Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2536 (starts 9/1/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/586432

    This week's show features a set of post-Experience Jimi Hendrix tunes, along with several old favorites and a pop-up battle of the bands.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Hillman/McGuinn
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    By early 1967 there was a building resentment among musicians and rock press alike concerning the instant (and in many eyes unearned) success of the Monkees. One notable expression of this resentment was the Byrds' So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star, which takes a somewhat sarcastic look at what it takes to succeed in the music business. Unfortunately, much of what they talk about in the song continues to apply today (although the guitar has been somewhat supplanted by the computer as the instrument of choice).

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 form 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:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Minstrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote (and sang lead on) most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the group, thanks to the fact that one of the two songs he sang lead on, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), became a huge top 40 hit. It wasn't long before the official name of the band was changed to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status, leaving the First Edition far behind.

Artist:    David Bowie (recording as Davy Jones)
Title:    You've Got A Habit Of Leaving
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1965
    David Bowie scored his first major success at the age of 22 with the release of Space Oddity, a song that went all the way into the top 5 on the British charts in 1969 (it would not be a US hit until nearly five years later). Bowie was already a seasoned veteran in the recording studio by the time Space Oddity hit the charts, however. His first single, Liza Jane, had come out in 1964, credited to Davie Jones with The King Bees. After leaving the King Bees he hooked up with the more versatile Manish Boys for another cover tune, I Pity The Fool, released in 1965. His next single, You've Got A Habit Of Leaving, was credited to Davy Jones as both writer and artist, and used the Who-influenced Lower Third as a backup band. This would be the last time Bowie used his birth name, however, as another Davy Jones was already achieving fame playing the Artful Dodger in the stage production of Oliver, and would go on to even greater fame as a member of the Monkees. 

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Don't Bring Me Down
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually admitted he liked.

Artist:    Peter Fonda
Title:    November Night
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gram Parsons
Label:    Rhino (original label: Chisa)
Year:    1967    
    Once upon a time the son of actor Henry Fonda was hanging around the swimming pool with his friends Gram Parsons, Stewart Levine and Hugh Masakela and decided he wanted to be a rock star. Levine and Masakela had started their own record label, Chisa (based on a Zulu "exclamation"), and Parsons provided the song November Night for Fonda to record. Although the single did get released, it failed to make an impression with anyone, and young Fonda decided that instead of trying to be a singer he perhaps should follow in his father's footsteps and become an actor like his sister Jane had. It turned out to be the right career move, as Peter Fonda would become famous for the film Easy Rider just two years later.

Artist:    John Wonderling
Title:    Man Of Straw
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Wonderling/Allane/Goldfluss
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US labels: Loma/Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Recorded on September 11, 1968, Man Of Straw was the B side of John Wonderling's debut single on two different (but closely related) labels in October of the same year. Wonderling, who produced the record himself, has called it "the only I've ever composed in over 35 years that was 'religious' in intent", a view contradicted by lyricist Edward Goldfluss, who claims "there was no religious intent whatsoever". Whatever the intent, it was the last single ever released on the Loma label, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers that had previously specialized in R&B artists such as Ike & Tina Turner.

Artist:    Joe Cocker
Title:    With A Little Help From My Friends
Source:    British import CD: Peace & Love (originally released on LP: With A Little Help From My Friends)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: A&M)
Year:    1969
    It takes stones to name your first album after an already popular Beatles song, but that's exactly what Joe Cocker did in 1969. To top it off he brought in some of the UK's top talent to back him up on songs like the title track, that features (among others) drummer B.J. Wilson from Procol Harum and some guy named Jimmy Page on guitar. 

Artist:    Love
Title:    Can't Explain
Source:    Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols/Fleckenstein
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1966
    Love's original lineup consisted of bandleader Arthur Lee on vocals, Johnny Echols on lead guitar, John Fleckenstein on bass and Don Conka on drums, with Lee, a prolific songwriter, providing the band's original material. They were soon joined by singer/songwriter/guitarist Bryan MacLean, who gave up his traveling gig as a roadie for the Byrds. Before they completed their first album, however, Fleckenstein and Conka had been replaced by Ken Forssi and Snoopy Pfisterer, although Lee himself provided most of the drums and some of the bass tracks on the LP. Two of the tracks on the album, however, are rumored to have been performed by the original five members, although this has never been verified. One of those tracks is Can't Explain, on which Fleckenstein has a writing credit. The song is certainly one of the band's earliest recordings and captures Love's hard-edged "L.A.-in" take on folk-rock.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Trouble
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of The Music Machine-Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    Sean Bonniwell had definite plans for the Music Machine's first album. His primary goal was to have all original material, with the exception of a slow version of Hey Joe that he and fellow songwriter Tim Rose had been working on (and before you ask, both Rose and the Music Machine recorded it before Jimi Hendrix did). Unfortunately, the shirts at Original Sound Records did not take their own company name seriously and inserted four cover songs that the band had recorded for a local TV show. This was just the first in a series of bad decisions by the aforementioned shirts that led to a great band not getting the success it deserved. To hear Turn On The Music Machine the way Bonniwell intended it to be heard program your CD player to skip all the extra cover songs. Listened to that way, Trouble is restored to its rightful place as the second song on the disc (following Talk Talk) and a fairly decent album is transformed into a work that is equal to the best albums of 1966.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    I've Loved You
Source:    CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1967
    The fourth and final single released on the Original Sound label by the Music Machine is generally considered to be the most psychedelic one as well. The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly is a feedback drenched political statement, while its B side, I've Loved You, can best be described as primal (three years before John Lennon brought primal scream therapy into the spotlight with songs like Cold Turkey and Remember). The band recorded a few more tunes before falling apart in mid-1967, but those recordings ended up on a different label, either as singles or on the album Bonniwell Music Machine that was released later in the year. 
    
Artist:    Love
Title:    Alone Again Or
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either. I wonder what he would have thought of the Damned's cover of the song in the mid-1980s, had he lived to hear it?

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    You'll Love Me Again
Source:    CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Following the success of the first Music Machine album and its hit single Talk Talk, the Music Machine went back into the studio, recording a pair of singles for Original Sound before signing with the Warner Brothers label in 1967. Before an entire album's worth of material could be recorded, however, the original lineup disbanded. Bandleader Sean Bonniwell quickly put together a new lineup to complete the LP, which was released under the name Bonniwell Music Machine (a name that also appeared on the band's next two singles). The group's final two singles, however, were released under the name Music Machine, including To The Light, which was backed with You'll Love Me Again. Both tracks were recorded while the band was on tour, using whatever facilities Bonniwell could book on a moment's notice. 
 
Artist:    Arthur Lee
Title:    Everybody's Gotta Live
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Vindicator)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1972
    After disbanding Love Arthur Lee got to work on his first solo LP, Vindicator. Two months before the album was released, A&M issued Lee's first single, Everybody's Gotta Live, on June 1, 1972. Despite positive reviews from the rock press, the song failed to chart, and Lee ended up re-recording the song two years later for Reel To Real, an album officially credited to Love.

Artist:    Rare Earth
Title:    Eleanor Rigby
Source:    LP: Ecology
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Rare Earth
Year:    1970
    Like them or not, nobody can deny that Rare Earth had a sound that was uniquely their own, as can be heard on this six and a half minute long version of Paul McCartney's Eleanor Rigby. The song appeared as the final track on their 1970 LP Ecology.

Artist:    Blood, Sweat & Tears
Title:    God Bless The Child
Source:    CD: Blood, Sweat & Tears
Writer(s):    Holiday/Herzog
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Although it was never released as a single, Blood, Sweat And Tears' version of the Billy Holiday classic God Bless The Child has become one of their most popular recordings over time, even to the point of being included on the group's Greatest Hits collection. The track was also chosen as the band's contribution to Columbia's Heavy Sounds collection that was released around 1969. 

