Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2544 (starts 10/27/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/593596

    Once again I find myself in a situation making it difficult to record a new show. Luckily, it's Halloween, and I just so happen to have a special show for the occasion that originally aired in 2019. Enjoy!

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:    October Country
Title:    My Girlfriend Is A Witch
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Michael Lloyd
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the L.A. under-age club scene was winding down, and several now out of work bands were making last (and sometimes only) attempts at garnering hits in the studio. One such band was October Country, whose first release had gotten a fair amount of local airplay, but who had become bogged down trying to come up with lyrics for a follow-up single. Enter Michael Lloyd, recently split from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and looking to become a record producer. Lloyd not only produced and wrote the lyrics for My Girlfriend Is A Witch, he also ended up playing drums on the record as well. Since then Lloyd has gone on to be one of the most successful record producers in L.A. (the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, for instance).

Artist:    Lollipop Shoppe (actual name: The Weeds)
Title:    You Must Be A Witch
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Fred Cole
Label:    Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year:    1968
    The Weeds were formed in Las Vegas in 1965 by vocalist Fred Cole, who at age 16 was already a recording studio veteran. They showed up at the Fillmore to open for the Yardbirds in 1966 only to find out that their manager had lied to them about being on the playbill (in fact Bill Graham had never even heard of them). Disenchanted with their management and fearing the Draft, the entire band decided to head for Canada, but ran out of gas in Portland, Oregon. They soon landed a regular gig at a club called the Folk Singer (where Cole met his future wife Toody) and after relocating to Southern California in 1968 attracted the attention of Seeds' manager Lord Tim, who got them a contract with MCA Records (now Universal). They recorded one album for MCA's Uni label, (discovering after the fact that Lord Tim had changed their name to the Lollipop Shoppe), which included the single You Must Be A Witch. Fred Cole has since become an icon of indy rock, returning to Portland to co-lead the band Dead Moon with his wife Toody from 1987-2006.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    The Witch
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Gerald Roslie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1964
    The #1 selling single in the history of the Pacific Northwest was this tune by one of the founding bands of the Seattle music scene. The Sonics were as raw as any punk rock band of the seventies, as The Witch proves beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft
Source:    CD: Spirit of Joy (originally released on LP: Fairport Convention)
Writer(s):    Hutchings/Thompson
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Cotillion)
Year:    1968
    Fairport Convention has long been known for their role in the British folk music revival that came to prominence in the early 70s. Originally, however, the band was modeled after the folk-rock bands on the US West Coast that took the world by storm in 1965 and 1966. Their first LP was released in early 1968, and drew favorable reviews from the UK rock press, which saw them at Britain's answer to Jefferson Airplane. One of the LP's highlights is It's Alright, It's Only Witchcraft, which features electric guitar work by Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol that rivals that of Jorma Kaukonen. The album was not initially released in the US. Two years later, following the success of Fairport Convention's later albums with vocalist Sandy Denny on the A&M label, the band's first LP (with Judy Dyble) was given a limited release on Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary. 

Artist:    Fifty Foot Hose
Title:    Cauldron
Source:    LP: Cauldron
Writer:    BlossoM/Marcheschi/Kimsey
Label:    Limelight
Year:    1968
    Although New York is generally considered the epicenter for avant-garde rock, there were things happening out on the West Coast as well, including the United States Of America (led by an expatriot Manhattanite) in Los Angeles and Fifty Foot Hose in San Francisco. Fifty Foot Hose featured Cork Marcheschi's homemade electronic instruments and the unique vocal style of Nancy Blossom. The group disbanded when all of the members except Marcheschi left to join the cast of the musical Hair. Nancy Blossom herself played the female lead, Sheila, in the San Francisco production of the rock musical. 

Artist:    Ultimate Spinach
Title:    (Ballad Of The) Hip Death Goddess
Source:    LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer(s):    Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    Ultimate Spinach was the brainchild of Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. Although the group had no hit singles, some tracks, such as (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess received a significant amount of airplay on progressive "underground" FM stations. The recording has in more recent years been used by movie producers looking to invoke a late 60s atmosphere.

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    The Black Plague
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    One of the most interesting recordings of 1967 was Eric Burdon And The Animals' The Black Plague, which appeared on the Winds Of Change album. The Black Plague is a spoken word piece dealing with life and death in a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague (natch), set to a somewhat gothic piece of music that includes Gregorian style chanting and an occasional voice calling out the words "bring out your dead" in the background. The album itself had a rather distinctive cover, consisting of a stylized album title accompanied by a rather lengthy text piece on a scroll against a black background, something that has never been done before or since on an album cover.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Death Sound Blues
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    I generally use the term "psychedelic" to describe a musical attitude that existed during a particular period of time rather than a specific style of music. On the other hand, the term "acid rock" is better suited for describing music that was composed and/or performed under the influence of certain mind-expanding substances. That said, the first album by Country Joe and the Fish is a classic example of acid rock. I mean, really, is there any other way to describe Death Sound Blues than "the blues on acid"?

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Grim Reaper Of Love
Source:    Mono CD: All The Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Portz/Nichol
Label:    Manifesto (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1966
    The Turtles had some early success in 1965 as a folk-rock band, recording the hit version of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe and PF Sloan's Let Me Be. By 1966, however, it was getting harder and harder for the group to get a hit record. One attempt was Grim Reaper Of Love, co-written by Turtles lead guitarist Al Nichol. Personally I think it's a pretty cool tune, but was probably a bit too weird to appeal to the average top 40 radio listener in 1966. Grim Reaper Of Love did manage to make it to the # 81 spot on the charts, unlike the band's next two singles that failed to chart at all. It wasn't until the following year, when the Turtles recorded Happy Together, that the band would make it back onto the charts.

Artist:    Strangeloves
Title:    I Want Candy
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Feldman/Goldstein/Gottehrer/Berns
Label:    Rhino (original label: Bang)
Year:    1966
    In the wake of the British Invasion, some American artists tried to sound as British as possible, often deliberately letting radio listeners think that they themselves might be a British band. A trio of New York songwriters, Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer, took such deceptions to a whole new level. Rather than try to pass themselves off as a British band, the three invented an elaborate backstory that saw them as sons of an Australian sheepherder who had invented a new shearing process and had used the profits from the venture to form a band called the Strangeloves, who were about to become the Next Big Thing. Although the story never really caught on, the group managed to record two of the all-time great party songs, I Want Candy and Night Time, as well as producing a single called Hang On Sloopy for a band they discovered on the road called the McCoys (although the instrumental tracks were actually from the Strangeloves' own first LP). According to press releases the pounding drum beat on I Want Candy was made by Masai drums that the band members had found while on safari in Africa, which just goes to show you can find just about anything in the New York City area if you know where to look.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Savoy Truffle
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    George Harrison's skills as a songwriter continued to develop in 1968. The double-LP The Beatles (aka the White Album) contained four Harrison compositions, including Savoy Truffle, a tongue-in-cheek song about Harrison's friend Eric Clapton's fondness for chocolate. John Lennon did not participate in the recording of Savoy Truffle. The keyboards were probably played by Chris Thomas, who, in addition to playing on all four Harrison songs on the album, served as de facto producer when George Martin decided to take a vacation in the middle of the album's recording sessions.  

Artist:    P.F. Sloan
Title:    Halloween Mary
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    P.F. Sloan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1965
    If there is any one songwriter associated specifically with folk-rock (as opposed to folk music), it would be the Los Angeles based P.F. Sloan, writer of Barry McGuire's signature song, Eve Of Destruction. Sloan also penned hits for the Turtles in their early days as one of the harder-edged folk-rock bands, including their second hit, Let Me Be. In fact, Sloan had almost 400 songs to his credit by the time he and Steve Barri teamed up to write and produce a series of major hits released by various bands under the name Grass Roots. Sloan himself, however, only released two singles as a singer, although (as can be heard on the second of them, the slightly off-kilter Halloween Mary) he had a voice as powerful as many of the recording stars of the time.

Artist:        Randy Newman
Title:        Last Night I Had A Dream
Source:      Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:        Randy Newman
Label:        Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:        1968
        Randy Newman has, over the course of the past fifty-plus years, established himself as a Great American Writer of Songs. His work includes dozens of hit singles (over half of which were performed by other artists), nearly two dozen movie scores and eleven albums as a solo artist. Newman has won five Grammys, as well as two Oscars and Three Emmys. Last Night I Had A Dream was Newman's second single for the Reprise label  (his third overall), coming out the same year as his first LP, which did not include the song.

Artist:    Mike Oldfield
Title:    Tubular Bells
Source:    LP: Tubular Bells
Writer(s):    Mike Oldfield
Label:    Virgin
Year:    1973
    Tubular Bells was the first album ever released by Virgin Records. It got a lot of critical acclaim when it was first released, but did not take off commercially until the first few minutes of the piece were used in a film called The Exorcist. Several sequels have been recorded in the years since the album's original 1973 release, including Tubular Bells II and III and The Millenium Bell (released in 1999). 

