Stuck in the Psychedelic Era #2443 (starts 10/21/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/547848 

    This week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era features an all Rochester, NY Advanced Psych segment spanning 40 years, along with an all San Francisco final segment spanning a few months (if that). The first hour, of course, features an assortment of singles, B sides and album tracks from 1965-1969.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Subterranean Homesick Blues
Source:    Mono LP: Bringing It All Back Home
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1965
    1965 was the year Bob Dylan went electric, and got his first top 40 hit, Subterranean Homesick Blues, in the process. Although the song, which also led off his Bringing It All Back Home album, stalled out in the lower 30s, it did pave the way for electrified cover versions of Dylan songs by the Byrds and Turtles and Dylan's own Like A Rolling Stone, which would revolutionize top 40 radio. A line from the song itself, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", became the inspiration for a radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that called itself the Weathermen (later the Weather Underground). My own favorite line from the song is "Don't follow leaders, watch the parkin' meters". Words to live by.

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 lyrics that more closely reflect Jesus's teachings than does modern Christian doctrine. One of the duo's most overlooked recordings.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Getting Better
Source:    CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    Following their 1966 North American tour, the Beatles announced that they were giving up live performing to concentrate on their songwriting and studio work. Freed of the responsibilities of the road (and under the influence of mind-expanding substances), the band members found themselves discovering new sonic possibilities as never before (or since), hitting a creative peak with their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, often cited as the greatest album ever recorded. The individual Beatles were about to move in separate musical directions, but as of Sgt. Pepper's were still functioning mostly as a single unit, as is heard on the chorus of Getting Better, in which Paul McCartney's opening line, "I have to admit it's getting better", is immediately answered by John Lennon's playfully cynical "can't get no worse". The members continued to experiment with new instrumental styles as well, such as George Harrison's use of sitar on the song's bridge, accompanied by Ringo Starr's bongos.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Feelings
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Feelings and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Coonce/Entner/Fukomoto
Label:    Rhino (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 I'd Wait A Million Years and Midnight Confessions (neither of which get played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, incidentally).

Artist:    Fargo
Title:    Sunny Day Blue
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marty Cooper
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Salt Lake City was home to Dean Wilden and Tony Decker, who recorded Sunny Day Blue as a single for Capitol in 1968 before moving over to RCA Victor for a 1969 LP called I See It Now. Both were produced by Marty Cooper, who also wrote Sunny Day Blue.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Ride My See-Saw
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Moody Blues (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Lodge
Label:    Polydor (original label: Deram)
Year:    1968
    Although it was only a minor hit when originally released in 1968, Ride My See-Saw has gone on to become one of the most popular songs in the Moody Blues catalog, and is considered to among the ten best Moody Blues songs by critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Unconscious Power
Source:    CD: Heavy
Writer(s):    Ingle/Weis/Bushy
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Formed in San Diego, California, in 1966, Iron Butterfly quickly relocated to L.A. and became part of the underground club scene there. In 1967 they signed with the Atco label, recording their first album, Heavy. Before the LP could be released, however, the band split up, prompting Atco to cancel the project, since there was no longer a band called Iron Butterfly to promote the album. Undaunted, keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy recruited two new members to fill out the lineup, and in 1968 Heavy was finally released. The lead single from the album was a song called Possession, written by Ingle. The B side of that single, Unconscious Power, was based on a riff by original guitarist Danny Weis, with Ingle fleshing out the tune and arranging the piece. The somewhat metaphysical lyrics were provided by Bushy and sung by Ingle.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sing This All Together/Citadel
Source:    LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richard
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    From the opening piano chord of the first song, Sing This All Together (played by Nicky Hopkins), it is obvious that the late-1967 LP Their Satanic Majesties Request is unlike any Rolling Stones album made before or since. For one thing, the Stones produced the album themselves at a time when their personal and professional lives were spinning out of control. There was also a perceived need to somehow outdo the Beatles, who were, at the time, riding high with their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. In fact, there are several parallels between the two albums, including similar styled covers, an opening theme song that is repeated later on the album, and a general feel of psychedelic excess. Brian Jones, in particular, plays several instruments on Sing This All Together alone, including brass, saxophone and mellotron (a keyboard instrument that utilized tape loops to produce the desired sounds). In contrast, Citadel, which, like With A Little Help From My Friends, flows directly out of its predecessor, is built around a series of power chords from Keith Richards, and conceivably could have been released as a single in its own right. Although it immediately shot up the album charts, Their Satanic Majesties Request quickly wore out its welcome and has since been all but disavowed by the surviving members of the band.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Wrong
Source:    British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1967
    Sean Bonniwell was a member of the mainstream (i.e. lots of appearances on TV variety shows hosted by people like Perry Como and Bob Hope) folk group The Lamplighters in the early 60s. By 1966 he had morphed into one of the more mysterious figures on the LA music scene, leading a proto-punk band dressed entirely in black called the Music Machine. Bonniwell himself wore a single black glove (Michael Jackson was about seven years old at the time), and was one of the most prolific songwriters of the time. His recordings, often featuring the distinctive Farfisa organ sound, were a primary influence on later LA bands such as Iron Butterfly and the Doors. One of the first Music Machine tracks to appear on vinyl was Wrong, which was released as the B side of the band's first single and included on their debut LP.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Rael 1
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer:    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    The Who Sell Out, released in December 1967, was the last album by the group before their 1969 rock-opera Tommy. The last track on the LP, Rael, is itself a mini-opera that tells the story of a wealthy man who has taken on the role of a crusader, out to free his ancestral homeland from its current occupiers. He tells the captain of his ship to come back for him on Christmas Day to see if he is ready to return. If not, he tells the captain, the boat is yours. Of course the captain has no intention of returning, as he declares soon after putting back out to sea. The piece then goes into an instrumental passage that would be copied pretty much note for note on the Tommy album as part of the Underture. The track ends with a repeat of the owner's instructions to the captain. The events surrounding the recording of Rael have become the stuff of legend. The band spent an entire day recording and mixing the song, and were apparently so exhausted at the end of the session that they left without securing the multi-track master in a safe place. The cleaning woman came in the next morning and tossed the tape into the waste basket. She then emptied the ashtrays and other trash into the same waste basket. When the band came in around noon the recording engineer who had found the tape had the unenviable task of telling them what had happened. Pete Townsend was in a rage, and the engineer tried to placate him by saying "these things happen". Townshend then proceeded to throw a chair through the glass wall separating the studio from the control room, informing the engineer that "these things happen".
 
Artist:    Cream
Title:    Those Were The Days
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Baker/Taylor
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Drummer Ginger Baker only contributed a handful of songs to the Cream repertoire, but each was, in its own way, quite memorable. Those Are The Days, with its sudden changes of time and key, presages the progressive rock that would flourish in the mid-1970s. As was often the case with Baker-penned songs, bassist Jack Bruce provides the vocals from this Wheels Of Fire track that was also released as the B side of the single version of White Room.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Faultline/The Painter
Source:    LP: Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Lord/Blackmore/Evans/Paice/Simper
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1969
    The third and final album by the original Deep Purple lineup was plagued with bad luck, the worst being that the band's US label, Tetragrammaton Records, ran into financial trouble right after the album was released and was unable to promote either the album or the band itself. The music was also a departure from the band's previous style, which could be described as England's answer to Vanilla Fudge. Deep Purple (the album) was almost entirely made up of original material, including the final track on side one which combines the instrumental Faultline with The Painter. Following the release of the album singer Rod Evans left the band to form Captain Beyond, and Deep Purple (the band) would move in a harder rock direction with new lead vocalist Ian Gillan.

Artist:    Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels
Title:    Devil With A Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Stevenson/Long/Marascalco/Blackwell
Label:    Eric (original label: DynaVoice)
Year:    1966
    When it came down to old-fashioned get-out-on-the-dance-floor blue-collar rock 'n' roll, there was no local scene that could match the Detroit scene, and the unquestioned kings of Detroit rock 'n' roll in 1966 were Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Ryder's boys cranked out hit after hit, many of which made the national charts, including Little Latin Lupe Lu, Sock It To Me-Baby!, and their biggest hit of all: Devil With A Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly. Rock on!

