https://exchange.prx.org/p/583113
This week we have artists' sets from the Monkees and the Rolling Stones, along with an assortment of singles, B sides and album tracks from 1965 to 1969 (but especially 1967).
Artist: Kinks
Title: Till The End Of The Day
Source: Mono LP: The Kink Kontroversy
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
Although the Kinks had, by 1965, largely moved beyond their hard-rocking roots into more melodic territory, there were a few exceptions. The most notable of these was Till The End Of The Day, which was released as a single toward the end of the year. Although it was not as big a hit as, say, You Really Got Me, it did prove that the band could still rock out when it wanted to.
Artist: Cuby And The Blizzards
Title: Your Body Not Your Soul
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the Netherlands as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Desolation)
Writer(s): Muskee/Gelling
Label: Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year: 1966
In the Netherlands it was a given that if you wanted to hear some live blues you needed to check out Cuby And The Blizzards. Led by vocalist Harry "Cuby" Muskee and lead guitarist Eelco Gelling, C+B, as they were known to their fans, had been in a couple of local bands as early as 1962, but had made a decision to abandon rock 'n' roll for a more blues/R&B approach in 1964. After cutting a single for the small CNR label in 1965, C+B signed a long-term contract with Philips the following year. Your Body Not Your Soul, the B side of their first single for the label, shows the influence of British blues/R&B bands such as the Pretty Things and the Animals. The group hit the Dutch top 40 nine times between 1967 and 1971, and released several well received albums as well.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Barterers And Their Wives
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Brown/Feher
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
The Left Banke made a huge impact with their debut single, Walk Away Renee, in late 1966. All of a sudden the rock press (such as it was in 1966) was all abuzz with talk of "baroque rock" and how it was the latest, greatest thing. The band soon released a follow-up single, Pretty Ballerina, which made the top 10 as well, which led to an album entitled (naturally enough) Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, which featured several more songs in the same vein, such as Barterers And Their Wives, which was also released as a B side later that year. An unfortunate career misstep by keyboardist Michael Brown, however, led to the Left Banke's early demise, and baroque rock soon went the way of other sixties fads.
Artist: Them
Title: The Moth
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them to pursue a career as a solo artist, his old band decided to head back to Ireland and recruit Kenny McDowell for lead vocals. Them then moved out to Texas and hooked up with producer Ray Ruff, who got them a contract with Tower Records, Capitol's subsidiary label specializing in releasing already produced recordings from outside sources such as Ed Cobb's Green Grass Productions (Standells, Chocolate Watchband) and soundtrack albums for teen exploitation flicks such as Riot on Sunset Strip and Wild in the Streets from Mike Curb's Sidewalk Productions. The 1968 LP Time Out! Time In! For Them was the second of two psychedelic albums the group cut for Ruff and released onTower before moving into harder rock and another label.
Artist: Chicago
Title: Listen
Source: LP: The Chicago Transit Authority
Writer: Robert Lamm
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
From Chicago we have the band that actually had the temerity to name themselves after the Second City itself. Well, it wasn't quite as bad as it sounds. They only shortened the name after being threatened with lawsuits by the city transit system, which happened to have the same name as the band's original moniker: The Chicago Transit Authority. One thing that made CTA stand out (besides the presence of a horn section) was the fact that the band had three lead vocalists and four quality songwriters. Listen, from the first album, comes from keyboardist Robert Lamm, who also sings on the track.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Play With Fire
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Out Of Our Heads)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1965
Generally when one thinks of the 60s incarnation of the Rolling Stones the first thing that comes to mind is down to earth rock and roll songs such as Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women. The band has always had a more mellow side, however. In fact, the first Mick Jagger/Keith Richards compositions were of the slower variety, including Heart Of Stone and As Tears Go By. Even after the duo started cranking out faster-paced hits like 19th Nervous Breakdown and The Last Time, they continued to write softer songs such as Play With Fire, which made the charts as a B side in 1965. The lyrics of Play With Fire, with their sneering warning to not mess with the protagonist of the song, helped cement the Stones' image as the bad boys of rock and roll.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Paint It Black
Source: Mono CD: Aftermath
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
One of the truly great Rolling Stones songs, Paint It Black was not included on the original UK release of the 1966 Aftermath album. This was because of the British custom of not including songs on LPs that were also available as 45 RPM singles (which, unlike their American counterparts, remained available for sale indefinitely) or extended play 45s (which had no US counterpart). In the US, however, Paint It Black was used to open the album, giving the entire LP a different feel from the British version (it had a different cover as well). Paint It Black is also the only song on Aftermath that was mixed only in mono, although US stereo pressings used an electronic rechannelling process to create a fake stereo sound. Luckily for everyone's ears, modern CDs use the unenhanced mono mix of the tune.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Big Hits (High Tides & Green Grass) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1965
Singles released in the UK in the 60s tended to stay on the racks much longer than their US counterparts. This is because singles were generally not duplicated on LPs like they were in the US. The Rolling Stones' 1965 hit (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was a good example. In the US the single had completely disappeared from most record racks by the end of the year, despite the fact that (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was, by some measures, the #1 song of the year. The song has, however, been continuously in print since its initial release due to it being added to the Out Of Our Heads album, which had a considerably different song lineup than the original UK version. On the other side of the Atlantic the song was unavailable as an LP track until Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) was released, but for several years the single could be found wherever records were sold throughout Europe.
