https://exchange.prx.org/p/595243
We have all sort of odds and ends this week, including our first-ever set of tunes from 1962, a Beatles set and several obscurities, including three from artists that have never appeared on the show before. And as a special Advanced Psych track from 1994, we have the most powerful Veterans Day song ever recorded. Yeah, that's my opinion, but I'm sticking to it.
Artist: Cream
Title: Spoonful
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released in UK on LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Cotillion (original label: Reaction)
Year: 1966
When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the band's original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1970 soundtrack album for the movie Homer that the studio version was finally released in the US. Unfortunately the compilers of that album left out the last 15 seconds or so from the original recording.
Artist: What's Left
Title: Girl Said No
Source: Mono German import LP: Sixties Rebellion Vol. 5: The Cave (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Tony Montalbano
Label: Way Back (original US label: Capri)
Year: 1966
When it comes to obscurity, What's Left may well be the all-time champion. From what I can tell, they were from the Houston area, since their only single was recorded in Pasadena, Texas, a Houston suburb, and released on a label located in Conroe, about 15 miles north of Houston. Both sides of the single were written by a Tony Montalbano. At first I thought this might be the drummer from San Jose, California,, as the song starts with thundering tom-toms, but am now convinced it was Tony A. Altobano, whose obituary appeared in the Houston Chronicle in May of 2005. This Tony Montalbano had been a member of a group called the Saints in the mid-1950s and was credited with writing both gospel and pop songs for a variety of artists. Whether someone who wrote gospel songs could have also penned the punkish Girl Said No is subject for speculation.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: A Most Peculiar Man
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
You would think that a high school on a US military facility would be inclined to use the most staunchly traditional teaching methods known to mankind. Surprisingly, though, this was not the case at General H. H. Arnold High School in Weisbaden, Germany, in 1967. In fact, the English department was teaching some sort of new system that dispensed with terms such as verb and noun and replaced them with a more conceptual approach to language. What I best remember about my Freshman English class is the day that my rather Bohemian teacher (he wore sandals to class!), actually brought in a copy of the Sounds Of Silence and had us dissect two songs from the album, Richard Cory and A Most Peculiar Man. We spent several classes discussing the similarities (they both deal with a suicide by someone representing a particular archetype) and differences (the methods used and the archetypes themselves) between the songs. I have forgotten everything else about that class and its so-called revolutionary approach (and even the teacher's name), but those two songs have stayed with me my entire life. I guess that teacher was on to something.
Artist: The Underground
Title: Easy
Source: Mono British import: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): O'Keefe/Wright
Label: Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1966
The Underground was a Houston-based vocal group made up of four folk singers (two male, two female) looking to transition to pop music. If this sounds a bit familiar, it might be because the Mamas and the Papas were at the peak of their popularity when the Underground was formed. The quartet included Larry O'Keefe, Jerry Wright, Susan Giles and Kay Oslin, with O'Keefe and Wright writing all four of the band's sides recorded for Bob Shad's Mainstream label in 1966. Although there were no production credits listed on the label, the song Easy was produced by Walt Andrus and recorded at his facility in Houston. The record was released in November of 1966. Kay T. Oslin would go on to have a successful solo career as a country singer in the 1980s.
Artist: Limey And The Yanks
Title: Guaranteed Love
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Reed/Paxton
Label: Rhino (original label: Star-Burst)
Year: 1966
Limey and the Yanks were an Orange County, California band that boasted an honest-to-dog British lead vocalist. Despite being kind of Zelig-like on the L.A. scene, they only recorded two singles. The first one, Guaranteed Love, was co-written by Gary Paxton, best known for his involvement in various novelty records, including the Hollywood Argyles' Alley Oop, which he co-wrote with Kim Fowley, and Bobby "Boris" Pickett's Monster Mash, which was released on Paxton's own Garpax label.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Minstrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote (and sang lead on) most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the group, thanks to the fact that one of the two songs he sang lead on, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), became a huge top 40 hit. It wasn't long before the official name of the band was changed to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status, leaving the First Edition far behind.
