https://exchange.prx.org/p/499751
A little over five years ago I found myself unexpectedly having a lot of extra time on my hands, and ended up using a chunk of that time to record several extra editions of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era that never aired. Nothing wrong with them. In fact, this week's show is one of 'em, and it includes, among other things, artists' sets from the Kinks, the Seeds and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the latter of which includes a re-recorded version of the first original Hendrix composition ever recorded by the band. I figured you'd rather hear that than my stuffy-nosed sore-throated voice anyway.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Ruby Tuesday
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original 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.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: It's All Meat
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change/The Twain Shall Meet (originally released on LP: Winds Of Change)
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: BGO (original US label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
More than just about any other British invasion band, the Animals identified strongly with US Rhythm and Blues artists like John Lee Hooker and Ray Charles; all of their albums were filled with R&B covers, even as late as 1966, when other British bands were recording almost nothing but songs they wrote themselves. After the original group disbanded in late 1966, lead vocalist Eric Burdon set about forming a new version of the Animals. This new band, which came to be known as Eric Burdon And The Animals, shifted the emphasis to original compositions. Much of their original material, however, still had a strong connection to black American culture, especially in Burdon's lyrics on songs such as It's All Meat from the 1967 Winds Of Change album. Burdon would continue to move in this direction, culminating with his collaborations with the Los Angeles band War in the early 1970s.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: Help Me
Source: European import CD: Ten Years After
Writer(s): Williamson/Dixon/Bass
Label: Deram
Year: 1967
For this one I'm just going to quote the liner notes from the first Ten Years After album, written by the legendary John Gee, manager of London's Marquee Club, circa 1967: "Help Me is the old Sonny Boy Williamson favourite which breaks up more clubs than the Move ever did. Here it is recorded on one take in a studio plunged in atmospheric darkness. Nine minutes plus of the Blues which sends shivers up and down your spine. A truly great performance from the Ten Years After."
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Heart Full Of Soul
Source: Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Raven (original label: Epic)
Year: 1965
The Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love, Heart Full Of Soul, was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who also wrote For Your Love. For some odd reason Gouldman's own band, the Mockingbirds, was strangely unable to buy a hit on the charts, despite Gouldman's obvious talents as a songwriter. Gouldman would eventually go on to be a founding member of 10cc, who were quite successful in the 1970s.
Artist: Cream
Title: Spoonful
Source: CD: Fresh Cream (released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. Instead the song was released on two sides of a single in 1967, with 90 seconds removed from the song between parts one and two. The single never charted and now is somewhat difficult to find a copy of (not that anybody would want to). A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1969 compilation album Best Of Cream that the uncut studio version was finally released in the US.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Chicken Little Was Right
Source: French import CD: Happy Together (bonus track originally released on LP: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands)
Writer: The Turtles
Label: Magic (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1968
Like many of the bands of the time, the Turtles usually recorded songs from professional songwriters for their A sides and provided their own material for the B sides. In the Turtles' case, however, these B sides were often psychedelic masterpieces that contrasted strongly with their hits. Chicken Little Was Right, the B side of She's My Girl, at first sounds like something you'd hear at a hootenanny, but then switches keys for a chorus featuring the Turtles' trademark harmonies, with a little bit of Peter And The Wolf thrown in for good measure. The original version of the song had a slight country twang, which was more strongly emphasized for a new stereo version they recorded for the 1968 LP The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Title: Gone
Source: LP: Ramblin' Gamblin' Man
Writer(s): Dan Honaker
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
Most of Bob Seger's original compositions in the early days were hard rockers such as Ramblin' Gamblin' Man and 2+2=? For the slower material on his first LP he went with outside songwriters such as Dan Honaker, who wrote the song Gone. Elements of Gone can be heard in Seger's own later compositions such as Turn The Page.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Grantchester Meadows (1969 BBC session recording)
Source: Mono CD: Cre/Ation-The Early Years 1967-1972
Writer(s): Roger Waters
Label: Pink Floyd/Columbia
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2016
Grantchester Meadows is essentially a Roger Waters solo track that first appeared in studio form on the 1970 LP Ummagumma. The song had previously been used as the opening sequence of The Man And The Journey, a suite of songs performed at various Universities in the UK in 1969. Also in 1969, the song was recorded (minus stereo effects) for John Peel's BBC program. That version was released 47 years later as the lead single from Pink Floyd's The Early Years 1965–1972 box set in 2016.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Fat Angel