Artist:    Kingston Trio
Title:    Where Have All The Flowers Gone
Source:    CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1961
    Protest songs did not start in the 1960s. Indeed, two of the genre's torchbearers, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, had been around since the 1930s. But McCarthyism in the early 1950s had squelched virtually all non-conformist voices in the US, and it wasn't until late 1961, when the clean-cut Kingston Trio recorded their own version of Seeger's Where Have All The Flowers Gone, that a protest song received enough national exposure to become a genuine hit, going to the #21 spot on the top 40 charts in early 1962. Peter, Paul And Mary included their own version of the song on their chart-topping (five weeks at #1) debut LP later that year. Perhaps the most surprising cover of Where Of All The Flowers Gone came in 1966, when the Lennon Sisters, regulars on the Lawrence Welk TV show, included it on an EP released in Australia that year.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title:    Lover Man
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year:    1970
    When the original Jimi Hendrix Experience made its US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967, they opened with a fast-paced high-energy version of the Muddy Waters classic Killing Floor. In fact, except for the lyrics, Hendrix's arrangement of the song was essentially a brand-new song. Hendrix must have realized at some point that all he had to do is write new lyrics for the tune to create an entirely new composition, because he made not one, but two recordings of what came to be called Lover Man. The first was made prior to the recording of the Band Of Gypsys live album in late 1969, while the later version heard here features his final power trio, consisting of Hendrix, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell, who were already being billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience when they recorded the song in 1970.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix (Band Of Gypsys)
Title:    Power Of Soul
Source:    LP: Band Of Gypsys
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    1969 was a strange year for Jimi Hendrix. For one thing, he did not release any new recordings that year, yet he remained the top money maker in rock music. One reason for the lack of new material was an ongoing dispute with Capitol Records over a contract he had signed in 1965 when he was working as a sideman for Curtis Knight. By the end of the year an agreement was reached for Hendrix to provide Capitol with one album's worth of new material. At this point Hendrix had not released any live albums, so it was decided to tape his New Year's performances at the Fillmore East with his new Band Of Gypsys (with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox), playing songs that had never been released in studio form. One of those songs is Power Of Soul, which includes an impromptu vocal ad-lib from drummer Buddy Miles toward the end of the track.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title:    Stone Free (1969 version)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2010
    The 1969 version of Stone Free actually exists in many forms. The song was originally recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966 and issued as the B side of Hey Joe in Europe and the UK, but not in the Western hemisphere. As Hendrix always felt that this original version was rushed, due to financial restraints, he resolved to record a new version following the release of Electric Ladyland. The band went into the studio in April of 1969 and recorded a new, much cleaner sounding stereo version of Stone Free, which eventually appeared on the Jimi Hendrix box set. This was not the last version of the song to be recorded, however. In May of 1969 Hendrix, working with drummer Mitch Mitchell and his old friend Billy Cox on bass, created an entirely new arrangement of the song. These new tracks were then juxtaposed with the lead guitar and vocal tracks from the April recording to make the version heard on the 2010 CD Valleys Of Neptune.
    
Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in November of 1966. The record, initially released without much promotion on Reprise Records, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets compilation, released on the Elektra label in 1972.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label:    Double Shot
Year:    1966
    In late 1966 five guys from San Jose California managed to sound more like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds that the Yardbirds themselves (a task probably made easier by the fact that by late 1966 Jeff Beck was no longer a member of the Yardbirds). One interesting note about this record is that as late as the mid-1980s the 45 RPM single on the original label was still available in record stores, complete with the original B side. Normally (in the US at least) songs more than a year or two old were only available on anthology LPs or on reissue singles with "back-to-back hits" on them. The complete takeover of the record racks by CDs in the late 1980s changed all that, as all 45s (except for indy releases) soon went the way of the 78 RPM record. The resurgence of vinyl in the 2010s has been almost exclusively limited to LP releases, making it look increasingly unlikely that we'll ever see (with the exception of Record Store Day special releases) 45 RPM singles on the racks ever again.

Artist:    New Colony Six
Title:    At The River's Edge
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Walter Kemp
Label:    Rhino (original label: Centaur)
Year:    1966
    The New Colony Six are best known for their soft pop-rock song Things I Like To Say, released on the Mercury label in 1969. In their earlier years, however, the Six were a prime example of the blues-tinged garage rock coming out of the Chicago area in the mid-1960s. At The River's Edge, released in 1966 on the band's own Centaur (later Sentar) label, is a classic example of the Six's early Yardbirds-influenced sound.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Taxman
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    The Beatles' 1966 LP Revolver was a major step forward, particularly for guitarist George Harrison, who for the first time had three of his own compositions on an album. Making it even sweeter was the fact that one of these, Taxman, was chosen to lead off the album itself. Although Harrison is usually considered the band's lead guitarist, the solo in Taxman is actually performed by Paul McCartney, who also played bass on the track.
     
Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    The World's On Fire
Source:    LP: Incense And Peppermints
Writer(s):    King/Bunnell/Freeman/Weitz/Seal
Label:    Sundazed/Uni
Year:    1967
    So you think because you've heard Incense And Peppermints (the song, not the album) about a million times, you have a pretty good grip on what the Strawberry Alarm Clock was all about? Well, a listen to the opening track of their first LP (also titled Incense And Peppermints) will disabuse you of that notion in a hurry. Running well over eight minutes in length, The World's On Fire is essentially an extended jam showcasing the talents of the band itself, including guitarist Ed King, who would later become a member of Lynyrd Skynryd . The piece was also included in the 1968 film Psych-Out. 

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

Artist:    Donovan/Jeff Beck Group
Title:    Barabajabal (Love Is Hot)
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Barabajagal)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Donovan Leitch enlisted the Jeff Beck Group as collaborators for Barabajabal (Love Is Hot), a track from his 1969 Barabajal album. Sometimes the song is referred to as Goo Goo Barabajabal, but I'm going with what's on the original 45 RPM label. 
    
Artist:            Flock
Title:        Crabfoot
Source:    British Import CD: The Flock/Dinosaur Swamps (originally released on LP: Dinosaur Swamps)
Writer(s):    the Flock
Label:     BGO (original US label: Columbia)
Year:        1970
        Chicago is a town known for its horn players, and the Flock had one of the best horn sections ever to come out of the windy city. On top of that they had Jerry Goodman playing a mean electric violin. Nonetheless, they never seemed to be able to connect up with a large audience, and after a couple critically well-received but poor selling albums, the members moved on, with Goodman in particular gaining fame as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. The Flock had a flair for (almost an obsession with, really) doing things differently than anyone else. Crabfoot, from the band's second LP, Dinosaur Swamps, starts off sounding like a high-powered jazz-rock tune along the lines of Chase's Get It On, leading into an equally high-energy drum solo that all of a sudden, right in the middle, turns into...well, I really don't know how to describe it.
    
Artist:    John Mayall
Title:    Another Man
Source:    Mono LP: Blues Breakers
Writer(s):    trad., arr. John Mayall
Label:    Sundazed/London
Year:    1967
    The origins of Another Man Done Gone are somewhat vague. It was first recorded by Vera Ward Hall in 1948. Hall had been invited by Alan Lomax to perform in the Fourth Annual Festival of Contemporary American Music at Columbia University and had stayed in New York long enough to record Another Man Done Gone before returning to her native Alabama. A 1974 recording by Jorma Kaukonen attibutes the song to both Hall and Lomax, along with Ruby Pickens Tartt and John Lomax (Alan's father). In all liklihood, however, the prison work song probably dates back to the 19th century. John Mayall's solo version, from the 1967 LP Blues Breakers, is actually only a snippet of the actual song, credited simply to Mayall on the original release and corrected to "arr. Mayall" on the Sundazed reissue of the album.


 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2536 (starts 9/1/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/586427

    Just about everyone is familiar with the opening notes of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, as used in the film The Exorcist. The rest of the album side is almost as well-known, but this week we are instead presenting the seldom-heard second side of Tubular Bells, along with tracks from Jeff Beck, Gentle Giant and more. We finish with a pair of tunes never heard on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion before, both from the debut albums of their respective artists.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    You Can't Always Get What You Want
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1969
    When the Rolling Stones called for singers to back them up on their recording of You Can't Always Get What You Want, they expected maybe 30 to show up. Instead they got twice that many, and ended up using them all on the record. The song, which also features Al Kooper on organ, was orginally released as the B side of Honky Tonk Women in 1969. In the mid-1970s, after the Stones had established their own record label, Allen Klein, who had bought (some say stolen) the rights to the band's pre-1970 recordings, reissued the single, this time promoting You Can't Always Get What You Want as the A side. Klein's strategy worked and the song ended up cracking the top 40 and becoming one of the Stones' most beloved tunes.

Artist:    Jeff Beck
Title:    AIR Blower/Scatterbrain
Source:    CD: Blow By Blow
Writer(s):    Beck/Middleton/Bailey/Chen
Label:    Epic
Year:    1975
    After dissolving the group Beck, Bogert and Appice in 1973, guitarist Jeff Beck spent the next year supporting various other musicians both on stage and in the studio before going to work on what would his first official solo album since Truth was released in 1968. Produced by George Martin, Blow By Blow is Beck's first album made up entirely of instrumentals, with Beck being joined by keyboardist Max Middleton (a veteran of the earlier Jeff Beck Group), bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey. The album features several tracks that cross-fade into the next song, such as AIR Blower (the only track on the album that credits all four band members as songwriters) and Scatterbrain (written by Beck and Middleton). Blow By Blow turned out to be Beck's most commercially successful album, leading to more instrumental LPs over the next several years. 