Artist:    Zodiac
Title:    Cancer-The Moon Child
Source:    CD: Cosmic Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Garson
Label:    Water (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1967
    Not long after the release of the first Doors album, Jac Holzman, head of Elektra Records, came up with the idea of doing an entire album based on the signs of the Zodiac. He hired the Limeliters' Alex Hassilev to produce the album, who in turned hired Mort Garson to write the music. Garson then brought in synthesizer pioneer Paul Beaver, along with several members of the Wrecking Crew, to record the twelve instrumental pieces that make up the album Cosmic Sounds, officially credited to The Zodiac. Each piece, including Cancer-The Moon Child, is prefaced by a spoken introduction, written by Jacques Wilson and voiced by Cyrus Faryar. On the back cover of the LP, in large purple letters, are written the words "MUST BE PLAYED IN THE DARK". Do otherwise at your own risk.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s):    McKinley Morganfield
Label:    United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year:    1968
    Johnny Winter's first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was originally released in 1968 on the Texas-based Sonobeat label. A ctitical success, it was picked up and reissued on the Imperial label a year later. Most of the songs on the album are covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Love Me Two Times
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Although the second Doors album is sometimes dismissed as being chock full of tracks that didn't make the cut on the debut LP, the fact is that Strange Days contains some of the Doors best-known tunes. One of those is Love Me Two Times, which was the second single released from the album. The song continues to get heavy airplay on classic rock stations.

Artist:    Armand Schaubroeck Steals
Title:    Pretty Pretty Baby
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    unknown
Label:    Mirror
Year:    1978
    Armand Schaubroeck is a busy guy. In addition to co-founding (with his brothers) the House Of Guitars (billed as the Largest Guitar Store in the World) in 1964, he headlined his own band Armand Schaubroeck Steals in the 1970s, releasing LPs with names like A Lot of People Would Like to See Armand Schaubroeck ... DEAD (1975) and I Came to Visit; But Decided to Stay (1977). More recently he has been hosting his own syndicated radio show, Armand Schaubroeck Spins Vinyl, originating in Rochester, NY. One of the highlights of his musical career is the song Pretty Pretty Baby, which came out as the B side of a single in 1978. OK, Armand, you got a plug; do I get some free records now?

Artist:    Chesterfield Kings
Title:    Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source:    Spanish import LP: Tripin' Out
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Impossible
Year:    1997
    In the late 1980s there was an underground movement reviving the sound of mid-60s garage bands. Most of the participating bands had given it up after a few years, but the Rochester, NY-based Chesterfield Kings proved to have more staying power than the rest. In 1997 the toured Spain, where a local label released a six-song 10" vinyl EP of the Kings doing cover versions of classic 60s garage-rock tunes, among them Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, originally released in 1966 as the Standell's followup single to Dirty Water.

Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    Scream Loud
Source:    CD: Fuzzy Organs
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    2018
    Rochester NY's Darren Brennessel has been keeping the garage rock (psych-punk?) spirit alive for decades, as can be heard on Scream Loud, from the 2018 McFadden's Parachute album Fuzzy Organs. Listening to the track for the first time you'd swear the lyrics were written by an angry teenager.

Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Green-Eyed Lady
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Corbetta/Phillips/Riordan
Label:    Silver Spotlight (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1970
    The unwritten rules of radio, particularly those concerning song length, were in transition in 1970. Take Sugarloaf's Green-Eyed Lady, for example. When first released as a single the 45 was virtually identical to the album version except that it faded out just short of the six-minute mark. This was about twice the allowed length under the old rules and it was soon replaced with an edited version that left out all the instrumental solos, coming in at just under three minutes. The label soon realized, however, that part of the original song's appeal (as heard on FM rock radio) was its organ solo, and a third single edit with that solo restored became the final, and most popular, version of Green-Eyed Lady. The song went into the top 5 nationally (#1 on some charts) and ended up being the band's biggest hit.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills and Nash
Title:    Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Source:    LP: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer:    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    After the demise of Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills headed for New York, where he worked with Al Kooper on the Super Session album and recorded several demo tapes of his own, including a new song called Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (reportedly written for his then-girlfriend Judy Collins). After his stint in New York he returned to California, where he started hanging out in the Laurel Canyon home of David Crosby, who had been fired from the Byrds in 1967. Crosby's house at that time was generally filled with a variety of people coming and going, and Crosby and Stills soon found themselves doing improvised harmonies on each other's material in front of a friendly, if somewhat stoned, audience. It was not long before they invited Graham Nash, whom they heard had been having problems of his own with his bandmates in the Hollies, to come join them in Laurel Canyon. The three soon began recording together, and in 1969 released the album Crosby, Stills and Nash. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was chosen as the opening track for the new album and was later released (in edited form) as a single.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence
Source:    Mono British import 45 RPM EP: Homburg (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    Esoteric/Cherry Red (original US label: A&M)
Year:    1968
    For their third single, Procol Harum released Quite Rightly So, from their Shine On Brightly LP, with a non-album track, In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence, as the B side. In the US, however, neither side was designated by A&M Records as the A side, and In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence ended up getting minor airplay in at least six US markets, while Quite Rightly So only made the chartbound list on one station in the entire country.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Misty Lane
Source:    Mono British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Martin Siegel
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Uptown)
Year:    1967
    The third Chocolate Watchband single, Misty Lane, was made, according to rock historian Alec Paleo, "under duress". Reportedly, the band hated the single so much that they took turns tossing copies in the air and using them for target practice. Written by British songwriter Martin Siegel, the song sounds nothing like the garage-punk club band that lived to outstage the big name acts they often opened for. The song was provided to the band by producer Ed Cobb, who later admitted that he didn't really know what to do with them in the studio.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Rock Me Baby
Source:    Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    King/Josea
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    The first Blue Cheer LP, Vincebus Eruptum, is cited by some as the first heavy metal album, while others refer to it as proto metal. However you want to look at it, the album is dominated by the feedback-laden guitar of Leigh Stephens, as can be plainly heard on their version of B.B. King's classic Rock Me Baby. Although there seem to be very few people still around who actually heard Blue Cheer perform live, the power trio has the reputation of being one of the loudest bands in the history of rock music.  

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Summertime Blues
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s):    Cochrane/Capehart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year:    1968
    If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of violence. Framed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, both major anti-establishment movements of the time (civil rights and anti-war) became increasing radicalized and more violent. The hippies gave way to the Yippies, LSD gave way to crystal meth, and there were riots in the streets of several US cities. Against this backdrop Blue Cheer released one of the loudest and angriest recordings ever to grace the top 40: the proto-metal arrangement of Eddie Cochrane's 1958 classic Summertime Blues. It was the perfect soundtrack song for its time.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Parchman Farm
Source:    Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    If the release of the first Black Sabbath album in early 1970 marks the birth of heavy metal, then the release of the first Blue Cheer album in 1968 may be considered the point of conception for the form. Certainly, in terms of pure volume, Cheer was unequalled in their live performances (although the Grateful Dead's sound system had more wattage, Owsley Stanley used it judiciously to get the best sound quality as opposed to the sheer quantity of decibels favored by Blue Cheer), and managed to preserve that sense of loudness in the studio. Like Black Sabbath, the members of Blue Cheer had more than a passing familiarity with the blues as well, as evidenced by their inclusion of an old Mose Allison tune, Parchman Farm, on their debut LP, Vincebus Eruptum (the album included a cover of B.B. King's Rock Me, Baby as well). Contrary to rumors, guitarist Leigh Stephens did not go deaf and kill himself (although he did leave Blue Cheer after the band's second LP, moving to England and releasing a somewhat distortion-free solo album in 1969).

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Ball And Chain
Source:    CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Willie Mae Thornton
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Big Brother And The Holding Company electrified the crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 with their performance of Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball And Chain. The rest of the world, however, would have to wait until the following year to hear Janis Joplin's version of the old blues tune, when a live performance recorded at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium was included on the LP Cheap Thrills.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion (starts 10/21/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/547847

    Just to prove it can still be done, all the music on this week's show comes from vintage vinyl sources, including the 21 minute long LP version of Rare Earth's first hit, Get Ready. Most of these are album tracks, but there are a few singles thrown in as well, such as our opening number from Procol Harum.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Bringing Home The Bacon
Source:    45 RPM promo single
Writer:    Brooker/Reid
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    After the departure of original lead guitarist Robin Trower, the remaining members of Procol Harum, with new guitarist Dave Ball, continued to record quality albums such as Grand Hotel, although their airplay was limited to sporadic plays on progressive FM stations. One song that probably should have gotten more attention than it did was Bringing Home The Bacon, from the aforementioned Grand Hotel album. The group would experience a brief return to top 40 radio the following year with the release of their live version of Conquistador, a track that originally appeared on the band's 1967 debut LP.

