https://exchange.prx.org/p/541159
This week we are presenting, in its entirety, the first side of the landmark Moody Blues album In Search Of The Lost Chord, along with artists' sets from the Doors and both incarnations of the Animals. That still leaves plenty of room for a variety of singles, B sides and album tracks, including a very strange group from Greeley, Colorado making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut and a Rolling Stones "answer" song to a tune on the same album. It all gets underway with a song not heard on the show since 2012...
Artist: Buckinghams
Title: Kind Of A Drag
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Jim Holvay
Label: USA
Year: 1967
The Buckinghams were one of the first rock bands with a horn section to come out of the Chicago area in the late 1960s. The song Kind Of A Drag, released in late 1966 on the local USA label, went national in early 1967, hitting the number one spot in February and finishing among the year's top 10 songs. The Buckinghams soon came to the attention of producer James William Guercio, who got them a contract with Columbia that resulted in several more hit singles, although no more number ones. Guercio's interest in Chicago bands with horn sections would eventually lead him to produce both Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Chicago Transit Authority, who would go on to become one of the most successful groups in rock history after shortening their name to Chicago.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Oh Yeah
Source: LP: Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Elias McDaniel
Label: Elektra (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The original British blues bands like the Yardbirds made no secret of the fact that they had created their own version of a music that had come from Chicago. The Shadows Of Knight, on the other hand, were a Chicago band that created their own version of the British blues, bringing the whole thing full circle. After taking their version of Van Morrison's Gloria into the top 10 early in 1966, the Shadows (which had added "of Knight" to their name just prior to releasing Gloria) decided to follow it up with an updated version of Bo Diddley's Oh Yeah. Although the song did not have a lot of national top 40 success, it did help establish the Shadows' reputation as one of the premier garage-punk bands.
Artist: Monks
Title: We Do Wie Du
Source: German import CD: Black Monk Time
Writer(s): Burger/Spangler/Havlicek/Johnston/Shaw
Label: Repertoire (original label: Polydor International)
Year: 1966
The Monks were ahead of their time. In fact they were so far ahead of their time that only in the next century did people start to realize just how powerful the music on their first and only LP actually was. Released in West Germany in 1966, Black Monk Time both delighted and confused record buyers with songs like We Do Vie Du, which plays on the similarities between the English and German languages. Not bad for a group of five American GIs (probably draftees) who, while stationed at Frankfurt, managed to come up with the idea of a rock band that looked and dressed like Monks (including the shaved patch on the top of each member's head) and sounded like nothing else in the world at that time. Of course, such a phenomenon can't sustain itself indefinitely, and the group disappeared in early 1967, never to be seen or heard from again.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: There She Goes
Source: LP: Midnight Ride
Writer(s): Lindsay/Revere
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Paul Revere And The Raiders hit their creative and commercial peak in 1966. The band, which consisted of Paul Revere on keyboards, Mark Lindsay on lead vocals and saxophone, Drake Levin on lead guitar, Phil "Fang" Volk on bass and Mike "Smitty" Smith on drums, released three albums that year, the middle of which was Midnight Ride. The album was their first to feature mostly original tunes written by various band members; in fact it was the only Raiders album on which every member got a song credit. The shortest track on the album is There She Goes, a fast-paced tune that finishes out side one.
Artist: Love
Title: Signed D.C.