Artist:    Gentle Giant
Title:    The Face
Source:    CD: The Power And The Glory
Writer(s):    Shulman/Minnear/Shulman
Label:    Alucard (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1974
    The Power And The Glory is a 1974 album by Gentle Giant that focuses on an individual that chooses politics as a means to make the world a better place. Like his predecessors, however, he becomes corrupted by power and ultimately becomes that which he originally fought against. The piece called The Face is the climax of the album itself, in which the protagonist declares himself to be the ultimate authority and demands total loyalty and obedience from his subjects (kind of like certain current political leaders). As of 2014, The Power And The Glory is available on Blu-Ray, with each song fully animated with various abstract patterns and all the lyrics displayed prominently on the screen. The latter makes a huge difference in the ability to enjoy the album, as Gentle Giant's vocals are often hard to decipher. 

Artist:    Mike Oldfield
Title:    Tubular Bells (side two)
Source:    LP: Tubular Bells
Writer(s):    Mike Oldfield
Label:    Virgin
Year:    1973
    After shopping demos of his compositions to various record labels, multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield was almost out of money when he was invited to have dinner with Richard Branson, who was in the process of forming his own record label. Branson liked Oldfield's demos and invited him to spend a week recording at The Manor, Branson's recording studio in the outbuildings of an 18th century manor house north of the city of Oxford, England. Oldfield was able to complete the first half of what would eventually become Tubular Bells in November of 1972, but would not re-enter the studio until the following February. During the hiatus Oldfield mapped out the entire structure of what would become side two of Tubular Bells, spending the better part of two months recording it. Starting more quietly than the first side of the album, Tubular Bells part two eventually includes drums (played by Steve Broughton) and the album's only vocal segment, sometimes known as the "caveman" section. Oldfield actually screamed out the vocal segment while the tape was running at high speed, giving the vocals a gutteral quality when played at normal running speed. The album cover refers to them as Piltdown Man vocals. The entire piece ends with an increasingly fast rendition of The Sailor's Hornpipe, a piece familiar to fans of old Popeye cartoons. Tubular Bells was the first LP to be released on Branson's Virgin Records label, and after a slow start, the album eventually reached the top of the British, Canadian and Australian charts, peaking at #3 in the US. 

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Casey Jones
Source:    CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: Workingman's Dead)
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970 
    After three albums worth of studio material that the band was not entirely happy with, the Grateful Dead finally achieved their goal with the 1969 release of the double-LP Live Dead. So where do you go when you've finally accomplished your original mission? For the Dead the answer was to concentrate on their songwriting skills. The results of this new direction were heard on their next two studio LP's, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both released in 1970. One of the highlights of Workingman's Dead was Casey Jones, a song based on an old folk tale (albeit updated a bit for a 1970 audience). Casey Jones was just one of many classic songs written by the team of guitarist Jerry Garcia and poet/lyricist Robert Hunter. 

Artist:    Leslie West
Title:    Storyteller Man
Source:    LP: Mountain
Writer(s):    West/Pappalardi/Ventura/Landsberg
Label:    Windfall
Year:    1969
    After spending several years as lead guitarist for the Vagrants, Leslie West released his first solo LP, Mountain, in 1969, working with producer Felix Pappalardi, who also played bass and keyboards on the album. Pappalardi, in fact, had more writing credits on the album than West, including Storyteller Man, co-written by the two of them with Norman Landsberg, who played Hammond organ on the track and the mysterious John Ventura, who I can't seem to find any information on whatsoever, despite the fact that he is listed as co-writer on six of the album's eleven tunes. 

Artist:    Nazareth
Title:    Witchdoctor Woman
Source:    German import CD: Nazareth 
Writer(s):    Charlton/McCafferty
Label:    Eagle (original UK label: Pegasus, original US label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1971 (US release: 1975)
    Formed in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland in 1968, Nazareth moved to London in 1970 and released their debut album the following year. The opening track of that album, Witchdoctor Woman, was written by lead vocalist Dan McCafferty and guitarist Manny Charlton. Initially only successful in the UK, they broke out internationally in 1975 with the release of the album Hair Of The Dog. Nazareth continues to perform regularly, although only bassist Pete Agnew remains from the group's original lineup.


 

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2535 (starts 8/25/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/585543

    This week I came up with a battle of the band's scenario that was too strange even for me, so instead we have two separate artists' sets in the same half hour. Of course there's more to this week's show than just that. Much more, starting with a classic Stones track.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Get Off My Cloud
Source:    Mono CD: Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1965
    Early British Invasion bands generally fell into one of two camps. On the one hand there were the relatively clean-cut Merseybeat bands such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits and of course the Beatles themselves, who were the overwhelming favorites of teenage girls all across America. Then there were the so-called "bad boy" bands such as Them and the Animals who tended to favor a raunchier interpretation of rock and roll than their Merseybeat counterparts and had more male than female fans. Chief among these were London's Rolling Stones. While the Beatles were successfully cranking out love songs throughout 1965, the Stones were shouting their defiance at the world with songs like Get Off My Cloud.  

Artist:    Human Beingz
Title:    My Generation
Source:    Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    BFD (original label: Elysian)
Year:    1966
    Regular listeners of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era are probably familiar with a song called Nobody But Me by the Human Beinz (it holds the record for the most iterations of the word no on a top 40 hit song). What most people aren't aware of, however, is the fact that the band had actually been spelling its name Human Beingz for over a year before signing with Capitol Records, who accidently left the 'g' out on the label of Nobody But Me in 1968. One of the earliest regional hits for the Youngstown, Ohio based Human Beingz was this cover of the Who's I Can't Explain, released on the local Elysian label in 1966.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Somebody To Love
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Darby Slick
Label:    RCA
Year:    1967
    The monster hit that put the San Francisco Bay area on the musical map in early 1967, Somebody To Love was actually the second single released from the Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow; the first being the Skip Spence tune My Best Friend.

Artist:    Gods
Title:    Toward The Skies
Source:    British import CD: Insane Times (originally released in UK on LP: Genesis)
Writer(s):    Joe Konas
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    It was probably pretty pretentious for a band to call themselves the Gods, but when you consider that, at various times, the band's lineup included Greg Lake and  Mick Taylor (both future rock gods), as well as two future members of Uriah Heep, the claim somehow doesn't seem quite so outrageous. By the time their first album, Genesis, came out in 1968 both Taylor and Lake had moved on, but between guitarist/keyboardist Ken Hensley, drummer Lee Kerslake (the two aforementioned Heepsters), bassist John Glascock (who would eventually serve as Jethro Tull's bassist until his untimely death in 1979) and guitarist Joe Konas, who wrote the album's opening track, Toward The Skies, the Gods had talent to spare. 

Artist:    Family
Title:    Second Generation Woman 
Source:    LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook (originally released on LP: Family Entertainment)
Writer(s):    Rick Grech
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Family's original lineup of Roger Chapman, Rick Grech, Jim King, Rob Townsend and John Whitney was still intact for the recording of the band's second LP, Family Entertainment, although Grech soon left to join Blind Faith. Their debut LP had been well-received, but they had already dropped much of their early material from their live sets in favor of newer composition even before Family Entertainment was released. As a result, many of the songs on the new album, including Grech's Second Generation Woman, were already familiar to the band's fans by the time the LP was made available to the public. Grech's departure, though, was only the first in a series of personnel changes throughout Family's existence, and by 1973, when the group officially disbanded, only Chapman, Townsend and Whitney remained from the lineup that had recorded the first two LPs. 

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    White Bird
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: It's A Beautiful Day)
Writer(s):    David & Linda LaFlamme
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    San Francisco's It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were desperately trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's San Francisco Sound label.

