https://exchange.prx.org/p/536146
From time to time in the early 1970s, an FM rock jock would show up for his or her airshift in a, let us say, not fully prepared state. This week we present a typical result of such a situation. The hour begins, appropriately, with a song reflecting the jock's state of mind and quickly segues into a series of unrelated, but still pretty cool tunes from the likes of Black Oak Arkansas, Grand Funk and Badfinger. After a couple more album tracks from 1972 the jock decides it's time for some blues, and finds a previously unreleased track on a Duane Allman anthology album that features him providing counterpoint to his friend Eric Clapton on an old standard. The blues-rock continues for several more tunes, including one from a totally unexpected source (and a B side at that) before the jock comes up with a devilishly clever way to finish out the hour.
Artist: Shel Silverstein
Title: I Was Stoned And I Missed It
Source: LP: Freakin' At The Freaker's Ball
Writer(s): Shel Silverstein
Label: Columbia
Year: 1972
Shel Silverstein was a multi-talented guy who found success in several different fields in his nearly 69 years. He began teaching himself to draw at age seven by tracing L'il Abner comic strips from the local Chicago newspaper, and got his own first drawing published in the student newspaper at Roosevelt University in the late 1940s. He joined the army in 1949 and saw several of his cartoons published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes, a newspaper published for US military personnel on overseas assignments. In 1955 a compilation of those strips entitled Take Ten was published in book form. After leaving the military he began submitting cartoons to various magazines, including Look and Sports Illustrated. In 1957 he landed a job with Playboy magazine creating an illustrated travel journal from various locations across the globe. In 1964 he wrote and illustrated The Giving Tree, one of the most celebrated children's books ever published. In the 1960s Silverstein established himself as a singer and songwriter as well. His most famous tune from the decade was A Boy Named Sue, which was covered by Johnny Cash in 1969. In 1972 he recorded what was probably his best-known album, Freakin' At The Freaker's Ball, which featured tunes like I Was Stoned And I Missed It, giving him street cred with various counter-cultural types. He continued to write songs (many of which were recorded by Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show), books (including A Light In The Attic), poems, short stories and over 100 one-act plays until his death from a heart attack in 1999. If there was ever anyone deserving the title "Renaissance man" it was Shel Silverstein.
Artist: Black Oak Arkansas
Title: Jim Dandy
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Lincoln Chase
Label: Atco
Year: 1973
My first exposure to Black Oak Arkansas was at a Grand Funk Railroad concert in August of 1971. I had literally arrived on the campus of Southwestern University in Weatherford Oklahoma the night before the concert, having hitchhiked there from New Mexico. On arrival I soon learned that my bandmates DeWayne and Mike, whose dorm room I was crashing in, already had tickets for the concert in Norman, Oklahoma. They invited me to come along, assuring me that I could easily score tickets at the gate. As it turns out they were right, but by the time we got there the only tickets left were bleacher seats. Of course, the rest of the group that made the drive to Norman all had floor tickets, so I ended up sitting by myself up in the nosebleed section for the opening act, a group I had never heard of called Black Oak Arkansas. I decided that, for the next 45 minutes or so, I would be a reviewer, and started analyzing this new band one song at a time. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed at first, but found each successive song to be a little bit better than the one before it. By the time the band had finished their set, I was electrified (literally, since the last song was called The Day Electricity Came To Arkansas). I eventually bought a copy of the album Black Oak Arkansas, and was pleased to discover that the songs were in the exact same order on the LP as I had first heard them in concert. Over the years I continued to follow the band's progress, and was happy to hear, in 1973, their remake of an old LaVerne Baker song, Jim Dandy, on the local AM radio station. In fact, I went out and bought a copy of the 45 RPM single (which has since been replaced more than once with less scratchy copies).
Artist: Grand Funk (Railroad)
Title: Ain't Got Nobody
Source: LP: We're An American Band
Writer(s): Farner/Brewer
Label: Capitol
Year: 1973
Grand Funk Railroad's seventh album, We're An American Band, was a huge departure from the group's previous efforts. For starters, the band shortened its name (temporarily, as it turned out) to Grand Funk. They also brought in a new producer, Todd Rundgren, which changed their overall sound considerably. Previously, nearly every non-cover song recorded by GFR had been written solely by guitarist Mark Farner, who also provided the lead vocals. On We're An American Band, however, drummer Don Brewer wrote of co-wrote five of the album's eight songs, including Ain't Got Nobody. This trend would continue for the remainder of the band's existence with Farner (who sings on Ain't Got Nobody) and Brewer splitting lead vocal duties roughly equally.
