https://exchange.prx.org/p/588117
We've got a ton of tunes this week that have never been played on the show before, including a thirteen-minute long live recording from a Welsh band making its Rockin' in the Days of Confusion debut.
Artist: Steely Dan
Title: Reeling In The Years
Source: CD: Can't Buy A Thrill
Writer(s): Becker/Fagen
Label: MCA (original label: ABC)
Year: 1972
My first radio gig (sort of), was volunteering at the Voice Of Holloman, a closed-circuit station that served a handful of locations on Holloman AFB, about 10 miles from Alamogordo, NM. I had been taking broadcasting courses through a community college program that was taught by Sgt. Tim Daniels, who was the NCO in charge of the base Information Office, which ran the station, as well as a free weekly newspaper that was distributed on base. After completing the classes, Tim gave me the opportunity to do a daily two-hour show on the VOH, using records that had been sent to the station by various record labels. We got excellent singles service from some labels (Warner Brothers and Capitol in particular), but virtually nothing from others, such as ABC. This was unfortunate, as one of the best songs out at the time was Steely Dan's Reeling In The Years, from their 1972 Can't Buy A Thrill album. Tim, whose previous gig was with the Armed Forces Vietnam Network, was a big rock fan, however, and went out and bought his own copy of the album, making a copy of Reeling In The Years on reel to reel tape, which we then played extensively until the song had run its course on the charts. Thus the Voice Of Holloman, with its audience consisting mostly of guys working out at the base gym, was playing the longer album version of a song that was also getting airplay on Alamogordo's daytime-only top 40 AM station, KINN, in its edited single form. It was just about the nearest the Voice Of Holloman ever got to being an underground rock station (although I did manage to sneak in some Procol Harum, Jethro Tull and Deep Purple from time to time from the aformentioned Warner Brothers singles).
Artist: Blue Öyster Cult
Title: Mistress Of The Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)
Source: LP: Tyranny And Mutation
Writer(s): Bouchard/Pearlman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1973
The general consensus among Blue Öyster Cult fans is that Mistress Of The Salmon Salt (subtitled Quicklime Girl) is about a serial killer prostitute with a thing for Coast Guard crewmen on shore leave. Sure, why not?
Artist: Randy California
Title: Day Tripper
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Kapt. Kopter And The (Fabulous) Twirly Birds)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Sony Music (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1972
In 1972, with his band Spirit having fallen apart (temporarily as it turned out), guitarist Randy California released his first solo LP, Kapt. Kopter And The (Fabulous) Twirly Birds, on which he also sang lead vocals. The album contained a mix of original tunes and covers, of which Day Tripper was the most recognizable. Indeed, one of the primary criticisms of the album was the fact that most of the cover songs sounded like jams on the songs' main riffs rather than actual arrangements.
Artist: Fusion
Title: Somebody's Callin' My Name
Source: LP: Border Town
Writer(s): Luther/Gibson
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
Originally known as the Jazz Folk, L.A.'s Fusion recorded only one album, and Border Town, released in 1969, certainly lives up to its name. The five-man band consisted of Bill Wolff, who had played lead guitar on the second Peanut Butter Conspiracy album, former Rising Sons bassist Gary "Magic" Marker, saxophonist Harvey Lane, drummer Richard Matzkin, and multi-instrumentalist Rick Luther. Also appearing on the album as a guest musician was Marker's former bandmate Ry Cooder, whose slide guitar can be heard on several tracks. The band called itself Fusion because it combined latin jazz, funk and even country with blues-based rock to produce a unique sound, as can be heard on Somebody's Callin' My Name.
Artist: Martin Mull
Title: Bun And Run #3 (Happy Cows)
Source: 45 RPM single B side (promo)
Writer(s): Martin Mull
Label: Elektra
Year: 1979
You'd think that growing up in Cleveland would automatically predispose one to become a comedian, but Martin Mull actually broke into show business as a songwriter. Maybe it was because his family moved to Connecticut when he was 15, but that doesn't explain how his first song to hit any chart was A Girl Named Johnny Cash, which landed on the country charts as a single by Jane Morgan in 1970. He soon began a career as a solo artist, performing onstage sitting on a sofa purchased at a thrift store, with similar furniture decorating the stage. His songs were just as off-the-wall as his stage persona, releasing tunes like Dueling Tubas and Santafly in the early 1970s. By the end of the decade Mull had established himself as a comedic actor, first in the series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and then as host of Fernwood 2Night, a late-night talk show set in Mary Hartman's home town. One of the notable regulars on Fernwood 2Night was bandleader Happy Kyne, played by the sad-faced Frank DeVol, himself a noted bandleader and arranger whose career dated back to the 1940s. A running gag on the show was references to Happy's fast-food restaurant, Bun And Run. Mull's last album, Near Perfect / Perfect, featured two radio style commercials for Bun And Run (subtitled #1 and #3), both of which appeared as the B side of his final single, Bernie Don't Disco. In 1979 Mull quit recording to concentrate on his acting career. Probably his best known role was Roseanne Conner's gay boss Leon Carp, which he played on a weekly basis from 1991 to 1997. He was also the last celebrity to occupy the center square on the long-running game show Hollywood Squares in the early 2000s. Mull continued his acting career well into his 70s, finally retiring around 2018. Martin Mull died on June 27, 2024 at age 80.
