https://exchange.prx.org/p/581397
We're in the midst of summer vacation season here in North America, and it seems like a good time to bring back several tunes that haven't been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era since last year, along with a few that have been on the shelf even longer and even a handful that have never been played on the show at all, like this first one...
Artist: Animals
Title: Boom Boom
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): John Lee Hooker
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1964
One of the highlights of the Animals' first UK album was their energetic rendition of John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom. The performance was so strong, in fact, that M-G-M chose to release the song as a single in early 1965. This was followed by a US-only album called The Animals On Tour that featured the tune as its opening track. Despite the title, The Animals On Tour was not a live album. Rather, it was a collection of blues and R&B cover songs, many of which were learned from records acquired by the band members at local record stores during their 1964 US tour (hence the album title).
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Just Like Me (stereo remix)
Source: CD: The Legend Of Paul Revere (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dey/Brown
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Just Like Me was the first top 10 single from Paul Revere And The Raiders, a band that deserves much more credit than they are generally given. The group started in the early part of the decade in Boise, Idaho, when Revere (his real name) hooked up with saxophonist Mark Lindsay. Like most bands at the time, the Raiders' repertoire consisted mostly of instrumentals, as PA systems were a luxury that required more space than was generally allotted to a small town band. It wasn't long before the Raiders relocated to Portland, Oregon, where they became a popular attraction at various clubs. After a hiatus caused by Revere's stint in the military, the band resumed its place as one of the founding bands of the Portland music scene. They soon made their first visit to a recording studio, recording Richard Berry's Louie Louie at around the same time as another popular Portland band, the Kingsmen. The Kingsmen's version ended up being a huge national hit while the popularity of the Raiders' version was mostly restricted to the West Coast, thanks in large part to the active lack of support from Columbia Records, whose head of Artists and Repertoire (A&R), Mitch Miller, was an outspoken critic of rock 'n' roll. Undeterred, the band continued to grow in popularity, recording another single in 1964 (Like Long Hair) and going on tour. It was while playing in Hawaii that the band was noticed by none other than Dick Clark, who hired them to be the house band on his new afternoon TV show, Where The Action Is. Under the leadership of Mitch Miller Columbia Records had done their best to ignore the existence of rock 'n' roll (an effort that was somewhat undermined by one of their most popular artists, Bob Dylan, in 1965, when he went electric). Columbia had, however, a more open-minded West Coast division that included producer Terry Melcher, son of singer Doris Day and co-producer of the Rip Chords' hot rod hit Hey Little Cobra. With the Raiders now being seen daily on a national TV show, the label assigned Melcher to produce the band's records. It was a partnership that would lead to a string of hits, starting with Steppin' Out in 1965. The next record, Just Like Me, was the first of a string of top 10 singles that would last until early 1967, when rapidly changing public tastes made the band seem antiquated compared to up and coming groups like Jefferson Airplane. Just Like Me, despite some rather cheesy lyrics, still holds up well after all these years. Much of the credit for that has to go to Drake Levin, whose innovative double-tracked guitar solo rocked out harder than anything else on top 40 radio at the time (with the possible exception of a couple of well-known Kinks songs).
Artist: Seeds
Title: No Escape
Source: LP: The Seeds
Writer(s): Saxon/Savage/Lawrence
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
Following up on their 1965 Los Angeles area hit Can't Seem To Make You Mine, the Seeds released their self-titled debut LP the following year. The album contained what would be the band's biggest (and only national) hit, Pushin' Too Hard, as well as several other tracks such as No Escape that can be considered either as stylistic consistent or blatantly imitative of the big hit record. As Pushin' Too Hard was not yet a well-known song when the album was released, I tend to lean more toward the first interpretation.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. The officer declined the invitation.
Artist: Tages
Title: I Read You Like An Open Book
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Lagerberg/Moar/Henricksson
Label: Rhino (original US label: Verve)
Year: 1968
Formed in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1963 as the Tages Skifflegroup while the members were still in school, the Tages got their big break when they placed first in Gothenburg's West Coast Beatles Competition. The prize was a record contract with Sweden's Platina label, and by the end of the year they had released their first single, Sleep Little Girl. The song and the band were instant hits and by early 1965 the Tages, still in their teens, were showing up on TV programs and magazine covers throughout Sweden. By 1966 their records were being released in Norway, Finland, Germany, France and the UK. In 1967 they switched to the Parlophone label, which added Denmark to the list of countries where Tages singles were being released. Finally, in 1968, their lone US single, I Read You Like An Open Book, was released, but there was a problem: The group's longtime producer Anders Henricksson, had decided to use bassist Göran Lagerberg as lead vocalist on the song, which prompted the band's frontman, Tommy Blom, to quit the band, and that was the end of the Tages.
