https://exchange.prx.org/p/588991
Well, summer technically ends this week, although with global warming you never really know what to expect. Except for Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, where you can expect the coolest tunes from the late 1960s every week, including tracks from the Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hey, that almost sounds like a blues show, but not to worry; we have a set from the Monkees to make up for it.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Season Of The Witch
Source: CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966 (stereo version, 1969)
Season Of The Witch has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring tracks on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the album was not released in the UK until late 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Like all tracks from both Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, Season Of The Witch was only available in a mono mix until 1969, when a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track masters for the singer/songwriter's first greatest hits compilation. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Pledging My Time
Source: Austrian import CD: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The second track from Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album was Pledging My Time, a blues tune that features Robbie Robertson (who had been touring with Dylan) on guitar. The song was one of three tracks recorded in four takes in Nashville on March 8th of 1966. The song was also used as the B side of the album's first single, but was faded out about two-thirds of the way through.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Try To Understand
Source: LP: The Seeds
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The Seeds' first recording session of 1966 resulted in the band's third single, Try To Understand. By this point in the band's career lead vocalist Sky Saxon was no longer playing bass in the studio, although he continued to play the instrument onstage. At Saxon's request, Harvey Sharpe of the Beau-Jives, a popular Los Angeles band that occasionally appeared at Gene Norman's Crescendo Club (Norman also being the owner of the GNP Crescendo record label that the Seeds recorded for) joined the group in the studio, along with guitarist Vinnie Fanelli. The song was not able to get much airplay when released as an A side in February of 1966, and subsequently was chosen as the B side of the re-released version of Pushin' Too Hard later the same year, which ended up being the group's biggest hit. The song also appeared as the opening track of side two of the Seeds' debut LP.
Artist: Animals
Title: Hey Gyp
Source: CD: Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals (originally released on US-only LP: Animalism)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
Shortly before the original Animals disbanded in 1966, M-G-M Records collected several songs that had yet to be issued in the US and put out an album called Animalism (not to be confused with Animalisms, a UK album from earlier that year). One of the more outstanding tracks on that album was this cover of a Donovan tune that almost seems like it was written with Eric Burdon's voice in mind.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title: Desireé
Source: Mono LP: The Best Of The Strawberry Alarm Clock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Weitz/Pitman
Label: Sundazed/Uni
Year: 1969
By 1969 just about everything about the Strawberry Alarm Clock was lost in a mass of confusion. For one thing it was hard to know exactly who was in the band, thanks to almost continuous personnel changes over a two year period. The topper came when the band fired their manager, who then put together a different Strawberry Alarm Clock that included several former members of the band and sent them out on tour. The members of the original band, who continued to make records like the 1969 single Desireé, successfully got a court injunction to stop the new group from using the name Strawberry Alarm Clock, but by then the damage had been done. The Clock kept on ticking for another couple of years, but in late 1971, having lost their record contract, the group decided to call it quits.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Brave New World
Source: LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1969
It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the movie itself.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Hear My Train A Comin'
Source: CD: Valleys Of Neptune
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy
Year: Recorded 1969, released 2013
Hear My Train A Comin' was part of the Jimi Hendrix Experience repertoire as early as 1967, when they recorded a version of the tune for the BBC's Top Gear radio program. By 1969 it had expanded from a standard three minute blues piece to a seven-minute long showcase of Hendrix's guitar pyrotechnics. On April 7, 1969 the band went to the Record Plant in New York City and recorded this version in a single take. It would be one of the last recordings by the band's original lineup, due to increasing friction over the use of studio time between Hendrix and bassist Noel Redding. Four months later Hendrix, along with a loose jam band he referred to as Gypsy Sun And Rainbows, would perform the song at Woodstock.