Artist:    Gong
Title:    Radio Gnome/You Can't Kill Me
Source:    European import CD: Camembert Electrique (originally released on LP in France)
Writer(s):    Daevid Allen
Label:    Charly/Snapper (original label: BYG Actuel)
Year:    1971
    It's almost impossible to describe Gong. They had their roots in British psychedelia, founder Daevid Allen having been a member of Soft Machine, but are also known as pioneers of space-rock. The Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy, from 1973-74, is considered a landmark of the genre, telling the story of such characters as Zero the Hero and the Pot Head Pixies from Planet Gong. The groundwork for the trilogy was actually laid in 1971, when the album Camembert Electrique was recorded (and released) in France on the BYG Actuel label. The album opens with Radio Gnome, a pastiche of electronic effects that leads into the album's first proper song, You Can't Kill Me.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less)
Source:    CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (original album title: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    For a follow-up to the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger chose another Annette Tucker song (co-written by Jill Jones) called Get Me To The World On Time. This was probably the best choice from the album tracks available, but Hassinger may have made a mistake by choosing Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less) as the B side. That song, written by the same Tucker/Mantz team that wrote I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) could quite possibly been a hit single in its own right if it had been issued as an A side. I guess we'll never know for sure. 

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    At The Zoo
Source:    LP: Bookends (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1967
    Simon and Garfunkel did not release any new albums in 1967, instead concentrating on their live performances. They did, however, issue several singles over the course of the year, most of which ended up being included on 1968's Bookends LP. At The Zoo was one of the first of those 1967 singles. It's B side ended up being a hit as well, but by Harper's Bizarre, which took The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) to the top 10 early in the year.

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    It's Love
Source:    CD: Groovin'
Writer(s):    Cavaliere/Brigati
Label:    Warner Special Products (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1967
    The Young Rascals, still riding high as the kings of "blue-eyed soul", gave us the first hint of their future, more jazz-influenced sound on the last track of the 1967 album Groovin'. It's Love, which was also released as the B side of A Girl Like You, features jazz flautist Hubert Laws, who would  contribute to nearly every new Rascals album over the next five years. 

Artist:    Love
Title:    Can't Explain
Source:    German import CD: Love
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols/Fleckenstein
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Love's original lineup consisted of bandleader Arthur Lee on vocals, Johnny Echols on lead guitar, John Fleckenstein on bass and Don Conka on drums, with Lee, a prolific songwriter, providing the band's original material. They were soon joined by singer/songwriter/guitarist Bryan MacLean, who gave up his traveling gig as a roadie for the Byrds. Before they completed their first album, however, Fleckenstein and Conka had been replaced by Ken Forssi and Snoopy Pfisterer, although Lee himself provided most of the drums and some of the bass tracks on the LP. Two of the tracks on the album, however, are rumored to have been performed by the original five members, although this has never been verified. One of those tracks is Can't Explain, on which Fleckenstein has a writing credit. The song is certainly one of the band's earliest recordings and captures Love's hard-edged "L.A.-in" take on folk-rock.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    I Won't Hurt You
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer:    Harris/Lloyd/Markley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Unlike more famous L.A. groups like Love and the Doors, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was not a Sunset Strip club band. In fact, the WCPAEB really didn't play that many live performances in their career, although those they did tended to be at high profile venues such as the Hollywood Bowl. The band was formed when the Harris brothers, sons of an accomplished classical musician, decided to record their own album and release it on the small Fifa label. Only a few copies of that album, Volume One, were made and finding one now is next to impossible. That might have been the end of the story except for the fact that they were acquaintances of Kim Fowley, the Zelig-like record producer and all-around Hollywood (and sometimes London) hustler. Fowley invited them to a party where the Yardbirds were playing; a party also attended by one Bob Markley. Markley, who was nearly ten years older than the Harris brothers, was a former TV show host from the midwest who had moved out to the coast to try his luck in Hollywood. Impressed by the flock of young girls surrounding the Yardbirds, Markley expressed to Fowley his desire to be a rock and roll star and have the young girls flock around him, too. Fowley, ever the deal-maker, responded by introducing Markley to the Harris Brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born. With the addition of guitarist Michael Lloyd and the influence of Markley's not-inconsiderable family money, the group soon landed a contract with Reprise Records, where they proceeded to record the album Part One, which includes the tune I Won't Hurt You, which uses a simulated heartbeat to keep the...umm, beat.
    
Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Living In The U.S.A.
Source:    LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Sailor)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    Although generally considered a San Francisco act, the Steve Miller Band, in truth, was never really confined to a single geographical area. Miller himself was originally from Chicago, and had cut his musical teeth in Texas. The first Steve Miller Band album was recorded in London, while their second effort, Sailor, was made in Los Angeles. Appropriately enough, the best-known track from Sailor, and the first Steve Miller Band song to get significant national radio exposure, was Living In The U.S.A., a song that is still heard fairly often on classic rock radio stations.

Artist:    Kaleidoscope (US)
Title:    Lie To Me
Source:    British import CD: Pulsating Dreams (originally released in US on LP: Incredible!)
Writer(s):    David Lindley
Label:    Floating World (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1970
    The American band known as Kaleidoscope was not really a rock band. If you had to define them, you might go with terms like "roots" or even "world" music, but not rock. While still in high school, Kaleidoscope's multi-instrumentalist founder David Lindley formed his first band, the Mad Mountain Ramblers in Pasadena, California, where he met Chris Darrow, Kaleidoscope's co-founder. At age 20 (more or less) the two, who had been in rival bands, formed a new group the Dry City Scat Band, but Darrow soon left to form his own rock band. The two, along with multi-instrumentalists Solomon Feldthouse and Chester Crill (aka all sorts of odd names such as Fenrus Epp and Max Budda) along with drummer John Vidican formed Kaleidoscope in 1966. By the time they had released their third, and highest charting album Incredible!, both Darrow and Vidican had left the band, with Stuart Brotman now playing bass and Paul Lagos handling the drums. Darrow had been the band's primary songwriter on the first two Kaleidoscope albums, resulting in more group compositions on the third LP, including Lie To Me, the album's opening track.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Bass Strings
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Rag Baby)
Year:    1966
    One of the more original ways to get one's music heard is to publish an underground arts-oriented newspaper and include a record in it. Country Joe and the Fish did just that; not once, but twice. The first one was split with another artist and featured the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The second Rag Baby EP, released in 1966, was all Fish, and featured two tracks that would be re-recorded for their debut LP the following year. In addition to the instrumental Section 43, the EP included a four-minute version of Bass Strings, a track with decidedly psychedelic lyrics.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I'm Looking Through You
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    Although John Lennon is generally thought of as the Beatle who wore his heart on his sleeve, it was Paul McCartney who came up with the song I'm Looking Through You for the Rubber Soul album. The lyrics refer to Jane Asher, who McCartney had been dating for about five years when he wrote the song. They split up soon afterward. 

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sleepy Time Time
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Godfrey
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Crossroads
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:    Robert Johnson
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Robert Johnson's Crossroads has come to be regarded as a signature song for Eric Clapton, who's live version (recorded at the Fillmore East) was first released on the Cream album Wheels Of Fire, and later became one of the group's highest charting singles.   

Artist:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    After an unsuccessful debut single (Wrapping Paper), Cream scored a bona-fide hit in the UK with their follow-up, I Feel Free. As was the case with nearly every British single at the time, the song was not included on Fresh Cream, the band's debut LP. In the US, however, hit singles were commonly given a prominent place on albums, and the US version of Fresh Cream actually opens with I Feel Free. To my knowledge the song, being purely a studio creation, was never performed live by the band.

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    You're Gonna Miss Me
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer:    Roky Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    If anyplace outside of California has a legitimate claim to being the birthplace of the psychedelic era, it's Austin, Texas. That's mainly due to the presence of the 13th Floor Elevators, a local band led by Roky Erickson that had the audacity to use an electric jug onstage. Their debut album was the first to actually use the word psychedelic (predating the Blues Magoos' Psychedelic Lollipop by mere weeks). Musically, their leanings were more toward garage-rock than acid-rock, at least on their first album (they got more metaphysical with their follow-up album, Easter Everywhere).

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Chicken Little Was Right
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    The Turtles
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1967
    Like many of the bands of the time, the Turtles usually recorded songs from professional songwriters for their A sides and provided their own material for the B sides. In the Turtles' case, however, these B sides were often psychedelic masterpieces that contrasted strongly with their hits. Chicken Little Was Right, the B side of She's My Girl, at first sounds like something you'd hear at a hootenanny, but then switches keys for a chorus featuring the Turtles' trademark harmonies, with a little bit of Peter And The Wolf thrown in for good measure. This capacity for self-parody would come to serve band members Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan well a few years later, first as members of the Mothers (performing Happy Together live at the Fillmore East) and then as the Phorescent Leach and Eddie (later shortened to Flo And Eddie).