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    The Loner
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: Neil Young)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    The Loner could easily have been passed off as a Buffalo Springfield song. In addition to singer/songwriter/guitarist Neil Young, the tune features Springfield members Jim Messina on bass and George Grantham on drums. Since Buffalo Springfield was functionally defunct by the time the song was ready for release, however, it instead became Young's first single as a solo artist. The song first appeared, in a longer form, on Young's first solo album in late 1968, with the single appearing three months later. The subject of The Loner has long been rumored to be Young's bandmate Stephen Stills, or possibly Young himself. As usual, Neil Young ain't sayin'.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Sugar Magnolia (live)
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Hunter/Weir
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:     1972
            One of the most popular songs in the Grateful Dead catalog, Sugar Magnolia also has the distinction of being the second-most performed song in the band's history, with 596 documented performances. The song, written by Robert Hunter and Bob Weir, first appeared on the 1970 album American Beauty, but was not released as a single. A live version two years later, however, did see a single release, charting in the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Gloria
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Elektra
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 1983
    Following the release of Oliver Stone's Vietnam War film, Apocalypse Now, in 1983, with its notable use of The End from the first Doors album, there was a renewed interest in the band itself, along with a corresonding demand for "new" Doors recordings. Elektra/Asylum responded by putting out an album called Alive, She Cried. Included on that album was the band's sound check recording from late 1969 of Van Morrison's Gloria, a tune that the band covered often in concert throughout the band's existence. The recording itself had already attained legendary status by the early 1980s. Recorded at the Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles, the tape had been lost for several years, and only found after months of painstaking research by producer Paul Rothchild and his staff. The recording was made on the first day of a series of live concert recordings, many of which had been included on the 1971 album Absolutely Live. The enthusiam that the band itself had for the project was evidenced by the fact that singer Jim Morrison, who usually blew off sound checks, was not only present for this one, but, without a live audience to play to, was completely focused on the music itself. The resulting recording was not only used as the opening track for the album, it was also issued as a single. Of course by 1983 Corporate Rock so dominated the airwaves that a genuine rock recording didn't stand a chance of getting top 40 airplay. Nonetheless, Gloria stands as an appropriate final single for L.A.'s most successful underground club band from the 60s.

Artist:    Paul McCartney & Wings
Title:    Live And Let Die
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Paul & Linda McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1973
    The music for the first seven James Bond films was all composed by John Barry, and was very much in sync with the image projected by Sean Connery in the title role of all but one of the films. For the eighth film, Live And Let Die, Barry was unavailable due to prior commitments, so producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli decided that a new James Bond (Roger Moore) should have newer sounding music as well, so even before the screenplay was completed they contacted Paul McCartney about providing a theme song for the new film. The gamble paid off. Live And Let Die by Paul McCartney & Wings (with orchestration by George Martin) became the most successful James Bond theme yet, going into the top 10 in both the US and UK, and snagging an Academy Award nomination as well.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Treat
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer(s):    Santana (band)
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Guitarist Carlos Santana's original band was known to the San Francisco area as a jam band with a decidedly Latino flavor. Promoter Bill Graham convinced the band to write more structured material for their first LP, which was released in 1969. Although not an instant success, the album, buoyed by the group's appearance at Woodstock, eventually reached the # 4 spot on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Treat, a fairly representative example of the group's early style, is indeed structured, yet maintains much of the band's free-flowing energy through several style and tempo changes.

Artist:    Rare Earth
Title:    Get Ready
Source:    LP: Get Ready
Writer(s):    William Robinson
Label:    Rare Earth
Year:    1969
    Arguably the ultimate 60s marathon dance song, Rare Earth's album version of their first hit single, Get Ready, ran well over 21 minutes in length. In the words of hip hop journalist Steven Hager the track "was long enough for the serious dancers to get into the beat. They loved to wait for the song's two-minute drum solo to show their most spectacular moves." The song, written by Smokey Robinson, was originally recorded by the Temptation in 1966 and had gone to the top of the R&B charts and made the British top 10 but had stalled out at #29 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Rare Earth version of the tune hit #4 on the Hot 100 and peaked at #20 on the recently renamed Best Selling Soul Singles chart, but did not chart in the UK (although it did fare well in several European countries).

Artist:    Chicago
Title:    A Hit By Varese
Source:    LP: Chicago V
Writer(s):    Robert Lamm
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    After three double-length studio albums and a four disc box set live effort, Chicago finally released their first single-disc LP, Chicago V, in 1972. Most of the songs on the LP were written by keyboardist Robert Lamm, who shows his versatility on the opening track, A Hit By Varese. The song itself is hard to classify, containing elements of jazz, rock and avant-garde experimentalism. I like it.

Artist:    Hot Tuna
Title:    Water Song
Source:    LP: Final Vinyl (originally released on LP: Burgers)
Writer(s):    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    Grunt
Year:    1972
    Hot Tuna was originally formed as a side project by Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady in 1969, while Grace Slick was recovering from surgery and was unable to perform. By late 1971 Hot Tuna was a fully functional band that included violinist Papa John Creach (who was also a member of the Airplane) and drummer Sammy Piazza. Although they had already released a pair of live albums, Burgers was the group's first studio effort. The instrumental Water Song, was written by Kaukonen specifically for the album, and has gone on to become one of Hot Tuna's most popular numbers.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2442 (starts 10/14/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/547062

    Sometimes things don't quite work out as planned, but somehow come out all right regardless. The plan this week was to include several obscure tracks that had never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era in the first hour and then follow it up with a battle of the bands and maybe an artists set. Well, the second hour at least went as planned, but it turned out out that most of those "new" tracks in the first hour actually had been featured on the show several years ago. Our opening song, however, definitely has never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before.

Artist:    Spiders
Title:    Why Don't You Love Me
Source:    Mono EP: The Spiders (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dunaway/Furnier
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Mascot)
Year:    1965
    Most bands hated the idea of miming to a record for shows like American Bandstand or Ready Steady Go. One Phoenix band, however, actually got their start doing just that in a high school talent show. In 1964 16-year-old Vincent Furnier gathered four other members from his high school track team to "perform" songs in a talent show as the Earwigs, changing the words of popular songs as they saw fit, with only guitarists Glen Buxton and John Tatum actually playing their instruments. After winning the talent show they decided to form a real band using instruments bought at a local pawn shop, with Buxton teaching the others how to play. After a few months they tried out for a local club owner, who liked the band but hated the name Earwigs. Two weeks later the band tried out a second time, this time calling themselves the Spiders and performing with a huge black spider web as their backdrop. Within a year they were popular enough to cut their first record, a single called Why Don't You Love Me on the local Mascot label. By 1967 they had renamed themselves the Nazz, after the Yardbirds song and relocated to Los Angeles. They soon found out, however, that there was already a band on the East Coast called Nazz, and so decided to come up with the most wholesome sounding name they could think of to contrast with the band's somewhat ominous musical style and stage image. That new name was Alice Cooper.

Artist:    Ken And The Fourth Dimension
Title:    See If I Care
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ken Johnson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Star-Burst)
Year:    1966
    There was never a band called Ken And The Forth Dimension in Nashville West, aka Bakersfield, California, aka Buck Owens territory. What Bakersfield did have, however, was the Johnson brothers, whose father was involved with the record business in Los Angeles, about two hours south of Bakersfield. Don Johnson was the bass player for a popular Bakersfield band known as the Trippers. When brother Ken talked Dad into getting his friend Gary Paxton to produce a record for him, he used most of brother Don's band, re-naming them the Forth Dimension for just this one project. See If I Care was released in 1966 on the Star-Burst label, one of many small labels operating out of L.A. at the time.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Come Back Baby
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Lightnin' Hopkins
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    Many artists end up recording more material than they can fit on an album and end up holding back songs for later release. Sometimes those songs end up on subsequent albums. Sometimes they stay on the shelf indefinitely. Such is the case with Come Back Baby, a rocked-out version of an old Lightnin' Hopkins tune arranged by lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen that is now available as a bonus track on the CD version of Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Ditty Diego/War Chant/Circle Sky
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Nicholson/Rafaelson/Michael Nesmith
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1968
    A total departure from anything the Monkees had done before, Head, the group's first and only movie, was a commercial flop. The soundtrack album was equally ignored, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that it featured some of the group's most innovative and experimental recordings, such as Michael Nesmith's Circle Sky, a song that defies easy categorization (psychedelic bluegrass???). Also included on the album were bits from the film itself, written by Jack Nicholson and producer Robert Rafaelson, such as Ditty Diego, in which the Monkees themselves skewer their own image.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Come Over
Source:    Mono CD: All The Singles (originally released on LP: Turtle Soup and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Kaylan/Volman/Nichol/Pons/Seiter
Label:    Manifesto (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1969
            By 1969 the relationship between the Turtles and their label, White Whale, was rapidly deteriorating. The group had attempted to produce their own music the previous year, only to have White Whale refuse to release the recordings (with the exception of a surf parody called Surfer Dan that appeared on the album The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands). The band responded by hiring Ray Davies, leader of the Kinks (who were at the time banned from playing in the US) to produce their next (and as it turns out, final) album, Turtle Soup. All the songs on the album, including Come Over, which opens side one of the LP, were written by the band itself, despite White Whale's insistence on the Turtles using outside songwriters. Although there were two singles released from the LP, neither was able to crack the top 40 charts. Things finally got so bad between the Turtles and White Whale that the group refused to complete their next LP and instead disbanded the following year.
        