Artist:     Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:     Fire
Source:     British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label:     Polydor (original US label: Atlantic)
Year:     1968
     The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was unusual for their time in that they were much more theatrical than most of their contemporaries, who were generally more into audio experimentation than visual. I have a video of Fire being performed (or maybe just lip-synched). In it, all the members are wearing some sort of mask, and Brown himself is wearing special headgear that was literally on fire. There is no doubt that The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown sowed the seeds of what was to become the glitter-rock movement in the early to mid 70s. 

Artist:    Who
Title:    I'm A Boy (re-recorded stereo version)
Source:    CD: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    The Who's1966 hit I'm A Boy was originally intended to be part of a rock mini-opera set in a future where parents choose the sex of their children ahead of time. The family of the protagonist orders four girls, but instead gets three girls and a boy. Refusing to acknowledge the truth, the mother insists on dressing the boy in girl's clothing and forces him to do "feminine" things. OK, it's a pretty absurd idea, but the song, recorded in early August of 1966 and released about two weeks later, ended up going all the way to the #2 spot on the British charts. The stereo version of the song on the album Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy is slightly slower and a bit longer than the original hit single, and was recorded about two months later, on October 3rd.

Artist:     Who
Title:     Disguises
Source:     Mono CD: A Quick One (bonus track originally released in UK on 45 RPM EP: Ready Steady Who)
Writer:     Pete Townshend
Label:     MCA (original label: Reaction)
Year:     1966
     After a successful appearance on the British TV show Ready Steady Go (the UK's answer to American Bandstand), the Who released an EP featuring mostly cover songs such as Bucket T and the Batman theme. Two tracks on the record, however, were Who originals: a new version of Circles (a song that originally appeared on the My Generation album) and Disguises, which made its debut as the lead track of the EP. When MCA issued a remastered version of A Quick One in the 1990s, the entire contents of the EP (except Circles) were included as bonus tracks on the CD. 

Artist:    Who
Title:    Substitute
Source:    Mono CD: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    In the spring of 1967 my dad, a career military man, got word that he was being transferred from Denver, Colorado to Weisbaden, Germany. By the end of  summer, our entire family had relocated to a converted WWII Panzer barracks that was serving as a housing area for married US military personnel and their families. The Kastel housing area, which was just outside of the village of Mainz-Kastel, which in turn was located directly across the Rhine from the city of Mainz itself, was probably the smallest US housing area in all of Europe, consisting of only eight buildings. Needless to say, there were not many other American kids my age living there, a fact that ended up working to my advantage. You see, in Denver I had been playing first chair violin in the Smiley Junior High School orchestra; a position that looked good to the adults in the room but was the kiss of death to a 14-year-old boy trying desperately to fit in with his peers. So, naturally, as one of only half a dozen or so teenaged boys in the Kastel Housing Area, I jumped at the chance to learn how to play the guitar, a much cooler instrument than the violin in the eyes of  a 14-year-old boy trying desperately to fit in with his peers. There were two guys at Kastel who a) had guitars and b) were willing to put up with an obnoxious 14-year-old boy trying desperately to fit in with his peers long enough to teach him a few chords. The first was was a 10th-grader named Darrell Combs, who went by the nickname Butch (his older sister Darlene being responsible for that one). The other was an 11th-grader named Mike Davenport, who had been in Germany longer than the rest of us and had his own Fender amp. Mike also had a collection of records that had been popular on Radio Luxembourg, a powerful AM and shortwave station that broadcast an American styled top 40 format aimed at a British audience, playing hits from the UK singles charts. Among those records were several singles by the Who, including their chart-topping 1966 UK hit Substitute. Mike and Butch had been trying to figure out the chords to Substitute, but had not been able to get beyond the intro of the song. After listening to the record once or twice (yes, I'm bragging) I was able to figure out the rest of the song. Not long after that I was able to talk my parents into buying me a guitar and a small amp as an early Christmas present (that ended up doubling as my 15th birthday present as well). With three guitarists, two amps, and a drummer named Zachary Long in our arsenal, we formed a band called The Abundance Of Love (hey, it was 1967, OK?), which soon got changed to the Haze And Shades Of Yesterday and finally just The Shades. One of the first songs we learned to play was (you guessed it), Substitute by the Who. The Shades ended up lasting until the summer of 1968, at which time my dad got transferred again, this time to Ramstein AFB, Germany. 

Artist:    Beacon Street Union
Title:    South End Incident (I'm Afraid)
Source:    LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s):    Wayne Ulaky
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    The Beacon Street Union's South End Incident (I'm Afraid) was reportedly based on a real incident. According to the story, bassist Wayne Ulaky witnessed a mugging in one of Boston's seedier neighborhoods and spent the rest of that evening looking over his shoulder, worried that the muggers might have seen him. He then wrote a song about it that got recorded by the band and released on their debut LP, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Strange Brew
Source:    CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Clapton/Collins/Pappalardi
Label:    Polydor.Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.

Artist:    Classics IV
Title:    Spooky
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Sharpe/Middlebrooks/Buie/Cobb
Label:    Silver Spotlight (original label: Imperial)
Year:    1967
    Most people don't know this (it was news to me too), but the Halloween classic Spooky, by the Classics IV, was orginally an instrumental. The tune was written by saxophonist Mike Sharpe, with Harry Middlebrooks, Jr. and released by Sharpe in 1967, making it to the #57 on the Billboard charts. Late in the year, Classics IV guitarist J. R. Cobb and producer Buddy Buie came up with lyrics for the song in time to get the song recorded and released by Halloween, and the band scored their first top 40 hit with the song, featuring drummer Dennis Yost on lead vocals. The Classics IV continued to hit the top 40 charts into the early 1970s, with Yost moving out from behind the drum kit and taking over top billing (See? Phil Collins wasn't the first to do that!), while Cobb and Buie, as a side project, formed the Atlanta Rhythm Section in 1970. Finally, in 1975, Yost officially went solo, ending the story of the Classics IV.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source:    CD: Smiling Phases (originally released as 45 RPM B side and on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s):    Capaldi/Winwood
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    The second Traffic album saw the band taking in a broader set of influences, including traditional English folk music. (Roamin' Through The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released as the B side to the Dave Mason tune No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Lola
Source:    Mono Canadian CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    By 1970 the Kinks were all but forgotten in the US and not doing all that much better in their native UK. Then came Lola. I guess I could stop right there. Or I could mention that the song was based on a true story involving the band's manager. I could even say something about Dave Davies' claim that, although his brother Ray is credited as the sole songwriter of Lola, Dave actually came up with the music and Ray added the lyrics. But you've probably heard it all before. This is Lola, the most famous transvestite song in history, we're talking about, after all.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:     I Put A Spell On You
Source:     CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer:     Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Label:     Rhino
Year:     1969
     Before getting major attention for its string of top five singles (including three consecutive # 2 songs), CCR released a pair of cover tunes in 1968: Dale Hawkins' Suzy Q and this one from an entirely different Hawkins, Screamin' Jay. Although the Creedence version of I Put A Spell On You only made it to the # 58 spot on the national charts, it was still part of their repertoire when they played at Woodstock the following year.

Artist:    King Crimson
Title:    The Court Of The Crimson King
Source:    CD: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Writer:    MacDonald/Sinfield
Label:    Discipline Global Mobile (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1969
    Perhaps the most influential progressive rock album of all time was King Crimson's debut LP, In The Court Of The Crimson King. The band, in its original incarnation, included Robert Fripp on guitar, Ian MacDonald on keyboards and woodwinds, Greg Lake on vocals and bass, David Giles on drums and Peter Sinfield as a dedicated lyricist. The title track, which takes up the second half of side two of the LP, features music composed by MacDonald, who would leave the group after their second album, later resurfacing as a founding member of Foreigner. The album's distinctive cover art came from a painting by computer programmer Barry Godber, who died of a heart attack less than a year after the album was released. According to Fripp, the artwork on the inside is a portrait of the Crimson King, whose manic smile is in direct contrast to his sad eyes. The album, song and artwork were the inspiration for Stephen King's own Crimson King, the insane antagonist of his Dark Tower saga who is out to destroy all of reality, including our own. 

Artist:        Vanilla Fudge
Title:        Season of the Witch
Source:       LP: Renaissance
Writer:        Donovan Leitch
Label:        Atco
Year:        1968
        The Vanilla Fudge are generally best remembered for their acid rock rearrangements of hit songs such as You Keep Me Hangin' On, Ticket To Ride and Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). Their third album, Renaissance, while actually featuring more original material that their previous albums, still included a couple of these cover songs. The best-known of these was this rather spooky (and a little over-the-top) version of Donovan's Season Of The Witch, a song that was also covered by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills the same year on the first Super Session album.The track features a spoken section written by Essra Mohawk, a singer/songwriter whose own debut album was produced by Frank Zappa.