Artist:    American Breed
Title:    It's Getting Harder
Source:    Mono CD: If You're Ready-The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume Two 
Writer(s):    Larry Weiss
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded c. 1967, released 1993
    One of the bands that Bill Traut, head on Dunwich Records, was most enthusiastic about was a group originally known as Gary & The Knight Lites, a Chicago area cover band that Traut found "very malleable". Sometime around 1966 or '67 they changed their name to the American Breed and, with Traut producing, cut a tune called It's Getting Harder. The song (written by Larry Weiss, who would go on to write Rhinestone Cowboy for Glen Campbell) remained unreleased until 1993. Ironically, the American Breed ended up literally living up to Traut's description in 1968, when they scored their biggest hit with a song called Bend Me, Shape Me. Malleable indeed!

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Circle Sky
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Michael Nesmith
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    A total departure from anything the Monkees had done before, Head, the group's first and only movie, was a commercial flop. The soundtrack album was equally ignored, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that it featured some of the group's most innovative and experimental recordings, such as Michael Nesmith's Circle Sky, a song that defies easy categorization (psychedelic bluegrass???). 

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Zilch
Source:    CD: Headquarters
Writer(s):    Jones/Nesmith/Tork/Dolenz
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1967
    From a creative standpoint, the highpoint of the Monkees' career as a band was the Headquarters album, which topped the album charts for one week in late spring of 1967 before being toppled by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Unlike the previous and subsequent Monkees albums, Headquarters featured a minimum of outside musicians, and was under the total creative control of the Monkees themselves, even to the hiring of Chip Douglas as producer. Although most of the tracks on Headquarters were penned by professional songwriters, a few were written by the band itself, including Zilch, which is sort of a spoken word version of a Round (except everyone is saying something different).

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Supplicio/Can You Dig It
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Peter Tork
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings. The first, and most familiar, was For Pete's Sake, which was released on the Headquarters album in 1967 and used as the closing theme for the second season of their TV series. The second Tork solo piece was the more experimental Can You Dig It used in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. Not long after Head was completed, Tork left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album. Supplicio, which precedes Can You Dig It on the LP, is a short bit of uncredited electronics and vocal effects that lead into the Tork tune. 

Artist:    Audience
Title:    Banquet
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Audience)
Writer(s):    Werth/Williams
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    By 1969 the British blues-rock craze was beginning to subside, and many of the musicians that had made up the core of the movement were moving off in different directions. Black Sabbath was going for a heavier sound, while Ian Anderson was finding ways of incorporating traditional English folk music into Jethro Tull's mixture. The members of the Lloyd Alexander Blues Band, like their better known counterparts from the Yardbirds, took an interest in the new progressive rock movement pioneered by bands like Procol Harum, and in 1969 some of those members formed Audience. Led by lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Howard Werth and bassist/keyboardist Trevor Williams, Audience was unique in that they had no electric guitarist in the band, a direction that would be followed by Emerson, Lake and Palmer a couple of years later. The band also took a page from Traffic's book and included one member, Keith Gemmell, who played only wood instruments such as flute, clarinet and saxophone. The band, completed by drummer Tony Connor, made such an impression that Polydor records offered them a deal shortly after their first major gig. Banquet, from that 1969 debut LP, is a fairly representative example of what Audience was all about.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    All Along The Watchtower
Source:    CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them have become better known than the original Dylan versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself. 

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    LP released 1967, single edit released 1968
    Time Has Come Today has one of the most convoluted histories of any song of the psychedelic era. First recorded in 1966 and released as a two-and-a-half minute single the song flopped. The following year an entirely new eleven minute version of the song was recorded for the album The Time Has Come, featuring an extended pyschedelic section filled with various studio effects. In late 1967 a three minute edited version of the song was released that left out virtually the entire psychedelic section of the recording. Soon after that, the single was pulled from the shelf and replaced by a longer edited version that included part of the psychedelic section. That version became a hit record in 1968, peaking just outside the top 10. This is actually a stereo recreation of that mono second edited version.

Artist:    Downliners Sect
Title:    Why Don't You Smile Now
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: The Rock Sect's In)
Writer(s):    Philips/Vance/Reed/Cale
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia UK)
Year:    1966
    The Downliners Sect was one of the more unusual British bands of the mid-sixties, with a penchant for choosing unconventional material to record. Their second LP, for instance, was made up of covers of songs originally recorded by US Country and Western artists. Their third LP, The Rock Sect's In, was (as the title implies) more of a straight rock album than their previous efforts. Still, they managed to find unique material to record, such as Why Don't You Smile Now, a song chosen from a stack of producers' demos from the US. Although nobody seems to know who Philips or Vance were, the Reed and Cale in the songwriting credits were none other than Lou and John, in a pre-Velvet Underground incarnation. 

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    I'm Not Talking
Source:    British simulated stereo CD: Before The Dream Faded
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Cherry Red
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 1982
    The story of the legendary band the Misunderstood actually started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most of the bands at the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock and roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Among those was I'm Not Talking, a blues tune in much the same style as the early Yardbirds recordings. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, an Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were eventually joined by Ravencroft himself, who changed his name to John Peel and became perhaps the most well-known, and certainly the most influential, DJ in British radio history. The Misunderstood recorded six more songs in the UK, releasing a single in late 1966 before being deported back to the US (where one of the members was immediately drafted into military service) because of problems with their work visas.

Artist:    Nashville Teens
Title:    Tobacco Road
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    John D. Loudermilk
Label:    London
Year:    1964
    The Nashville Teens were not teens. Nor were they from Nashville. In fact, they were one of the original British Invasion bands. Their version of John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road was a huge international hit in the summer of 1964. The lead guitar parts on the recording are the work of studio musician Jimmy Page. 

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Source:    Mono LP: Bringing It All Back Home
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1965
    One of the most covered of Bob Dylan's tunes, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue originally appeared on the LP: Bringing It All Back Home in March of 1965. There has been much speculation over the years as to the identity of the titular Baby Blue, with guesses ranging from Joan Baez to Dylan's own folk music phase. The album Bringing It All Back Home is known for Dylan's first use of electric instruments on his recordings, although the song It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, features only Dylan himself on vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica, accompanied by bassist William E. Lee. 
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2535 (starts 8/25/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/585541 

    What starts out as a 1969 show quickly becomes a trip through the years 1968 to 1975. A lot of good stuff in those years.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Good Times Bad Times
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s):    Page/Jones/Bonham
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    When I was a junior in high school I used to occasionally hang out at the teen club on Ramstein AFB in Germany. One evening I was completely blown away by a new record on the jukebox. It was Good Times Bad Times by a group called Led Zeppelin. Although the members of my band knew better than to attempt to cover the song, another neighborhood group did take a shot at it with somewhat disastrous results at a gig that our two groups split on New Year's Eve of 1969-70. As I had a personal vendetta going against their bass player, I didn't feel too bad about the fact that we basically blew them out of the water that night, but over time I have come to regret doing that to the rest of the band (well, actually they did it to themselves), particularly their lead guitarist, who was actually a really nice guy. Sorry Jeff.

Artist:    Open Mind
Title:    Magic Potion
Source:    British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brancaccio
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Philips)
Year:    1969
    Originally known as the Drag Set, the Open Mind adopted their new name in late 1967. Not long after the change they signed a deal with Philips Records and recorded an album with producer Johnny Franz in 1968. Their greatest achievement, however, came the following year, when they released Magic Potion as a single. By that time, unfortunately, British psychedelia had run its course, and Open Mind soon closed up shop.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Edward, The Mad Shirt Grinder
Source:    LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Shady Grove)
Writer(s):    Nicky Hopkins
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    Due to being afflicted with Crohn's disease, keyboardist Nicky Hopkins found in the early 1960s that he was unable to withstand the rigors of touring with a band, and instead became the top studio pianist in the UK, appearing on records by the Who, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, and even the Beatles, by the time he turned 25. In 1968 he decided to once again try joining a band, becoming an original member of the Jeff Beck Group. After that group disbanded the following year, Hopkins was invited to join a new band being formed by former studio guitarist Jimmy Page, but chose not to be a part of the group that came to be known as Led Zeppelin. Instead, he began recording with various San Francisco bands, including Jefferson Airplane, appearing onstage with them at Woodstock in August of 1969. Not long after that he became a full member of Quicksilver Messenger Service. His contributions drastically changed the sound of the band, particularly on Edward, The Mad Shirt Grinder, the longest track on the album Shady Grove (Edward being a nickname given to him by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones a couple of years earlier). Hopkins would stick with Quicksilver for two more albums before returning to studio work in 1970.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Serenade To A Cuckoo
Source:    CD: This Was
Writer(s):    Roland Kirk
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull did not, as a general rule, record cover tunes. The most notable exception is Roland Kirk's classic jazz piece Serenade To A Cuckoo, which was included on their first LP, This Was. For years, the Kirk version was out of print, making Jethro Tull's cover the only available version of this classic tune throughout the 1970s.