Artist:     1910 Fruitgum Company
Title:     The Story Of Flipper
Source:     LP: Simon Says
Writer:    Pat Karwan
Label:     Buddah
Year:     1968
     All the bubble gum hits to come out of the Kazenatz-Katz stable had catchy melodies, danceable beats, and deliberately juvenile lyrics, generally written by professional songwriters such as Joey Levine. The album tracks, however, were another story. Although the band members were obviously encouraged to be consistent in style with their hits, they were given the freedom to write some of the songs on their albums themselves. One example of this is The Story Of Flipper, written by lead guitarist Pat Karwan.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Rush Hour
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Electric Comic Book)
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala/Daking/Theilhelm/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    One of the best examples of music and subject matter supporting each other ever recorded is the Blues Magoos' Rush Hour from their Electric Comic Book album. From the overdriven opening chord through the crash and burn ending, the track maintains a frantic pace that resembles nothing more than a musical traffic jam. Rush Hour is also the only Blues Magoos track I know of to include writing credits for the entire band, including drummer Geoff Daking's only official songwriting credit.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sweet Wine
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Godfrey/Baker
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    When Cream was formed, both bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had new music for the band to record (guitarist Eric Clapton having chosen to shut up and play his guitar for the most part). Most of these new songs, however, did not yet have words to go with the music. To remedy the situation, both musicians brought in outside lyricists. Baker chose poet Pete Brown, while Bruce chose to bring in his wife, Janet Godfrey. After a short time it became apparent that Bruce and Brown had a natural affinity for each other's material, and formed a partnership that would last years. Baker, meanwhile, tried working with Godfrey, but the two only came up with one song together, Sweet Wine, which was included on the band's debut LP, Fresh Cream.
        
Artist:    Pretty Things
Title:    Midnight To Six Man
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Taylor/May
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1965
    Once upon a time in London there was a band called Little Boy Blue And The Blue Boys. Well, it wasn't really so much a band as a bunch of schoolkids jamming in guitarist Dick Taylor's parents' garage on a semi-regular basis. In addition to Taylor, the group included classmate Mick Jagger and eventually another guitarist by the name of Keith Richards. When yet another guitarist, Brian Jones, entered the picture, the band, which was still an amateur outfit, began calling itself the Rollin' Stones. Taylor switched from guitar to bass to accomodate Jones, but when the Stones decided to add a "g" and go pro in late 1962, Taylor opted to stay in school. It wasn't long, however, before Taylor, now back on guitar, showed up on the scene with a new band called the Pretty Things. Fronted by vocalist Phil May, the Things were rock and roll bad boys like the Stones, except more so. Their fifth single, Midnight To Six Man, sums up the band's attitude and habits. Unfortunately, the song barely made the British top 50 and was totally ignored by US radio stations.            
        
Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Temporarily Like Achilles
Source:    Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    "Honey, why are you so hard?" was a line Bob Dylan had been wanting to use in a song for quite some time. He finally got his wish when he recorded Temporarily Like Achilles in Nashville for his Blonde On Blonde album.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Lazy Old Sun (alternate mix)
Source:    British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    1967
    Although the Kinks had major hits on both sides of the ocean from 1964-66, by 1967 their success was limited to the UK, despite fine singles such as Dead End Street and Waterloo Sunset. Their 1967 LP, Something Else By The Kinks, continued the band's expansion into slightly satirical explorations of sociopolitical issues. At the same time, the album also shows a more experimental side musically, as Lazy Old Sun, with its staggered tempo and unusual chord progression, demonstrates. The song also shows a willingness to experiment with studio effects, as Something Else was the first Kinks album to be mixed in stereo.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Sunshine Day
Source:    Mono British import CD: Spirit Of Joy
Writer(s):    Mick Abrahams
Label:    Polydor (original label: MGM)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull was formed when half the membership of a band called the John Evan Smash decided to call it quits, leaving vocalist Ian Anderson and bassist Glen Cornick looking for two new members. Since one of the departing members was John Evan himself, a new name was also called for. After recruiting guitarist Mick Abrahams and drummer Clive Bunker, the group played a series of gigs under the name Bag Of Blues. Somewhere along the way the band changed its name to Jethro Tull, releasing their first single on the British version of MGM records in early 1968. In addition to the fact that it was the only Tull record ever released on MGM, there are two other oddities about Sunshine Day. The first is that, unlike all future singles and nearly every album track ever recorded by the band, the song was not written by Ian Anderson; Abrahams was the songwriter of record for that first single. The second, and even odder oddity about that record is that the band name on the label was Jethro Toe. No wonder they changed labels.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone
Source:    Mono LP: Midnight Ride
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Before the Monkees, there was Paul Revere And The Raiders. Like the latter group, the Raiders found success on TV as well as vinyl, and scored several top 10 hits. Unlike the Monkees, however, Paul Revere And The Raiders had a long history as a performing group that predated their commercial success by several years. One more thing the two groups had in common, however, was a song by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart called (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone. The Raiders recorded the song first (without the parenthesis), including it on their album Midnight Ride, released in May of 1966, and as the B side of their hit version of Kicks. The Monkees included the song on their debut LP later the same year, and released it as the B side of I'm A Believer as well. Although the original Raiders version was not originally included on the band's greatest hits album, it has been added to the CD reissue of Paul Revere And The Raiders' Greatest Hits as a bonus track.

Artist:    Walflower Complextion
Title:    All It Is
Source:    German import CD: The Walflower Complextion (originally released in Colombia)
Writer(s):    Fred & Richard Sampson
Label:    Shadoks Music/Daro Internacional)
Year:    1967
    It should not come as a surprise that there are US Government employees all over the globe, and have been since at least the end of World War II. Some of the government employees, in fact, have families, with children often attending local schools. In 1967 there were enough of these American kids in high school in Bogota, Colombia to form their own rock band, albeit a rather primitive sounding one. That band was the Walflower Complextion, and they even managed to record two albums for the Daro Internacional label. Most of the tracks on these albums were cover songs, although the opening track on the first album, All It Is, was written by band members Fred and Richard Sampson.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    Amphetamine Gazelle
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Mad River)
Writer:    Lawrence Hammond
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 acid was no longer the drug of choice on the streets of San Francisco. In its place, crystal meth was beginning to dominate the scene, with a corresponding increase in ripoffs and burns. The local musicians often reflected this change, with some, such as Canned Heat, declaring that Speed Kills and moving south to Laurel Canyon. Others, such as Mad River (originally from Yellow Springs, Ohio, but Bay Area residents since early 1967), attempted to use ridicule to combat the problem, but with no appreciable success, speed freaks not being known for their sense of humor (or any other kind of sense for that matter).

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Donovan's Reef
Source:    CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On-Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2009
    A few more people showed up for the Woodstock Music And Arts Fair in 1969 than originally anticipated. This caused a few problems, not the least of which was finding a way to get the members of the bands to the site itself. This led to an unexpected delay in getting the first band to the stage, which in turn led to a series of impromptu performances by various acoustic solo artists, some of whom would end up returning to the stage with their bands later. One of these was Country Joe McDonald, who played, among other things, a song called Donovan's Reef from the then-current Country Joe And The Fish album, Here We Are Again.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Evil Hearted You
Source:    Simulated stereo British import EP: The Yardbirds (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Having A Rave UP)
Writer(s):    Graham Gouldman
Label:    Charly (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1965
    Perhaps more than that of any other British invasion band, the Yardbirds' US and UK catalogs differ wildly. One of their biggest UK hits was Evil Hearted You, a Graham Gouldman song that made it all the way to the # 3 spot in their native land, but was not even released as a single in the US. Instead, the song appeared on the group's most popular US album, Having A Rave Up, which was not released in the UK at all. Confusing stuff, that.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Run Through The Jungle
Source:    LP: More Creedence Gold (originally released on LP: Cosmos Factory and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1970
    One of the most popular songs on the 1970 Creedence Clearwater Revival album Cosmos Factory was a tune by John Fogerty called Run Through The Jungle. At the time of the album's release, many people assumed the song was about the Viet-Nam war. However, Fogerty, in a 1993 interview with the Los Angeles Times, said,“ I think a lot of people thought that because of the times, but I was talking about America and the proliferation of guns, registered and otherwise. I'm a hunter and I'm not antigun, but I just thought that people were so gun-happy -- and there were so many guns uncontrolled that it really was dangerous, and it's even worse now."  As one half of a double-sided single (paired with Up Around The Bend), the song became the sixth single to break into the top 10, and has been covered by several artists over the years. In the late 1980s the song was at the center of a lawsuit brought by the owner of Fantasy Records, Saul Zaentz, claiming that a 1984 Fogerty song, The Old Man Down The Road, was actually Run Through The Jungle with different lyrics. Zaentz had basically screwed Fogerty out of publishing rights for all of CCR's material, resulting in Fogerty being unable to perform any of the band's tunes, and was now suing Fogerty for plagiarizing himself. In a rare victory for common sense Fogerty eventually won the lawsuit (although the judge did grant Zaentz some concessions), but Fogerty had to countersue Zaentz in order to recover the money he had spent on attorneys. Eventually Fogerty won that lawsuit as well, and is happily performing old Creedence songs as well as new material.