Artist:    Mike Oldfield
Title:    Tubular Bells
Source:    LP: Tubular Bells
Writer(s):    Mike Oldfield
Label:    Virgin
Year:    1973
    Side one of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells album runs over 25 minutes in length. Most people have only heard the beginning section of the piece used in the 1973 film The Exorcist. I thought this might be a nice time to reveal a little of what comes after.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2544 (starts 10/27/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/593594

    It's late October, and for most Westerners that means the Season Of The Witch. And Wizard. And other various mysterious and sometimes spooky things. For Rockin' in the Days of Confusion it means a chance to play some really cool tunes with a somewhat common theme. The first half of the show is all about the witches...

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Season Of The Witch
Source:    CD: Super Session
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
            In 1968 Al Kooper, formerly of the Blues Project, formed a new group he called Blood, Sweat and Tears. Then, after recording one album with the new group, he promptly quit the band. He then booked studio time and called in his friend Michael Bloomfield (who had just left own his new band the Electric Flag) for a recorded jam session. Due to his chronic insomnia and inclination to use heroin to deal with said insomnia, Bloomfield was unable to record an entire album's worth of material, and Kooper called in another friend, Stephen Stills (who had recently left the Buffalo Springfield) to complete the project. The result was the Super Session album, which surprisingly (considering that it was the first album of its kind), made the top 10 album chart. One of the most popular tracks on Super Session was an extended version of Donovan's Season of the Witch, featuring Stills using a wah-wah pedal (a relatively new invention at the time). Kooper initially felt that the basic tracks needed some sweetening, so he brought in a horn section to record additional overdubs. 

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    The Witch's Promise
Source:    LP: Living In The Past (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    American listeners may be surprised to learn that Jethro Tull, known in the US as an album-oriented progressive rock band, actually had a series of top 10 singles in their native UK, including several that were not available on the LPs at all. The last of these standalone singles was The Witch's Promise, released in January of 1970. Released as a follow-up to Living In The Past and Sweet Dreams. both of which had made the top 10 on the British charts, The Witch's Promise continued the trend, peaking at #4 (although released as a single in the US, the record failed to crack the top 100). Nonetheless, Tull's leader, Ian Anderson, announced that all future singles would be taken from the band's albums (although they ended up releasing a couple of EPs with all-new material later in the decade).

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    Allison Gross
Source:    LP: Parcel Of Rogues
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Steeleye Span
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    The idea of a being with supernatural powers exacting vengeance on a spurned lover is a common theme in British folklore. One of the best known examples of this is the folk song Allison Gross, in which "the ugliest witch in the north country" ends up turning the protagonist of the song into "an ugly wurm" (dragon) for spurning her affections. Steeleye Span modernized the musical arrangement for their 1973 album Parcel Of Rogues. The original folk song has additional verses in which the protagonist eventually is cured of his affliction by a passing group of fairies.

Artist:     Fairport Convention
Title:     Tam Lin
Source:     LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Leige and Leaf)
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Swarbrick
Label:     A&M
Year:     1969
    Fairport Convention was hailed as England's answer to Jefferson Airplane when they first appeared. As Tam Lin, a electrified traditional English ballad that was included on their 1969 album Leige And Lief shows, they soon established a sound all their own. Sandy Denny, heard here on lead vocals, is probably best known to US audiences for her backup vocals on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore from their fourth LP.

Artist:    Redbone
Title:    The Witch Queen Of New Orleans
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Message From A Drum)
Writer(s):    Pat and Lolly Vegas
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Epic)
Year:    1971
    Citing part-Cherokee Jimi Hendrix as an inspiration, brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas, already veteran performers who had appeared several times on ABC-TV's Shindig, among other venues, decided to form an all Native American band in 1969. Their first hit single was The Witch Queen Of New Orleans, from the 1971 LP Message From A Drum. Redbone recorded a total of six albums for the Epic label in the early 1970s, and are known for being the opening act at the first Earth Day event.     

Artist:    Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show
Title:    Marie Laveau
Source:    LP: Doctor Hook
Writer(s):    Silverstein/Taylor
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    One of America's best known folk characters is actually based on a real person. Marie Laveau was a dedicated practitioner of Voodoo, as well as a healer and herbalist who lived in New Orleans in the 19th century. Details of her life are sketchy, and much of her legend was fostered by her daughter Marie Laveau II, who took the title of Voodoo Queen following the original Marie's death and was much more into public displays of her powers. The song Marie Laveau, which actually has little in common with the historical figure other than the name, was one of many tunes written for the band Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show by the multi-talented Shel Silverstein, author of The Giving Tree and longtime cartoonist for Playboy magazine.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    The Wizard
Source:    CD: Black Sabbath
Writer:    Osborne/Iommi/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers/Rhino
Year:    1970
    Often cited as the first true heavy metal album, Black Sabbath's debut LP features one of my all-time favorite album covers (check out the Stuck in the Psychedelic Era Facebook page's Classic Album Covers section) as well as several outstanding tracks. One of the best of these is The Wizard, which was reportedly inspired by the Gandalf character from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings trilogy. 

Artist:    Edgar Winter Group
Title:    Frankenstein (edited version)
Source:    LP: They Only Come Out At Night
Writer:    Edgar Winter
Label:    Epic
Year:    1973
    A real monster hit (sorry, couldn't resist).

Artist:    Blue Oyster Cult
Title:    (Don't Fear) The Reaper
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Agents Of Fortune)
Writer(s):    Donald Roeser
Label:    Sony Music
Year:    1976
    Guitarist/vocalist Buck Dharma wrote (Don't Fear) The Reaper in his late 20s. At the time, he said, he was expecting to die at a young age. Dharma (real name Donald Roeser), is now 71 years old. Personally, I can't hear this track without thinking of the 1994 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    The Wizard
Source:    LP: Demons And Wizards
Writer:    Hensley/Clarke
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1972
    Although Uriah Heep had been around since 1969, they didn't get much attention in the US until their Demons And Wizards album in 1972, which included their biggest hit, Easy Livin'. The Wizard, which opens the album, was the first of two singles released from the album. The song itself is a semi-acoustic tune about a wizard whose name is never given, but is thought to be either Merlin or Gandalf.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Gallows Pole
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin III
Writer(s):    Traditional, arr. Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Following a year of intensive touring to promote their first two albums, Led Zeppelin members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page decided to take some time off, cloistering themselves in a small Welsh cottage known as Bron-Yr-Aur for several weeks. The place had no electricity, and the pair used the time to write and/or adapt acoustic material for the band to record for their third LP. One of the best of these "new" songs was Gallows Pole, which Page adapted from a 1962 recording by Fred Gerlach, although the song's roots go back several centuries. 

Artist:    Bo Hansson
Title:    The City
Source:    LP: Magician's Hat
Writer(s):    Bo Hansson
Label:    Charisma
Year:    1972
    Swedish multi-instrumentalist/composer Bo Hansson released his first solo instrumental progressive rock album, Music Inspired By Lord Of The Rings, in 1970, after having read a copy of the Tolkien trilogy given to him by his girlfriend. The album, originally released in Sweden, was successful enough to be picked up for international distribution on the Charisma label in 1972. At around the same time, Hansson began work on his follow-up LP, Magician's Hat. This second effort was released in Sweden in late 1972 and once again picked up by Charisma for international release. Although not as successful as its predecessor, Magician's Hat is still quite listenable, as can be heard on the LP's opening track, The City. 

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2543 (starts 10/20/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/592606 

    This time around we have no less than three artists' sets highligting the usual balance between singles, B sides and album tracks from the late 1960s.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Subterranean Homesick Blues
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released on LP: Bringing It All Back Home and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1965
    1965 was the year Bob Dylan went electric, and got his first top 40 hit, Subterranean Homesick Blues, in the process. Although the song, which also led off his Bringing It All Back Home album, stalled out in the lower 30s, it did pave the way for electrified cover versions of Dylan songs by the Byrds and Turtles and Dylan's own Like A Rolling Stone, which would revolutionize top 40 radio itself. A line from the song itself, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", became the inspiration for a radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that called itself the Weathermen (later the Weather Underground).

Artist:     Simon and Garfunkel
Title:     A Hazy Shade Of Winter
Source:     LP: Bookends
Writer:     Paul Simon
Label:     Sundazed/Columbia
Year:     1966
     Originally released as a single in 1966, A Hazy Shade Of Winter was one of several songs intended for the film The Graduate. The only one of these actually used in the film was Mrs. Robinson. The remaining songs eventually made up side two of the 1968 album Bookends, although several of them were also released as singles throughout 1967. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, being the first of these singles (and the only one released in 1966), was also the highest charting, peaking at # 13 just as the weather was turning cold.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Remember
Source:    Dutch import LP: The Singles (originally released in the UK and Europe on LP: Are You Experienced) 
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Polydor (original UK label: Track)
Year:    1967
    It was common in the 1960s for artists to include "filler" material on their albums, with their best stuff being saved for single releases. Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience made making the best albums a priority, there was still material on their first LP that Hendrix himself considered filler. One of these was Remember, which was also one of three tracks deleted from the US version of the LP to make room for three UK singles that were not on the UK version of Are You Experienced. Still, filler for Jimi Hendrix is as good as or better than 99% of many other artists' best material at the time, as can be heard here.
    
Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Born To Be Wild
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    Mars Bonfire
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Born To Be Wild's status as a counter-cultural anthem was cemented when it was chosen for the soundtrack of the movie Easy Rider. The popularity of both the song and the movie resulted in Steppenwolf becoming the all-time favorite band of bikers all over the world.
        
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:    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:      Shadows Of Knight
Title:     Bad Little Woman
Source:      LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s):    Tinsley/Catling/Demick/Armstrong/Rosbotham
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:     1966
    For the opening track of the second LP, Back Door Men, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight cranked up the volume on a cover of a little-known tune called Bad Little Woman that had originally been recorded by a Northern Irish band called the Wheels. And when I say cranked up the volume I mean that literally, as the overall level of the recording jumps several decibels following the first verse. As the mono single version of the song does the exact same thing I'm going to assume it was done during the recording process itself. 

Artist:    Them
Title:    Square Room (single version)
Source:    Mono British import CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Armstrong/Harley/Henderson/McDowell
Label:    Rev-Ola (original label: Sully)
Year:    1967
    After Van Morrison left Them to try his luck as a solo artist, the rest of the band returned to their native Ireland to recruit a new vocalist, Kenny McDowell, before relocating to California. Their first record with the new lineup was a single on the Sully label of a song called Dirty Old Man (At The Age Of 16). The B side of the single was a piece called Square Room, that would end up being re-recorded in a much longer arrangement for their LP debut on Tower Records the following year. 

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Peregrine
Source:    British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    Donovan's 1968 album The Hurdy Gurdy Man saw the Scottish singer/songwriter experimenting with drones (the musical ones...the flying things hadn't been invented yet). This use of a single-note playing constantly through a piece is most noticable on the album's second track, Peregrine, which uses a harmonium and a double bass played with a bow, givng the piece a decidedly hypnotic quality.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    God Only Knows
Source:    CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol/UMe
Year:    1966
    Possibly the first time a deity appeared in the title of a pop song was the Beach Boys song God Only Knows on the Pet Sounds album. Both Brian and Carl Wilson were going through a spiritual phase and were in the habit of praying for guidance throughout the making of Pet Sounds. The song was released, along with Wouldn't It Be Nice, as a double A sided single a few weeks after the album came out, and both songs made the top 40, although Wouldn't It Be Nice was the bigger hit in the US. In the UK, where Beatle Paul McCartney was enthusiastic in his support of the tune, God Only Knows went all the way to the # 5 slot, considerably higher than in the US.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
Source:    Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    Early on Brian Wilson recognized that his greatest strength was in writing music, as opposed to performing or even writing lyrics. Being the leader and producer of the most successful recording artists in southern California, Wilson was able to take his pick of the best lyricists available, including Mike Love, Van Dyke Parks, and, on the Pet Sounds album, Tony Asher, whose introspective lyrics complemented Wilson's maturing musical themes perfectly. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is an excellent example of how well the two worked together to capture a specific mood and theme. 

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Here Today
Source:    CD: Pet Sounds: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol/UMe
Year:    1966
    Apparently there is a conversation about cameras going on in the background of the instrumental break of Here Today on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. I never noticed it. I guess I'll have to listen more closely next time. 

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Antique Doll
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released on LP: Underground)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Sometimes there is no comprehending what goes on in the mind of record company people. Take the Electric Prunes, for example. Their second single, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), put them right at the front of the pack of the psychedelic rock movement in early 1967. Their follow up single, Get Me To The World On Time, was a solid hit as well, which should have guaranteed them a good run. But even with that second single, problems with management's decision making were becoming apparent. For one thing, the song chosen as the second single's B side, Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less), had the potential to be a hit in its own right, but being put on a B side killed that idea entirely. It only got worse from there. The next single chosen was a novelty number from the band's second LP, Underground, called Dr. Do-Good. The tune was written by the same team of Annette Tucker and Nanci Mantz that had come up with both Dream and Lovin' Me More, but was played for laughs by the band. The choice of such a weird track is a complete puzzle, as there were several more commercial tunes on the LP, including one written by Tucker and Mantz themselves called Antique Doll. Unfortunately, the song was not even picked to be a B side, and has remained virtually unknown ever since. Rather than own up to their own mistakes, however, the band's management blamed the musicians themselves for their lack of commercial success, and eventually replaced the entire lineup of the original group (who had signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes early on). Of course, the new lineups were even less successful than the original crew, but really, what else would you expect?

Artist:    Human Expression
Title:    Optical Sound
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Quarles/Foster
Label:    Rhino (original label: Accent)
Year:    1967
    One thing Los Angeles had become known for by the mid-1960s was its urban sprawl. Made possible by one of the world's most extensive regional freeway systems, the city had become surrounded by suburbs on all sides (except for the oceanfront). Many of these suburbs were (and are) in Orange County, home to Anaheim stadium, Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. The O.C. was also home to the Human Expression, a band that recorded a trio of well-regarded singles for the Accent label. The second of these was Optical Sound. True to its name, the song utilized the latest technology available to achieve a decidedly psychedelic sound.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Lady Friend (live)
Source:    LP: Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival Saturday, June 17, 1967
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Monterey International Pop Festival Foundation
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2024
    One of the more memorable moments in D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film about the Monterey International Pop Festival is when David Crosby, during a Byrds sound check before the beginning of the festival itself, is heard to say "Finally! A decent sound system." Unfortunately, in the case of the Byrds, a decent sound system didn't translate into a decent performance, as can be heard on this live version of Lady Friend, a song that would be released less than a month later as the only Byrds A side written solely by Crosby. It was also the band's lowest charting single (with the exception of Please Let Me Love You, a 1964 tune credited to the Beefeaters) up to that point in their career and in all liklihood one of the many factors that led to Crosby's dismissal from the group in late 1967. Then again, Crosby expressing his opinion onstage that the US Government was lying about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and then sitting in with Buffalo Springfield at the same festival the next day, as well as vehemently arguing against the release of the band's next single, Goin' Back (which incidentally ended up charting even lower than Lady Friend) may have been contributing factors as well. And then there was the whole flap surrounding the song Triad, which you can read more about by checking the blog entry for show # 2541. 

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Dandy
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Pye; original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Ray Davies was well into his satirical phase when he wrote and recorded Dandy for the Kinks' 1966 album Face To Face. The song was a top 10 single in the UK, but was only available as an album track in the US. Later that year the song was covered by Herman's Hermits, becoming a hit on the US top 40 charts (but not in England).

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I Gotta Move
Source:    LP: Kinks-Size (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1964
    Nowhere was the difference between US and UK record company practices more evident than on records by the Kinks in 1965. Pye Records, the band's UK label, released singles, LPs and 45 RPM Extended Play records, all of which contained songs unavailable on either of the other two formats. In the US, however, LPs had a shorter running time, and commonly included songs that were also released as singles. Additionally, Extended Play 45 RPM records were virtually extinct in the US by 1965, leaving the Kinks' US label, Reprise, with a considerable backlog of songs. Because of this, Reprise was able to issue four Kinks albums in 1965, compared with Pye's two for the same year. One of these US-only LPs was Kinks-Size, which included tracks like I Gotta Move, which was originally released in 1964 as the B side of All Day And All Of The Night. Ironically, Kinks-Size was the band's most successful LP of the decade in the US, going to the #13 spot on the Billboard album charts.
        
Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I'll Remember
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    The last track on the Kinks' 1966 LP Face To Face was actually the first to be recorded. I'll Remember was committed to tape during sessions for the group's previous album, the Kinks Kontroversy, in October of 1965, but held back until the release of Face To Face a year later. The album itself was the first to be made up entirely of songs written by Ray Davies, and is considered by some critics to be rock music's first concept album.
        
Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    Sweet Lorene
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul)
Writer(s):    Redding/Hayes/Isbell
Label:    Volt
Year:    1966
    When Otis Redding was killed in a plane crash on December 10, 1967, it had been over a year since his last solo studio album had been released, and he had just finished recording several new tunes that were not ready to be issued without post-production work. So when Stax Records decided to issue (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay as a single in early 1968, they turned to his 1966 LP Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul, for the B side, an original composition called Sweet Lorene that was co-written by Isaac Hayes and Stax co-owner Alvertis Isbell. 

