https://exchange.prx.org/p/524983
This week we have an artists' set that, since it includes tracks from after the psychedelic era itself (barely), can also be considered an Advanced Psych segment. Other than that, it's (as always) a mix of singles, B sides and album tracks, with a bit of an emphasis on folk-rock in the first hour.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Nowhere Man
Source: CD: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (originally released in UK on LP: Rubber Soul)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/CapitoI (original UK label: Parlophone)
Year: 1965
Altough Nowhere Man had been included on the British version of the Beatles' 1965 Rubber Soul album, it was held back in the US and released as a single in 1966. Later that year the song was featured on the US-only LP Yesterday...And Today. It was remixed for the 2009 release of the Yellow Submarine Songtrack CD.
Artist: Syndicate Of Sound
Title: Little Girl
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2 (50th Anniversary edition) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Baskin/Gonzalez
Label: Hush/Bell
Year: 1966
San Jose California, despite being a relatively small city in the pre-silicon valley days, was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced more than its share of hit records from 1966-68. One of the earliest and biggest of these hits was the Syndicate Of Sound hit Little Girl, which has come to be recognized as one of the top garage-rock songs of all time. Little Girl was originally released regionally in mid 1966 on the Hush label, and reissued nationally by Bell Records a couple months later.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Light Years From Home
Source: CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more blatantly obvious than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover featured the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines and pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interesting enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany and the Netherlands 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) got significant airplay, making the top 5 in both countries.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Atlantis
Source: CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Although it was included on the 1969 album Barabajagal, Donovan's Atlantis was originally issued as a single in November of 1968. The tune went into the top 10 in several nations worldwide, including the US, but only managed to peak at #23 in the UK. At nearly five minutes in length, the song was considered by the shirts at Epic Records to be too long to get top 40 airplay in the US, and was thus relegated to B side status. They were proved wrong when DJs started flipping the record over and it went to the #7 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
Artist: Fairport Convention
Title: Farewell, Farewell
Source: LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Liege And Lief)
Writer(s): Richard Thompson
Label: A&M
Year: 1969
Farewell, Farewell is the closing track of the first side of the fourth Fairport Convention album, Leige And Lief. Why it wasn't chosen as the final track on the album itself is a mystery to me. Liege And Lief is considered one of the most influential British folk albums of all time, and is considered a major influence on the development of British folk rock (not to be confused with American folk-rock, which had pretty much run its course by 1969).
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Ballad Of A Thin Man
Source: CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Bob Dylan himself plays piano on Ballad Of A Thin Man, from his controversial 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. Up to that point in his career, Dylan had recorded mostly acoustic material, usually accompanying himself on guitar with little or no other instrumentation. On Highway 61 Revisited, however, he was joined by a full complement of electric musicians, including guitarist Mike Bloomfield (of the Butterfield Blues Band) and Al Kooper (who would go on to be a star in his own right as a member of the Blues Project and later as the founder of Blood, Sweat And Tears). Ballad Of A Thin Man itself was, according to Dylan, based on a real person, or an amalgam of real people who had crossed Dylan's path. The subject of the song, Mr. Jones, as referred to in the song's refrain "Something is happening here/ But you don't know what it is/ Do you, Mr Jones?" was based on the various establishment types who were virtually clueless when it came to understanding the youthful counter-culture that was developing in the mid-1960s. The following year the Grass Roots scored a regional hit in Southern California with their cover of the song, retitled Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man).