Artist:     Seeds
Title:     Pushin' Too Hard
Source:     Simulated stereo CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer:     Sky Saxon
Label:     Priority (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:     1965
     Pushin' Too Hard was originally released to the L.A. market as a single in late 1965 and included on side one of the first Seeds album the following year. After being re-released as a single the song did well enough to go national in early 1967, peaking at #36 in February.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Jumpin' Jack Flash
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1968
    After the late 1967 LP Their Satanic Majesties Request was savaged by the critics, the Rolling Stones decided to make a big change, severing ties with their longtime producer Andrew Loog Oldham and replacing him with Jimmy Miller, who had made a name for himself working with Steve Winwood on recordings by both the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic. The collaboration resulted in a back-to-basics approach that produced the classic single Jumpin' Jack Flash. The song was actually the second Stones tune produced by MIller, although it was the first to be released. The song revitalized the band's commercial fortunes, and was soon followed by what is generally considered to be one of the Stones' greatest albums, the classic Beggar's Banquet (which included the first Miller-produced song, Street Fighting Man).

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    The Other Place
Source:    Mono British import CD: Singles A's & B's (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo/Big Beat
Year:    1966
    The Seeds had already released three singles by the time their debut LP came out in April of 1966. All three of the A sides, but none of the B sides of those singles were included on that album, making those three songs comparitively hard to find until the CD era. The third of those B sides was The Other Place, which was released in February of 1966 backing Try To Understand.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    High And Dry
Source:    CD: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    High And Dry, from the Rolling Stones' 1966 LP Aftermath, is an early attempt at the sort of twisted country that would reach its peak with the Let It Bleed album in the early 70s.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    The Wind Blows Your Hair
Source:    Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Saxon/Bigelow
Label:    Big Beat (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1967
    The Wind Blows Your Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released as a single in October of 1967 the whole idea of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news (at least in ultra-hip L.A.) and the single went nowhere.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Lady Jane
Source:     CD: Aftermath (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:     1966
     One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time in the US was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated separately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).

Title:    Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Source:    Mono CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Francis Rossi
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Cadet Concept)
Year:    1967
    If you have ever seen the film This Is Spinal Tap, the story of Britain's Status Quo might seem a bit familiar. Signed to Pye Records in 1967 the group scored a huge international hit with their first single, Pictures Of Matchstick Men, but were unable to duplicate that success with subsequent releases. In the early 1970s the band totally reinvented itself as a boogie band and began a run in the UK that resulted in them scoring more charted singles than any other band in history, including the Beatles and Rolling Stones. For all that, however, they never again charted in the US, where they are generally remembered as one-hit wonders. In addition to their UK success, Status Quo remains immensely popular in the Scandanavian countries, where they continue to play to sellout crowds on a regular basis.

Artist:    Hearts And Flowers
Title:    Rock And Roll Gypsies
Source:    LP: Nuggets, vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released on LP: Of Houses, Kids And Forgotten Women)
Writer(s):    Roger Tillison
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Led by singer/songwriters Larry Murray and Dave Dawson, Hearts And Flowers is best known for launching the career of guitarist/vocalist Bernie Leadon, who joined the group for their second LP and would later go on to co-found the Eagles. That second album, Of Houses, Kids And Forgotten Women, is generally considered the most accessible of the group's three albums, and included the song Rock And Roll Gypsies.

Artist:    Cat Stevens
Title:    Matthew And Son
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Cat Stevens (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Matthew And Son)
Writer:    Cat Stevens
Label:    A&M (original label: Deram)
Year:    1967
    Although best known as one of the top singer-songwriters of the early to mid-1970s, Cat Stevens actually began recording in 1967, and charted several hits in the UK before achieving international fame. One of the earliest was the title track to his first LP, Matthew And Son. Although the song was released in the US on the Deram label, it failed to chart.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Source:    Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    After the reunion of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel following the surprise success of an electrified remix of The Sound Of Silence, the two quickly recorded an album to support the hit single. Sounds Of Silence was, for the most part, a reworking of material that Simon had recorded for 1965 UK LP the Paul Simon Songbook. The pressure for a new album thus (temporarily) relieved, the duo got to work on their first album of all new material since their unsuccessful 1964 effort Wednesday Morning 3AM (which had in fact been re-released and was now doing well on the charts). In October the new album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, hit the stands. The title track was a new arrangement of an old English folk ballad, Scarborough Fair, combined with a reworking of a 1963 Simon tune (The Side Of A Hill,) with all-new lyrics and retitled Canticle. The two melodies and sets of lyrics are set in counterpoint to each other, creating one of the most sophisticated folk song arrangements ever recorded. After being featured in the film The Graduate, Scarborough Fair/Canticle was released as a single in early 1968, going on to become one of the duo's most celebrated songs.

Artist:     Simon and Garfunkel
Title:     A Hazy Shade Of Winter
Source:     LP: Bookends
Writer:     Paul Simon
Label:     Sundazed/Columbia
Year:     1966
     Originally released as a single in 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs intended for the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used in the film was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    After the surprise success of the Sound Of Silence single, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (who had disbanded their partnership after the seeming failure of their Wednesday Morning 3 AM album in 1964) hastily reunited to record a new LP, Sounds Of Silence. The album, released in early 1966, consisted mostly of electrified versions of songs previously written by Simon, many of which had appeared in the UK in acoustic form on his 1965 solo LP The Paul Simon Songbook. With their newfound success, the duo set about recording an album's worth of new material. This time around, however, Simon had the time (and knowledge of what was working for the duo) to compose songs that would play to both the strengths of himself and Garfunkel as vocalists, as well as take advantage of the additional instrumentation available to him. The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme, featuring tracks such as The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine, an energetic piece satirizing rampant consumerism and the advertising industry in particular.

Artist:    Cuby + Blizzards
Title:    Your Body Not Your Soul
Source:    Dutch import 45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s):    Muskee/Gelling
Label:    Universal/Music On Vinyl (original label: Philips)
Year:    1966
    In the Netherlands it was a given that if you wanted to hear some live blues you needed to check out Cuby and the Blizzards. Led by vocalist Harry "Cuby" Muskee and lead guitarist Eelco Gelling, C+B, as they were known to their fans, had been in a couple of local bands as early as 1962, but had made a decision to abandon rock 'n' roll for a more blues/R&B approach in 1964. After cutting a single for the small CNR label in 1965, C+B signed a long-term contract with Philips the following year. Your Body Not Your Soul, the B side of their first single for the label, shows the influence of British blues/R&B bands such as the Pretty Things and the Animals. The group hit the Dutch top 40 nine times between 1967 and 1971, and released several well received albums as well.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Break On Through (To The Other Side)
Source:    CD: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The first Doors song to be released as a single was not, as usually assumed, Light My Fire. Rather, it was Break On Through (To The Other Side), the opening track from the band's debut LP, that was chosen to to introduce the band to top 40 radio. Although the single was not an immediate hit, it did eventually catch on with progressive FM radio listeners and still is heard on classic rock stations from time to time.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    You've Never Had It Better
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    Snagster/Schwartz/Poncher (Lowe/Tulin)
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Following the lack of a hit single from their second album, Underground, the Electric Prunes took one last shot at top 40 airplay with a song called Everybody Knows Your Not In Love. The band might have had better luck if they had pushed the flip side of the record, You Never Had It Better, which is a much stronger song. As it is, the record stiffed, and producer David Hassinger reacted by stripping the band of any creative freedom they might have had and made an album called Mass in F Minor using mostly studio musicians. The band, having signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes to their manager early on, could do nothing but watch helplessly as Hassinger created an album that had little in common with the original band other than their name. Because of this, the original members soon left, and Hassinger brought in a whole new group for two more albums (and several singles) before retiring the Prunes name for good. In recent years several members of the original band, including James Lowe and Mark Tulin, who wrote You've Never Had It Better, reformed the Electric Prunes. Whether they had to get permission to use the name is unknown.

Artist:    Albert King
Title:    Crosscut Saw
Source:    LP: Born Under A Bad Sign
Writer(s):    R.G. Ford
Label:    Stax
Year:    1967
    One of the "three Kings" of electric blues (the others being Freddy and B.B.), Albert King was already in his 40s when he recorded his first album for the Stax label (his second overall), Born Under A Bad Sign, in 1967. The album is considered the beginning of the modern age of blues, with such notables as Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan citing King's work on the album as a major influence on their own guitar playing. One of the most notable tracks on the LP was an updated version of Crosscut Blues, a tune that was first recorded by Mississippi bluesman Tommy McClennan in 1941, but that probably dates much further back. King's version, however, has come to be considered the definitive rendition of the song.