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: Butterfield Blues Band
Title: Work Song
Source: LP: East-West
Writer(s): Adderly/Brown
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
Although technically not a rock album, the Butterfield Blues Band's East-West was nonetheless a major influence on many up and coming rock musicians that desired to transcend the boundaries of top 40 radio. Both the title track and the band's reworking of Nat Adderly's Work Song feature extended solos from all the band members, with Work Song in particular showing Butterfield's prowess on harmonica, as well as helping cement Michael Bloomfield's reputation as the nation's top electric guitarist (before the emergence of Jimi Hendrix, at any rate). Elvin Bishop's guitar work on the song is not too shabby either.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Marty Balin says he came up with the title of the opening track of side two of Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow album by combining a couple of random phrases from the sports section of a newspaper. Oh, and just to save you the trouble of calculating it for yourselves, 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds works out to 216 MPH. You're welcome.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Speed Kills
Source: British import CD: The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union/The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer: Ulaky/Wright
Label: See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
Boston's Beacon Street Union had an interesting mix of tunes on their debut LP. Despite the title, Speed Kills is not an anti-drug song. Rather, the song addresses the frenetic pace of life the band members had encountered since relocating to New York City shortly before recording The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union.
Artist: George Harrison
Title: All Things Must Pass (early demo version)
Source: CD: Beatles Anthology 3
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Capitol/Apple
Year: Recorded 1969, released 1996
Although he had suggested it as a potential song for the Beatles to record during the sessions that later became the Let It Be album, it wasn't until his 26th birthday (February 25, 1969) that George Harrison recorded his first studio demo of All Things Must Pass, with only a second guitar overdubbed to the original tape. I actually like this better than the overproduced LP version of the song from the album of the same name the following year.
Artist: Turtles
Title: The Last Thing I Remember, The First Thing I Knew
Source: 12" 45 RPM Picture Disc: Turtles 1968
Writer: The Turtles
Label: Rhino
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1978
In 1968 the Turtles rebelled against their record company. They did not attempt to break the contract or go on strike, though. Instead, they simply went into the studio and produced four songs that they themselves wrote and chose to record. The record company, in turn, chose not to issue any of the self-produced recordings (although one, Surfer Dan, did end up on their Battle of the Bands album a few months later). Finally, in the late 1970s a small independent label known for issuing oddball recordings by the likes of Barnes and Barnes (Fish Heads) and professional wrestler Fred Blassie (Pencil-Neck Geek) put out a 12-inch picture disc featuring the four tunes. That label also began reissuing old Turtles albums, starting it on a path that has since become the stock in trade for Rhino Records.
Artist: Tangerine Zoo
Title: Another Morning
Source: CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released on LP: Tangerine Zoo)
Writer(s): Ray Thomas
Label: Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
Many of the acts signed to Bob Shad's Mainstream label are considered by rock historians to be somewhat lacking in one or another categories, such as songwriting, virtuosity or just plain commercial viability. This has resulted in the reputations of the few quality bands appearing on the label to be somewhat unfairly tarnished by association. One of those bands that really deserves a second look is the Tangerine Zoo, from Swansea, Mass., a few miles south of Boston. The band, made up of Tony Taviera (bass), Wayne Gagnon (guitar), Ron Medieros(organ), Bob Benevides (lead vocals) and Donald Smith (drums), recorded two albums for the label, both of which were released in 1968. Tangerine Zoo had actually been approached by no less than two major labels (RCA Victor and Mercury) before deciding to go with Mainstream, the only label to offer them an album contract from the start. Another Morning, from the group's second LP, Outside Looking In, shows just how well developed a sound Tangerine Zoo had. Unfortunately internal issues caused the Zoo to close down before they could record a third LP.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: I Want To Be Your Driver
Source: CD: The Blues Project Anthology (originally released on LP: Live At The Cafe Au Go Go)
Writer(s): Chuck Berry
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year: 1966
When Tommy Flanders abruptly quit the Blues Project in January of 1966, the rest of the band found themselves with an album's worth of material, most of which included Flanders's lead vocals, and a record company that had already scheduled the album's release date. Their solution was to take over New York's Cafe Au Go Go for several afternoons to record a revised set of tunes in front of an invited audience. Although some Flanders tracks ended up on the album Live At The Cafe Au Go Go, others, such as the band's cover of Chuck Berry's I Want To Be Your Driver, featured other band members on lead vocals (in this case, guitarist Danny Kalb).