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Complicated
Source:    CD: Between The Buttons
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones' 1967 album Between The Buttons was made amidst growing problems for the band, both with their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and guitarist Brian Jones, whose heavy drug use was beginning to take its toll. Exascerbating the problem was the band's increasing frustration with the limitations of four-track technology, which often necessitated bouncing tracks from one machine to another to make room for overdubs, resulting in a loss of overall quality. In fact, Mick Jagger has called the entire album "garbage" (with the exception of one song that was only included on the British version of the LP), due to the poor audio quality of the finished product. Still, some of the songs, like Complicated, are good representations of where the band was musically at the time the album was recorded.
    
Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Norwegian Wood
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1965
    The first Beatles song to feature a sitar, Norwegian Wood, perhaps more than any other song, has come to typify the new direction songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney began to take with the release of the Rubber Soul album in December of 1965. Whereas their earlier material was written to be performed as well as recorded, songs like Norwegian Wood were first and foremost studio creations. The song itself was reportedly based on a true story and was no doubt a contributing factor to the disintegration of Lennon's first marraige. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Come Together
Source:    CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1969
    After the Beatles released their 1968 double LP (the so-called White Album), they went to work on their final film project, a documentary about the band making an album. Unfortunately, what the cameras captured was a group on the verge of disintegration, and both the album and the film itself were shelved indefinitely. Instead, the band went to work recording an entirely new group of compositions. Somehow, despite the internal difficulties the band was going through, they managed to turn out a masterpiece: Abbey Road. Before the album itself came out, a single was released. The official A side (green Apple label) was George Harrison's Something, the first Harrison song ever to be released as a Beatle A side. The other A side (Apple core label) was the song that opened the album itself, John Lennon's Come Together. In later years Come Together came to be Lennon's signature song and was a staple of his live performances.

Artist:        Beatles
Title:        The Word
Source:    Mono CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:        Capitol/EMI
Year:        1965
        The original concept for the album Rubber Soul was to show the group stretching out into R&B territory. The US version of the album, however, deleted several of the more soulful numbers in favor of folk-rock oriented songs. This was done by Capitol records mainly to cash in on the sudden popularity of the genre in 1965. Not all of the more R&B flavored songs were replaced, however. John Lennon's The Word appeared on both US and UK versions of Rubber Soul.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Heart Full Of Soul
Source:    British import simulated stereo LP: Remember... (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Graham Gouldman
Label:    Starline (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1965
    The Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love, Heart Full Of Soul, was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who also wrote For Your Love. For some odd reason Gouldman's own band, the Mockingbirds, was strangely unable to buy a hit on the charts, despite Gouldman's obvious talents as a songwriter. Gouldman would eventually go on to be a founding member of 10cc, who were quite successful in the 1970s. 

Artist:    Magic Mushrooms
Title:    It's-A-Happening
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Casella/Rice
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1966
    It's not known whether or not the Magic Mushrooms heard any of the tracks from the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out when they recorded It's-A-Happening. Still, it's hard to imagine this bit of inspired weirdness being created in a vacuum. Besides this one single, nobody seems to have any knowledge whatsoever of the group known as the Magic Mushrooms, other than the fact that they hailed from Philadelphia, Pa., and, along with Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, may well have been the reason that A&M Records shied away from signing any more psychedelic rock bands for the next few years. (Well, there were Procol Harum and Joe Cocker, but their stuff was recorded for British labels and reissued in the US by A&M, so I'm not counting them). 

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    I'm Only Dreaming
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    Immediate
Year:    1967
    As was the usual custom in the UK, the single Itchycoo Park was not included on any Small Faces albums. In the US, however, both the hit single and its B side, I'm Only Dreaming were included on the LP There Are But Four Small Faces, along with about half the songs from the UK LP Small Faces. As stereo LPs were being phased out in the US by the time the album was released, the mono single version has always been a bit of a rarity, even after being re-released in limited quantity (2500 copies) in 2012 by Charly records.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    To See The Sun
Source:    Mono CD: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands (bonus track originally released on 12" 45 RPM extended play picture disc: The Turtles-1968)
Writer:    The Turtles
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1978
    In 1968 the Turtles, feeling restricted by the dictates of producers and record company people, decided to rent studio time to produce some tracks of their own. The result was four songs, three of which were rejected outright by their label, White Whale. (The fourth track, Surfer Joe, was included on their Battle of the Bands album). Several years later a new local L.A. record label, Rhino Records, was looking to move beyond the niche it had carved out for itself as a novelty label. The chance to make previously unreleased material such as To See The Sun from a band as well-known as the Turtles was just what the label was looking for, and, along with re-releasing long out-of-print Turtles albums, got the label moving in a whole new direction that they continue to excel at.

Artist:    Taste
Title:    Born On The Wrong Side Of Time
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Taste)
Writer(s):    Rory Gallagher
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Formed in Cork, Northern Ireland, in 1966, Taste, led by guitarist/vocalist Rory Gallagher, quickly established themselves as the area's premier power trio. By 1967 the group, which by then consisted of Gallagher, drummer John Wilson, and bassist Richard McCracken, was one of the hottest bands in the UK, opening for such bands as Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Cream (including Cream's farewell appearances at Royal Albert Hall in 1968). The group released their debut LP in 1969, supporting the album by opening for Blind Faith on their US tour. The band released one more LP before Gallagher decided to pursue a solo career in the 1970s.

Artist:    Other Side
Title:    Walking Down The Road
Source:    CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Al Shackman
Label:    Big Beat (original labels: Mainstream/Brent)
Year:    1966
    San Jose, California was at the center of the most vibrant and dynamic local music scenes in the country in the mid-1960s. By the end of 1966 both the Syndicate Of Sound and Count Five had cracked the national charts, while bands such as the Chocolate Watch Band were just beginning to make their mark. There was a lot of movement of musicians between bands as well, with groups like the Topsiders counting Sean Tolby (Watchband) and Skip Spence (Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape) among their early members. A move by the Topsiders to recruit Watchband guitarist/organist Ned Torney in 1966 resulted in an entirely new group, the Other Side, being formed. They soon had established enough of a reputation to get the attention of Golden State Recorders, who were auditioning acts for Mainstream Records owner Bob Shad. Shad signed the group immediately to his Brent label, releasing Walking Down The Road in early autumn. The stereo mix of Walking Down The Road was included on the compilation album With Love-A Pot Of Flowers on Shad's Mainstream label in late 1967, but by then the group had morphed into a band called Bogus Thunder, which would eventually become known as Gladstone, releasing a single on the A&M label in 1969.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Whiskey Man
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    John Entwhistle
Label:    Decca
Year:    1966
    Although the Who had previously issued a pair of singles in the US, the first one to make any kind of waves was Happy Jack, released in late 1966 and hitting its peak the following year. The B side of that record was the song Whiskey Man. Like all the Who songs penned by bassist John Entwhistle, this one has an unusual subject: in this case, psychotic alcohol-induced hallucinations that are more enjoyable than reality.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Caress Me Baby
Source:     Mono CD: Projections
Writer:     Jimmy Reed
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:     1966
     After deliberately truncating their extended jams for their first LP, Live At The Cafe Au-Go-Go, the Blues Project recorded a second album that was a much more accurate representation of what the band was all about. Mixed in with the group's original material was this outstanding cover of Caress Me Baby, an old Jimmy Reed tune sung by lead guitarist and Blues Project founder Danny Kalb that runs over seven minutes in length. Andy Kuhlberg's memorable walking bass line would be lifted a few year later by Blood, Sweat and Tears bassist Jim Fielder for the track Blues, Part II.

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today (short single edit)
Source:    45 RPM single (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
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 an edited version of the song was released that faded out at the beginning of the 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 and an edited version of the original cold ending, making the first edited version of the song pretty much obsolete. Until this week's show, that is.

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Short-Haired Fathers
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Circus Maximus was formed in Greenwich Village by guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in 1967. The group originally wanted to call itself the Lost Sea Dreamers, but changed it after the Vanguard Records expressed reservations about signing a group with the initials LSD. Of the eleven tracks on the band's debut LP, only four were written by Walker, and those were in more of a folk-rock vein. Bruno's seven tracks, on the other hand, are true gems of psychedelia, ranging from the jazz-influenced Wind to the proto-punk rocker Short-Haired Fathers. The group fell apart after only two albums, mostly due to the growing musical differences between Walker and Bruno. Walker, of course, went on to become one of the most successful songwriters of the country-rock genre. As for Bruno, he's still in New York City, concentrating more on the visual arts in recent years.