Artist: Love
Title: Old Man
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s): MacLean/Breadcrust
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the band. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, appears later on the same side of the album.
rtist: Love
Title: Stephanie Knows Who
Source: German import CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
Following up on a strong, if not spectacular debut LP followed by a national hit record (7&7 Is), Love went into the studio with two new members to record their second album, Da Capo. By this point Love had established itself as the most popular band on the Sunset Strip, and the music on Da Capo is a fair representation of what the group was doing onstage (including the 17 minute Revelation, which takes up the entire second side of the LP). The opening track, Stephanie Knows Who, is hard proto-punk, showcasing the band's tightness with abrupt changes in tempo throughout the song. The tune, originally released as a single in October of 1966 but quickly withdrawn in favor of She Comes In Colors, also features the harpsichord playing of "Snoopy" Pfisterer, who switched over from drums to keyboards for the LP, making way for Michael Stewart, who stayed with the band for their next LP, Forever Changes.
Artist: Love
Title: Laughing Stock
Source: CD: Forever Changes (bonus track) (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1968
The last record by the classic Love lineup was a single released in June of 1968. While Your Mind And We Belong Together is one of the band's most overlooked and underrated tracks, the B side of that single comes across as a sardonic epitaph for the group, with it's intro reminiscent of one of their best tunes, Alone Again Or and sly references to their first hit, My Little Red Book. Lee would soon fire the entire band (except Bryan McLean, who left on his own), reemerging with an entirely new lineup the following year, but he was never able to duplicate the magic of the original Love.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Season Of The Witch
Source: Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic/Sundazed
Year: 1966
At nearly five minutes in length, Season Of The Witch is the longest track on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album, which at least in part explains why it was never released as a single. Nonetheless, the tune is among Donovan's best-known songs, and has been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the Sunshine Superman album was not released in the UK until 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums.
Artist: Shadows Of Knight
Title: Bad Little Woman
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: Back Door Men and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tinsley/Catling/Demick/Armstrong/Rosbotham
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
For the opening track of the second LP, Back Door Men, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight cranked up the volume on a cover of a little-known tune called Bad Little Woman that had originally been recorded by a Northern Irish band called the Wheels. And when I say cranked up the volume I mean that literally, as the overall level of the recording jumps several decibels following the first verse. As the mono single version of the song does the exact same thing I'm going to assume it was done during the recording process itself.
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: 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: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Blues From An Airplane
Source: CD: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Balin/Spence
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: 1966
Blues From An Airplane was the opening song on the first Jefferson Airplane album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. Although never released as a single, it was picked by the group to open their first anthology album, The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane, as well. The song is one of two tunes on Takes Off co-written by lead vocalist Marty Balin and drummer Skip Spence, who would soon leave the Airplane to co-found Moby Grape.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Strawberry Fields Forever
Source: LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
Year: 1967
The first song recorded for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, Strawberry Fields Forever was instead issued as a single (along with Penny Lane) a few months before the album came out. The song went into the top 10, but was not released on an album until December of 1967, when it was included on the US version of Magical Mystery Tour.
Artist: Traffic
Title: No Time To Live
Source: CD: Traffic
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year: 1968
Although half of the songs on Traffic's self-titled second LP were written by Dave Mason, the guitarist/vocalist had very little to do with the remaining tracks. He did, however, play Hammond organ on the haunting No Time To Live. The song also features Steve Winwood on lead vocals, piano and bass, Chris Wood on soprano saxophone and Jim Capaldi on drums.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Dreams
Source: CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: The Allman Brothers Band)
Writer(s): Gregg Allman
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Although it had originally been one of the first tracks recorded by the Allman Brothers Band at Capricorn Studios in Macon, Georgia, the final take of Gregg Allman's Dreams was the last song on the band's debut LP to be committed to tape. The problem with the previous takes was that bandleader Duane Allman was unhappy with his own guitar solo on the song. Finally, after the band finished its regular session on August 12, 1969, he asked everyone to turn off all the lights in the studio. He then tried something he hadn't done on previous takes. Using his recently adopted slide guitar technique, Duane recorded a new overdubbed solo that literally brought the entire band to tears. "It was unbelievable," recalled drummer Butch Trucks. "It was just magic. It’s always been that the greatest music we played was from out of nowhere, that it wasn’t practiced, planned, or discussed."