Artist: Monkees
Title: Daily Nightly
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.)
Writer(s): Michael Nesmith
Label: Rhino (original 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 (he also sang lead on it). The Moog itself had been programmed by electronic music pioneer Paul Beaver especially for this recording.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Head soundtrack)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1968
In 1968 the Monkees, trying desperately to shed a teeny-bopper image, enlisted Jack Nicholson to co-write a feature film that was a 180-degree departure from their recently-cancelled TV show. This made sense, since the original fans of the show were by then already outgrowing the group. Unfortunately, by 1968 the Monkees brand was irrevocably tainted by the fact that the Monkees had not been allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums. The movie Head itself was the type of film that was best suited to being shown in theaters that specialized in "art" films, but that audience was among the most hostile to the Monkees and the movie bombed. It is now considered a cult classic.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Words
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The Monkees made a video of the Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart song Words that shows each member in the role that they were best at as musicians: Mickey Dolenz on lead vocals, Peter Tork on guitar, Michael Nesmith on bass and Davy Jones on drums. This was not the way they were usually portrayed on their TV show, however. Neither was it the configuration on the recording itself, which had Nesmith on guitar, Tork on Hammond organ, producer Chip Douglas on bass and studio ace Eddie Hoh on drums, with Dolenz and Tork trading off on the lead vocals. The song appeared on the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD as well as being released as the B side of Pleasant Valley Sunday. Even as a B side, the song was a legitimate hit, peaking at #11 in 1967.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Something Better Beginning
Source: LP: Kinda Kinks
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
Although there were differences between the original UK edition and US release of the 1965 LP Kinda Kinks, both albums ended with Ray Davies Something Better Beginning. The album itself was recorded and released within two weeks after the band had returned from an Asian tour. As a result, the production was a rush job and the band members were not happy with the results. Nonetheless, Kinda Kinks ended up being a top 5 album in the UK, peaking at #60 on the Billboard Top LP chart in the US.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Alley Oop
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Dallas Frazier
Label: Sundazed/Kama Sutra
Year: 1965/2011
The Lovin' Spoonful didn't actually release their version of the old Hollywood Argyles song Alley Oop as a single in 1965. In fact, they didn't release the song at all, even though it was recorded during the same sessions that became their debut LP that year. In 2011 the people at Sundazed decided to create a "single that never was", pairing Alley Oop with the full-length version of Night Owl Blues, a song that had been included on the 1965 debut in edited form. The Spoonful version of Alley Oop has an almost garage-band feel about it, and is perhaps the best indication on vinyl of what the band actually sounded like in their early days as a local fixture on the Greenwich Village scene.
Artist: Notes From The Underground
Title: Let Yourself Fly
Source: Mono British import CD: The Berkeley Years
Writer(s): Jim Work
Label: Big Beat
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1995
Prior to signing with Vanguard in late 1967, Berkeley, California's Notes From The Underground tried to follow in the footsteps of fellow Berkeleyites Country Joe And The Fish by recording and releasing a four-song EP of their own. They ended up recording seven songs in April of 1967. Among the three unused songs was Let Yourself Fly, the only song in the Notes From The Underground catalog that was written by keyboardist Jim Work.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded At The Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Otis Redding pulled out all the stops for his performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. Luckily, the entire performance was recorded, including his energetic cover of the Rolling Stones classic (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, which Redding had taken onto the Soul charts the previous year with his own studio version of the tune. Redding's backup band included members of the MGs and the Bar-Kays, several members of which, as well as Redding himself, would lose their lives in a tragic plane crash just a few months after their appearance at Monterey.