Artist:    The Mamas & The Papas
Title:    Free Advice
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Phillips/Gilliam
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1967
    Presented as a public service.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice
Source:    German import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1967
    The fourth single released in Europe and the UK by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was 1967's Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, which appeared in stereo the following year on the album Electric Ladyland. The B side of that single was a strange bit of psychedelia called The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice, which is also known in some circles as STP With LSD. The piece features Hendrix on guitar and vocals, with background sounds provided by a cast of at least dozens. Hendrix's vocals are, throughout much of the track, spoken rather than sung, and resemble nothing more than a cosmic travelogue with Hendrix himself as the tour guide. The original mono mix of the track has never been released in the US, which is a shame, since it is the only version where Jimi's vocals dominate the mix, allowing his somewhat whimsical sense of humor to shine through.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2442 (starts 10/14/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/547061

    This week we start in the mid-1970s and work our way back to 1968...and then stay there for a set of tunes from Canned Heat, Cream and the Rolling stones. To finish things off we have a track from the first Lou Reed solo album making its Rockin' in the Days of Confusion debut.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Pursuit On 53rd Street
Source:    LP: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits
Writer(s):    Tom Johnston
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1974
    Pursuit On 53rd Street, like most Tom Johnston songs, is a highly danceable tune with a solid hook "I believe that the lady's gonna bring me luck". The song, describing a guy on a bus in New York City taking an interest in a woman walking down the street, is featured on the fourth Doobie Brothers album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits.

Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    Land Of 1000 Nights
Source:    Canadian import CD: Strange Universe
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    Just A Minute (original label: 20th Century)
Year:    1975
    Formed in Montreal in 1970, Mahogany Rush was, in its early days, a power trio led by guitarist Frank Marino, along with bassist Paul Harwood and drummer Jimmy Ayoub. Marino's style has often been compared to that of Jimi Hendrix, whom Marino cites as a major influence. Perhaps their most successful album was Strange Universe, recorded in Montreal and released in the US on the 20th Century label in 1975. Later in the decade the trio was joined by Marino's brother Vince on rhythm guitar and began touring as Frank Marino And Mahogany Rush.

Artist:    Stray Dog
Title:    Bits And Pieces/Pieces
Source:    LP: While You're Down There
Writer(s):    Dulaine/Roberts
Label:    Manticore
Year:    1974
    Originally called Aphrodite, Stray Dog started off in Texas, but soon migrated to Denver, Colorado, where they soon became one of the area's most popular bands. A move to London in 1973 led to the band signing with Emerson, Lake And Palmer's Manticore label in 1973. A change in personnel brought guitarist/vocalist Timmy Dulane into the band. Dulane ended up writing most of the material for the band's second LP, While You're Down There, including Bits And Pieces, which flows into an instrumental piece called Pieces written by bassist Alan Roberts. Stray Dog split up in 1976. Lead guitarist W. G. Snuffy Walden went on to have a successful career writing soundtracks for televisions shows, including the Theme from Thirtysomething, for which he received an Emmy nomination.

Artist:    Little Feat
Title:    Fat Man In The Bathtub
Source:    CD: Dixie Chicken
Writer(s):    Lowell George
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Lowell George, founder of Little Feat, came into his own as a songwriter with the 1973 album Dixie Chicken. Among the classic tunes on the LP was Fat Man In The Bathtub. There are many theories as to what the song is actually about, but most agree that somebody wasn't getting something he wanted.

Artist:    Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina
Title:    Danny's Song
Source:    45 RPM promo single
Writer(s):    Kenny Loggins
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971 (single edit released 1972)
    In 1972 Columbia confused everyone in the radio business by releasing two promo singles by Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina. One was a Jim Messina song called Nobody But You, which was clearly marked as the single's A side, with a Kenny Loggins tune called Danny's Song as the B side. The other had Danny's Song on both sides. The result of this oddity was that Nobody But You rose no higher than #86 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Danny's Song didn't chart at all. Ironically, Danny's Song eventually became one of Loggins's most popular songs, thanks in part to Anne Murray's cover version of the song going into the top 10.

Artist:    Focus
Title:    Hocus Pocus
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Moving Waves)
Writer(s):    van Leer/Akkerman
Label:    Polydor UK (original US label: Sire)
Year:    1971
    Although it was not a hit until 1973, Hocus Pocus, by the Dutch progressive rock band Focus, has the type of simple structure coupled with high energy that was characteristic of many of the garage bands of the mid to late 60s. The song was originally released on the band's second LP, known alternately as Focus II and Moving Waves, in 1971. Both guitarist Jan Akkerman and keyboardist/vocalist/flautist Thijs van Leer have gone on to have successful careers, with van Leer continuing to use to the Focus name as recently as 2006.

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    Southern Man
Source:    CD: After The Gold Rush
Writer:    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
    Neil Young stirred up a bit of controversy with the release of the album After The Gold Rush, mostly due to the inclusion of Southern Man, a scathingly critical look at racism in the American South. The song inspired the members of Lynnard Skynnard to write Sweet Home Alabama in response, although reportedly Young and the members of Skynnard actually thought highly of each other. There was even an attempt to get Young to make a surprise appearance at a Skynnard concert and sing the (modified) line "Southern Man don't need me around", but they were never able to coordinate their schedules enough to pull it off.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Living In The Past
Source:    LP: Days Of Wine And Vinyl (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    By the end of the 1960s most UK labels had abandoned the British practice of not including singles on LPs. One notable exception was Island Records, who continued to issue mutually exclusive Jethro Tull albums, singles and EPs into the early 1970s. Among those non-LP tracks was the 1969 single Living In The Past, which would not be included on an LP until 1972, when the song became the title track of a double LP Jethro Tull retrospective. The song then became a hit all over again, including in the US, where the original single had failed to chart.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Uncle Jack
Source:    CD: Spirit
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Despite nearly universal positive reviews by the rock press, the first Spirit album never really caught the imagination of the record buying public. Why this is the case is still a bit of a mystery, as the album is full of outstanding tracks such as Uncle Jack. Perhaps the album, and indeed the band itself, was just a bit ahead of its time.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sympathy For The Devil
Source:    CD: Beggars Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    Beggar's Banquet was a turning point for the Rolling Stones. They had just ended their association with Andrew Loog Oldham, who had produced all of their mid-60s records, and after one self-produced album were working with Jimmy Miller, who was known for his association with Steve Winwood, both in his current band Traffic and the earlier Spencer Davis Group. Right from the opening bongo beats of Sympathy For The Devil, it was evident that this was the beginning of a new era for the bad boys of rock and roll. The song itself has gone on to be one of the defining tunes of album rock radio.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Deserted Cities Of The Heart
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
     The most psychedelic of Cream's songs were penned by Jack Bruce and his songwriting partner Pete Brown. One of the best of these was chosen to close out the last studio side of the last Cream album released while the band was still in existence. Deserted Cities Of The Heart is a fitting epitaph to an unforgettable band.
    
Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     Amphetamine Annie
Source:     CD: The Very Best of Canned Heat (originally released on LP: Boogie With Canned Heat)
Writer:     Canned Heat
Label:     Capitol (original label: Liberty)
Year:     1968
     By the end of 1967 the Haight-Ashbury scene had taken a definite turn for the worse. Most veterans of the street (i.e. those who had been there before the Summer of Love) placed the blame firmly on the influx of naive runaways that had flooded the area in the wake of calls to "go to San Francisco" earlier in the year, and on the drug dealers who preyed upon them. Methamphetamine (aka speed) was the drug usually singled out as the most destructive force at play. Back then it was the pill form of speed, such as white crosses, that was prevalent among users; the powdered crystal meth that has become a concern in modern rural America would not be used widely until the 1970s. Although originally from Los Angeles, Canned Heat had become closely identified with the San Francisco area following their appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival and decided it was their civic duty to take a stand against the drug, declaring in the song Amphetamine Annie that "speed kills", a phrase that would show up as graffiti on various walls in the city as well. Ironically, by the time Boogie With Canned Heat, the album containing Amphetamine Annie, was released the band had returned to L.A.'s Laurel Canyon.

