https://exchange.prx.org/p/597019
Quite a few "new" tracks this week, including a couple by artists making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut (plus one whose only other appearance was over fifteen years ago).
Artist: Troggs
Title: Wild Thing
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Golden Days Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Chip Taylor
Label: Sire (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1966
I have a DVD copy of a music video (although back then they were called promotional films) for the Troggs' Wild Thing in which the members of the band are lip-synching the song as they walk through what looks like a train station while being mobbed by girls at every turn. Every time I watch it I imagine singer Reg Presley saying giggity-giggity as he bobs his head.
Artist: Butterfield Blues Band
Title: One More Mile
Source: Mono LP: What's Shakin'
Writer(s): James Cotton
Label: Sundazed (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
The path to the first Butterfield Blues Band album was anything but an easy one. The band made its first attempt at recording in the studio in 1964, but nobody was happy with the results and the tapes were shelved. The band then tried recording a live performance at a local New York City club, but, although the gig did wonders for the band's reputation the band was still not satisfied with the recording, and that, too, was scrapped. Finally, in early 1965, the group went back into the studio to record what became the album called The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Meanwhile, Elektra Records president Jac Holzman had released an anthology album called Folk Song '65 that included one of the songs from the first Butterfield studio sessions. The success of Folk Song '65 (due in large part to the inclusion of the Butterfield track) prompted Holzman to create a follow-up LP, What's Shakin', that was more blues oriented than the first anthology. What's Shakin' included five more Butterfield tracks from the 1964 sessions, including James Cotton's One More Mile, a song that is still unavailable elsewhere.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Grim Reaper Of Love
Source: French import CD: Happy Together (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Portz/Nichol
Label: Magic (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 return to the top 40 charts, making it all the way to the top.
Artist: Zombies
Title: Tell Her No
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Rod Argent
Label: London (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1965
Rod Argent was responsible for writing four well-known hit songs, which were spread out over a period of eight years (and two bands). The second, and probably least known of these was the Zombies' Tell Her No, released in 1965. The song got mixed reviews from critics, all of which measured the tune against Beatles songs of the same period.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Good Thing
Source: Mono LP: The Spirit Of '67
Writer(s): Lindsay/Melcher
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
From 1965 to 1967 Paul Revere And The Raiders were on a roll, with a string of six consecutive top 20 singles, four of which made the top 5. Among these was Good Thing, a tune written by lead vocalist Mark Lindsay and producer Terry Melcher (sometimes referred to as the "fifth Raider"). The song first appeared on the Spirit Of '67 LP in 1966, and was released as a single late that year. The song ended up being the Raiders' second biggest hit, peaking at # 4 in early 1967.
Artist: Love
Title: Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hillsdale
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
I've always had more of an ear for musical structure and tone than I do for language (in fact I learned to read music before I learned to read and write English), so perhaps I'll be forgiven when I say it was not until I had heard Love's Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hillsdale a dozen (or more) times that I noticed the clever lyrical trick Arthur Lee built into the song from the Forever Changes album. Lee sings all but the last word of each line during the verses of the song, starting the next line with the word that would have finished the previous one. This creates an effect of stop/start anticipation that is only accented by the music on this song about life on L.A.'s Sunset Strip, particularly at the Whisky a Go Go, which is located between Clark and Hillsdale on the famous boulevard.
Artist: Millennium
Title: Prelude/To Claudia On Thursday
Source: LP: Begin
Writer(s): Edgar/Rhodes/Fennely/Stec
Label: Columbia/Sundazed
Year: 1968
Curt Boettcher, despite looking about 15 years old, was already at 24 an experienced record producer by early 1968, having worked with the Association on their first album, as well as co-producing Sagittarius with Gary Usher and producing his own group, the Ballroom, in 1967. Among the many people he had worked with were multi-instrumentalist Keith Olsen, drummer Ron Edgar and bassist Doug Rhodes, all of whom had been members of Sean Bonniwell's Music Machine in 1966-67. Following the release of the debut Eternity's Children album, which Olsen and Boettcher co-produced, the two formed a new group called the Millennium. In addition to the aforementioned Music Machine members, the Millennium included /guitarist/singer/songwriters Lee Mallory, Sandy Salisbury, and Michael Fennelly, all of who Boettcher had worked with on various studio projects, and Joey Spec who would go on to form his own Sonic Past Music label many years later. Working on state-of-the-art 16 track equipment at Columbia's Los Angeles studios, they produced the album Begin, which, at that point in time, was the most expensive album ever made and only the second (after Simon & Garfunkel's Bookends) to use 16-track technology. The only problem was that by the time the album was released in mid-1968, public tastes had changed radically from just a year before, with top 40 listeners going for the simple bubble-gum tunes coming from the Buddah label and album fans getting into louder, heavier groups like Blue Cheer and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. There was no market for the lavishly produced Begin album, which failed to chart despite getting rave reviews from the press. A second Millennium album was shelved, and the members went their separate ways. In more recent years the album has attained legendary status as, in the words of one critic, "probably the single greatest 60s pop record produced in L.A. outside of the Beach Boys".