Artist: Monks
Title: We Do Wie Du
Source: German import CD: Black Monk Time
Writer(s): Burger/Spangler/Havlicek/Johnston/Shaw
Label: Repertoire (original label: Polydor International)
Year: 1966
The Monks were ahead of their time. In fact they were so far ahead of their time that only in the next century did people start to realize just how powerful the music on their first and only LP actually was. Released in West Germany in 1966, Black Monk Time both delighted and confused record buyers with songs like We Do Vie Du, which plays on the similarities between the English and German languages. Not bad for a group of five American GIs (probably draftees) who, while stationed at Frankfurt, managed to come up with the idea of a rock band that looked and dressed like Monks (including the shaved patch on the top of each member's head) and sounded like nothing else in the world at that time. Of course, such a phenomenon can't sustain itself indefinitely, and the group disappeared in early 1967, never to be seen or heard from again, which has only enhanced their legendary status.
Artist: Keith Relf
Title: Shapes In My Mind
Source: Mono CD: Roger The Engineer (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Simon Napier-Bell
Label: Great American (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
In 1966, Yardbirds manager Simon Napier-Bell got it into his head to market vocalist Keith Relf as a pop star in addition to being a member of a band. Whether this was intended to lead to a full-blown solo career for Relf is unclear; the fact that neither of the two singles released under Relf's name in 1966 became a hit made the entire question academic. Regardless, it would seem that Relf himself was not heavily invested in the project; the second single, Shapes In My Mind, seems to be almost entirely a Napier-Bell project, with Relf providing vocals but no real creative input. There are two entirely different mixes of the song (including the second one heard here), and the record's B side is an instrumental that does not include Relf or any other Yardbirds member on it. Nonetheless, both versions have been included as bonus tracks on the recent Great American Recordings release of the Yardbirds' 1966 album Roger The Engineer.
Artist: Hollies
Title: Maker
Source: British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK on LP: Butterfly and in US on LP: Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse)
Writer(s): Clarke/Hicks/Nash
Label: EMI (original UK label: Parlophone, original US label: Epic)
Year: 1967
Graham Nash was the one of the three core members of the Hollies who pushed the other two (the other two being Tony Hicks and Allan Clarke) into the band's most psychedelic phase in 1967, first with the single King Midas In Reverse and then with the album Butterfly (which was issued in substantially altered form as Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse in the US). Nash's influence can be heard throughout the album, especially on Maker, which meshes Nash's penchant for experimentation with the group's trademark harmonies. This change in musical direction did not sit well with the rest of the band, however, and ultimately led to Nash's departure from the Hollies in 1968.
Artist: Glass Sun
Title: Silence Of The Morning
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Rick Roll
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Sound Patterns)
Year: 1968
Westland, Michigan, was home to Glass Sun, who rocked out as hard as any Michagan band of the time. They released a pair of singles for Detroit's Sound Patterns label in 1968, the first (and best) of which was Silence Of The Morning.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Somebody To Love (live version)
Source: LP: Bless Its Pointed Little Head
Writer(s): Darby Slick
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1969
The original Great Society arrangement of Darby Slick's Somebody To Love was noticably slower than the well-known Jefferson Airplane version of the song heard on their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. The Airplane's own live version, as heard on the 1969 LP Bless It's Pointed Little Head, is even faster paced, bordering on the downright frenetic. It does make you wonder just what they were taking for their late 1968 Fillmore concert appearances.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Catch Me Daddy
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills (bonus track)
Writer(s): Albin/Andrew/Gtez/Gurley/Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1999
After Columbia bought out Big Brother And The Holding Company's contract from Mainstream Records it was decided that the best way to record the band was during a live performance. On March 2, 1968 several songs were recorded at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, but after reviewing the recordings, producer John Simon decided to re-record the band in the studio and overdub crowd noise to make the album appear to be a live performance. In 1999, two of the original Detroit performances, including Catch Me Baby, were included as bonus tracks on the remastered CD version of Cheap Thrills.
