Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2537 (starts 9/8/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/587311

    Once again we have a show that starts off nice and organized but ends up a chaotic mess. But a beautiful mess it is, thanks to people like Harvey Mandel, Blues Image and the Allman Brothers Band, among others. How many others? Well, we have a dozen artists with a dozen tracks, nearly half of which have never been played on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion before. We start, however, with an old favorite.

Artist:     Traffic
Title:     Feelin' Alright
Source:     CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Writer:     Dave Mason
Label:     Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:     1968
     Dave Mason left Traffic after the band's first album, Mr. Fantasy, but returned in time to contribute several songs to the band's eponymous second LP. Among those was the classic Feelin' Alright, which would become one of the most covered songs in rock history.

Artist:    Climax Blues Band
Title:    Hey Baby, Everything's Gonna Be Alright, Yeh Yeh Yeh
Source:    German import CD: 25 Years (originally released on LP: Plays On)
Writer(s):    Climax Blues Band
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Sire)
Year:    1969
    Before devolving into a generic 80s pop-rock band, the Climax Blues Band was exactly what their name implied, as can be heard on Hey Baby, Everything's Gonna Be Alright, Yeh Yeh Yeh from their second LP, Play On. 

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience (MkII)
Title:     Freedom
Source:     CD: First Rays of the New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1970
     Jimi Hendrix was working on a new double album when he died, but nobody else seemed to be sure where he was going with it. As there were several tracks that were unfinished at the time, Reprise Records gathered what they could and put them together on an album called The Cry Of Love. Freedom, a nearly finished piece (the unfinished part being a short "placesetter" guitar solo that Hendrix never got around to replacing with a final take), is the opening track from the album. Soon after that, a new Hendrix concert film called Rainbow Bridge was released along with a soundtrack album containing most of the remaining tracks from the intended double album. Finally, under the auspices of the Hendrix family in 1997, MCA (with the help of original engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell) pieced together what was essentially an educated guess about what would have been that album and released it under the name First Rays of the New Rising Sun. 
    
Artist:    Carole King
Title:    Beautiful
Source:    LP: Tapestry
Writer(s):    King/Stern
Label:    Ode/Epic
Year:    1971
    One of the most successful songwriting teams in pop music history was the husband-and-wife combination of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Starting with the 1960 Shirelles hit Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, the pair turned out a string of best-sellers, including The Loco-Motion, Up On The Roof, Pleasant Valley Sunday and many other hit singles. King also had a recording career in the early 1960s, with her biggest hit being It Might as Well Rain Until September, a Goffin/King composition she recorded in 1962. By the middle of the decade, however, King had left her singing career, instead concentrating on motherhood and songwriting. In 1968, after she and Goffin divorced, King once again began performing. Her big breakthrough came in 1971 with the album Tapestry and it's lead single, It's Too Late, which went to the top of the charts in the US and Canada and made the top 10 in the UK and Australia. The album produced several more hits, including I Feel The Earth Move, So Far Away and Smackwater Jack, winning several awards and going on to become one of the top selling albums in history. For all that, there are still songs on Tapestry that have been overlooked for years, including Beautiful, a song that King later said came to her spontaneously while riding the subway in New York.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    For My Lady
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Thomas
Label:    Threshold
Year:    1972
    The classic Moody Blues lineup of Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Ray Thomas,Graeme Edge and Mike Pinder released a total of seven albums over a six year period spanning the years 1967-1972, and every one of those albums included songwriting credits for all five band members, both as individuals and collaborators. Ray Thomas, who played various wind instruments for the group, contributed the song For My Lady to the 1972 LP Seventh Sojourn. The song, which was written not long after his divorce, expresses a desire for a "gentle lady", a term that he apparently did not apply to his former wife.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    The Rain Song
Source:    CD: Houses Of The Holy
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    One of the most popular songs in the Led Zeppelin catalog, The Rain Song was reportedly written in response to a comment made by George Harrison of the Beatles to drummer John Bonham, that Led Zeppelin never did any ballads. When guitarist Jimmy Page heard about it he went to work on the piece, which he initially called Slush for its simulated orchestral arrangements on guitar. He presented the finished melody to Robert Plant, who then wrote lyrics and came up with the final title for the tune. John-Paul Jones added mellotron tracks, adding to the orchestral feel of the seven and a half minute long piece.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Wind Up
Source:    CD: Aqualung
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    The first three Jethro Tull albums saw the group transition from a blues base to a more eclectic sound, defined by the songwriting of vocalist/flautist/acoustic guitarist Ian Anderson. The real breakthrough for the band, however, was their fourth LP, Aqualung, which for a while was the most-played album on progressive rock radio in the US. The second side of the album is a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy of modern organized religion. The final track, Wind Up, takes its title from the closing line of the album: "I don't believe you, you've got the whole damn thing all wrong. He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sunday."