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title: Valleys Of Neptune
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1970, released 2010
Even before the breakup of the original Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1969, Hendrix was starting to work with other musicians, including keyboardist Steve Winwood and flautist/saxophonist Chris Wood from Traffic, bassist Jack Casidy from Jefferson Airplane and Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles. Still, he kept showing a tendency to return to the power trio configuration, first with Band of Gypsys, with Miles and bassist Billy Cox and, in 1970, a new trio that was sometimes billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience. This trio, featuring Cox along with original Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell (with additional percussion added by Jumo Sultan), recorded extensively in the months leading up to Hendrix's death on September 18th, leaving behind hours of tapes in various stages of completion. Among those recordings was a piece called Valleys Of Neptune that was finally released, both as a single and as the title track of a new CD, in 2010.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Blonde On Blonde)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Sony Music (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution (at least according to Dylan). On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Try To Understand
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 6-Punk, Part Two (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The Seeds' first recording session of 1966 resulted in the band's third single, Try To Understand. By this point in the band's career lead vocalist Sky Saxon was no longer playing bass in the studio, although he continued to play the instrument onstage. At Saxon's request, Harvey Sharpe of the Beau-Jives, a popular Los Angeles band that occasionally appeared at Gene Norman's Crescendo Club (Norman also being the owner of the GNP Crescendo record label that the Seeds recorded for) joined the group in the studio, along with guitarist Vinnie Fanelli. The song was not able to get much airplay when released as an A side in February of 1966, and subsequently was chosen as the B side of the re-released version of Pushin' Too Hard later the same year, which ended up being the group's biggest hit. The song also appeared as the opening track of side two of the Seeds' debut LP.
Artist: Incredible String Band
Title: The Mad Hatter's Song
Source: British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird (originally released on LP: The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion)
Writer: Robin Williamson
Label: Grapefruit (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1967
The original lineup of Scotland's Incredible String Band, Clive Palmer, Robin Williamson, and Mike Heron, split up immediately following the release of their debut album in 1966, with Palmer and Williamson leaving the country for Africa and the Middle East. Several months later, upon Williamson's return, the band reformed, but without Palmer, who was still in Afghanistan at the time. Williamson had picked up several new instruments in Morocco, and the duo set about finding ways of incorporating them into their next album, The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion. This resulted in a much more avant-garde brand of psychedelic folk than was heard on their first LP, as can be heard on tracks like The Mad Hatter's Song.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Randy Scouse Git
Source: LP: Headquarters
Writer: Mickey Dolenz
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The original concept for the Monkees TV series was that the band would be shown performing two new songs on each weekly episodes. This meant that, even for an initial 13-week order, 26 songs would have to be recorded in a very short amount of time. The only way to meet that deadline was for several teams of producers, songwriters and studio musicians to work independently of each other at the same time. The instrumental tracks were then submitted to musical director Don Kirschner, who brought in Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith to record vocal tracks. Although some of the instrumental tracks, such as those produced by Nesmith, had Nesmith and Tork playing on them, many did not. Some backing tracks were even recorded in New York at the same time as the TV show was being taped in L.A. In a few cases, the Monkees themselves did not hear the songs until they were in the studio to record their vocal tracks. A dozen of these recordings were chosen for release on the first Monkees LP in 1966, including the hit single Last Train To Clarksville. When it became clear that the show was a hit and a full season's worth of episodes would be needed, Kirschner commissioned even more new songs (although by then Clarksville was being featured in nearly every episode, mitigating the need for new songs somewhat). Without the band's knowledge Kirschner issued a second album, More Of The Monkees, in early 1967, using several of the songs recorded specifically for the TV show. The band members were furious, and the subsequent firestorm resulted in the removal of Kirschner from the entire Monkees project. The group then hired Turtles bassist Chip Douglas to work with the band to produce an album of songs that the Monkees themselves would both sing and play on. The album, Headquarters, spent one week at the top of the charts before giving way to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There were, however, no singles released from the album; at least not in the US. It turns out that the seemingly nonsensical title of the album's final track, Randy Scouse Git, was actually British slang for "horny guy from Liverpool", or something along those lines. The song was released everywhere but the continental US under the name Alternate Title and was a surprise worldwide hit.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Source: CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
According to principal songwriter John Lennon, Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite was inspired by a turn of the century circus poster that the Beatles ran across while working on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Most of the lyrics include references to items on the poster itself, such as the Hendersons and Henry the Horse.