Artist: Nazz
Title: Open My Eyes
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Nazz)
Writer: Todd Rundgren
Label: Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year: 1968
Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, among others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a newly recorded version would become a solo hit for Rundgren five years later).
Artist: Beatles
Title: Blackbird
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1968
Blackbird is one of the many songs on the Beatles "White Album" that Charles Manson would interpret as having special meaning for his "family". In this case he saw it as a call for blacks to rise up and overthrow the whites that controlled the bulk of wealth in the US. I guess he forgot that the Beatles at the time were still based in the UK. Then again, he completely misread the tone of Revolution (also from the same album) as well.
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: Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title: Riders In The Sky
Source: CD: The Best Of Dick Dale And His Del-Tones (originally released on LP: King Of The Surf Guitar)
Writer(s): Dick Dale
Label: Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1964
Known as the "king of the surf guitar", Dick Dale is one of the most respected guitarists in rock history, despite never having a true hit single. Dale played left-handed without restringing his guitar, giving him a unique perspective that inspired a young Jimi Hendrix, among others. Between 1961 and 1964 Dale and his band the Del-Tones recorded five albums and several singles, most of which were released on the Capitol label. Like pretty much everyone else in the early to mid 1960s, Dale included several cover songs on his albums, but always done in his own distinctive style. He even adapted songs from outside the rock idiom, such as the country standard Riders In The Sky, which appeared on his 1964 LP King Of The Surf Guitar.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Peter Perceival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky/Pleasant Valley Sunday
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer: Tork/Goffin/King
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The album version of Pleasant Valley Sunday differs from the single version in two ways. First, on the original LP Peter Tork's spoken piece Peter Perceival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky precedes the song on the album and is considered part of the same track. Second, the mix is different, with the background vocals more prominent on the stereo album mix.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Randy Scouse Git
Source: CD: Headquarters
Writer: Mickey Dolenz
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1967
The original concept for the Monkees TV series was that the band would be shown performing two new songs on each weekly episodes. This meant that, even for an initial 13-week order, 26 songs would have to be recorded in a very short amount of time. The only way to meet that deadline was for several teams of producers, songwriters and studio musicians to work independently of each other at the same time. The instrumental tracks were then submitted to musical director Don Kirschner, who brought in Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith to record vocal tracks. Although some of the instrumental tracks, such as those produced by Nesmith, had Nesmith and Tork playing on them, most did not. Some backing tracks were even recorded in New York at the same time as the TV show was being taped in L.A. In a few cases, the Monkees themselves did not hear the songs until they were in the studio to record their vocal tracks. A dozen of these recordings were chosen for release on the first Monkees LP in 1966, including the hit single Last Train To Clarksville. When it became clear that the show was a hit and a full season's worth of episodes would be needed, Kirschner commissioned even more new songs (although by then Clarksville was being featured in nearly every episode, mitigating the need for new songs somewhat). Without the band's knowledge Kirschner issued a second album, More Of The Monkees, in early 1967, using several of the songs recorded specifically for the TV show. The Monkees themselves were furious, and the subsequent firestorm set off a chain of events that led to the removal of Kirschner from the entire Monkees project. The group then hired Turtles bassist Chip Douglas to work with the band to produce an album of songs that the Monkees themselves would both sing and play on. The album, Headquarters, spent one week at the top of the charts before giving way to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There were, however, no singles released from the album; at least not in the US. It turns out that the seemingly nonsensical title of the album's final track, Randy Scouse Git, was actually British slang for "horny guy from Liverpool", or something along those lines. The song was released as a single everywhere but the Western Hemisphere under the name Alternate Title and was a surprise worldwide hit.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Daily Nightly
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Michael Nesmith
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (Dolenz also sang lead on the tune).
Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Title: Section 43
Source: LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer: Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
In 1966 Country Joe and the Fish released their original mono version of an instrumental called Section 43. The song was included on a 7" EP inserted in Joe McDonald's underground arts newspaper called Rag Baby. In 1967 the group recorded an expanded stereo version of Section 43 and included it on their debut LP for Vanguard Records, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. It was this arrangement of the piece (and quite possibly this recording) that was used in D. A. Pennebacker's film chronicle of the Monterey International Pop Festival that June.