Artist: Badfinger
Title: No Matter What
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Pete Ham
Label: Apple
Year: 1970
Aside from the Beatles, the band most closely associated with Apple Records was Badfinger. Originally known as the Iveys, Badfinger was the first band signed to Apple and remained with the label throughout its existence. Led by Pete Ham, Badfinger had a string of successful singles for the label, including No Matter What, a Ham composition from the band's second LP, No Dice. The song, released in 1970, is considered by many to be the earliest example of what would come to be known as power pop later in the decade.
Artist: Steely Dan
Title: Fire In The Hole
Source: CD: Can't Buy A Thrill
Writer(s): Becker/Fagen
Label: MCA (original label: ABC)
Year: 1972
Donald Fagen's unique piano style is on display on Fire In The Hole, a track from the first Steely Dan album, Can't Buy A Thrill. The tune also appeared as the B side of Steely Dan's second single (and first hit), Do It Again.
Artist: Graham Nash/David Crosby
Title: Strangers Room
Source: British import LP: Graham Nash David Crosby
Writer(s): Graham Nash
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1972
In fall of 1971, after each releasing successful solo albums following the first breakup of Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, Graham Nash and David Crosby embarked on a series of concerts together, performing several new songs that would appear the following year on the album Graham Nash David Crosby. Most of the songs on the album, including the Nash composition Strangers Room, feature backing tracks by the Section, a group of in-demand studio musicians based in southern California consisting of Craig Doerge, Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, and Russell Kunkel.
Artist: Eric Clapton/Duane Allman
Title: Mean Old World
Source: LP: An Anthology
Writer(s): Walter Jacobs
Label: Capricorn
Year: Recorded 1970, released 1972
Not long before the second Allman Brothers Band album, Idlewild South, was released, producer Tom Dowd took Eric Clapton and some of his Derek & the Dominos bandmates to see the Allman Brothers perform live. Of course they all met backstage after the gig, and Clapton and lead guitarist Duane Allman ended up staying up until about 5 in the morning, trading guitar licks and stories. Clapton, who had just started work on the LP Layla And Assorted Love Songs, asked Allman if he would be interested in playing on the album. Allman said yes, and the result was one of the most legendary rock albums ever made. During the sessions for the album, Allman and Clapton would often sit down together and just jam on old blues tunes like Mean Old World, which was originally written and recorded by T-Bone Walker in 1942 and then extensively rewritten ten years later by Little Walter, whose version Allman and Clapton were both familiar with. In this particular case, on Oct. 2, 1970, the tape was rolling, and the recording ended up being released two years later on the posthumous Duane Allman double-LP An Anthology.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Leland Mississippi Blues
Source: German import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s): Johnny Winter
Label: Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Leland, Mississippi native John Dawson Winter Jr. was a guitarist/saxophonist who played and sang at churches, weddings and various other gatherings before moving to Beaumont, Texas, where he sired two albino sons, Johnny and Edgar. The two made their first professional appearance on a local children's TV show, with Johnny playing ukelele. At age 15, Johnny Winter entered a recording studio for the first time with his band Johnny And The Jammers, recording a pair of self-penned tunes for Houston's Dart label in 1960. He recorded several more singles over the next few years for a variety of labels, including MGM and Atlantic, but did not record his first LP until 1968 when he and his band, which included future Double Trouble member Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums, recorded The Progressive Blues Experiment for the Austin-based Sonobeat label in 1968. The album caught on so quickly that is was reissued nationally on the Imperial label the same year. That December he accepted an invitation from Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper to join them for an onstage jam as the Fillmore East. Reps from Columbia Records were present at the performance, and less than a week later Winter had signed with the label for a record $600,000. His first album for Columbia was made up mostly of cover songs. One of the three original tunes on the album was Leland Mississippi Blues, an obvious reference to his father's birthplace.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Parachute Woman
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The last Rolling Stones album to feature the band's original lineup was Beggar's Banquet, released in 1968. The album itself was a conscious effort on the part of the group to get back to their roots after the psychedelic excesses of Their Satanic Majesties Request. The band's founder, Brian Jones, was fast deteriorating at the time and his contributions to the album are minimal compared to the band's earlier efforts. As a result, Keith Richards was responsible for most of the guitar work on Beggar's Banquet, including both lead and rhythm parts on Parachute Woman.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: I Can't Quit You/How Many More Times
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s): Dixon/Page/Jones/Bonham/Burnett
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
Led Zeppelin has come under fire for occassionally "borrowing" lyrics and even guitar riffs from old blues songs (never mind the fact that such "borrowing" was a common practice among the old bluesmen themselves) but, at least in the case of the first Zeppelin album, full songwriting credit was given to Willie Dixon for a pair of songs, one of which was I Can't Quit You. Still, it can't be denied that messrs. Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones completely revamped the blues classic into something uniquely their own. Like many early Led Zeppelin songs, How Many More Times was originally credited to the band members (except, for contractual reasons, singer Robert Plant). More recent releases of the song, however, list Chester Burnett (Howlin' Wolf) as a co-writer, despite the fact that he and the members of Led Zeppelin had never met. This is because of the similarity, especially in the lyrics, to a 1951 Howlin' Wolf record called How Many More Years. The band tried to trick radio programmers into playing the eight and a half minute song by listing it on the album cover as being three minutes and thirty seconds long. I doubt anyone was fooled.