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     Here Comes The Sun
Source:     CD: Abbey Road
Writer:     George Harrison
Label:     Apple/Parlophone
Year:     1969
     In a way, George Harrison's development as a songwriter parallels the Beatles' "second career" as a studio band. His first song to get any attention was If I Needed Someone on the Rubber Soul album, the LP that marked the beginning of the group's transition from performers to studio artists. As the Beatles' skills in the studio increased, so did Harrison's writing skills, reaching a peak with the Abbey Road album. As usual, Harrison wrote two songs for the LP, but this time one of them (Something) became the first single released from the album and the first Harrison song to hit the #1 spot on the charts. The other Harrison composition on Abbey Road was Here Comes The Sun. Although never released as a single, the song has gone on to become Harrison's most enduring masterpiece.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Incident At Neshabur
Source:    CD: Abraxas
Writer(s):    Gianquito/Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.

Artist:    Yes
Title:    I've Seen All Good People
Source:    CD: The Yes Album
Writer(s):    Anderson/Squire
Label:    Elektra/Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1971
    I seem to vaguely recall once having a copy of Your Move on 45 RPM vinyl. It always seemed incomplete to me. Of course, that might be because Your Move is actually the first half of I've Seen All Good People, from The Yes Album. Strangely enough, the single actually made the top 40 back in 1971, although I don't recall ever hearing it on AM radio. The long album version, however, has long been a staple of classic rock radio. Hey, I gotta play a hit song once in a while, right?

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Time Was
Source:    CD: Argus
Writer(s):    Turner/Turner/Upton/Powell
Label:    MCA/Decca
Year:    1972
    The most popular of Wishbone Ash's albums, Argus was the band's third effort, released in 1972. The album is full of medieval references on songs such as Time Was, the nine-minute opus that opens the LP. The album has proved so popular with the band's fans that Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash released a new studio re-recording of it in 2008, accompanied by a live Argus tour. Another former band member, Andy Powell, has since followed suit, with both groups performing Argus in its entirety as part of their stage repertoire. 

Artist:    Spooky Tooth
Title:    All Sewn Up
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Jones/Wright
Label:    Island
Year:    1973
    Spooky Tooth probably went through more significant lineup changes than any other band during its short history. Formed in 1968, the original lineup only lasted through their second album, at which time bassist Greg Ridley left to join Humble Pie. Following their third LP, primary songwriter Gary Wright also left, and the remaining members disbanded a few months later. Wright, along with vocalist Mike Harrison, formed a new version of Spooky Tooth in 1972 that included future Foreigner guitarist Mike Jones. It was this lineup that recorded the album Witness, with it's single All Sewn Up, in 1973. After a couple more personnel changes, Spooky Tooth called it quits on November of 1974.

Artist:    Frank Zappa
Title:    Cosmik Debris
Source:    CD: Apostrophe (')
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Zappa
Year:    1974
    One of Frank Zappa's most memorable tunes, Cosmik Debris first appeared on his Apostrophe(') album in 1974. The album itself was recorded at the same time as the Mothers' Over-Nite Sensation, and features some of the same musicians, including George Duke, Jean-Luc Ponty and Napoleon Brock. The song, like many Zappa compositions, tells a story, in this case one of a mystical con artist and Zappa's refusal to be conned. The song uses the repeated line "Look here brother. Who you jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?", and contains references to other Zappa compositions, including Camarillo Brillo (from Over-Nite Sensation). The song was originally scheduled for release as a single, but instead appeared as the B side of an edited version of Don't Eat Yellow Snow when that track began gaining popularity due to excessive airplay on FM rock radio.

Artist:    Robin Trower
Title:    Shame The Devil
Source:    LP: For Earth Below
Writer(s):    Robin Trower
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1975
    For Earth Below was Robin Trower's third studio album, following up on the phenomenally successful Bridge Of Sighs LP. Structured along the same lines, the main difference between the two was the replacement of drummer Reg Isidore with Bill Lordan, a veteran of the Minnesota prog-rock band Gypsy, who would continue to work with Trower for the next half dozen years. Shame The Devil is the first track on For Earth Below.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2534 (starts 8/18/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/584677

    There is nothing wrong with your radio. For the next two hours WE control the audio, including the stereo/mono settings. Sit back and enjoy the show, featuring (among other things) an Advanced Psych set from the Rochester/Finger Lakes region of New York State.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    For Your Love
Source:    Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Graham Gouldman
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Epic)
Year:    1965
    The last Yardbirds song to feature guitarist Eric Clapton, For Your Love was the group's first US hit, peaking in the #6 slot. The song did even better in the UK, peaking at #3. Following its release, Clapton left the Yardbirds, citing the band's move toward a more commercial sound and this song in particular as reasons for his departure (ironic when you consider songs like his mid-90s hit Change the World or his slowed down lounge lizard version of Layla). For Your Love was written by Graham Gouldman, who would end up as a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and later 10cc with Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.

Artist:    Troggs
Title:    Gonna Make You
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Pagel/Fletcher
Label:    Fontana
Year:    1966
    The Troggs hit the British music scene in a big way in 1966, with the international smash Wild Thing. They followed it up with a string of top 10 singles, including the controversial I Can't Control Myself. In the US, the song was released by two competing labels (apparently due to confusion caused by the Troggs switching labels in the UK), Fontana (which had released Wild Thing) and Atco. The B side of the single, Gonna Make You, is a solid example of what the Troggs were all about musically.   
        
Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Happy Together
Source:    CD: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967
    The Turtles got off to a strong start with their cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, which hit the top 20 in 1965. By early 1967, however, the band had fallen on hard times and was looking for a way to return to the charts. They found that way with Happy Together, a song written by Gary Bonner and Mark Gordon, both members of an east coast band called the Magicians. Happy Together was the Turtles' first international hit, going all the way to the top of the charts in several countries and becoming one of the most recognizable songs in popular music history. 
    
Artist:    Odyssey
Title:    Little Girl, Little Boy
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jerry Berke
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1968 
    As far as I can tell, the Odyssey, a band of L.A. garage-rockers, only cut one record before disbanding, a tune called Little Girl, Little Boy that appeared on White Whale Records. The record was produced by Howard Kaylan, lead vocalist of White Whale's biggest act, the Turtles.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Instant Party (Circles)
Source:    Mono LP: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer:    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    As was the case with many British bands, the song lineups on the early Who albums were not exactly the same in the US and the UK. In the case of the My Generation album, the only difference was actually due to censorship by Decca Records in the US, who felt that the band's version of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man was too risque for American teenagers. To replace it, Decca chose a song that had not yet been released in either the US or UK called Instant Party (Circles). The song was released in the UK as Instant Party a few months later when the band's original British label, Brunswick, issued it as the B side to A Legal Matter without the band's permission (the Who had changed labels to Reaction/Polydor after the My Generation LP was released). Making it even more confusing was the fact that the Who had released their latest single, Substitute, three days before the Brunswick single, with the song Circles (Instant Party) as the B side.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Tripmaker
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: A Web Of Sound)
Writer(s):    Tybalt/Hooper
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1966
     Although the second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, came out in both stereo and mono versions, there are very few copies of the mono version in existence, let alone in playable condition. Apparently Rhino Records has access to one of them, allowing them to use this mono mix of Tripmaker, showing the advantages of being a record label that started off as a record store. 
 
Artist:    Fever Tree
Title:    Girl, Oh Girl (Don't Push Me)
Source:    Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Scott and Vivian Holtzman
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    Formed in 1966 in Spring Branch, Texas, the Bostwick Vines were already well-established in the Houston area when they, at the suggestion of their managers, the husband and wife team of Scott and Vivian Holtzman, changed their name to Fever Tree. The Holtzman's were highly influential on the Houston music scene, thanks in part to Scott's popular Nowsounds column inthe Houston Post. When Bob Shad came to town looking to sign local bands to his Mainstream label he naturally contacted the Holtzman's who in turn got Fever Tree signed to the label. Their first single for the label, Hey Mister, was released in February of 1967, with I Can Beat Your Drum on the B side. After their second single, Girl, Oh Girl (Don't Push Me) topped the charts on Houston radio stations the group went national and signed with MCA's Uni label, scoring their only national hit with San Francisco Girls (Return Of The Native) in 1968.