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Done Somebody Wrong
Source:    LP: At Fillmore East
Writer(s):    Kirkland/James
Label:    Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year:    1971
    As a general rule, live albums by rock bands are made up mostly of tunes that the group had previously released on studio albums. The Allman Brothers Band, however, took a different path for their 1971 double LP At Fillmore East. Of the seven tracks spread across four album sides, only the last two had previously appeared on the band's two studio efforts. The first four tunes, in fact, were blues covers such as Done Somebody Wrong, a tune generally attributed to Elmore James, who recorded the song in 1960. James, however, had actually rearranged a song that Eddie Kirkland had released in 1959 called I Must Have Done Somebody Wrong. Kirkland had given James permission to record the song, but only if Kirkland was credited as the songwriter, however James's name appeared on the 1960 single as the sole songwriter. When the Allman Brothers Band performed the song at the Fillmore East they introduced it as "an old Elmore James" tune.

Artist:      Blues Image
Title:     Pay My Dues
Source:      CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:     1970
     When I first heard Blues Image's Ride Captain Ride on the radio I wasn't all that impressed with it. Then the local club I hung out at got it on the jukebox and people started playing the B side, a song called Pay My Dues. Then I went out and bought the album, Open. Yes, Pay My Dues is that good. As it turns out, so is the rest of the album. Even Ride Captain Ride sounds better now. Shows the latent power of a B side, doesn't it?

Artist:    Harvey Mandel
Title:    Wade In The Water
Source:    LP: Cristo Redentor
Writer(s):    Traditional
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    Harvey Mandel first came to national attention as the guitarist on Stand Back! Here Comes Charlie Musselwhite's South Side Band, one of the first blues albums to be also targeted to rock listeners. One of the standout tracks on the album was Christo Redemptor, which has come to be considered Musselwhite's signature song. Not long after the album was released, Mandel moved to San Francisco, performing regularly at the Matrix club and often jamming with fellow guitarists Elvin Bishop and Jerry Garcia. A chance meeting with local disc jockey Abe "Voco" Kesh led to Mandel's first solo LP, the instrumental Cristo Redentor, released in 1968. The traditional African song Wade In The Water (attributed on the label to James Alexander and Sam Cooke) is often cited as the album's most outstanding track, and led to Mandel being invited to replace Henry Vestine in Canned Heat the following year. 

Artist:    Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation
Title:    Sage Of Sydney Street
Source:    LP: The Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation
Writer(s):    Ainsley Dunbar
Label:    Blue Thumb
Year:    1968
    Drummer Ainsley Dunbar is probably best known for being an integral part of several successful bands, including Journey, Jefferson Starship, Whitesnake and the Mothers Of Invention. His career didn't have such an illustrious start, however. In fact, he was actually fired from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in 1967 and replaced by Mick Fleetwood. After sitting in on a few early singles by the Jeff Beck Group, Dunbar decided to get even with Mayall by forming the Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation. Dunbar recruited multi-instrumentalist Victor Brox, cited by both Jimi Hendrix and Tina Turner as their favorite white blues singer, to be the band's lead vocalist. He filled out the rest of the group with lead guitarist John Morshead and bassist Alex Dmochowski, whose playing dominates the instrumental Sage Of Sydney Street.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Morning Will Come
Source:    CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Epic
Year:    1970
    When Lou Adler switched distribution of Ode Records from Columbia to A&M, part of the deal was to sell Spirit's recordings to Columbia's parent company, CBS. CBS then assigned the band to its Epic label, while strongly hinting that if the next album didn't show an improvement in sales over their previous efforts their contract would be terminated. Spirit responded with the 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, widely regarded as their best album. One of the better known songs from Sardonicus is Morning Will Come, a Randy California tune with a strong R&B flavor (including a horn section). Initial sales of the album, however, were not that good, resulting in lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes leaving Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne the following year.