Artist: Doors
Title: I Can't See Your Face In My Mind
Source: LP: Strange Days
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
One of the most haunting Doors ever recorded is I Can't See Your Face In My Mind, from their second 1967 LP, Strange Days. It also ranks among the most sadness-evoking song titles I've ever run across. Such is the power of poetry, I guess. Frankly I'm surprised that the Alzheimer's Association hasn't purchased the rights to the song to use on one of their TV fundraising spots.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Rock And Roll Woman
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth) while they were together. Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock And Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 50 years after it was recorded.
Artist: Byrds
Title: So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star
Source: Mono LP: 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: Beach Boys
Title: All Summer Long
Source: Mono CD: Good Vibrations-Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys (originally released on LP: All Summer Long)
Writer(s): Brian Wilson
Label: Capitol
Year: 1964
From 1963 to 1967 (with one exception), the best part of my year began in early June with the arrival of my grandparents, who would travel across country to visit us in Denver. They would generally stay with us for a week or two, after which my mom, brother and I would hop in my grandfather's Rambler and head back east for the next few weeks. Back in those days it was perfectly OK for a kid my age to ride in the front seat, which is exactly where I was whenever my grandfather was behind the wheel. I even got to play with the radio, which was a big deal considering the only radio in our house was a little clock radio in my parents' bedroom, where I seldom got to listen to it. Like any kid, I would spend a lot of time changing stations until finding a song I really liked. In 1964, one of those songs was All Summer Long by the Beach Boys. Although I did not know it, I was actually hearing something highly unusual: a non-single album track by someone other than the Beatles being played on top 40 radio. To this day All Summer Long is among my favorite Beach Boys songs.
Artist: Grass Roots
Title: Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source: 45 RPM single (promo copy)
Writer: Bob Dylan
Label: Dunhill
Year: 1965
In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that there was already a band calling themselves the Grass Roots that was not interested in recording Sloan and Barri's songs, and whose members weren't particularly diplomatic when rejecting Sloan and Barri's offer. Unfortunately for that first band, they had never bothered to copyright the name, so Sloan and Barri decided to recruit another band and talk them into changing their name to the Grass Roots. The band they found was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to come down to L.A. and record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's A Ballad Of A Thin Man, released under the title Mr. Jones. The band soon got to work promoting the single to Southern California radio stations, but with both the Byrds and the Turtles already on the charts with Dylan covers it soon became obvious that the market was quickly getting saturated. After a period of months the band, who wanted more freedom to write and record their own material, had a falling out with Sloan and Barri and it wasn't long before they moved back to San Francisco, leaving drummer Joel Larson in L.A. The group, with another drummer, continued to perform as the Grass Roots until Dunhill Records ordered them to stop. Eventually Dunhill would hire a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots who would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. Meanwhile the original lineup changed their name but never had the opportunity to make records again. Oh, and that band that hadn't copyrighted the name Grass Roots in the first place? They let their own fans choose a new name for them. That new name was Love.
Artist: Love
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono LP: Love
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
There are contradictory stories of the origins of the song Hey Joe. Some say it's a traditional folk song, while others have attributed it to various songwriters, including Tim Rose and Dino Valenti (under his birth name Chet Powers). As near as I've been able to determine the song was actually written by an obscure California folk singer named Billy Roberts, who reportedly was performing the song as early as 1958. The song circulated among West Coast musicians over the years and eventually caught the attention of the Byrds' David Crosby. Crosby was unable to convince his bandmates to record the song, although they did include it in their live sets at Ciro's on L.A.'s Sunset Strip. One of the Byrds' roadies, Bryan Maclean, joined up with Arthur Lee's new band, Love, and brought Crosby's version of the song (which had slightly different lyrics than other, more popular versions) with him. In 1966 Love included Hey Joe on their debut album, with Maclean doing the vocals. Meanwhile another L.A. band, the Leaves, recorded their own version of Hey Joe (reportedly using misremembered lyrics acquired from Love's Johnny Echols) in 1965, but had little success with it. In 1966 they recorded a new version of the song, adding screaming fuzz-drenched lead guitar parts by Bobby Arlin, and Hey Joe finally became a national hit. With two other L.A. bands (and Chicago's Shadows Of Knight) having recorded a song that David Crosby had come to regard as his own, the Byrds finally committed their own version of Hey Joe to vinyl in late 1966 on the Fifth Dimension album, but even Crosby eventually admitted that recording the song was a mistake. Up to this point the song had always been recorded at a fast tempo, but two L.A. songwriters, Sean Bonniwell (of the Music Machine) and folk singer Tim Rose, came up with the idea of slowing the song down. Both the Music Machine and Tim Rose versions of the songs were released in 1966. Jimi Hendrix heard the Rose recording and used it as the basis for his own embellished version of the song, which was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 (although it did not come out in the US until the release of the Are You Experienced album in 1967). Yet another variation on the slow version of Hey Joe was released by Cher in early 1967, which seems to have finally killed the song, as I don't know of any major subsequent recordings of the tune (unless you count the Mothers Of Invention's parody of the song, Flower Punk, which appeared on the album We're Only In It For The Money in 1968).