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Gotta Get Away
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): Gordon/Adams
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
As was common with most 1966 LPs, the Blues Magoos debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, included a handful of cover songs, not all of which had been hits for other groups. One of the non-hits was Gotta Get Away, a fairly typical piece of garage rock that opens side two of the LP. The song was also selected as the B side for the group's second (and by far most successful) single, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet. As the usual practice was to bring in outside songwriters for a new band's early singles and let the band write their own B side, it is possible that Gotta Get Away, which was co-written by Alan Gordon (co-writer of the Turtles' Happy Together and several other tunes) may have been the intended A side of the single.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Six O'Clock
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): John Sebastian
Label: Kama Sutra
Year: 1967
The last top 20 hit for the Lovin' Spoonful was Six O'Clock, released in 1967. Shortly after the record came out John Sebastian left the group. The remaining members tried to carry on without him for a while, but were never able to duplicate the success of the Sebastian years.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s): Pete Seeger
Label: Cotillion (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1965
After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the Byrds turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics adapted from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
Artist: Hollies
Title: I Can't Let Go
Source: LP: History Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Taylor/Gorgoni
Label: Sire (original US label: Imperial)
Year: 1966
Of all the early Hollies hits, it is the 1966 hit I Can't Let Go that most showcases the voice of Graham Nash, singing a high counterpoint that Paul McCartney reportedly mistook for a trumpet part the first time he heard the song.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sunshine Of Your Love
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears (picture disc, if anyone cares)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown/Clapton
Label: RSO (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Although by mid-1967 Cream had already released a handful of singles in the UK, Sunshine Of Your Love, featuring one of the most recognizable guitar rifts in the history of rock, was their first song to make a splash in the US. Although only moderately successful in edited form on AM Top-40 radio, the full-length LP version of the song received extensive airplay on the more progressive FM stations, and turned Disraeli Gears into a perennial best-seller. Guitarist Eric Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce constantly trade off lead vocal lines throughout the song. The basic compatibility of their voices is such that it is sometimes difficult to tell exactly who is singing what line. Clapton's guitar solo (which was almost entirely edited out of the AM version) set a standard for instrumental breaks in terms of length and style that became a hallmark for what is now known as "classic rock."
Artist: Salvation
Title: Think Twice
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Salvation)
Writer(s): Joe Tate
Label: Rhino (original label: ABC)
Year: 1968
If there is any one band that typifies the San Francisco music scene of 1968 it would have to be Salvation. Originally known as the New Salvation Army Banned, the group came to the attention of ABC Records after a series of successful gigs at Golden Gate Park. The band was often seen cruising the streets of San Francisco in a converted bus and often found themselves sharing the playbill with acts like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. After recording their debut LP, Salvation, the group did a coast to coast promotional tour "from the Golden Gate to the Village Gate", only to find themselves stranded on the east coast when their management team absconded with the band's advance money. The band's fate was sealed when they, to quote keyboardist Art Resnick, "acted so incredibly wild at the main offices of ABC Records in NYC when going there to meet all the top execs. It was totally insane! Wilder than any rock movie I've ever seen."
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Patterns
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1966
Although it was the third Simon And Garfunkel album, 1966s' Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme was actually the first to contain songs written following the duo's shift from pure folk music to a more electric sound. The album was more adventurous overall, containing such sonic experiments as Silent Night juxtaposed with the 7 O'Clock News and Patterns, which opens with a guitar string being detuned (or maybe tuned) and features an African beat throughout. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme is now generally regarded as Simon's first true classic album.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Go And Say Goodbye
Source: CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield and as 45 RPM B side)
Writer: Stephen Stills
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1966
After failing his audition for the Monkees, Stephen Stills met up with his former bandmate Neil Young, and, along with Richie Furay, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin formed the Buffalo Springfield in 1966. Their first single was a Young tune, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing, sung by Furay. The B side of that record, Stills's Go And Say Goodbye, is one of the first modern country-rock songs ever recorded.
Artist: Animals
Title: What Am I Living For
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Animalization
Writer: Jay/Harris
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
Throughout their existence the original Animals were known for their love of American Blues and R&B music. In fact, hit singles aside, almost everything they recorded was a cover of an R&B hit. Among the covers on their 1966 LP Animalism (released in the US as Animalization) was What Am I Living For, originally recorded by the legendary Chuck Willis. The original version was released shortly after Willis's death from cancer in 1958, and is considered a classic. The Animals, thanks in large part to their obvious respect and admiration for the song, actually managed to improve on the original (as was often the case with their cover songs).
Artist: Kak
Title: HCO 97658
Source: British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released on LP: Kak)
Writer(s): Yoder/Grelecki/Damrell/Patten/Lockheed)
Label: Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year: 1969
Some songs sort of float around in a songwriter's head for months, or even years, before taking their final form. Others are created spontaneously in the recording studio. The opening track on the 1969 album Kak is an example of the latter. Although the title of the tune sounds like some sort of coded message (producer and co-writer Gary Grelecki is the son of one of the founding members of the CIA, after all) HCO 97658 was actually the studio session ID number of the track itself.