Source: LP: Love Revisited (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
The only acoustic track on the first Love album was Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions due to (you guessed it) heroin addiction.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Vegetables
Source: Mono CD: Good Vibrations-30 Years Of The Beach Boys
Writer(s): Wilson/Parks
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1993
Probably the most celebrated unreleased album in history was the Beach Boys' Smile. When recording for the album began in 1966, it was to be Brian Wilson's crowning achievement, as producer, songwriter and performer. Unfortunately the entire project fell apart in early 1967, due in part to the song Vegetables. Brian Wilson had enlisted the services of Van Dyke Parks as co-writer for the Smile project, with Parks supplying lyrics for Wilson's increasingly sophisticated audio compositions. In February of 1967, however, Wilson announced his intention to make Vegetables the lead single from Smile. This did not sit well with Parks, who considered the song to be one of the weakest entries in the entire Smile project. This led to Parks' withdrawel from the entire Smile project, which in turn prompted Wilson to scrap the entire thing and instead create the much simpler Smiley Smile album. Although Wilson was long rumored to have destroyed the Smile tapes, a version of Vegetables was found in time for inclusion on the band's 30th anniversary box set in 1993.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Eighteen Is Over The Hill
Source: LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Morgan
Label: Reprise
Year: 1968
The contributions of guitarist Ron Morgan to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band are often overlooked, possibly due to the fact that Morgan himself often tried to distance himself from the band. Nonetheless, he did write some of the group's most memorable tunes, including their best-known song, Smell Of Incense (covered by the Texas band Southwest F.O.B.) and the opening track of what is generally considered their best album, A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. Unfortunately, the somewhat senseless lyrics on Eighteen Is Over The Hill (not to mention the title itself) added by Bob Markley detract from what is actually a very tasty piece of music.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Daily Nightly
Source: CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Michael Nesmith
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (Dolenz also sang lead on the tune).
Artist: Cream
Title: SWLABR
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, SWLABR (an anagram for She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow) was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.
Artist: Monocles
Title: The Spider And The Fly
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Strong/Stevens
Label: Elektra (original label: Chicory)
Year: 1967
Once upon a time (1958) there was a B movie called the Fly. The most memorable thing about the film was hearing a tiny high-pitched voice emanating from a human head on a fly's body yelling "help me". This inspired a composer and conductor named Charles H. Sagle to write a song called The Spider And The Fly. Not wanted to destroy his career, he used not one, but two pseudonyms, Bob Strong and Carl Stevens. As Carl Stevens he was leader of Carl Stevens And His Orchestra, which included percussionist Bobby Christian, who in turn led a group called Bobby Christian And His Band that included as a member (you guessed it) Carl Stevens. The Spider And The Fly was released on Mercury's Wing Records subsidiary with the song title preceeded by: WARNING: Do Not Listen to this Record in the Dark or Alone. Nine years later, a band from Greeley, Colorado calling themselves the Monocles recorded an even stranger version of The Spider And The Fly, releasing it on the local Chicory label. A copy of this single has been known to sell for upward of seven-hundred dollars in recent years.
Artist: Doors
Title: Five To One
Source: CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1968
Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".
Artist: Doors
Title: People Are Strange
Source: LP: Strange Days (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first single from the second Doors album was People Are Strange. The song quickly dispelled any notion that the Doors might be one-hit wonders and helped establish the band as an international act as opposed to just another band from L.A. The album itself, Strange Days, was a turning point for Elektra Records as well, as it shifted the label's promotional efforts away from their original rock band, Love, to the Doors, who ironically had been recommended to the label by the members of Love.