Artist: Standells
Title: Have You Ever Spent The Night In Jail
Source: CD: The Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Why Pick On Me/Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells second studio album for Ed Cobb's Green Grass Productions pretty much followed the same pattern as the first, with a mixture of band originals, cover songs and tunes written by Cobb himself, which included the two title track singles and a novelty piece called Have You Ever Spent The Night In Jail that closes out the album itself. Could this be another autobiographical song? Probably.
Artist: Syndicate Of Sound
Title: Little Girl
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Baskin/Gonzalez
Label: 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: Syndicate Of Sound
Title: Rumors
Source: LP: Little Girl
Writer(s): John Sharkey
Label: Bell
Year: 1966
The Syndicate Of Sound for formed in San Jose, California in 1964, when two members of a group called Lenny Lee And The Nightmen joined up with another local group called the Pharaohs. Not long after the new band was formed, the Texas band Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs released the song Wooly Bully, prompting San Jose's Pharaohs to change their name to the Syndicate Of Sound. After winning a battle of the bands that featured over 100 groups in 1965 they were awarded a contract with Del-Fi Records (the label that Richie Valens had recorded for) to record a single called Prepare For Love. The single went nowhere, but the following year they came up with Little Girl, releasing it on the local Hush label. After getting extensive airplay on San Jose radio station KLIV, Little Girl was picked up for national release on the Bell label, making it to the #8 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in June of 1966. This led to an album released in July of 1966 that included the song Rumors, written by the band's keyboardist, John Sharkey. In August Rumors was released as a followup single to Little Girl, peaking at #55.
Artist: Syndicate Of Sound
Title: You
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): John Sharkey
Label: Bell
Year: 1966
After the song Prepare For Love tanked, the Syndicate Of Sound's three songwriters, vocalist/guitarist Don Baskin, bassist Bob Gonzalez and keyboardist John Sharkey, continued to write new tunes for the band, including Little Girl, written and Baskin and Gonzalez, and You, written by Sharkey. The two songs were paired for the band's second and most successful single, released in February of 1966 on the local Hush label and reissued nationally on Bell two months later.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Medley: Disappointment (Number Unknown)/Lost And Found By Trial And Error/Hodge, Podge, Strained Through A Leslie/Resurrection/Reflections
Source: CD: Steppenwolf The Second
Writer(s): Kay/Mekler
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
The second Steppenwolf album ends with a long medley that could just as easily have been presented as a single work with several sections. I guess John Kay and Gabriel Mekler felt that they could get more royalty money this way.
Artist: Doors
Title: Light My Fire (speed corrected 2007 remix)
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first Doors album was the only one to be released in both mono and stereo versions. Due to an error in the mastering process the stereo version of Light My Fire was slowed down by about 3.5%, or about half a step in musical terms, lengthening the entire piece by about 15 seconds. As the mono version was deleted from the Elektra catalog soon after the album's release, the error went unnoticed for many years until a college professor contacted engineer Bruce Botnick and told him of the discrepancy. Finally in 2007 the entire track was remixed at the correct speed for the 40th anniversary edition of the album.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Page/McCarty
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from their blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. The band had recently picked up a new producer, Mickey Most, known mostly for his work with Herman's Hermits and the original Animals. Most had a tendency to focus on the band's single A sides, leaving Page an opportunity to develop his own songwriting and production skills on songs such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, a track that also shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style (including an instrumental break played with a violin bow) that would help define 70s rock.
Artist: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nagle/Cuff
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. Despite being an excellent tune, the song's lyrics were way too dark for top 40 radio in 1967, and the record sank like a stone.
Artist: Bee Gees
Title: New York Mining Disaster-1941
Source: LP: History Of British Rock (originally released on LP: Bee Gees 1st)
Writer(s): Barry & Robin Gibb
Label: Sire (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The very first Bee Gees song I ever heard was New York Mining Disaster-1941. It was nothing like the other songs being played on Denver's top 40 (technically top 60) station, KIMN, and I took an immediate liking to its unusual harmonies and sorrowful lyrics. For some reason, though, I never bought a copy of the single, or even the album that it was taken from until the 1990s, when I found a beat up used copy of Bee Gees 1st at a local music shop (that's since been replaced by a CD copy).