Source: LP: Bless Its Pointed Little Head
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1969
As a general rule, live albums are made up mostly of songs that have already appeared on other albums (or singles) in their studio form. Leave it to Jefferson Airplane, however, to disregard the rules and release a live album with five songs (making up more than half of the album) that had never been released by the band. Among those five songs was Fat Angel, a song that had first appeared on Donovan's groundbreaking Sunshine Superman album. Paul Kantner playfully substitutes the line "fly Jefferson Airplane" for the original "fly Trans-Love Airways" throughout the song, which runs over seven minutes long.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Fancy
Source: Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original label: Pye; original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
One of the best albums in the Kinks library is Face To Face. Released in 1966, the album features such classics and Sunny Afternoon and Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, as well as some lesser-known (yet excellent) tracks such as Fancy, a personal favorite of songwriter Ray Davies, who recalls coming up with the song late one night on his old Framus guitar. My first guitar was a Framus, but I sure didn't come up with anything remotely as cool as Fancy on it.
Artist: Kinks
Title: The World Keeps Going Round
Source: Mono LP: The Kink Kontroversy
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
By 1965 Ray Davies of the Kinks had come to realize that writing recording nothing but hard rocking songs like You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night would make for a fairly short, albeit successful career. Thus he began writing more introspective and melodic songs such as The World Keeps Going Round, which opens side two of the LP The Kinks Kontroversy. The basic message of the song is actually pretty simple: no matter how big your problems seem to be, the Earth keeps on spinning its way through space, with or without you.
Artist: Kinks
Title: A House In The Country
Source: Mono CD: Face To Face
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
Following the success of the singles A Well Respected Man and Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, the Kinks got to work on an entire album of material written by Ray Davies. Like the aforementioned singles, the songs on Face To Face reflected a change from the band's early hard-rocking material toward a mellower, yet more satirical sound. One of the tracks on Face To Face was released as a single by another British band, the Pretty Things, several months before Face To Face came out in October of 1966. The song was a minor UK hit, peaking in the #50 spot in July of that year.
Artist: Thunderclap Newman
Title: Something In The Air
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Keen
Label: Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year: 1969
Thunderclap Newman was actually the creation of the Who's Pete Townshend, who assembled a bunch of studio musicians to work with drummer (and former Who roadie) John "Speedy" Keen. Keen had written Armenia City In The Sky, the opening track on The Who Sell Out, and Townshend set up the studio project to return the favor. Joining Keen were 15-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (who would eventually join Paul McCartney's Wings before dying of a heroin overdose in 1979), studio engineer Andy "Thunderclap" Newman (who had worked with Pink Floyd, among others) on piano, and Townshend himself on bass. Following the success of Something In The Air, the group recorded an album, but sales were disappointing and the group soon disbanded.
Artist: Del-Vetts
Title: Last Time Around
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dennis Dahlquist
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The Del-Vetts were from Chicago's affluent North Shore. Their gimmick was to show up at a high school dance by driving their matching corvettes onto the gymnasium dance floor. Musically, like most garage/punk bands, they were heavily influenced by the British invasion bands. Unlike most garage/punk bands, who favored the Rolling Stones, the Del-Vetts were more into the Jeff Beck incarnation of the Yardbirds. The 'Vetts had a few regional hits from 1965-67, the biggest being this single issued on the Dunwich label, home of fellow Chicago suburbanites the Shadows of Knight. In retrospect, considering the song's subject matter (and overall loudness), Last Time Around may well qualify as the very first death metal rock song ever recorded.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Tripmaker
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s): Tybalt/Hooper
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
For some strange reason whenever I hear the song Tripmaker from the second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, I am reminded of a track from the Smash Mouth album Astro Lounge. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which one came first.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic, although it took the better part of two years to catch on. Originally released in 1965 as You're Pushin' Too Hard, the song was virtually ignored by local Los Angeles radio stations until a second single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine, started getting some attention. After being included on the Seeds' debut LP in 1966, Pushin' Too Hard was rereleased and soon was being heard all over the L.A. airwaves. By the end of the year stations in other markets were starting to spin the record, and the song hit its peak of popularity in early 1967.