Artist: Fraternity Of Man
Title: Don't Bogart Me
Source: CD: Easy Rider Soundtrack (originally released on LP: Fraternity Of Man)
Writer(s): Fraternity Of Man
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
In the late 60s there was a certain disconnect between rock musicians and their audience on the subject of country music. Whereas the youth culture of the time associated it with rednecks and conservative attitudes, their musical heroes often held the country music tradition in high regard. One of the first songs to bridge the gap was Don't Bogart Me from the Fraternity Of Man. The band itself was made up of former members of the Factory, a popular L.A. club band led by Lowell George, and the Mothers of Invention, led by Frank Zappa. Although the band's 1968 LP remains somewhat obscure, Don't Bogart Me itself was made famous by its inclusion in the 1969 movie Easy Rider.
Artist: Parking Lot
Title: World Spinning Sadly
Source: Mono British import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Paul Samwell-Smith
Label: Zonophone (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1969
Virtually nothing is known about the band called the Parking Lot. In fact, it is not even known whether there actually was a band called the Parking Lot, as it could just as easily have been a group of studio musicians hired by the producer/songwriter of World Spinning Sadly, a one-off single from 1969. The producer himself, on the other hand, was definitely a real person. Paul Samwell-Smith was, in fact, the original bass player for the Yardbirds, who had left the group in 1966 (after playing on all of their major hits through Over Under Sideways Down) to pursue a career as a record producer. Although he was never a major figure in the music industry in that capacity, he did manage to remain active well past the demise of the Yardbirds themselves, which was probably his goal all along.
Artist: Count Five
Title: They're Gonna Get You
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): John Byrne
Label: Double Shot
Year: 1966
It's been said that Count Five's Psychotic Reaction was two and a half minutes of an American garage band sounding more like the Yardbirds than the Yardbirds themselves. The B side, They're Gonna Get You, is that same American garage band sounding more like what they probably sounded like the rest of the time (well, except for the weird falsetto used on the "mom" quotes).
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Schizoforest Love Suite
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer: Slick/Kantner
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
Jefferson Airplane's Schizoforest Love Suite, from the album After Bathing At Baxter's, actually consists of two songs: Grace Slick's Two Heads and Paul Kantner's Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon. Both are among the strongest tunes on what is generally considered to be the Airplane's most psychedelic album.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Ball And Chain
Source: LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Willie Mae Thornton
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Big Brother And The Holding Company electrified the crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 with their performance of Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball And Chain. The rest of the world, however, would have to wait until the following year to hear Janis Joplin's version of the old blues tune, when a live performance recorded at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium was included on the LP Cheap Thrills.
Artist: Chicago
Title: Poem 58
Source: LP: The Chicago Transit Authority
Writer(s): Robert Lamm
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
Poem 58, from the 1969 double-LP The Chicago Transit Authority, is actually two pieces in one. The first is essentially a long jam session built around an R&B guitar riff and featuring some outstanding solo work from guitarist Terry Kath. About halfway through this morphs into a different kind of R&B tune, done in a call and response style and featuring the band's horn section prominently. That second portion of Poem 58 was also released as the B side of the band's second single, Beginnings.
Artist: Aretha Franklin
Title: Think
Source: LP: Aretha Now (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Franklin/White
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1968
Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit single Respect quickly became an anthem of the feminist movement, but there were some that resented the fact that the song was actually written by a man, Otis Redding. Aretha, however, dealt with that criticism the following year by co-writing the similarly styled Think, which went into the top 10 on the mainstream charts and all the way to the top of the R&B charts in the spring of 1968.