Artist: Grass Roots
Title: Let's Live For Today
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Julian/Mogull/Shapiro
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1967
This well-known 1967 hit by the Grass Roots started off as a song by the Italian band the Rokes, Piangi Con Mi, released in 1966. The Rokes themselves were originally from Manchester, England, but had relocated to Italy in 1963. Piangi Con Mi was their biggest hit to date, and it the band decided to re-record the tune in English for release in Britain (ironic, considering that the band originally specialized in translating popular US and UK hits into the Italian language). The original translation didn't sit right with the band's UK label, so a guy from the record company came up with new lyrics and the title Let's Live For Today. The song still didn't do much on the charts, but did get the attention of former Brill building songwriter Jeff Barri, whose current project was writing and producing a studio band known as the Grass Roots with his partner P.F. Sloan. The song became such a big hit that the Grass Roots were forced to become a real perfoming band, cranking out several hits over the next couple of years.
Artist: Ohio Express
Title: Into This Time
Source: LP: Ohio Express
Writer(s): Dean Kastran
Label: Buddah
Year: 1968
The story of the Ohio Express is one of the most convoluted tales in the history of pop music. It starts with a band called the Rare Breed that recorded a song called Beg, Borrow And Steal for Jerry Kasenetz's and Jeffrey Katz's Super K Productions, releasing it on the Attack label in 1966. The record was not a hit, and after a failed second single the band parted company with Super K, never to record again (at least not as Rare Breed). In August of 1967 Kazenetz and Katz remixed the original recording of Beg, Borrow and Steal and released it on the Cameo label under the name Ohio Express (which was wholly owned by Super K Productions). This time the song was a success, hitting the # 1 spot in Columbus, Ohio in early September. With the song starting to climb the national charts, Super K needed a band called the Ohio Express to promote the song with personal appearances and live performances. They hired a Mansfield, Ohio band called Sir Timothy And The Royals and renamed them Ohio Express (all the while maintaining ownership of the name). As the band was still based in Ohio, Kazenetz and Katz hired studio musicians to record the next Ohio Express single, a cover of the Standells' Try It that barely cracked the top 100. The first official Ohio Express album, Beg, Borrow And Steal, was released on the Cameo label in fall of 1967 that included a handful of songs recorded by the band itself as well as the above-mentioned singles and, oddly enough, a pair of songs actually recorded by a Kent, Ohio band called the Measles that was led by a young guitarist named Joe Walsh. The following year, following the demise of Cameo-Parkway, Kazenetz and Katz moved their entire operation over to Buddah Records, where they had great success as the purveyors of what soon came to be called "bubble gum" music. By then, songwriter Joey Levine had established a working relationship with Super K as both songwriter and vocalist, and from that point on was the lead vocalist on all the Ohio Express single releases, usually backed by studio musicians. The touring band, however, did provide a few tracks for the LPs released under the Ohio Express name, including songs like Into This Time, written by bassist Dean Kastran and included on the first Ohio Express album for the Buddah label in 1968.
Artist: Them
Title: I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source: British import CD: Now and Them
Writer(s): John Mayall
Label: Rev-Ola (original US label: Tower)
Year: 1968
Them's version of I'm Your Witch Doctor is an oddity: a pyschedelicized version of a John Mayall song by Van Morrison's old band with a new vocalist (Kenny McDowell). Just to make it even odder we have sound effects at the beginning of the song that were obviously added after the fact by the producer (and not done particularly well at that). But then, what else would you expect from the label that put out an LP by a band that didn't even participate in the recording of half the tracks on the album (Chocolate Watchband's The Inner Mystique), a song about a city that none of the band members had even been to (the Standells' Dirty Water), and soundtrack albums to films like Wild In the Streets, Riot On Sunset Strip and The Love In? Let's hear it for Tower, the American International of the record industry!
Artist: Frumious Bandersnatch
Title: Hearts To Cry
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on self-titled EP)
Writer: Jack King
Label: Rhino (original label: Muggles Gramophone)
Year: 1968
Rock music and the real estate business have something in common: location can make all the difference. Take the San Francisco Bay Area. You have one of the world's great Cosmopolitan cities at the north end of a peninsula. South of the city, along the peninsula itself you have mostly redwood forest land interspersed with fairly affluent communities along the way to Silicon Valley and the city of San Jose at the south end of the bay. The eastern side of the bay, on the other hand, spans a socio-economic range from blue collar to ghetto and is politically conservative; not exactly the most receptive environment for a hippy band calling itself Frumious Bandersnatch, which is a shame, since they had at least as much talent as any other band in the area. Unable to develop much of a following, they are one of the great "should have beens" of the psychedelic era, as evidenced by Hearts To Cry, the lead track of their 1968 untitled EP.
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