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:    Sagittarius
Title:    My World Fell Down
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carter/Stephens
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    The Beach Boys' 1966 masterpiece Good Vibrations sent shock waves reverberating throughout the L.A. studio scene. Among those inspired by Brian Wilson's achievement were Wilson's former collaborator Gary Usher, who formed the studio band Sagittarius to record My World Fell Down in 1967. Among those participating in the project were Glen Campbell, who was the first person to take Wilson's place onstage when Wilson retired from performing to concentrate on his songwriting and record producing; Bruce Johnston, who succeeded Campbell and remains the group's bassist to this day; and Terry Melcher, best known as the producer who helped make Paul Revere and the Raiders a household name in 1965 (he was sometimes referred to as the "fifth Raider"). The rhythm section consisted of two of the top studio musicians in pop music history: bassist Carol Kaye and drummer Hal Blaine. With Campbell on lead vocals, Sagittarius was a critical and commercial success that nonetheless did not last past their first LP (possibly due to the sheer amount of ego in the group).
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2543 (starts 10/20/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/592604

    With the weather starting to get colder, we decided to turn up the heat a bit with a 50-minute set that cooks. Then we have a short soul set to cool things off.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Light My Fire
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Once in a while a song comes along that totally blows you away the very first time you hear it. The Doors' Light My Fire was one of those songs. I liked it so much that I immediately went out and bought the 45 RPM single. Not long after that I heard the full-length version of the song from the first Doors album and was blown away all over again. To this day I have a tendency to crank up the volume whenever I hear it. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Gypsy Eyes
Source:    LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Electric Ladyland, the last album by the original Jimi Hendrix Experience, was a double LP mixture of studio recordings and live jams in the studio with an array of guest musicians. Gypsy Eyes is a good example of Hendrix's prowess at the mixing board as well as on guitar.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I'm Yours And I'm Hers
Source:    European import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    1969 was a big year for Johnny Winter. An article the previous year in Rolling Stone magazine referring to the "albino guitarist with long white hair causing a stir in the Southwest" had led to his album The Progressive Blues Experiment being picked up by Imperial Records for national distribution, which in turn led to Winters signing with Columbia, one of the world's largest and most influential record labels. His first album for Columbia, titled simply Johnny Winter, was a critical and commercial success, instantly putting him in the top tier of both blues and rock guitarists. The opening track of the LP was I'm Your And I'm Hers, a Johnny Winter original that utilized the talents of future Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer "Uncle" John Turner, both members of Johnny's band Winter at the time. This same lineup would record a second album for Columbia with Johnny's brother Edgar on keyboards and saxophone before being disbanded in favor of the group that was originally called the McCoys, but would soon come to be known as Johnny Winter And.  

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Lady Whiskey
Source:    CD: Wishbone Ash
Writer(s):    Turner/Turner/Powell/Upton
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1970
    In its own way, the first Wishbone Ash album rocks out as hard as any album released in 1970, and is certainly one of the better debut LPs in rock history. The band would actually soften their sound a touch for later albums, but on tunes like Lady Whiskey they showed that they could hold their own in a world that included bands like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Led Zeppelin.

Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     Same All Over
Source:     CD: The Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released on LP: Hallelujah)
Writer(s):     Hite/Taylor/Vestine/Wilson/de la Parra
Label:     Capitol/EMI (original label: Liberty)
Year:     1969
    Hallelujah was the fourth album released by Canned Heat and the last one to feature the band's classic lineup of Bob Hite (lead vocals), Alan Wilson (guitar, vocals, harmonica), Henry Vestine (lead guitar), Larry Taylor (bass) and Fito de la Parra (drums). Just a few days after the album's July 1969 release an onstage altercation between Vestine and Taylor would result in the guitarist's (temporary as it turned out) departure from the band, to be replaced by Harvey Mandel in time for the group's memorable appearance at Woodstock. Hallelujah starts off strong with Same All Over, an original composition credited to the entire band and featuring veteran bluesman Ernest Lane sitting in on organ and piano.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Fresh Garbage
Source:    CD: Spirit
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Ode/Epic/Legacy 
Year:    1968
    Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a fairly hard rocker and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.
 
Artist:      Allman Brothers Band
Title:     Don't Want You No More/It's Not My Cross To Bear
Source:      CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: The Allman Brothers Band)
Writer(s):    Davis/Hardin/Allman
Label:    Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year:     1969
     The first Allman Brothers band album sold poorly outside of the southeastern US and was pulled from the shelves within a year. Meanwhile, the second album, Idlewild South, did a bit better and the third album, recorded live at the Fillmore East, was a breakout hit. This prompted Capricorn, which in the meantime had morphed from a production house to a full-blown label, to reissue the first two albums as a 2-record set for the price of one called, appropriately, Beginnings. Don't Want You No More is an instrumental (originally recorded by the post-Winwood version of the Spencer Davis Group) that serves as an introduction to both the band and their first album, and segues directly into the Gregg Allman tune It's Not My Cross To Bear. 

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Se A Cabo
Source:    LP: Abraxas
Writer(s):    Chepito Areas
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Following their successful appearance at Woodstock in August of 1969, Santana returned to the studio to begin work on their second LP. Unlike their self-titled debut, Abraxas took several months to record, finally hitting the racks in September of 1970. Like the group's first album, Abraxas includes several instrumental tracks such as Se A Cabo, which opens side two of the original LP. The tune was written by percussionist José Octavio "Chepito" Areas, who played timbales for the band from 1969-1977, returning for a three-year stint in the late 1980s.

Artist:    Focus
Title:    Hocus Pocus
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Moving Waves)
Writer(s):    van Leer/Akkerman
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Sire)
Year:    1971
    Although it was not a hit until 1973, Hocus Pocus, by the Dutch progressive rock band Focus, has the type of simple structure coupled with high energy that was characteristic of many of the garage bands of the mid to late 60s. The song was originally released on the band's second LP, known alternately as Focus II and Moving Waves, in 1971. Both guitarist Jan Akkerman and keyboardist/vocalist/flautist Thijs van Leer have gone on to have successful careers, with van Leer continuing to use to the Focus name as recently as 2006.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Supernaut
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits 1970-1978 (originally released on LP: Vol. 4)
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers/Rhino
Year:    1972
    After a string of three outstanding albums, success started to take its toll on Black Sabbath. Their fourth LP was originally going to be called Snowblind, which accurately describes the state the band members were in most of the time while recording the album. Reportedly, entire speaker boxes full of cocaine were arriving at the studio on a regular basis; at the same time, the band was making their first attempt at producing themselves. Despite all this, the album, which ended up being called Vol. 4 after their label rejected Snowblind as the title, has some of Sabbath's strongest songs, including Supernaut, which closes out the LP's first side. Fans of the song included John Bonham, Frank Zappa and Beck (Hansen).

Artist:    Sly and the Family Stone
Title:    If You Want Me To Stay
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Sylvester Stewart
Label:    Epic
Year:    1973
    By 1973 only trumpeter Cynthia Thompson and saxophonist Jerry Martini remained from the original Sly and the Family Stone lineup, and relationships within the band itself were, to put it mildly, strained (Stone reportedly had hired Mafia-related bodyguards to protect him from those he considered his enemies, including some of his own bandmates). Stone's own focus had been steadily been turning more and more inward, and he had taken to overusing a technique known as bouncing to free up extra tracks for recording. The result was rather muddy sounding tunes such as If You Want Me To Stay, which became the band's final top 20 hit. 

Artist:    Cheech & Chong
Title:    The Other Tapes (fragment)
Source:    LP: Cheech & Chang's Wedding Album
Writer(s):    Marin/Chong
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1974
    The Other Tapes is basically two minutes of a hospital orderly yanking bits of masking tape off an injured motorcycle rider. This 20-second fragment includes what passes for a punchline on the original track.

Artist:    Hot Chocolate
Title:    Brother Louie
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Brown/Wilson
Label:    Rak
Year:    1973
    The British soul band Hot Chocolate recorded the original version of the song Brother Louie in early 1973. Co-written and sung by band members Errol Brown and Tony Wilson, the song peaked at #7 on the UK charts. A few months later the song was covered by an American band called Stories, who took Brother Louie to the top of the US charts in the summer of 1973. Personally I prefer the British original with its (in my opinion) essential spoken parts at key points in the recording.

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2542 (starts 10/13/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/591684

    This week the emphasis is on the years 1966 and 1967, with multiple sets from both years. We also have a Jimi Hendrix set and a few surprises in store.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    It Ain't Me Babe
Source:    Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1965
    The Turtles started out as a local high school surf band called the Crossfires. In 1965 they were signed to a record label that technically didn't exist yet. That did not deter the people at the label (which would come to be known as White Whale) from convincing the band to change its name and direction. Realizing that surf music was indeed on the way out, the band, now called the Turtles, went into the studio and recorded four songs. One of those was Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe. The Byrds had just scored big with their version of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and the Turtles took a similar approach with It Ain't Me Babe. The song was a solid hit, going to the #8 spot on the national charts and leading to the first of many Turtles albums (not to mention hit singles) on the White Whale label. 

Artist:    Knickerbockers
Title:    One Track Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Linda & Keith Colley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year:    1966
    After successfully fooling many people into thinking that they were the Beatles recording under a different name with their 1965 hit Lies, the Knickerbockers (originally from Bergenfield, New Jersey) went with a more R&B flavored rocker for their follow up single. Unfortunately their label, the Los Angeles-based Challenge Records, did not have the resources and/or skills to properly promote the single.