Artist: Alice Cooper
Title: Living
Source: European import CD: Pretties For You
Writer(s): Cooper/Bixton/Bruce/Dunaway/Smith
Label: Bizarre/Straight/Rhino
Year: 1969
Alice Cooper's debut LP, Pretties For You, was an odd mixture of avant-garde psychedelia and a rudimentary form of the hard rock they would later become known for. Living is perhaps the best example of the latter.
Artist: Alice Cooper
Title: Dead Babies/Killer
Source: LP: Killer
Writer(s): Cooper/Smith/Buxon/Bruce/Dunaway
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1971
Alice Cooper (the band) raised a lot of eyebrows when they released a song called Dead Babies on their 1971 Killer album. Because of the band's reputation for outrageousness, a lot of people assumed that the song must be about some sort of imaginary deviant behavior. Unfortunately, the truth is far worse. Dead Babies, in fact, is about a very real form of behavior that is all too common in the modern world: child neglect, and its tragic consequences. The song was a highlight of the band's Killer and School's Out tours, where it was followed immediately (as it is on the LP itself) by the song Killer, which featured the most talked-about part of the band's stage show, in which frontman Alice Cooper (nee Vince Furnier) was led up to and hung on a gallows to close out the band's performance.
Artist: Small Faces
Title: Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Long Agos And Worlds Apart
Source: CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane/McLagan
Label: Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1968
London's East End has always had a bit of an unsavory reputation, and in addition was the hardest hit area when the city was bombed during World War II. It was natural, then, that the East End's own local pop stars were just a bit rowdier than some of their counterparts. The most popular band to emerge from the area was the Small Faces, so named because every member of the group was vertically challenged. The group first hit the UK top 40 charts in 1966, and scored a huge international hit the following year with Itchycoo Park. Although they never equalled the success of that record with subsequent releases outside of the UK, they did continue to pack in the crowds locally, and generated an audience excitement equal to that of the Beatles themselves in terms of raw screaming fans (in fact, this was a factor in lead vocalist Steve Marriot's decision to leave the band and form Humble Pie in 1969). The Small Faces also continued to crank out hit records in their native land, including the critically acclaimed LP Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. The entire second side was taken up by a suite of songs based on a fairy tale, while the first side showed the band's versatility as songwriters on tunes like Ian McLagan's psychedelic Long Agos And Worlds Apart. On the original LP, Long Agos And Worlds Apart is immediately preceded by a Steve Marriott/Ronnie Lane collaboration called Afterglow, which was issued a year later without the band's permission following their breakup in 1969 as Afterglow Of Your Love, using a radically different mix than the original LP version, which segues directly into Long Agos And Worlds Apart without a break between songs. After the departure of Marriot, the group officially disbanded, eventually hooking up with Ron Wood and Rod Stewart and shortening their name to Faces, as both new members were too tall to carry on with the band's original image.
Artist: Nazz
Title: Open My Eyes
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Nazz)
Writer(s): Todd Rundgren
Label: Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year: 1968
The Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. The Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, as well as many others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a new version would become a solo hit for Rundgren five years later).
Artist: Monks
Title: I Can't Get Over You
Source: Mono German import CD: Black Monk Time (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Burger/Clark/Day/Johnson/Shaw
Label: Repertoire (original label Polydor)
Year: 1966
The Monks were formed in Germany by five American GIs stationed in Frankfurt. Right from the start, the Monks had a look and sound that was unlike anything that had come before. With military haircuts supplemented by shaved patches at the top and wearing black gowns with a hangman's noose for a necktie, the Monks spat out angry tunes centered on the dark side of human nature. Although they were enough of a curiosity to attract live audiences, their records did not sell particularly well, and for their second single, a song called I Can't Get Over You, they toned it down a touch, although if you listen closely to the vocals you can tell they weren't particularly happy about doing so.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice
Source: Mono British import CD: The Fraternity Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Big Beat (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1966
Mouse (Ronnie Weiss) was, for a time, the most popular guy in Tyler, Texas, at least among the local youth. His band, Mouse and the traps, had a series of regional hits that garnered airplay at stations all across the state (and a rather large state at that). Although Mouse's first big hit, A Public Execution, had a strong Dylan feel to it, the band's 1966 followup single Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice, has come to be considered a garage-rock classic.