Artist:    Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty
Title:    A Visit With Ayshia
Source:    CD: Things
Writer(s):    Merrell Fankhauser
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Shamley)
Year:    1968
    Merrill Fankhauser first started playing guitar shortly after moving to San Luis Obispo, California in his teens. By 1960 he had become proficient enough to join a local band, the Impacts, as lead guitarist. In 1962 the Impacts got what they thought was a lucky break, but that turned out to be a classic example of people in the music business taking advantage of young, naive musicians. Following a successful gig at a place called the Rose Garden Ballroom they were approached by a guy named Norman Knowles, who played saxophone with a band called the Revels. Knowles convinced the Impacts to record an album's worth of material for Tony Hilder at Hilder's backyard studio in the Hollywood area. The two of them then took the recordings to Bob Keene, who issued them on his own Del-Fi label. It is not known how much money Knowles and Hilder made on the deal, but the Impacts never saw a penny of it, having signed a contract giving the band the grand total of one US dollar. Not long after the incident Fankhauser left the Impacts to move to Lancaster, Calfornia, where he formed a new band, the Exiles, in 1964. The Exiles had some regional success with a song called Can't We Get Along before breaking up, with Fankhauser returning to the coast to form his own band, Merrell and the Xiles. This band had a minor hit with a song called Tomorrow's Girl in 1967, leading to an album issued under the name Fapardokly (a mashup of band members' Fankhauser, Parrish, Dodd and Lee's last names). Fankhauser and Dodd then formed another band called Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty, which landed a contract with Uni Records (the label that would became MCA), issuing a self-titled album in 1968. This album was even more psychedelic than Fapardokly, as can be heard on A Visit With Ayshia. Fankhauser has been involved with several other projects since then, including a band called Mu in the early 1970s and, more recently the Fankhauser Cassidy band with drummer Ed Cassidy from Spirit. His latest project is an MP3 album called Signals From Malibu, released in 2015. 

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

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Earl Grey
Source:    LP: Kiln House
Writer(s):    Danny Kirwan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
    Kiln House, as the first Fleetwood Mac album to not include the band's founder, Peter Green, marks the beginning of the group's transition to the soft-rock sound that would make them one of the most popular bands of the 1980s. Nowhere is that more evident than on Danny Kirwan's Ealr Grey, an instrumental which got considerable airplay on FM rock stations in the US in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, bandmate Jeremy Spencer's 50s-style rockers were jarringly different from Kirwan's smoother compositions, making it difficult for the band to establish a coherent identity. Eventually both Spencer and Kirwan would be gone, with first Bob Welch and then the duo of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks helping create the sound Fleetwood Mac is best known for.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Soul Sacrifice
Source:    European import CD:Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Woodstock)
Writer(s):    Brown/Malone/Rolie/Santana
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1969
    The producers of the original Woodstock movie soundtrack album were less concerned with presenting faithful renditions of the various live performances seen in the movie than they were with making the best sounding album possible. Accordingly, they edited some of the performances and, in some cases, subsitituted other non-Woodstock versions of songs heard in the movie. One of the edits that actually worked pretty well was cross-fading the crowd singing a wordless refrain that has come to be known as the Crowd Rain Chant into Santana's Soul Sacrifice, the instrumental piece that lifted Santana into the upper echelon of rock royalty. What many don't realize is that nearly five minutes of Santana's actual performance is edited out of the track entirely. I usually play the full eleven and a half minute version of the performance, but, just for a change of pace, here is the track as initially released on the Woodstock soundtrack album, rain chant and all.  

Artist:     Them
Title:     I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source:     Mono LP: Now and Them
Writer:    John Mayall
Label:     Tower
Year:     1968
     Here's an oddity for you: 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 No Way Out), a song about a city that none of the band members had ever been to (the Standells' Dirty Water), and soundtrack albums to teensploitation films like Wild In the Streets, Riot On Sunset Strip and The Love In? Let's hear it for Tower Records!

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    The Lantern
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released on LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones hit a bit of a commercial slump in 1967. It seemed at the time that the old Beatles vs. Stones rivalry (a rivalry mostly created by US fans of the bands rather than the bands themselves) had been finally decided in favor of the Beatles with the chart dominance of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that summer. The Stones' answer to Sgt. Pepper's came late in the year, and was, by all accounts, their most psychedelic album ever. Sporting a cover that included a 5X5" hologram of the band dressed in wizard's robes, the album was percieved as a bit of a Sgt. Pepper's ripoff, possibly due to the similarity of the band members' poses in the holo. Musically Majesties was the most adventurous album the group ever made in their long history, amply demonstrated by songs like The Lantern. The Stones' next LP, Beggar's Banquet, was celebrated as a return to the band's roots. 

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Love Seems Doomed
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966 
    Unlike most of the tracks on the Blues Magoos' 1966 Debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, Love Seems Doomed is a slow, moody piece with a message. Along with the Paul Revere and the Raiders hit Kicks from earlier that year, Love Seems Doomed is one of the first songs by a rock band to carry a decidedly anti-drug message. While Kicks warned of the addictive qualities of drugs (particularly the phenomenon of the need larger doses of a drug to achieve the same effect over time), Love Seems Doomed focused more on how addiction affects the user's relationships, particularly those of a romantic nature. Love Seems Doomed is also a more subtle song than Kicks, which tends to hit the listener over the head with its message. 

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Chauffeur Blues
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Lester Melrose (disputed, likely to actually have been written by Lizzie Douglas, aka Memphis Minnie)
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    The Jefferson Airplane's original female vocalist was Signe Toly Anderson. Unlike Grace Slick, who basically shared lead vocals with founder Marty Balin, Anderson mostly functioned as a backup singer. The only Airplane recording to feature Anderson as a lead vocalist was Chauffeur Blues, a cover of an old Memphis Minnie tune that was included on the 1966 LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The song was credited on the album's label to Lester Melrose, who produced the original Memphis Minnie version of the song. However, the original 1941 78 RPM label gives the songwriting credit to "Lawler", which is thought to be a misspelled reference to Minnie's husband, Ernest "Little Son Joe" Lawlars. It is now believed that Memphis Minnie, whose given name was Lizzie Douglas, was the actual writer of Chaffeur Blues, but that it was easier to get the song published under her husband's name. 

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Break On Through (To The Other Side)
Source:    45 RPM Single
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The first Doors song to be released as a single was not, as usually assumed, Light My Fire. Rather, it was Break On Through (To The Other Side), the opening track from the band's debut LP, that was chosen to do introduce the band to top 40 radio. Although the single was not an immediate hit, it did eventually catch on with progressive FM radio listeners and still is heard on classic rock stations from time to time.

Artist:    Mumphries
Title:    Woman Drivin' Me Crazy
Source:    CD: Thank You, Bonzo
Writer(s):    Stephen R Webb
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1989
    Sometimes a song can be personal, but not directly so. Such is the case with Woman Drivin' Me Crazy by the Albuquerque, NM band the Mumphries. Written and sung by guitarist Stephen R Webb, the song actually describes, in the first person, a situation being experienced at the time by bassist Quincy Adams. The woman in question was Clara Gardello, the bass player from another Albuquerque band, A Murder Of Crows. Sadly, neither Clara or Quincy are with us anymore, so all we can do is hope they get it together the next time around. 

Artist:    Infrared Light Orchestra
Title:    Until The Next Time
Source:    CD: 9 Great Rock 'N' Roll Dance Hits
Writer(s):    Kim Draheim
Label:    Jargon
Year:    2009
    Originally a three-piece consisting of guitarist/vocalist Kim Draheim, Drummer Paul Nolan  and bassist Richard Terry, the Infrared Radiation Orchestra released their first album, 9 Great Rock 'N' Roll Dance Hits, in 2009. The band has evolved considerably over the years, with Draheim as the only original member still with the group. Until The Next Time is a Draheim composition from that first CD.

Artist:    Chesterfield Kings
Title:    Ain't No Use
Source:    LP: Don't Open Til Doomsday
Writer(s):    Babiuk//Prevost/O'Brien/Cona/Meech
Label:    Mirror
Year:    1987
    Formed in the late 1970s in Rochester, NY, the Chesterfield Kings (named for an old brand of unfiltered cigarettes that my grandfather used to smoke) were instrumental in setting off the garage band revival of the 1980s. Their earliest records were basically a recreation of the mid-60s garage sound, although by the time their 1987 album, Don't Open Til Doomsday, was released they had gone through some personnel changes that resulted in a harder-edged sound on tracks like Ain't No Use.     