Artist:    Moby Grape 
Title:    Hey Grandma
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Miller/Stevenson
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the most talked-about albums to come from the San Francisco music scene in 1967 was Moby Grape's debut album. Unfortunately a lot of that talk was from Columbia Records itself, which resulted in the band getting a reputation for being overly hyped, much to the detriment of the band's future efforts. Still, that first album did have some outstanding tracks, including Hey Grandma, which was one of five singles released simultaneously by Columbia as part of their over-hyping of the band. 

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Slip Inside This House
Source:    British import CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s):    Hall/Erickson
Label:    Charly (original US label: International Artists)
Year:    1967
    The 13th Floor Elevators returned from their only California tour in time to celebrate Christmas of 1966 in their native Texas. Not long after that things began to fall apart for the band. Much of this can be attributed to bad management, but at least some of the problems were internal in nature. Lead guitarist Stacy Southerland was caught with marijuana in the trunk of his car, thus causing his probation to be revoked, which in turn meant he was not allowed to leave the Lone Star state. This in turn caused the entire rhythm section to head off for San Francisco, leaving Southerland, along with electric juggest Tommy Hall and vocalist Roky Erickson, to find replacement members in time to start work on the band's second album, Easter Everywhere. Despite this, the album itself came out remarkably well, and is now considered a high point of the psychedelic era. Unlike the first 13th Floor Elevators album, Easter Everywhere was designed to be a primarily spiritual work. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's opening track, the eight-minute epic Slip Inside This House. Written primarily by Hall, Slip Inside This House was intended to "establish the syncretic concepts behind Western and Eastern religions, science and mysticism, and consolidate them into one body of work that would help redefine the divine essence". While whether he succeeded or not is a matter of opinion, the track itself is certainly worth hearing for yourself. Enjoy.
    
Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Am The Walrus
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    There were actually three different versions of the Beatles' I Am The Walrus released in late 1967, all of which were made from the same basic master tape. The first (heard here) was a mono single version that was issued as the B side of the Hello Goodbye single in late November. This version features a four-beat intro and has an extra bar of music immediately preceding the words "yellow matter custard" in the middle of the song. The second version was the stereo version featured on the US-only Magical Mystery Tour album. This version is basically the same as the mono version, but does not contain the extra bar in the middle. The third version appeared in early December in Europe and the UK on the stereo version of the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack EP. This version features a six beat intro, but is otherwise identical to the US stereo version. In the early 1980s engineers at Capitol Records created a fourth version of I Am The Walrus that uses the six beat intro from the UK stereo version and includes the extra bar in the middle of the song from the US single version. That fourth version was included on the US version of the Beatles' Rarities album. 
    
Artist:    Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Title:    I'll Search The Sky
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Ricochet)
Writer(s):    David Hanna
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1967
            The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released two albums in 1967, about four to five months apart. Part of the reason for this may have been that their label, Liberty Records, was finding it difficult to get any of their releases to show up on the Billboard album charts; in fact, the first Dirt Band album was one of only two LPs on the label to accomplish that feat that year. The second LP by the group, Ricochet, was not able to duplicate the success of the first one, however, despite fine tracks like I'll Search The Sky and the band was in danger of fading off into obscurity by the end of the year. The group persisted, however, and eventually hit it big with their version of Jerry Jeff Walker's Mr. Bojangles. The band continued to gravitate toward country music over the next decade, eventually emerging as one of the top country acts of the 1980s.

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Itchycoo Park
Source:    British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
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 their previous incarnation.
 
Artist:    Balloon Farm
Title:    A Question Of Temperature
Source:    Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Laurie)
Year:    1967
    Few, if any, bands managed to successfully cross bubble gum and punk like the New York based Balloon Farm with A Question Of Temperature, originally released on the Laurie label in 1967. Band member Mike Appel went on to greater notoriety as Bruce Springsteen's first manager.
 
Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Daydream
Source:    British import CD: Peace & Love-The Woodstock Generation (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Sebastian
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: Kama Sutra)
Year:    1966
    One of the most popular songs of 1966 was Daydream by the Lovin' Spoonful. Like many of the songs on the Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful album, Daydream is a departure from the style of the band's early singles such as Do You Believe In Magic. It's also one of the few songs with whistling in it to hit the number one spot on the charts.

Artist:           Easybeats
Title:        Friday On My Mind
Source:       CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year:        1966
       Considered by many to be the "greatest Australian song" ever (despite the fact that it was actually recorded in London), the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, released in late 1966, certainly was the first major international hit to emerge from a band on the island continent. Following the dissolution of the Easybeats in 1970 guitarists Harry Vanda and George Young would continue to work together, recording as Flash And The Pan from 1976-1992 as well as producing the first six albums by another Australian band featuring Young's two younger brothers, Angus and Malcolm. That band? AC/DC.

Artist:    Troggs
Title:    I Can't Control Myself
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Reg Presley
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 song was promptly banned on many stations on both sides of the Atlantic for its suggestive lyrics, which probably increased the band's popularity.

Artist:    Merry-Go-Round
Title:    You're A Very Lovely Woman (originally released on LP: The Merry-Go-Round)
Source:    CD: More Nuggets
Writer:    Emmit Rhodes
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1967
    Emitt Rhodes first got noticed in his mid-teens as the drummer for the Palace Guard, a Beatles-influenced L.A. band that had a minor hit with the song Like Falling Sugar in 1966. Rhodes would soon leave the Guard to front his own band, the Merry-Go-Round, scoring one of the most popular regional hits in L.A. history with the song Live, the lead track from the Merry-Go-Round's 1967 self-titled LP. In 1969 Rhodes decided to try his hand as a solo artist. The problem was that he was, as a member of the Merry-Go-Round, contractually obligated to record one more album for A&M. The album itself, featuring a mixture of recycled Merry-Go-Round tracks such as You're A Very Lovely Woman, along with a few Rhodes solo tunes, sat on the shelf for two years until Rhodes had released a pair of well-received LPs for his new label, at which time A&M finally issued The American Dream as an Emitt Rhodes album. 

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Wind
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Circus Maximus was formed out of the chance meeting of multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in Greenwich Village in 1967. From the start the band was moving in different directions, with Bruno incorporating jazz elements into the band while Walker favored country-rock. Eventually the two would go their separate ways, but for the short time the band was together they made some of the best, if not best-known, psychedelic music on the East Coast. The band's most popular track was Wind, a Bruno tune from their debut album. The song got a considerable amount of airplay on the new "underground" radio stations that were popping up across the country at the time.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Matilda Mother
Source:    LP: A Nice Pair (originally released on LP: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn)
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Harvest (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Listening to tracks like Matilda Mother, I can't help but wonder where Pink Floyd might have gone if Syd Barrett had not succumbed to mental illness following the release of the band's first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in 1967. Unlike the rest of the band members, Barrett had the ability to write songs that were not only adventurous, but commercially viable as singles as well. After Barrett's departure, it took the group several years to become commercially successful on their own terms (although they obviously did). We'll never know what they may have done in the intervening years were Barrett still at the helm.
    
Artist:    Simon Dupree And The Big Sound
Title:    Kites
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road-1965-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pockriss/Hackaday
Label:    EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1967
    Almost all of the British beat bands of the 1960s played R&B covers in their early days. Most, like the Animals and Rolling Stones, covered blues artists like John Lee Hooker or early rock and rollers like Chuck Berry. Simon Dupree And The Big Sound, however, saw themselves more as a "soul" band in the image of such American artists as Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. Led by the Shulman brothers (Derek, Ray and Phil), the band was formed in early 1966 and was soon signed to EMI's Parlophone label. After their first few singles failed to chart, the band's label and management convinced them to record the more psychedelic-sounding Kites. Although the band hated the record, it ended up being their only top 10 single in the UK, and after subsequent records went nowhere, the group, finally realizing that they were not destined to hit the big time as a blue-eyed soul band, disbanded in 1969. The Shulman brothers, however, did achieve success in the 1970s with their new band Gentle Giant, which was about as far removed from blue-eyed soul as you can get.

Artist:    Knaves
Title:    Leave Me Alone
Source:    Mono CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Berkman/Hulbert
Label:    Sundazed (original labels: Glen/Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The Knaves, Howard Berkman, John Hulbert, Mark Feldman, Neil Pollack, and Gene Lubin, came from the northern suburbs of Chicago, and were one of the last bands to record for the Dunwich label before it converted itself to a production company. Unlike the label's most famous band, the Shadows Of Knight, the Knaves had actually released their first single, Leave Me Alone, on the tiny Glen label in 1966, with Dunwich reissuing it the following year. The song itself has a strong anti-establishment sentiment that would be echoed by countless punk-rock bands a decade later, and became a top 5 hit in Chicago thanks to heavy airplay on WCFL, one of the city's two major top 40 stations. Unfortunately the band had difficulty lining up paying gigs and disbanded in 1967.
    
Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title:    Angel
Source:    LP: The Cry Of Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    Shortly after the untimely death of Jimi Hendrix in September of 1970, Reprise released the first of many posthumous Hendrix albums, The Cry Of Love. Like millions of other Hendrix fans, I immediately went out and bought a copy. I have to say that there are very few songs that have ever brought tears to my eyes, and even fewer that did so on my very first time hearing them. Of these, Angel, featuring Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass, tops the list.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    If 6 Was 9
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Before 1967 stereo was little more than an excuse to charge a dollar more for an LP. That all changed in a hurry, as artists such as Jimi Hendrix began to explore the possibilities of the technology, in essence treating stereophonic sound as a multi-dimensional sonic palette. The result can be heard on songs such as If 6 Were 9 from the Axis: Bold As Love album, which is best listened to at high volume, preferably with headphones on. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Belly Button Window
Source:    LP: The Cry Of Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
                Following the death of Jimi Hendrix, Reprise Records got to work compiling tracks for The Cry Of Love, the first of many posthumous Hendrix albums released by the label. The final track on the LP was an unfinished piece called Belly Button Window that featured Hendrix on vocals and electric guitar, with no other musicians appearing on the track. In the late 1990s the Hendrix family released a CD called First Rays Of The New Rising Sun that was based on Hendrix's own plans for a double-length album that he was working on at the time of his death. First Rays Of The New Rising Sun ends with the same bare bones recording of Belly Button Window that was used on The Cry Of Love.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Love Seems Doomed
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on 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 need for 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:    Jake Holmes
Title:    Dazed And Confused
Source:    LP: Nuggets vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released on LP: The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes)
Writer(s):    Jake Holmes
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    On Auguest 5th, 1967 a little known singer/songwriter named Jake Holmes opened for the Yardbirds for a gig in New York City, performing songs from his debut LP The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes, including a rather creepy sounding tune called Dazed And Confused. Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty, who was in the audience for Holmes's set, went out and bought a copy of the album the next day. Soon after that the Yardbirds began performing their own modified version of Dazed And Confused. Tower Records, perhaps looking to take advantage of the Yardbirds popularization of the tune, released Holmes's version of Dazed And Confused as a single in January of 1968. Meanwhile, the Yardbirds split up, with guitarist Jimmy Page forming a new band called Led Zeppelin. One of the songs Led Zeppelin included on their 1969 debut LP was yet another new arrangement of Dazed And Confused, with new lyrics provided by Page and singer Robert Plant. This version was credited entirely to Page. Holmes himself, not being a fan of British blues-rock, was not aware of any of this at first, and then let things slide until 2010, when he finally filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. The matter was ultimately settled out of court, and all copies of the first Led Zeppelin album made from 2014 on include "inspired by Jake Holmes" in the credits.

Artist:     Jethro Tull
Title:     Dharma For One
Source:     LP: This Was
Writer:     Anderson/Bunker
Label:     Chrysalis
Year:     1968
     By 1968 it was almost considered mandatory that a rock band would include a drum solo on at least one album, thanks to Ginger Baker's Toad (on Cream's Wheels Of Fire) and Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Jethro Tull's contribution to the trend was Dharma For One, the only Tull song to give a writing credit to drummer Clive Bunker. Compared to most drum solos of the time, Bunker's is fairly short (less than two minutes) and somewhat quirky, almost resembling a Spike Jones recording in places. 

Artist:    Norman Greenbaum
Title:    Jubilee
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: Spirit In The Sky)
Writer(s):    Norman Greenbaum
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    Norman Greenbaum is most famous for the song Spirit In The Sky, which was a huge international hit in 1970 following it's December 1969 release as a single. Spirit In The Sky was not, however, the first single released from the album of the same name. In fact, two songs from the album were released before the album itself. The second of these, Jubilee, was chosen to be included on the Warner Brothers Loss Leaders LP The Big Ball. Sounds like it's party time to me.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original 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 the existing L.A. band calling itself the Grass Roots had no interest in recording for Sloan and Barri. Angered by being treated rudely by one of the band members, Sloan and Barri did a little research and came to the realization that the existing Grass Roots had not legally copyrighted the name, so Sloan and Barri did so themselves and then found another band to record as the Grass Roots. This of course forced the existing band to come up with a new name, but that's a story for another time. Meanwhile, the band Sloan and Barri recruited 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 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 Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man). 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 becoming saturated with folk-rock. 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 (not to be confused with Austin, Texas's 13th Floor Elevators) to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots; that group would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. The Bedouins never had the opportunity to record again.

Artist:    Rainy Daze
Title:    That Acapulco Gold
Source:    Mono LP: 21 KIMN Classics (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Carter
Label:    Take 6 (original label: Chicory)
Year:    1967
    Formed in Denver, Colorado in 1965, the Rainy Daze are best known for two things: the first was a single called  That Acapulco Gold that stalled out at the #70 spot on the Hot !00 when certain influential people realized it was a pro-marijuana song; the second is for being the origin of the songwriting team of Tim Gilbert and John Carter, who co-wrote all but one of the band's original compositions (although Carter was not a member of the band itself) and then went on to write for other bands such as the Strawberry Alarm Clock (they were the credited writers of Incense And Peppermints, although it is now known that they only wrote the lyrics to that monster hit). That Acapulco Gold was first released on the Chicory label and promoted in the Denver area on KIMN, the city's dominant top 40 station, in late 1966. The song was picked up by MCA's Uni label and released nationally in January of 1967.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Strange Days
Source:    CD: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    One of the first rock albums to not picture the band members on the front cover was the Doors' second LP, Strange Days. Instead, the cover featured several circus performers doing various tricks on a city street, with the band's logo appearing on a poster on the wall of a building. The album itself contains some of the Doors' most memorable tracks, including the title song, which also appears on their greatest hits album despite never being released as a single.
     
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sympathy For The Devil
Source:    LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1968
    When I was a teenager I would occasionally hear some adult make a comment about how rock and roll was the "Devil's music." This only got more ridiculous in 1968, when the Rolling Stones released Sympathy For The Devil as the opening track on their Beggar's Banquet album. Mick Jagger, who wrote the lyrics, was actually somewhat mystified by such reactions, as it was, after all, only one song on an album that also included such tunes as Prodigal Son (based on a Bible story) and Salt Of The Earth, a celebration of the common man. There is no doubting, however, that Sympathy For The Devil itself is a classic, and has been a staple of the band's live sets since the late 1980s. 

Artist:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream 
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    The first single released by Cream was 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, 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 basically a studio creation, was never performed live.

Artist:    Luv'd Ones
Title:    Dance Kid Dance
Source:    Mono CD: Truth Gotta Stand (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Char Vinnedge
Label:    Beat Rocket (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    In 1963, 20-year-old Char Vinnedge of Niles, Michigan, who had been playing piano since the age of four, helped her brother pick out an Airline guitar from Montgomery Ward. It soon became apparent that he was never going to learn to the play the thing, however, and Char ended up buying it from him. She soon found that she had an affinity for the instrument, and by 1964 had recruited her younger sister Faith (who chose to play bass because that was what Paul McCartney played), along with drummer Faith Orem and rhythm guitarist Terry Barber, to form a group called the Tremelons. Barber soon left the group, to be replaced by Mary Gallagher, and in 1966 the band was signed to Chicago's Dunwich Records, changing their name to the Luv'd Ones at the suggestion of label owner Bill Traut. They ended up releasing three singles for Dunwich that year, the last of which was the antiwar song Dance Kid Dance. After the Luv'd Ones disbanded, Vinnedge spent the next few years studying and deconstructing the music of Jimi Hendrix, eventually coming to the attention of bassist Billy Cox and recording an album called Nitro Function with him in 1971 that for some reason was only released in Europe.

Artist:    Haunted
Title:    1-2-5
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Canada on LP: The Haunted)
Writer(s):    Burgess/Peter
Label:    Rhino (original label: Quality)
Year:    1966
    Formed in Montreal in 1964, the Haunted was one of the most popular bands in the Canadian province of Quebec, as well as Southern Ontario. In January of 1966 the band won an eight-hour long battle of the bands, resulting in a contract with Quality Records. The Haunted's first single was a song called 1-2-5, which the label refused to release due to the song's subject matter (a liason with a prostitute). Undaunted, the band changed a few lyrics, substituting lines like "a roomful of clowns" and "a line of executives" for the original references to working girls and re-recorded the song. The label, being somewhat clueless, released the song in its new form, but messed up the band's name on the label, calling them the Hunted. Finally, the band changed labels, issuing the song as an album track on Trans World Records in 1967.

Artist:    Hi-Fis
Title:    Tread Softly For The Sleepers
Source:    CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released in Germany as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Bennett/Douglas
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Star-Club)
Year:    1967
    The Hi-Fis' recording career started in 1963 with the first of four singles released in the UK. After a lineup change the band accepted a six-week booking on the Swiss/German border that turned into a two-year stay in Germany. During that time they recorded three more singles, including the B side Tread Softly For The Sleepers, as well as a well-received LP for the German Star-Club label.