Artist:    Lou Reed
Title:    I Love You
Source:    British import CD: The Best Of Lou Reed And The Velvet Underground (originally released on LP: Lou Reed)
Writer(s):    Lou Reed
Label:    Global Television (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1972
    I Love You is one of several songs recorded, but not released, in 1970 by the Velvet Underground that ended appearing on Lou Reed's first solo album two years later. It has to count as one of the most honest love songs ever written, maybe even the only one.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2441 (starts 10/7/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/546259

    This week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is dedicated to the Libra who would be listening if she could.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    The first single released by Cream was I Feel Free. As was the case with nearly every British single at the time, the song was not included on Fresh Cream, the band's debut LP. In the US, however, singles were commonly given a prominent place on albums, and the US version of Fresh Cream actually opens with I Feel Free. To my knowledge the song, being basically a studio creation, was never performed live.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Billy Roberts
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

Artist:     Daily Flash
Title:     Jack Of Diamonds
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Lalor/MacAllistor/Kelihor/Hastings
Label:     Rhino (original label: Parrot)
Year:     1966
     The practice of writing new lyrics to an old tune got turned around for the Seattle-based Daily Flash's feedback-drenched recording of Jack Of Diamonds, which pretty much preserves the lyrics to the old folk song, but is musically pure garage-rock, which is itself an anamoly, since the Daily Flash is generally known for NOT being a garage-rock band. Instead they are considered a forerunner of such San Francisco bands as Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source:    45 RPM single (promo copy)
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1965
    In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that there was already a band calling themselves the Grass Roots  that was not interested in recording Sloan and Barri's songs, and whose members weren't particularly diplomatic when rejecting Sloan and Barri's offer. Unfortunately for that first band, they had never bothered to copyright the name, so Sloan and Barri decided to recruit another band and talk them into changing their name to the Grass Roots. The band they found was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to come down to L.A. and record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's A Ballad Of A Thin Man, released under the title Mr. Jones. The band soon got to work promoting the single to Southern California radio stations, but with both the Byrds and the Turtles already on the charts with Dylan covers it soon became obvious that the market was quickly getting saturated. After a period of months the band, who wanted more freedom to write and record their own material, had a falling out with Sloan and Barri and it wasn't long before they moved back to San Francisco, leaving drummer Joel Larson in L.A. The group, with another drummer, continued to perform as the Grass Roots until Dunhill Records ordered them to stop. Eventually Dunhill would hire a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots who would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. Meanwhile the original lineup changed their name but never had the opportunity to make records again. Oh, and that band that hadn't copyrighted the name Grass Roots in the first place? They let their own fans choose a new name for them. That new name was Love.

Artist:    Clefs Of Lavender Hill
Title:    Stop-Get A Ticket
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Travis & Coventry Fairchild
Label:    Rhino (original label: Thames)
Year:    1966
    The Clefs Of Lavender Hill were a band from North Miami that featured not one, but two sets of siblings: the brother and sister team of Travis and Coventry Fairchild (both of which sang and played guitar) and the Moss brothers, Bill (bass) and Fred (drums). The first single from the band was a song called First Tell Me Why, but it was the B side of the record, a Beatlesque tune called Stop-Get A Ticket that became a hit on Miami radio stations. The song was picked up by Date Records and peaked nationally at # 80. Subsequent releases by the Clefs failed to crack the Hot 100 and the group (after several personnel changes) finally called it quits in 1968.

Artist:    Gants
Title:    I Wonder
Source:    Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sid Herring
Label:    BFD (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1967
    The Gants hailed from Greenwood, Mississippi, and had a string of regional hits that led to their signing with Liberty Records in 1965. The group, however, was handicapped by having half the members still in high school and the other half in college (and unwilling to drop out due to their being of draftable age during the height of the Viet Nam war). The band's most successful single for the label was I Wonder, which, like all of the Gants' recordings, shows a strong Beatle influence.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Swami-Plus Strings, etc. (alternate stereo mix)
Source:    CD: Head soundtrack
Writer(s):    Dolenz/Jones/Nesmith/Tork/Thorne, compiled by Jack Nicholson
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1968
    Head was the first and only feature-length film from the Monkees, released in 1968 after the group's weekly TV show left the air. Unlike the TV show, Head was aimed at a more sophisticated audience, but ended up being a commerical failure. In more recent years the movie has taken on more of a cult classic status, thanks in part to the script by a then-unknown Jack Nicholson. The soundtrack album, compiled by Nicholson, features several new songs by the band, with bits of dialogue and sound effects from the film, as well as incidental music from Ken Thorne. All of these can be heard on the final track of the album, Swami-Plus Strings, etc. Not long after Head was released, Peter Tork became the first ex-Monkee, wanting to pursue projects that might be taken a bit more seriously than the "prefab four".

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Turn On Your Love Light
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (excerpt of track that was originally released on LP: Live Dead)
Writer(s):    Scott/Malone
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    After two years' (and three albums) worth of trying to capture their live sound in the studio, the Grateful Dead decided just to cut to the chase and release a live album. The result was the double LP Live Dead, one of the most successful releases in Grateful Dead history. The album itself is one continuous concert, with each side fading out at the end, with a bit of overlap at the beginning of the next side. Most of the material on Live Dead was written by the band itself, the sole exception being a fifteen-minute long rendition of Bobby Bland's 1961 hit Turn On Your Love Light, featuring vocals by organist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. This six and a half minute long excerpt from the album first appeared on the Warner Brothers "Loss Leaders" album The Big Ball, a two-disc sampler album that could only be bought directly from the record company. The same excerpt was later included on the 1972 Grateful Dead compilation album Skeletons From The Closet.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
Source:    CD: Anthology 2 (mon version originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1970
    Basically a studio concoction assembled by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) was originally intended to be released as a 1969 single by the Plastic Ono Band. The track was the result of four separate recording sessions dating back to 1967 and originally ran over six minutes long. The instrumental tracks were recorded around the same time the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in Spring of 1967. Brian Jones added a saxophone part on June 8th of that year. In April of 1969 Lennon and McCartney added vocals, while Lennon edited the entire track down from a monoraul mixdown to slightly over four minutes. The single was readied for a November release, but at the last minute was withdrawn. The recording was instead released as the B side of the Beatles' Let It Be single the following year. In 1996 the original tapes were re-edited to create a new stereo mix that runs a little over five and a half minutes in length. The new mix was included on the Anthology 2 CD.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Am The Walrus
Source:    Stereo British import 45 RPM EP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1967
    Common practice in the UK in the 1960s was to avoid duplication between single releases and album tracks. This led to a unique situation for the Beatles and their British label, EMI/Parlophone, in December of 1967. The band had self-produced a new telefilm to be shown on BBC-TV called Magical Mystery Tour and wanted to make the songs from the film available to the record-buying public in time for Christmas. The problem was that there were only six songs in the one-hour telefilm, not nearly enough to fill an entire album. The solution was to release the songs on a pair of Extended Play 45 RPM records, along with several pages of song lyrics, illustrations and stills from the film itself. My own introduction to Magical Mystery Tour was a friend's German copy of the EPs, and when years later I had the opportunity to pick up a copy of the original UK version, I of course couldn't resist. That copy got totalled in a flood a few years back, but in 2012 I was finally able to locate another copy of the EP set, which is the source of this week's airing of the ultimate British psychedelic recording, I Am The Walrus. This British EP version has a slightly longer intro than the more familiar US LP/CD release.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Not Guilty
Source:    CD: Anthology 3
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Capitol/Apple
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1996
    One of the most legendary unreleased Beatles recordings, Not Guilty was written by George Harrison after returning from the band members' spiritual retreat in Rishikesh, India, where they studied Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The song addresses his growing dissatisfaction with his role in the band, while defending himself against accusations that he led the group "astray on the road to Mandalay". The recording process was a difficult one, taking over 100 takes to get right, and even then Harrison was unsatisfied with the final recording, which may explain why the song, originally slated for inclusion on the White Album, remained unreleased for nearly 30 years.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Outcast
Source:    British import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Campbell/Johnson
Label:    Decca
Year:    1966
    Like many mid-60s British groups, the Animals had a fondness for American R&B music, and would often feature covers versions of songs originally released by people like Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. In 1966, for the B side of Inside Looking Out, the Animals recorded Outcast, a song that had been released the previous year by Eddie Campbell and Ernie "Sweetwater" Johnson of Phoenix, Arizona, who recorded as Eddie And Ernie. A different song was used for the US B side of Inside Looking Out, and Outcast was not released in North America until late 1966, when it appeared, in a shorter form, on the LP Animalisms. To my knowledge the longer single version of Outcast has never been released in the US.

Artist:    Chocolate Watch Band
Title:    Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer:    McElroy/Bennett
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watch Band. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In), a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watch Band's first album, is one of those few. Ironically, the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album. According to legend, the band actually showed up at the movie studio without any songs prepared for the film, and learned to play and sing Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) right there on the set. This, combined with the story of their first visit to a recording studio the previous year (a story for another time) shows one of the Watch Band's greatest strengths: the ability to pick up and perfect new material faster than anyone else. It also shows their overall disinterest in the recording process. This was a band that wanted nothing more than to play live, often outperforming the big name bands they opened for.