Artist: Zakary Thaks
Title: Bad Girl
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Gerniottis/Stinson/Moore/Gregory/Lopez
Label: Rhino (originally labels: J-Beck and Mercury)
Year: 1966
Carl Becker, owner of the J-Beck and Cee Bee record labels in Corpus Christie, Texas, discovered the Zakary Thaks blowing away the competition in early 1966 at a battle of the bands at a local hangout known as the Carousel Club. At the time the lead vocalist, Chris Gerniottis, was all of fifteen years old; in fact, the oldest member of the band was only seventeen. Becker took the band into the studio in nearby McAllen to cut a pair of sides for J-Beck: a hot cover of the Kinks' I Need You and the Thaks' own composition, Bad Girl. Bad Girl became a big enough hit around South Texas to get picked up by Mercury for national distribution, becoming the first of half a dozen singles for the band.
Artist: Tom Northcott
Title: Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden
Source: Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Tom Northcott
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Canadian folk singer Tom Northcott temporarily relocated to Los Angeles to record a handful of singles for Warner Brothers Records staff producer Lenny Waronker. Among those was his self-penned B side, Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden, which appeared in 1967.
Artist: Fantastic Zoo
Title: Light Show
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Cameron/Karl
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1967
The Fantastic Zoo had its origins in Denver, Colorado, with a band called the Fogcutters. When the group disbanded in 1966, main members Don Cameron and Erik Karl relocated to Los Angeles and reformed the group with new members. After signing a deal with local label Double Shot (which had a major hit on the charts at the time with Count Five's Psychotic Reaction), the group rechristened itself Fantastic Zoo, releasing their first single that fall. Early in 1967 the band released their second and final single, Light Show. The song did not get much airplay at the time, but has since become somewhat of a cult favorite.
Artist: Spencer Davis Group
Title: I'm A Man
Source: Mono LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Miller
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer, while his brother Steve went on to co-found the band Traffic. Then Blind Faith. Then Traffic again. And then a successful solo career. Meanwhile, the Spencer Davis Group continued on for several years with a series of replacement vocalists, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes with the Winwoods.
Artist: Purple Gang
Title: Granny Takes A Trip
Source: British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Purple Gang Strikes)
Writer(s): Bowyer/Beard
Label: Uncut (original label: Transatlantic, LP released in US on Sire label)
Year: 1967
Formed in the Manchester, England area as the Young Contemporaries Jug Band, The Purple Gang took on their new identity when they relocated to London and became part of the psychedelic scene there. Their first single, Granny Takes A Trip, was banned by the BBC for 1) having the word "trip" in the song title (even though it was named for an actual gift shop that had nothing to do with acid) and 2) the lead singer's nickname was Lucifer. Sounds pretty circumstantial to me, but that was the BBC in 1967, the inaugural year of BBC-1, and I suppose they were still a bit on the timid side at that point in time.
Artist: Parade
Title: She Sleeps Alone
Source: LP: Nuggets-Vol 4: Pop, Part Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Roberds/MacLeod/Capp
Label: Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year: 1967
Although most 1967 45s were only released in mono, A&M sent out a few stereo promo pressings of their pop singles to FM radio stations, which explains why the Parade's She Sleeps Alone is heard here in glorious stereo. The group itself is a classic example of Hollywood insiders getting together to make a record or two (or in this case about half a dozen), then going their separate ways. The official group consisted of Jerry Riopelle, who played keyboards on several Phil Spector-produced records; Murray MacLeod, an actor who appeared on Hawaii Five-O and Kung Fu; and Allen "Smokey" Roberds, another actor. The actual instruments, however, were played by a group of Los Angeles studio musicians known unofficially as the Wrecking Crew, which included drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Carol Kaye and saxophonist Steve Douglas. Subsequent singles by the group, including 1968's She Sleeps Alone included yet another actor, Stuart Margolin, who would go on to be a cast member of the Rockford Files.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Little Girl
Source: LP: Your Saving Grace
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
The fourth Steve Miller Band album, Your Saving Grace, was the lowest charting of the band's first five albums (generally considered their "psychedelic" period). Despite this lack of chart success, Your Saving Grace managed to provide four solid tracks, including Little Girl, for the band's 1972 Anthology album, released while Miller was recovering from a broken neck suffered in a 1971 car accident. Miller would reboot the band with the 1973 album The Joker, which touched off a string of chart toppers for the group.
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