Artist: Vigilantes Of Love
Title: Vet
Source: CD single (taken from CD: Welcome To Struggleville)
Writer(s): Bill Mallonee
Label: Capricorn
Year: 1994
In the late 1960s most teenage guys didn't get much mail. The bills were all addressed to their parents and their friends were all people that they saw on a regular basis. In fact, aside from an occasional letter from Grandma, the only piece of mail a teenage male was likely to get was a draft notice from Uncle Sam. If you got one of those you had to make a choice. You could up and leave the country, along with all your friends and family, without knowing if and when you might see them again. Or you could refuse to register for the draft and risk going to jail. You could attempt to get conscientious objector status (there were two types; one was difficult to obtain but would keep you from having to serve at all; the other was much easier, but you'd still be in the Army, but you'd be wearing a red cross on your helmet, singifying that you were medical personnel and thus not a target; often, however, the opposite was true). Finally, you could just suck it up, register, get drafted, go through basic training and hope like hell you survived the next three years (there was actually one more option: you could voluntarily join a different branch of the military, but only if you could talk a recruiter into taking you, something they were discouraged from doing with draftees). As a result of all of this, the US Army at that point in time was made up of officers, most of which were academy trained, and enlisted men, most of which were draftees (although there were a few volunteers among their ranks as well). These draftees, despite the fact that they really didn't have much choice in the matter, were nonetheless treated shabbily upon their return to the US, often spit upon and called "baby killers" and things even worse than that. The song Vet, written and sung by Bill Mallonee, was recorded in 1994 by Mallonee's band, the Vigilantes Of Love and included on the album Welcome To Struggleville. I personally think it's the best song of its type ever recorded, surpassing even John Prine's classic Sam Stone.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Helter Skelter
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year: 1968
Possibly the most controversial song in the entire Beatles catalog, Helter Skelter was Paul McCartney's response to an article in a British trade paper about the Who's latest single, I Can See For Miles. The author of the article referred to the Who song as the heaviest song ever recorded, and McCartney, without benefit of having actually heard I Can See For Miles, decided to go the Who one better. The lyrics of song are innocent enough, as they describe the sensation of repeatedly riding a slide in a playground, yet were vague enough to be open to interpretation by one Charles Manson. It was Manson's use of the words "Helter Skelter" (painted in blood) in his campaign to incite a race war in the US that gave the song its initial notoriety; a notoriety that was cemented when it was used as a title of a book by Leo Buscaglia, the L.A. District Attorney who brought Manson's group to justice.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Want To Tell You
Source: LP: Revolver
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Apple/Capitol/EMI
Year: 1966
The first pre-recorded reel-to-reel tape I ever bought was the Capitol version of the Beatles' Revolver album, which I picked up about a year after the LP was released. Although my Dad's tape recorder had small built-in speakers, his Koss headphones had far superior sound, which led to me sleeping on the couch in the living room with the headphones on. Hearing songs like I Want To Tell You on factory-recorded reel-to-reel tape through a decent pair of headphones gave me an appreciation for just how well-engineered Revolver was, and also inspired me to (eventually) learn my own way around a recording studio. The song itself, by the way, is one of three George Harrison songs on Revolver; the most on any Beatles album up to that point, and one of the many reasons that, when pressed, I almost always end up citing Revolver as my favorite Beatles LP.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Cry Baby Cry
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year: 1968
Unlike many of the songs on The Beatles (white album), Cry Baby Cry features the entire band playing on the recording. After a full day of rehearsal, recording commenced on July 16, 1968, with John Lennon's guitar and piano, Paul McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's drum tracks all being laid down on the first day. The remaining overdubs, including most of the vocals and George Harrison's guitar work (played on a Les Paul borrowed from Eric Clapton) were added a couple of days later. At the end of the track, McCartney can be heard singing a short piece known as Can You Take Me Back, accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar in a snippet taken from a solo session the following September.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: The Wind Cries Mary
Source: Simulated stereo British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Polydor (original label: Track)
Year: 1967
The US version of Are You Experienced was significantly different than its UK counterpart. For one thing, the original UK album was originally mixed and sold as a monoraul LP. For the US version, engineers at Reprise Records, working from the multi-track masters, created all-new stereo mixes of about two-thirds of the album, along with all three of the singles that the Jimi Hendrix Experience had released in the UK. The third of these singles was The Wind Cries Mary, which had hit the British charts in February of 1967. When a stereo version of Are You Experienced became available in the UK and Europe, however, they did not use the Reprise mixes, instead using electronic rechannelling to create a simulated stereo sound. When Polydor decided that the band was taking too long on their third album, Electric Ladyland, the label put together a late 1967 release called Smash Hits that collected the band's four European singles and B sides, along with selected album tracks from Are You Experienced. For reasons unknown, rather than use Reprise's true stereo mix of The Wind Cries Mary, Polydor elected to create a new simulated stereo version for use on Smash Hits. The following year Reprise put out their own Smash Hits album with the same cover, but containing a considerably different track lineup.
Artist: Bill Wyman
Title: In Another Land
Source: CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Bill Wyman
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
In Another Land was the first Rolling Stones song written and sung by bassist Bill Wyman, and was even released in the US as a Wyman single. The song originally appeared on the Stones' most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, in late 1967.
Artist: Seeds
Title: The Wind Blows Your Hair
Source: Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Saxon/Bigelow
Label: Big Beat (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1967
The Wind Blows Your Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released as a single in October of 1967 the whole idea of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news (at least in ultra-hip L.A.) and the single went nowhere.