Artist: Bee Gees
Title: On Time
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Maurice Gibb
Label: Atco
Year: 1972
I've always thought that Maurice Gibb wrote (and usually sang) on songs that were just a touch cooler than those by his brothers Barry and Robin. Case in point: On Time, a non-album track released as the B side of My World in 1972. The song is representative of what he called his "swamp period" and features Maurice Gibb on all vocals and acoustic lead guitar, accompanied by Alan Kendall on electric lead guitar and Geoff Bridgford on drums. Although there are strings arranged by Bill Shepherd that come in toward the end of the song, they surprisingly don't ruin it.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Friend Of The Devil
Source: CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: American Beauty)
Writer(s): Garcia/Dawson/Hunter
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
The Grateful Dead spent three years and four albums trying to capture the energy of their live performances on vinyl. Having finally succeeded with the 1969 Live Dead album the group began to focus more on their songwriting capabilities. The result was two outstanding studio albums, both released in 1970: Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. Of the two, American Beauty is made up almost entirely of songs played on acoustic instruments, including pedal steel guitar, which was played by Jerry Garcia. One of the best-known tracks on American Beauty is Friend Of The Devil, which lyricist Robert Hunter referred to as "the closest we've come to what may be a classic song."
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: I'd Rather Be The Devil
Source: LP: Live At Topanga Corral
Writer(s): James/Johnson
Label: Pickwick (original label: Wand)
Year: 1971
The first thing you need to know about the album Live At Topanga Corral is that, although live, it was actually recorded at the Kaleidoscope, a converted stage theater in Hollywood. The reason for this bit of deception stems from the fact that the members of Canned Heat wanted to release a live album, but they had been under contract to Liberty Records since 1967, and Liberty, having released a live Canned Heat album the previous year, was not ready to put out another one so soon. So the band's manager, Skip Taylor, came up with the idea of telling the folks at Liberty that the live performance they wanted to release had actually been recorded at the Topanga Corral before Canned Heat had signed their contract with Liberty, thus allowing them to sell the tapes to a different label. The album, made up entirely of blues covers such as I'd Rather Be The Devil (miscredited to A Leigh but actually the work of Robert Johnson and Elmore James), came out on the Wand label in 1971 and has been reissued in various configurations several times since then.
Artist: James Gang
Title: The Devil Is Singing Our Song
Source: CD: Bang
Writer(s): Bolin/Tesar
Label: Atco
Year: 1973
The James Gang, following the departure of guitarist/vocalist Joe Walsh, could have just called it quits right then and there. Instead, however, bassist Dale Peters and drummer Jim Fox chose to instead add two new members, Canadians Roy Kenner (vocals) and Dominic Troiano (guitar), and carry on in the same vein as they had been. After a pair of albums that failed to catch on, however, Troiano accepted an offer to replace Randy Bachman in the Guess Who. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the James Gang, however, as the addition of former Zephyr guitarist Tommy Bolin revitalized the band for a time. Bolin had a hand in writing much of the material on the band's next LP, James Gang Bang, including The Devil Is Singing Our Song. With a strong signature riff and a gritty guitar solo, the song has a feel to it that presages Bolin's later solo work on his albums Private Eyes and Teaser.
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