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In)
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): McElroy/Bennett
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The Love-In was a cheapo teensploitation flick from American International that included a clip of the Chocolate Watchband performing this tune, written at the last minute by Ethan McElroy and Don Bennett, studio musicians in the employ of producer Ed Cobb. As both the Watchband and AIP's soundtracks were on Tower Records it was a perfect fit.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Source: CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Although never released as a single (although it was released posthumously on an EP in the UK and Europe), Voodoo Child (Slight Return), has become a staple of classic rock radio over the years. The song was originally an outgrowth of a jam session at New York's Record Plant, which itself takes up most of side one of the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Electric Ladyland. This more familiar studio reworking of the piece has been covered by a variety of artists over the years.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Incense And Peppermints
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label: Rhino (original labels: All-American/Uni)
Year: 1967
Thee Sixpence was a Los Angeles band that released four singles on the local All-American label, owned by the band's producer/manager Bill Holmes, in 1966. None of those records were written by band members, however. In fact, the B sides of the first three were covers of songs that had been recently released on fellow L.A. band Love's first album. One of those singles, a song called Fortune Teller, backed by My Flash On You, had even been reissued on the Dot label for national distribution, but had not charted. For their fifth single, Thee Sixpence worked with a new producer, Frank Slay, on The Birdman Of Alkatrash, a tune written by the band's keyboardist, Mark Weitz. The song was recorded in early 1967, along with an instrumental by Weiss and guitarist Ed King that was intended for the record's B side. Slay, however, brought in professional songwriters Tim Gilbert and John Carter to write lyrics and a melody line for the tune (giving the two sole credit for the finished song), which became Incense And Peppermints. The members of Thee Sixpence hated the new lyrics, and 16-year-old Greg Munford, a member of another local band called Shapes Of Sound, was hired to provide lead vocals for the tune. It was, after all, only a B side, right? Around this time, the band decided to change their name from the faux-British sounding Thee Sixpence to the more psychedelically-flavored Strawberry Alarm Clock. Whether The Birdman of Alkatrash was ever issued under the Thee Sixpence name is disputed (nobody seems to have actually seen a copy), but All-American most definitely released it as the first Strawberry Alarm Clock single in April of 1967. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side in May of 1967. By the end of November, Incense And Peppermints had become Uni's first #1 hit record, making it, to my knowledge the only instance of a hit single being played, but not sung, by the artists of record (the reverse being a fairly common occurence). Although the Strawberry Alarm Clock was never able to duplicate the success of Incense And Peppermints, the band did end up releasing a total of twelve singles and four LPs before disbanding in 1971, Following the breakup guitarist Ed King became a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd (who had been the Strawberry Alarm Clock's opening band when they toured the south in 1970-71), and wrote the opening guitar riff of that band's first major hit, Sweet Home Alabama. To my knowledge, neither King or Weitz ever saw a penny in royalties for Incense And Peppermints, although Weitz, as sole writer of The Birdman Of Alkatrash, was able to get a share of the royalties for the single itself.
Artist: Small Faces
Title: Itchycoo Park
Source: CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane
Label: K-Tel (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1967
Led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, the Small Faces got their name from the fact that all the members of the band were somewhat vertically challenged. The group was quite popular with the London mod crowd, and was sometimes referred to as the East End's answer to the Who. Although quite successful in the UK, the group only managed to score one hit in the US, the iconic Itchycoo Park, which was released in late 1967. Following the departure of Marriott the group shortened their name to Faces, and recruited a new lead vocalist named Rod Stewart. Needless to say, the new version of the band did much better in the US than its previous incarnation before itself being destroyed by Stewart's solo career.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: The Finale
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): John Sebastian
Label: Kama Sutra
Year: 1967
Your're A Big Boy Now was a 1966 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola about a young man coming to grips with adulthood in a changing world. What made this movie different was that it embraced the emerging counter-culture of the times as no film had before, laying the groundwork for such classic films as Easy Rider and the Graduate. The soundtrack album from 1967 featured the Lovin' Spoonful performing the title track and their hit single Darlin' Be Home Soon, as well as other tunes. Among those other tunes was The Finale, which was also issued as the B side of Six O'Clock that same year.
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