Artist: Velvet Underground
Title: Run Run Run
Source: CD: The Velvet Underground And Nico
Writer(s): Reed/Cale/Morrison/Tucker
Label: Polydor (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
Written by Lou Reed on the back of an envelope on the way to a gig, Run Run Run takes a look at a variety of New York City heroin users looking for a fix. The song, featured on the 1967 LP The Velvet Underground And Nico, uses street drug terminology augmented with religious symbolism, and contains one of Reed's more memorable guitar solos.
And now, as promised, our very first all-1962 set.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Surfin' Safari
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Wilson/Love
Label: Priority (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1962
Although instrumental surf music was already well-established by 1962, the Beach Boys' first single for Capitol Records, Surfin' Safari, is generally credited with touching off the entire Southern California surf craze of the early 1960s. What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that Capitol originally intended the song to be the B side of the hot rod oriented tune 409, and it was a disc jockey at the decidedly inland city of Phoenix, Arizona that first flipped the record over and started playing Surfin Safari.
Artist: Rick Nelson
Title: Summertime
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Gershwin/Hayward
Label: Imperial
Year: 1962
When Deep Purple's highest-charting British single, Black Night, first came out in 1970, reviewers noted the similarity of the song's signature riff to that of the Blues Magoos' 1966 single (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet. The members of Deep Purple, however, maintain that the riff was actually taken from Rick Nelson's 1962 arrangement of George Gershwin's Summertime that was released as the B side of the hit single Young Love. Now you get to hear it for yourself.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Talkin' New York
Source: CD: Bob Dylan
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1962
As hard as it may be to believe, of the thirteen songs on Bob Dylan's 1962 debut LP, only two were actually written by Dylan himself. The first of these to be recorded was Talkin' New York, a song that manages to get across Dylan's own mixed feelings about the Big Apple without getting bogged down in outright cynicism.
Artist: Moonrakers
Title: I Don't Believe
Source: Mono LP: Highs In The Mid Sixties Vol. 18 (Colorado) (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Louis Elmo Paul, Jr.
Label: AIP
Year: 1966
Once upon a time in Denver, Colorado, there was a band called the Surfin' Classics. Seeing as Denver is about a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, they soon dropped the surfin' part and became first the Classics and then the Moonrakers. Primarily a cover band, the group released four singles on the Tower label.The last of these was Joe Williams' Baby Please Don't Go, with I Don't Believe, a song originally recorded by the Memphis garage band Guilloteens, on the B side.
Artist: Who
Title: Silas Stingy
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): John Entwistle
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
John Alec Entwistle did not write average songs. For example, his best known song, Boris The Spider, was about, well, a spider. Whiskey Man dealt with a drunk's imaginary friend. And then there was Silas Stingy, from The Who Sell Out. The song tells the story of a man who was so miserly he spent his entire fortune on protecting his money, thus ending up with nothing at all. One of my all-time favorite Who tracks.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Gloria
Source: CD: Mass In F Minor
Writer(s): David Axelrod
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
After the second Electric Prunes album failed to provide any hit singles, the band's manager, producer and record label itself decided that the third Prunes album would be a "religious-based rock-opera concept album" written entirely by David Axelrod. Since the band's manager was the actual owner of the name Electric Prunes, the band members had no choice but to go along with the idea. Unfortunately, the classically-trained Axelrod's music score was too complex for what was essentially a garage-rock band with only member that could actually read music to learn quickly enough to meet the recording deadline, and after getting the first three tracks on the album recorded by the band itself it was decided that other musicians would be brought in to finish Mass In F Minor. The longest of the three tracks recorded by the band itself was Gloria, the second tune on the album itself. All the vocals were multi-tracked by James Lowe.
Artist: John Lee Hooker/Canned Heat
Title: Whiskey And Wimmin'
Source: CD: The Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released on LP: Hooker And Heat)
Writer(s): John Lee Hooker
Label: Capitol (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1971
Canned Heat was, at its heart, a group of blues record collectors who had enough talent to make their own classic blues recordings. In 1970 the members of the band got the chance to fulfill a dream. They spent the entire summer recording tracks with one of their heroes, the legendary John Lee Hooker. Unfortunately, the experience was marred by the death of co-founder Alan Wilson on September 3rd. Contractual problems with Hooker's label delayed the release of the recordings until January of 1971, when the project was released as a double LP called Hooker And Heat. The most popular track on the album, Whiskey And Wimmin', was also released as a single in April of that year.
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