Artist: Kak
Title: Trieulogy
Source: British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released in US on LP: Kak)
Writer(s): Yoder/Grelecki
Label: Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year: 1969
The story of Kak is one of the strangest in rock history. Guitarists Gary Yoder and Dehner Patton had both been members of the Oxford Circle, the legendary East (San Francisco) Bay area band that broke up in early summer of 1967. Not long the breakup Yoder was approached by a guy named Gary Grelecki, who introduced himself as a fan of the band and offered to get Yoder a deal with Columbia, then the second largest record label in the country. Yoder figured that he didn't have anything to lose by saying yes; sure enough, two months later he got a call from Grelecki saying the contract was a done deal. It turned out that Grelicki's father was with the CIA and had been using Columbia as a front for agency activities in East Asia, and actually had legitimate contacts at the label. Yoder got into contact with Dehner, who had been playing in a band called Cherry Jam since the Oxford breakup, performing original material in the Davis area. One of the other members of Cherry Jam was percussionist/harpsichordist Chris Lockheed, who had previously played in a band called the Majestics. The lineup was completed with the addition of bassist Joe-Dave Damrill, who had been playing with another Davis band called Group B. The new band, calling itself Kak, was signed to Columbia's Epic subsidiary, releasing their only LP in 1969. Although neither the band (which played fewer than a dozen gigs in its entire existence) or the album was a commercial success at the time, Kak gained a cult following that exists to this day. The most ambitious track on the album, Trieulogy, is made up of three originally unrelated pieces, Golgotha, Mirage and Rain, that Yoder later said "blended well together", adding that "it's a logical pattern, lyrically and musically." The third part of Trieulogy, Rain, was also released as a single in 1969.
Artist: Fantasy
Title: Stoned Cowboy
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Robbins/DeMeo/Kimple/Russo
Label: Liberty
Year: 1970
Fantasy was formed in Miami in 1967 by a group of teenagers that included Billy Robbins (vocals), Bob Robbins (bass), Jim DeMeo (guitar), Mario Russo (keyboards) and Greg Kimple (drums). The group slowly built up a following and eventually became the house band at Thee Image, the club managed by another, better known band, Blues Image. Fantasy held that gig for several months until front man Billy Robbins, who was a major reason for the group's popularity, went missing, and was found shot to death a month later. After the singer's death, the group began a search for a new vocalist, eventually settling on 16-year-old Lydia Janene Miller. Not long after Miller joined the band, they signed with Liberty Records, releasing one album in 1970. All of the band members contributed to the songwriting chores on the self-titled LP, with all but Miller credited on the instrumental Stoned Cowboy. Not long after the album's release, Miller left the group for a solo career, while the rest of the band carried on under the name Year One for awhile.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: Highway Star
Source: CD: The Very Best Of Deep Purple (originally released on LP: Machine Head)
Writer(s): Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label: Warner Archives/Rhino
Year: 1972
Deep Purple's most successful album was Machine Head, which hit #7 on the Billboard album charts in 1972 and went all the way to the top in several countries, including the UK. The LP starts off with Highway Star, a song that was written on the band's tour bus as a demonstration of how the band created new material. It was first performed the same day it was written. The song is a hard rocker that features extended solos from both guitarist Richie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord. Both solos were inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The song became a concert staple and was often used as the show opener throughout the band's existence.
Artist: Man
Title: Many Are Called, But Few Get Up
Source: British import LP: Maximum Darkness
Writer(s): Ace/John/Jones/Leonard/Williams
Label: United Artists
Year: 1975
Although not as common as it was in the 1960s, there were a few bands that were successful enough in the United Kingdom to stay together and perform regularly, but could not make even the tiniest of dents in the US charts. One of best of these was the Welsh band called Man. Formed in 1968, Man released their debut LP, Revolution, the following year in both the UK and US. Their next five albums, however, were not released in North America at all. Although their next three LPs were released in the US, their 1975 live album, Maximum Darkness, was not, despite the presence of guest guitarist John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service fame. Although their were some problems with Cipollina's guitar tuning, most of the tracks on the album, including the thirteen and a half minute long Many Are Called, But Few Get Up, feature Cipollina's playing prominently.
Artist: David Bowie
Title: Saviour Machine
Source: CD: The Man Who Sold The World
Writer(s): David Bowie
Label: Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1970
David Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold The World, was the first one in which his band played a major role in the development of the songs themselves. Indeed, producer/bassist Tony Visconti later said "the songs were written by all four of us. We'd jam in a basement, and Bowie would just say whether he liked them or not." According to Bowie's biographer, Peter Doggett, "The band (sometimes with Bowie contributing guitar, sometimes not) would record an instrumental track, which might or might not be based upon an original Bowie idea. Then, at the last possible moment, Bowie would reluctantly uncurl himself from the sofa on which he was lounging with his wife, and dash off a set of lyrics." Bowie himself, however, later said that he was indeed the sole songwriter on the album, as evidenced by the chord changes in the songs themselves. As Bowie put it, "No one writes chord changes like that". Regardless of who actually wrote what, there is no question that The Man Who Sold The World rocked out harder than anything else Bowie had done up to that point (and perhaps never would again), and songs like Saviour Machine, about the pitfalls of turning to a higher power (in this case a omnipotent computer) for solutions to problems, are on a par with what Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were doing around the same time.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Conquistador
Source: LP: Procol Harum Live
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1972
Procol Harum was formed in 1966 in Southend-on-sea, Essex, England. One of the songs on their 1967 debut album was Conquistador. Five years later the live version of the song, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra (and a notably different band lineup), was released as a single, becoming the second-biggest hit for the group (after A Whiter Shade Of Pale).
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