Artist: Doors
Title: Peace Frog/Blue Sunday
Source: CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: Morrison Hotel)
Writer(s): Morrison/Kreiger
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1970
The Doors' Peace Frog, in a very basic sense, is actually two separate works of art. The track started off as an instrumental piece by guitarist Robbie Kreiger, recorded while the rest of the band was waiting for Jim Morrison to come up with lyrics for another piece. Not long after the track was recorded, producer Paul Rothchild ran across a poem of Morrison's called Abortion Stories and encouraged him to adapt it to the new instrumental tracks. Peace Frog, which appears on the album Morrison Hotel, leads directly into Blue Sunday, one of many poems/songs written by Morrison for Pamela Courson, his girlfriend/significant other/co-dependent substance abuser/whatever since 1965.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Take My Love
Source: Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer: Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
The Blues Magoos were one of the most visible bands to wear the label "psychedelic". In fact, much of what they are remembered for was what they wore onstage: electric suits. They were also one of the first bands to use the term "psychedelic" on a record, (their 1966 debut album was called Psychedelic Lollipop). Unlike some of their wilder jams such as Tobacco Road and a six-minute version of Gloria, Take My Love, from the band's sophomore effort Electric Comic Book, is essentially garage rock done in the Blues Magoos style. That style was defined by the combination of Farfisa organ and electric guitar, the latter depending heavily on reverb and vibrato bar to create an effect of notes soaring off into space.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Sitting On Top Of The World
Source: CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s): Jacobs/Carter
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
Most versions of Sitting On Top Of The World (such as the one by Cream) have a slow, melancholy tempo that emphasizes the irony of the lyrics. The Grateful Dead version, on the other hand, goes at about twice the speed and has lyrics I have never heard on any other version. I suspect this is because, like most of the songs on the first Dead album, the tune was part of their early live repertoire; a repertoire that called for a lot of upbeat songs to keep the crowd on their feet. Is this Rob "Pig Pen" McKernon on the vocals? I think so, but am open to any corrections you might want to send along (just use the contact button on the hermitradio.com website).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Fire
Source: LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix volume two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Although never released as a single, Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener.
Artist: Marvin Gaye
Title: I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1968 (originally released on LP: In The Groove)
Writer(s): Whitfield/Strong
Label: Rhino (original label: Tamla)
Year: 1968
I Heard It Through The Grapevine was originally recorded by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, but Motown president Barry Gordy, Jr. refused to release the song, saying it needed to be stronger. Producer Norman Whitfield, who had co-written the song with Barrett Strong, then recorded a new version of the tune, this time using Marvin Gaye as vocalist. Gordy rejected this version as well. A third version of the song, with the tempo speeded up, was released by Gladys Knight and the Pips in late 1967 and climbed to the # 2 spot on the charts. Following the success of the Knight single, Gordy allowed Gaye's version to be included on his 1968 LP In The Groove, where it almost immediately began to get airplay. Gordy finally allowed this version to be released as a single in October of 1968, and it quickly climbed to the top of the charts, spending 7 weeks at # 1. In The Groove was retitled I Heard It Through The Grapevine and re-released in 1969, becoming Gaye's best selling album up to that point.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the psychedelic era itself.
Artist: October Country
Title: My Girlfriend Is A Witch
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Michael Lloyd
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
By 1968 the L.A. under-age club scene was winding down, and several now out of work bands were making last (and sometimes only) attempts at garnering hits in the studio. One such band was October Country, whose first release had gotten a fair amount of local airplay, but who had become bogged down trying to come up with lyrics for a follow-up single. Enter Michael Lloyd, recently split from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and looking to become a record producer. Lloyd not only produced and wrote the lyrics for My Girlfriend Is A Witch, he also ended up playing drums on the record as well. Since then Lloyd has gone on to be one of the most successful record producers in L.A. (the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, for instance).
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Title: Can't You See That She's Mine
Source: LP: The Dave Clark Five
Writer(s): Clark/Smith
Label: Epic
Year: 1964
Originally formed in 1958 as a backup band for north London vocalist Stan Saxon, the band that would become the Dave Clark Five split with the singer in 1962, eventually settling on a lineup that included Clark on drums, Mike Smith on lead vocals and keyboards, Rick Huxley on bass, Lenny Davidson on lead guitar, and Dennis Payton on saxophone, harmonica and rhythm guitar. Unlike most other British Invasion bands, the DC5 were self-produced, with Clark himself in control of the band's master tapes. Between 1964 and 1967 the group charted over a dozen top 40 singles in the US & UK, including some that were only released in North America. Although a few of those hits were cover songs, most, such as the US-only 1964 hit Can't You See That She's Mine, were written by Clark and Smith. By the end of 1967 the band's popularity had waned in the US, although they continued to chart top 40 songs in the UK through 1970, when they officially disbanded.