Artist:     Turtles
Title:     The Last Thing I Remember, The First Thing I Knew
Source:     CD: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands (bonus track originally released on 12" 45 RPM Picture Disc: Turtles 1968)
Writer:     The Turtles
Label:     FloEdCo (original label: Rhino)
Year:     Recorded 1968, released 1978
     In 1968 the Turtles rebelled against their record company. They did not attempt to break the contract or go on strike, though. Instead, they simply went into the studio and produced four songs that they themselves wrote and chose to record. The record company, in turn, chose not to issue any of the self-produced recordings (although one, Surfer Dan, did end up on their Battle of the Bands album a few months later). Finally, in the late 1970s a small independent label known for issuing oddball recordings by the likes of Barnes and Barnes (Fish Heads) and professional wrestler Fred Blassie (Pencil-Neck Geek) put out a 12-inch picture disc featuring the four tunes. That label also began reissuing old Turtles albums, starting it on a path that has since become the stock in trade for Rhino Records. More recently, Turtles front men Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman (aka Flo & Eddie) have reissued all four songs as bonus tracks on the expanded CD version of The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands on their own FloEdCo label.

Artist:    Free
Title:    All Right Now
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Fraser/Rodgers
Label:    A&M
Year:    1970
    Led by Andy Fraser and Paul Rodgers, Free was one of the first "70s" rock bands. They made their biggest splash with All Right Now, a huge hit in 1970.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Bargain (live)
Source:    LP: Who's Missing
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA
Year:    Recorded 1972, released 1985
    Although the Who did not release any albums in 1972, they were considered by many to be the best live rock band in the world that year. Lots of their live stuff got bootlegged over the years, but the official release of the live version of Bargain, a tune from the 1971 album Who's Next, had to wait until 1985, when it was included on a compilation album called Who's Missing.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sympathy For The Devil
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released on LP: Beggars Banquet)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    Beggar's Banquet was a turning point for the Rolling Stones. They had just ended their association with Andrew Loog Oldham, who had produced all of their mid-60s records, and instead were working with Jimmy Miller, who was known for his association with Steve Winwood, both in his current band Traffic and the earlier Spencer Davis Group. Right from the opening bongo beats of Sympathy For The Devil, it was evident that this was the beginning of a new era for the bad boys of rock and roll. The song itself has gone on to be one of the defining tunes of album rock radio, and occupies the #32 spot on Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    2000 Man
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    Setting any work of art in the relatively near future is always risky business (remember 1984?), but then again 33 years seems like forever when you yourself are still in your twenties. I mean who, including the Rolling Stones themselves, could have imagined that Mick, Keith, Charlie and company would still be performing well into the 21st century when they recorded 2000 Man for their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request? It's actually kind of interesting to listen to the lyrics now and see just how much of the song turned out to be an accurate prediction of what was to come.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Wild Horses
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: Rolling Stones)
Year:    1971
    Although it was recorded in 1969, the release of Wild Horses was held up for over a year because of ongoing litigation between the Rolling Stones, who were in the process of forming their own record label, and Allen Klein, who had managed to legally steal the rights to all of the band's recordings for the British Decca label (most of which had appeared in the US on the London label). Eventually both Wild Horses and Brown Sugar (recorded at the same sessions) became the joint property of the Rolling Stones and Klein and were released as singles on the new Rolling Stones label in 1971.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Subterranean Homesick Blues
Source:    CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Bringing It All Back Home)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    1965 was the year Bob Dylan went electric, and got his first top 40 hit, Subterranean Homesick Blues, in the process. Although the song, which also led off his Bringing It All Back Home album, stalled out in the lower 30s, it did pave the way for electrified cover versions of Dylan songs by the Byrds and Turtles and Dylan's own Like A Rolling Stone, which would revolutionize top 40 radio. A line from the song itself, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", became the inspiration for a radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that called itself the Weathermen (later the Weather Underground).

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sunny Afternoon
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    My family got our first real stereo in late summer of 1966, just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio through decent speakers for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off). Unfortunately, the debut of Denver's first FM rock station was still a few months off, so the decent speakers were handicapped by being fed an AM radio signal.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Fly Me High
Source:    CD: Days Of Future Passed (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Justin Hayward
Label:    Deram/Polydor
Year:    1967
    By 1967, original Moody Blues members Denny Laine and Clint Warwick had left the group and been replaced by guitarist Justin Hayward and bassist John Lodge. At the same time, the band (as were nearly all British groups at the time) was in the process of redefining itself in the wake of the Beatles' release of the Revolver album in the fall of 1966. That redefinition would ultimately result in the landmark album Days Of Future Passed, released in November of 1967, but before that happened the band released a pair of non-album singles that have since fallen into obscurity. The first of these, Hayward's Fly Me High, was released in May of 1967 and contains elements of both the earlier and later Moody Blues styles.

Artist:    Aerovons
Title:    World Of You
Source:    CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hartman
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1969
    Originally from St. Louis, Mo., the Aerovons were such big fans of the Beatles that they moved to England in hopes of meeting their idols. They had enough talent in their own right to get a contract with EMI, recording an album's worth of material at Abbey Road in 1969. Although only two singles from those sessions were originally released (on Parlophone, the same label that the Beatles' records were on), the Aerovons finally got some recognition many years later when an acetate of their unreleased album was discovered and remastered for release on the RPM label. Perhaps more important for the band members, they got to meet the Beatles while recording at Abbey Road!

Artist:    Koobas
Title:    First Cut Is The Deepest
Source:    Mono LP: Also Dug-Its (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Cat Stevens
Label:    Elektra (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    Formed in Liverpool in 1962, the Koobas (after an obligatory stay in Hamburg) landed their first record contract after filming a segment for a movie called Ferry Cross The Mersey that ended up on the cutting room floor. They released several singles from 1965-1968, but none of them were successful in their native land, although their final single, a psychedelicized (think Vanilla Fudge) version of Cat Stevens's First Cut Is The Deepest, did fairly well in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Artist:    Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title:    Wonderment
Source:    CD: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading/The Great Conspiracy (originally released on LP: The Great Conspiracy)
Writer(s):    John Merrill
Label:    Collectables (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    Like many bands of the psychedelic era, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy was known for its onstage improvisational skills. Unfortunately, when they were signed to Columbia they were paired up with Gary Usher, who is best known for his work with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, as well as his various studio creations such as the Hondells and, later, Sagittarius. Usher insisted on supplementing the band's sound with studio musicians on their first LP, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading. The second PBC album, The Great Conspiracy, is a better representation of what the band was truly about, although even then they weren't able to cut loose the way they did onstage. Probably the closest they did come to capturing their live sound was on Wonderment, the last track on The Great Conspiracy. Sales were not good enough for the band to continue with a major label, however, and PBC co-founder John Merrill left the group not long after The Great Conspiracy's release.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Bringing Me Down
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    One of several singles released mainly to San Francisco Bay area radio stations and record stores, Bringing Me Down is an early collaboration between vocalist Marty Balin and guitarist/vocalist Paul Kantner. Balin had invited Kantner into the band without having heard him play a single note. It turned out to be one of many right-on-the-money decisions by the Jefferson Airplane founder.

rtist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Wait Until Tomorrow
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Jimi Hendrix shows his sense of humor on Wait Until Tomorrow, a track from his second Jimi Hendrix Experience LP, Axis: Bold As Love. The song tells a story of a young man standing outside his girlfriend's window trying to convince her to run away from him. He gets continually rebuffed by the girl, who keeps telling him to Wait Until Tomorrow. Ultimately the girl's father resolves the issue by shooting the young man. The entire story is punctuated by outstanding distortion-free guitar work that showcases just how gifted Hendrix was on his chosen instrument.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Bluebird
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    When it comes right down to it Buffalo Springfield has one of the highest ratios of songs recorded to songs played on the radio of any band in history, especially if you only count the two albums worth of material that was released while the band was still active. This is probably because Buffalo Springfield had more raw songwriting talent than just about any two other bands. Although Neil Young was just starting to hit his stride as a songwriter, bandmate Stephen Stills was already at an early peak, as songs like Bluebird clearly demonstrate.

Artist:    Electric Flag
Title:    Gettin' Hard
Source:    LP: The Trip (movie soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Michael Bloomfield
Label:    Sidewalk
Year:    1967
    The first official Electric Flag LP was A Long Time Comin', released on Columbia Records in 1968. The group had actually made their recording debut the previous year on Mike Curb's Sidewalk label with the soundtrack for a movie called The Trip. Produced by Roger Corman and written by Jack Nicholson, the Trip was basically a film about a young man (played by Peter Fonda) taking his first acid trip and might easily be described as the first Hollywood film about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, with the latter provided by the Electric Flag. Unlike the Columbia releases, the movie soundtrack was essentially a Mike Bloomfield solo project, with the other members of the band relegated to a purely supporting role. Most of the tracks on side one, in particular, are short instrumental pieces with names that describe what was happening in the film itself, such as Joint Passing, which runs almost exactly one minute. I leave it to your imagination which scene the four minute long instrumental Gettin' Hard accompanied.