Artist:    Action
Title:    Brain
Source:    British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird
Writer(s):    Alan & Reg King
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    1968
    The Action was one of the more popular bands on the London scene during the heydey of the Mods, but by 1967 they found themselves caught up in the various changes going on. The addition of keyboardist Ian Whiteman moved the band in a more progressive direction, as he took over most of the songwriting duties for the group. There were exceptions, however, such as Brain, a tune penned by rhythm guitarist Alan "Bam" King, with spontaneous lyrics provided by his brother, lead vocalist Reg King.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Dino's Song
Source:    CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service 
Writer(s):    Chet Powers, aka Dino Valenti
Label:    RockBeat (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    A few years back I picked up the DVD collector's edition of the telefilm that DA Pennebacker made of the Monterey International Pop Festival. In addition to the film itself there were two discs of bonus material, including a song by Quicksilver Messenger Service that was listed under the title All I Ever Wanted To Do (Was Love You). I spent some time trying to figure out which album the song had originally appeared on, but came up empty until I got a copy of the first Quicksilver album and discovered it was actually called Dino's Song. I suspect the confusion in song titles is connected to the origins of the band itself, which was the brainchild of Dino Valenti and John Cipollina (and possibly Gary Duncan). The day after their first practice session Valenti got busted and spent the next few years in jail for marijuana possession. My theory is that this was an untitled song that Valenti showed Cippolina at that first practice. Since it probably still didn't have a title when the group performed the song at Monterey, the filmmakers used the most repeated line from the song itself, All I Ever Wanted To Do (Was Love You). When the band recorded their first LP in 1968 they just called it Dino's Song.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    My Sunday Feeling
Source:    LP: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    For years my only copy of Jethro Tull's first LP, This Was, was a cassette copy I had made myself. In fact, the two sides of the album were actually on two different tapes (don't ask why). When I labelled the tapes I neglected to specify which tape had which side of the album; as a result I was under the impression that My Sunday Feeling was the opening track on the album. It turns out it was actually the first track on side two, but I still tend to think of it as the "first" Jethro Tull song, despite the fact that the band had actually released a single, Sunshine Day, the previous year for a different label (who got the band's name wrong, billing them as Jethro Toe). 

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Sitting On Top Of The World
Source:     CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:     Vinson/Chatmon (original) Chester Burnett (modern version)
Label:     Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:     1968
     Throughout their existence British blues supergroup Cream recorded covers of blues classics. One of the best of these is Sitting On Top Of The World from the album Wheels Of Fire, which in its earliest form was written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon and recorded by the Mississippi Shieks in 1930. Cream's version uses the lyrics from the 1957 rewrite of the song by Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin' Wolf.

Artist:    Deep Six
Title:    Rising Sun
Source:    LP: Nuggets vol. 10- Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dave Gray
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty
Year:    1965
    Despite the name, the Deep Six originally only had three members, although by the time they found their way into a recording studio they had added enough to become a full folk-rock band. Their best known tune, Rising Sun, was released (at least in promo form) by Saw-Man Records in late summer of 1965, and was issued commercially on the Liberty label in October of that year. It became a minor hit in Southern California, leading to a self-titled album in early 1966 that didn't do much of anything; nor did a handful of followup singles, and by 1967 Deep Six had been, er, deep sixed.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Just Like A Woman
Source:    Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    By late 1966 the shock of Bob Dylan's going electric had long since worn off and Dylan was enjoying a string of top 40 hits in the wake of the success of Like A Rolling Stone. One of the last hits of the streak was Just Like A Woman, a track taken from his Blonde On Blonde album. This was actually the first Bob Dylan song I heard on top 40 radio. As a 13-year-old kid I didn't know quite what to make of it.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Shadows Breaking Over My Head
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Martin
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    Shadows Breaking Over My Head is one of many examples of what has come to be called Baroque Pop as defined by the Left Banke on their 1967 album Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina. Written by lead vocalist Steve Martin and keyboardist Michael Brown, the track utilizes studio musicians extensively, with Brown's keyboard work featured prominently.

Artist:    Nocturnes
Title:    Carpet Man
Source:    Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jimmy Webb
Label:    EMI (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    Not every artist who recorded at London's famed Abbey Road Studios became famous. Like all studios, Abbey Road had its share of artists who cut maybe one single and then faded off into obscurity. Among the most obscure bands to record at Abbey Road was the Nocturnes, whose sole shot at fame was a cover of the Fifth Dimension's Carpet Man, recorded and released in 1968.

Artist:    Nite Watchmen
Title:    Mimic Jester
Source:    Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wylde Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Turner/Brown
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Now!)
Year:    1969
    Findlay, Ohio, is home to the Marathon Oil and Cooper Tire companies. Sitting on the Blanchard River, Findlay was a stop on the underground railroad in the mid 1800s and the inspiration for the song Down By The Old Mill Stream in 1910. In the late 1960s Findlay was the home of the Nite Watchmen, a garage-punk band that released three singles on (at least) three different local labels. The second (and best) of these was Mimic Jester, which appeared on the Now! label (based in nearby Fremont, Ohio) in March of 1969.

Artist:    Gypsy
Title:    Gypsy Queen
Source:    LP: Gypsy
Writer(s):    Enrico Rosenbaum
Label:    Gypsy
Year:    1970
    In the mid-1960s it was common, especially in the larger cities in the US, for a local band to go into a local recording studio and make a record that would be released on a local label and get played on a local radio station or two. Sometimes these songs would become local, or even regional hits. In a few cases these songs even became national hits, and in rare cases would lead to an entire run of hits. By 1970, however, this path to success had all but disappeared, due to a number of factors. Most local radio stations were tightening their playlists to include only nationally charted hits. Locally-owned record labels had all but disappeared, with the more successful ones being bought out by their larger competitors. Bands looking for national success were forced to relocate, usually to New York or Los Angeles. One such band was Gypsy. Formed in Minnesota as the Underbeats, the band moved to L.A. in 1969, renaming themselves Gypsy and becoming the house band at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood. It was during their tenure at the Whisky that they released their self-titled double LP debut album containing their biggest hit, Gypsy Queen-Part 1. The band released several more albums over a period of over 40 years, both as Gypsy and as the James Walsh Gypsy Band. They played their final show on November 4, 2017 in St. Louis.

Artist:     Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:     There's Always Tomorrow
Source:     Mono LP: Midnight Ride
Writer:     Levin/Smith
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     Paul Revere and the Raiders was one of the many bands of the early 1960s that helped lay the groundwork for the temporary democratization of American popular music later in the decade (for more on that head over to hermitradio.com and click the link to "The Psychedelic Era"). After honing their craft for years in the clubs of the Pacific Northwest the Raiders caught the attention of Dick Clark, who called them the most versatile rock band he had ever seen. Clark introduced the band to Terry Melcher, which in turn led to Paul Revere and the Raiders being the first rock band ever signed to industry giant Columbia Records, at that time the second largest record company in the country. In addition to organist Revere the band featured Mark Lindsay on lead vocals and saxophone, Phil "Fang" Volker on bass, Drake Levin on lead guitar and Mike "Smitty" Smith on drums. Occassionally someone other than Lindsay would get the opportunity to sing a lead vocal part, as Smitty does on There's Always Tomorrow, a song he co-wrote with Levin shortly before the guitarist quit to join the National Guard. Seriously, the guy who played the double-tracked lead guitars on Just Like Me quit the hottest band in the US at the peak of their popularity to voluntarily join the military. I'd say there was a good chance he was not one of the guys burning their draft cards that year.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Just Like Me
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets vol. 8-The Northwest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dey/Brown
Label:    Rhino (original 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, which was actually a cover of a song first recorded by another Pacific Northwest band, the Wilde Knights, 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:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Get It On
Source:    Mono LP: Midnight Ride
Writer(s):    Volk/Levin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The first four LPs by Paul Revere and the Raiders were, like most albums in the early 1960s, made up primarily of cover songs. 1965's Just Like Us, for instance, had only one song written by band members (Steppin' Out, by Revere and vocalist Mark Lindsay). That all changed with the release of Midnight Ride in 1966. Of the album's nine songs, all but two were written by band members; in fact, it is the only Raiders album to include compositions from every member of the group. Three of the songs were written or co-written by lead guitarist Drake Levin, the band's youngest member. Those three songs included Get It On, which features lead vocals by co-writer and bassist Phil "Fang" Volk.