Artist: Seeds
Title: I Tell Myself
Source: LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s): Marcus Tybalt
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
Sky Saxon was unquestionably responsible for the success of the Seeds, who hit the national charts in early 1967 with the classic Pushin' Too Hard. The song had actually first appeared as a 1965 single (as You're Pushin' Too Hard), but did not get much airplay at the time). By the time the song became a hit the band had already released a second album, A Web Of Sound. Nearly every Seeds song was either written or co-written by Saxon himself. The only exception I know of is I Tell Myself, a tune written by Hollywood songster Marcus Tybalt, which appears on the second LP, and the Seeds version almost sounds like a parody of a pop tune (which may well have been their intention for all I know).
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Let's Go Away For Awhile
Source: Mono CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s): Brian Wilson
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
After spending six months and a record amount of money making Good Vibrations, Brian Wilson and Capitol Records decided to use an existing track for the B side of the single rather than take the time to record something new. The chosen track was Let's Go Away For Awhile, a tune from the Pet Sounds album that Wilson described as the most satisfying instrumental piece he had ever written.
Artist: Box Tops
Song: The Letter
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Wayne Carson
Label: Sony Music (original US label: Mala)
Year: 1967
Here's an unusual recipe for you: take one novice producer, add a newly-signed band that hadn't even decided on a name yet, and mix in a songwriter that had recently submitted his first demo tape to the novice producer's ex-boss. Put them all together and you get, The Letter, a song by the Box Tops that goes all the way to the top of the charts and stays there for four weeks.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Rambling On
Source: LP: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1968
Procol Harum is generally considered to be one of the first progressive rock bands, thanks in part to their second LP, Shine On Brightly. In addition to the album's showpiece, the seventeen minute In Held Twas I, the album has several memorable tracks, including Rambling On, which closes out side one of the original LP. The song's rambling first-person lyrics (only a few of which actually rhyme) tell the story of a guy who, inspired by a Batman movie, decides to jump off a roof and fly. Oddly enough, he succeeds.
Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Had To Cry Today
Source: CD: Blind Faith
Writer(s): Steve Winwood
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Blind Faith, the self-titled debut album of a group consisting of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker from Cream, Steve Winwood from Traffic and Rich Grech, who had played bass with a band called Family. The buzz about this new band was such that the rock press had to coin a brand-new term to describe it: supergroup. On release, the album shot up to the number one spot on the charts in record time. Of course, as subsequent supergroups have shown, such bands seldom stick around very long, and Blind Faith set the pattern early on by splitting up after just one LP and a short tour to promote it. The opening track of the album was a pure Winwood piece that features Winwood and Clapton playing simultaneous lead guitar solos.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title: Stone Free (1969 version)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2010
The 1969 version of Stone Free actually exists in many forms. The song was originally recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966 and issued as the B side of Hey Joe in Europe and the UK, but not in the Western hemisphere. As Hendrix always felt that this original version was rushed, due to financial restraints, he resolved to record a new version following the release of Electric Ladyland. The band went into the studio in April of 1969 and recorded a new, much cleaner sounding stereo version of Stone Free, which eventually appeared on the Jimi Hendrix box set. This was not the last version of the song to be recorded, however. In May of 1969 Hendrix, working with drummer Mitch Mitchell and his old friend Billy Cox on bass, created an entirely new arrangement of the song. These new tracks were then juxtaposed with the lead guitar and vocal tracks from the April recording to make the version heard on the 2010 CD Valleys Of Neptune.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsys
Title: Changes
Source: LP: Band Of Gypsys
Writer(s): Buddy Miles
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