Artist: Monks
Title: I Can't Get Over You
Source: Mono German import CD: Black Monk Time (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Burger/Clark/Day/Johnson/Shaw
Label: Repertoire (original label Polydor)
Year: 1966
The Monks were formed in Germany by five American GIs stationed in Frankfurt. Right from the start, the Monks had a look and sound that was unlike anything that had come before. With military haircuts supplemented by shaved patches at the top and wearing black gowns with a hangman's noose for a necktie, the Monks spat out angry tunes centered on the dark side of human nature. Although they were enough of a curiosity to attract live audiences, their records did not sell particularly well, and for their second single, a song called I Can't Get Over You, they toned it down a touch, although if you listen closely to the vocals you can tell they weren't particularly happy about doing so.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Shifting Sands
Source: CD: Part One
Writer(s): Baker Knight
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Despite releasing six albums over a five-year period, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band never had a hit record. One attempt was Shifting Sands, one of two Baker Knight compositions the band released on Part One, their first LP for Reprise Records.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Title: Death Row
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Bob Seger
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
I like to play Bob Seger's Death Row, written from the perspective of a convicted murderer waiting to be executed, for fans of the Silver Bullet Band who think that Turn the Page is about as intense as it gets. I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across this rare single at a radio station I used to work for. Even better, the station had no desire to keep the record, since the A side, the equally intense anti-war song 2+2=?, never charted. Their loss.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Fried Hockey Boogie
Source: LP: Boogie With Canned Heat
Writer(s): Samuel L. Taylor
Label: Liberty
Year: 1968
The climax of every Canned Heat performance was the "boogie", a loose jam based on a repeating three-note riff that gave each band member a chance to strut their stuff as a soloist. The first of these to be released on a record was actually a studio recording. Fried Hockey Boogie was the final track on the band's second LP, appropriately titled Boogie With Canned Heat. The song was officially credited to bassist Larry Taylor.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Perhaps more than any other band, Country Joe and the Fish capture the essence of the San Francisco scene in the late 60s (which is rather ironic, considering that they were actually based in Berkeley on the other side of the bay and rarely visited the city itself, except to play gigs). Their first two releases were EPs included in Joe McDonald's self-published Rag Baby underground newspaper. In 1967 the band was signed to Vanguard Records, a primarily folk-oriented prestige label that also had Joan Baez on its roster. Their first LP, Electric Music For the Mind and Body had such classic cuts as Section 43, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, and the political parody Superbird on it, as well as the mostly-instrumental tune The Masked Marauder. Not for the unenlightened.
Artist: Woolies
Title: Who Do You Love
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Elias McDaniel
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1966
Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love had become somewhat of a rock and roll dance standard by the mid-1960s, with several bands recording the tune. Probably the most overtly psychedelic version came from East Lansing, Michigan's Woolies. The group was discovered by Dunhill Records' Lou Adler and were flown out to L.A. to record the song, which was originally considered the B side of their debut single. When some radio stations started flipping the record over to play Who Do You Love, Dunhill was slow to promote the song, and it stalled out in the lower reaches of the charts. Disillusioned by the whole experience, all but one member of the Woolies returned to Michigan, where they formed their own label and recorded a series of moderately successful regional hits.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: The Sound Of Silence
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
The Sound Of Silence was originally an acoustic piece that was included on Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. The album went nowhere and was soon deleted from the Columbia Records catalog. Simon and Garfunkel themselves went their separate ways, with Simon moving to London and recording a solo LP, the Paul Simon Songbook, and Art Garfunkel going back to college in New York. While Simon was in the UK, something unexpected happened. Radio stations along the east coast began playing the song, getting a strong positive response from college students, particularly those on spring break in Florida. On June 15, 1965 producer Tom Wilson, who had been working with Bob Dylan on Like A Rolling Stone earlier in the day, pulled out the master tape of The Sound Of Silence and, utilizing some of the same studio musicians, added electric instruments to the existing recording. The electrified version of the song was released to local radio stations, where it garnered enough interest to get the modified recording released as a single. It turned out to be a huge hit, prompting Paul Simon to move back to the US and reunite with Art Garfunkel.
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