John Cippolina, there are differing opinions on just how serious Valenti was about forming a new band at that time. Since Valenti was busted for marijuana possession the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in San Quentin), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love.

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:    Castaways
Title:    Liar Liar
Source:    CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donna/Craswell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Soma)
Year:    1965
    The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves with their song Liar Liar for a couple months in 1965 before fading off into obscurity.

Artist:    Easybeats
Title:        Friday On My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year:        1966
       Considered by many to be the "greatest Australian song" ever recorded, the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, released in late 1966, certainly was the first (and for many years only) major international hit by a band from the island continent. Technically, however, Friday On My Mind is not an Australian song at all, since it was recorded after the band had relocated to London. The group continued to release records for the next year or two, but were never able to duplicate the success of Friday On My Mind. Ultimately vocalist Stevie Wright returned to Australia, where he had a successful solo career. Guitarists Harry Vanda and George Young, who had written Friday On My Mind, also returned home to form a band called Flash And The Pan in the early 1970s. Later in the decade Young would help launch the careers of his two younger brothers, Angus and Malcolm, in their own band, AC/DC.

Artist:    Them
Title:     Walking In The Queen's Garden
Source:     Mono LP: Now and Them (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Them
Label:     Tower
Year:     1967
     Not long after the release of their debut LP in 1965, Northern Ireland's most popular band split into two rival groups, each using the name Them. It wasn't until March of 1966 that Van Morrison's version of the band, which included bassist Alan Henderson, guitarist Jim Armstrong, multi-instrumentalist Ray Elliot, and a seemingly endless succession of drummers (shades of Spinal Tap!) won the legal rights to use the name Them. Not long after that Morrison left for a solo career. The remaining members (who still had the legal right to use the name Them), returned to Belfast, where they recruited new lead vocalist Kenny McDowell. At the invitation of producer Ray Ruff, Them relocated to Texas in 1967, cutting a pair of singles for local Texas labels before getting a contract with Capitol's Tower subsidiary in December of 1967 to record a pair of albums, both produced by Ruff. The second of these singles, Walking In The Queen's Garden, was also released on the Tower label, and all four single sides were included on the band's first Tower LP, Now And "Them".

Artist:    Move
Title:    Flowers In The Rain
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Roy Wood
Label:    A&M
Year:    1967
    The Move was one of Britain's most popular acts in the mid to late 1960s. That popularity, however, did not extend to North America, where the band failed to chart even a single hit. The closest they came was Flowers In The Rain, a song that made it to the # 2 spot in England and was the very first record played on BBC Radio One (the first legal top 40 station in the UK). Eventually Roy Wood would depart to form his own band, Roy Wood's Wizzard, and the remaining members would evolve into the Electric Light Orchestra.

Artist:    Love
Title:    My Little Red Book
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Bacharach/David
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    The first rock record ever released by Elektra Records was a single by Love called My Little Red Book. The track itself (which also opens Love's debut LP), is a punked out version of a tune originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the What's New Pussycat movie soundtrack. Needless to say, Love's version was not exactly what composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David had in mind when they wrote the song.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Dirty Water
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1965
    Dirty Water has long since been adopted by the city of Boston, yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes in the early 60s. Drummer Dickie Dodd, who sings lead vocals on Dirty Water, was a former Mouseketeer who had played on the surf-rock hit Mr. Moto as a member of the Bel-Airs.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Bass Strings (original EP version)
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    A lot of songs released in 1966 and 1967 got labeled as drug songs by influential people in the music industry. In many cases, those labels were inaccurate, at least according to the artists who recorded those songs. On the other hand, you have songs like Bass Strings by Country Joe and the Fish that really can't be about anything else.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    People Get Ready
Source:    LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer:    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967   
    The first Vanilla Fudge LP was all cover songs, done in the slowed-down Vanilla Fudge style. People Get Ready, originally recorded by Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, is one of the better ones.

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