Jimi Hendrix must have had some sort of sense of irony (at least in the back of his mind) when he worked out a deal to settle a lawsuit for breach of contract brought against him by Capitol Records in 1969. A few years earlier, in 1965, he had sat in on some sessions for Capitol with Curtis Knight, and had signed a generic management contract that covered his participation in the recordings. What he didn't realize at the time is that the contract also covered future recordings, even though he was only a session man for the Knight tracks. After Hendrix became famous, someone at Capitol pulled out their copy of that old contract and used it to leverage the guitarist into doing another album for them. As Hendrix had no studio material anywhere near being ready for release, he instead provided Capitol with a live album, recorded over a period of days at Madison Square Garden. Since the Jimi Hendrix Experience was no longer a viable entity at that time, Hendrix put together a three-piece band consisting of himself, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, who had already established himself as a member of the Electric Flag and leader of the Buddy Miles Express. This was reflected in the fact that of the six songs that appeared on the album Band Of Gypsys, three (including Changes) were written (and sung) by Miles, rather than Hendrix, just as all of the songs from the 1965 sessions had been penned by Curtis Knight.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title: Lover Man
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year: 1970
When the original Jimi Hendrix Experience made its US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967, they opened with a fast-paced high-energy version of the Muddy Waters classic Killing Floor. In fact, except for the lyrics, Hendrix's arrangement of the song was essentially a brand-new song. Hendrix must have realized at some point that all he had to do is write new lyrics for the tune to create an entirely new composition, because he made not one, but two recordings of what came to be called Lover Man. The first was made prior to the recording of the Band Of Gypsys live album in late 1969, while the later version heard here features his final power trio, consisting of Hendrix, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell, who were already being billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience when they recorded the song in 1970.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I
Source: CD: Underground
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz were songwriters who had their greatest success when the Electric Prunes released one of their songs, I Had Too Much Too Dream (Last Night), in early 1967. The record was such a great success, in fact, that the band's producer insisted that the group record more Tucker/Mantz songs, including a second charted single, Get Me To The World On Time, and several album tracks. One of those album tracks, I, is the only recording by the original band to exceed the five minute mark, an ironic fact considering that it is also the song with the shortest title in the English language.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: I Won't Hurt You
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer: Harris/Lloyd/Markley
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Unlike more famous L.A. groups like Love and the Doors, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was not a Sunset Strip club band. In fact, the WCPAEB really didn't play that many live performances in their career, although those they did tended to be at high profile venues such as the Hollywood Bowl. The band was formed when the Harris brothers, sons of an accomplished classical musician, decided to record their own album and release it on the small Fifa label. Only a few copies of that album, Volume One, were made and finding one now is next to impossible. That might have been the end of the story except for the fact that they were acquaintances of Kim Fowley, the Zelig-like record producer and all-around Hollywood (and sometimes London) hustler. Fowley invited them to a party where the Yardbirds were playing; a party also attended by one Bob Markley. Markley, who was nearly ten years older than the Harris brothers, was a former TV show host from the midwest who had moved out to the coast to try his luck in Hollywood. Impressed by the flock of young girls surrounding the Yardbirds, Markley expressed to Fowley his desire to be a rock and roll star and have the girls flock around him, too. Fowley, ever the deal-maker, responded by introducing Markley to the Harris Brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born. With the addition of guitarist Michael Lloyd and the influence of Markley's not-inconsiderable family money, the group soon landed a contract with Reprise Records, where they proceeded to record the album Part One, which includes the tune I Won't Hurt You, which uses a simulated heartbeat to keep the...umm, beat.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind, aka Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's Dear Mr. Fantasy from Traffic's 1967 debut LP Mr. Fantasy. The album was originally released in a modified version in the US in early 1968 under the title Heaven Is In Your Mind, but later editions of the LP, while retaining the US track order and running time, were renamed to match the original British title.
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