Artist: Moody Blues
Title: In Search Of The Lost Chord (side one)
Source: CD: In Search Of The Lost Chord
Writer(s): Edge/Lodge/Thomas
Label: Deram
Year: 1968
The Moody Blues followed up their groundbreaking album Days Of Future Past with another concept album, this time tackling the subjects of search and discovery from various perspectives. In Search Of The Lost Chord opens with Departure, a poem by percussionist Graeme Edge. Normally Edge's poems were recited by Mike Pinder on the band's albums, but here Edge recites his own work, ending in maniacal laughter as the next track, Ride My See-Saw, fades in. Ride My See-Saw, written by bassist John Lodge, is one of the Moody Blues' most popular songs, and is often used as an encore when the band performs in concert. Dr. Livingstone I Presume is a bit of a change in pace from flautist Ray Thomas, about the famous African explorer. Oddly enough, there is no flute on the track. From there the album proceeds to Lodge's House Of Four Doors, one of the most complex pieces ever recorded by the group. Each verse of the song ends with the opening of a door (the sound effect having been created on a cello), followed by an interlude from a different era of Western music, including Minstrel, Baroque and Classical. The fourth door opens into an entirely different song altogether, Legend Of A Mind, with its signature lines: "Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, he's outside looking in." Although never released as a single, the track got a fair amount of airplay on college and progressive FM radio stations, and has long been considered a cult hit. The album's first side concludes with the final section of House Of Four Doors.
Artist: Glass Family
Title: Lady Blue
Source: LP: Electric Band
Writer(s): Ralph Parrett
Label: Maplewood (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1969
Founded by guitarist/vocalist Jim Callon (aka Ralph Parrett) in the mid-1960s to raise money for "beer and surfboard wax", the Glass Family soon became known as the "perpetual opening act", sharing a playbill with such groups as the Grateful Dead, Vanilla Fudge and the Doors. They finally scored a contract with Warner Brothers in 1967, but after recording an entire album's worth of material with producer Richie Podolor that was rejected by the label, the Glass Family returned to the studio to cut a whole new batch of tracks, including Lady Blue. The reworked LP was released in 1969, but by then psychedelic music was on the way out, and the album did not get a whole lot of airplay.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source: CD: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (originally released on LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Capitol
Year: 1967 (remixed 1999)
The top album of 1967 was the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was also the first US Beatles album to have a song lineup that was identical to the original UK LP. As such, it was also the first Beatles album released in the US to not include any songs that were also released as singles. Nonetheless, several tracks from the LP found their way onto the playlists of both top 40 AM and "underground" FM stations from coast to coast. Among the most popular of these tracks was John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which shows up on just about everyone's list of classic psychedelic tunes. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was one of several songs that were remixed by Abbey Road Studios engineer Peter Cobbin in 1999 for the Yellow Submarine Songtrack.
Artist: Penny Arkade
Title: Swim
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Not The Freeze)
Writer(s): Craig Vincent Smith
Label: Rhino (original label: Sundazed)
Year: Recorded: 1967; released 2009
In 1967 Michael Nesmith, realizing that the Monkees had a limited shelf life, decided to produce a local L.A. band, Penny Arkade, led by singer/songwriter Craig Vincent Smith. Nesmith already had several production credits to his name with the Monkees, including a recording of Smith's Salesman on their 4th LP. Swim, like Salesman, has a touch of country about it; indeed, Nesmith himself was one of the earliest proponents of what would come to be called country-rock. In 1967, however, country-rock was still at least a year away and Nesmith was unable to find a label willing to release the record.
Artist: Who
Title: I Can't Reach You
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Track/Polydor (original US label: Decca)
Year: 1967
One day during my freshman year of high school my friend Bill invited a bunch of us over to his place to listen to the new console stereo his family had bought recently. Like most console stereos, this one had a wooden top that could be lifted up to operate the turntable and radio, then closed to make it look more like a piece of furniture. When we arrived there was already music playing on the stereo, and Bill soon had us convinced that this new stereo was somehow picking up the British pirate radio station Radio London. This was pretty amazing since we were in Weisbaden, Germany, several hundred miles from England or its coastal waters that Radio London broadcast from. Even more amazing was the fact that the broadcast itself seemed to be in stereo, and Radio London was an AM station. Yet there it was, coming in more clearly than the much closer Radio Luxembourg, the powerhouse station that we listened to every evening, when they broadcast in a British top 40 format. Although a couple of us were a bit suspicious about what was going on, even we skeptics were convinced when we heard jingles, stingers, and even commercials for stuff like the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course interspersed with songs we had never heard, such as I Can't Reach You, that were every bit as good as any song being played on Radio Luxembourg. Well, as it turned out, we were indeed being hoaxed by Bill and his older brother, who had put on his brand new copy of The Who Sell Out when he saw us approaching the apartment building they lived in. I eventually picked up a copy of the album for myself, and still consider it my all-time favorite Who album.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Winds Of Change
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
The "new" Animals first album was Winds of Change, an ambitious effort that gave writing credit to all five band members for all the tracks on the album (with the exception of a cover version of the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black). The opening track is basically Eric Burdon paying tribute to all his musical heroes, and it's quite an impressive list, including jazz and blues greats as well as some of the most important names in the annals of rock and roll.
Artist: Animals
Title: I'm Crying
Source: Mono LP: The Animals On Tour (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Price/Burdon
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1964
Like most groups in the early 1960s, the Animals started their studio career by recording a mixture of songs provided to their producer by professional songwriters and covers of tunes previously recorded by other artists. Their first self-penned single was I'm Crying, a tune by vocalist Eric Burdon and organist Alan Price that was released in September of 1964. The song made the top 10 in Canada and the UK, but stalled out in the lower reaches of the top 40 in the US, falling far short of their previous international hit, House Of The Rising Sun. Producer Mickie Most decided from then on that songs written by the band itself would only be released as album tracks and B sides, a policy that stayed in effect until the Animals changed producers in 1966.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Good Times
Source: Mono British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label (also M-G-M but run by different people) decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and ended up becoming a hit there as well.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Now I've Got A Witness
Source: Mono LP: The Rolling Stones
Writer(s): Nanker Phelge
Label: London
Year: 1964
The first Rolling Stones album was made up almost entirely of covers songs. One of those covers was of the Marvin Gaye tune Can I Get A Witness. The band did, however include an instrumental track written by the entire band (and credited to the fictional Nanker Phelge), facetiously titled Now I've Got A Witness. The track features harmonica playing by the band's then-leader Brian Jones.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Till The End Of The Day
Source: LP: The Kink Kontroversy
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
Although the Kinks had, by 1965, largely moved beyond their hard-rocking roots into more melodic territory, there were a few exceptions. The most notable of these was Till The End Of The Day, which was released as a single toward the end of the year. Although it was not as big a hit as, say, You Really Got Me, it did prove that the band could still rock out when it wanted to.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
The Music Machine was one of the most sophisticated bands to appear on the L.A. club scene in 1966, yet their only major hit, Talk Talk, was deceptively simple and straightforward punk-rock, and still holds up as two of the most intense minutes of rock music ever to crack the top 40 charts.
Artist: Vagrants
Title: Respect
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Otis Redding
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Sounding a lot like the Rascals, the Vagrants were a popular Long Island band led by singer Peter Sabatino and best remembered for being the group that had guitarist Leslie Weinstein in it. Weinstein would change his last name to West and record a solo album called Mountain before forming the band of the same name. This version of Respect is fairly faithful to the original Otis Redding version. Unfortunately for the Vagrants, Aretha Franklin would release her radically rearranged version of the song just a few weeks after the Vagrants, relegating their version of the tune (and the Vagrants themselves) to footnote status.