Artist: Third Bardo
Title: I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source: Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Evans/Pike
Label: Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year: 1967
The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Lazy Me
Source: Mono LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Bob Mosley
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Such is the quality of the first Moby Grape LP that there are many outstanding tracks that have gotten virtually no airplay in the years since the album was released. Lazy Me, written by bassist Bob Mosley, is one of those tracks, probably because of its length, a mere one minute and 43 seconds.
Artist: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nagle/Cuff
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. Despite being an excellent tune, the song's lyrics were way too dark for top 40 radio in 1967, and the record sank like a stone.
Artist: Searchers
Title: Tricky Dicky
Source: LP: Meet The Searchers
Writer(s): Lieber/Stoller
Label: Kapp
Year: 1963
Liverpool had a thriving local music scene long before the Beatles brought worldwide attention to the Merseyside city. One of the most popular local groups was the Searchers. Formed in 1959 as a skiffle group by guitarist John McNally and guitarist/singer Mike Pender, they were, by 1961, one of the most popular of the Merseybeat bands, playing as many as three gigs at three different clubs all in the same night. Although they even rivalled the Beatles in popularity at times they lacked one key element that the Fab Four had an excess of: songwriting talent. In fact, every song on their debut LP, Meet The Searchers, came from outside songwriters, including Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's Tricky Dicky. It wasn't until their 1965 LP Sounds Like Searchers that their first original composition was included on an album, and by then their popularity had waned considerably.
Artist: Tol-Puddle Martyrs
Title: Anybody Else
Source: CD: A Celebrated Man
Writer(s): Peter Rechter
Label: Secret Deals
Year: 2009
The original Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of farmers in the English village of Tolpuddle who had the temerity to try organizing what amounts to a union in the 19th century. For their efforts they found themselves deported to the penal colony now known as Australia. But that doesn't really concern us. What I wanted to talk about was the original Tol-Puddle Martyrs (note the hyphen), the legendary Australian band that evolved from a group called Peter And The Silhouettes. Well, not exactly. What I really wanted to talk about is the current incarnation of the Tol-Puddle Martyrs. Still led by Peter Rechter, the Martyrs have released a series of CDs since 2007 (including a collection of recordings made by the 60s incarnation of the band). Among those CDs is the 2009 album A Celebrated Man, which contains several excellent tunes such as Anybody Else.
Artist: Snakefinger
Title: I Come From An Island
Source: LP: Greener Postures
Writer(s): Snakefinger/The Residents(?)
Label: Ralph
Year: 1980
South London born Philip Charles Lithman got the name Snakefinger from members of the Residents after they saw a photograph of the guitarist playing the violin and observed that his finger looked like a snake about to attack the instrument. He first met the mysterious San Francisco group in 1969, appearing with the group onstage for their first public performance in 1971 before returning to his native England in 1972 to form his own band, Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers. He eventually ended up back in San Francisco, appearing as a guest musician on several Residents releases as well as releasing his first solo albums on the Residents' own Ralph Records label. His second solo LP, Greener Pastures, included a mixture of solo compositions and songs co-written by the Residents. In keeping with the Residents' policy of deliberate obscurity, however, It is not known which category I Come From An Island falls into.
Artist: R.E.M.
Title: Can't Get There From Here
Source: LP: Fables Of The Reconstruction
Writer(s): Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe
Label: I.R.S.
Year: 1985
Can't Get There From Here is the first single released from the third R.E.M. album, Fables Of The Reconstruction. Although it didn't make the top 100, it did get appear on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, peaking at #14.
Artist: Jimmy Gilbert
Title: Believe What I Say
Source: Mono LP: Highs In The Mid Sixties, Vol. 6-Michigan Part Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jimmy Gilbert
Label: Darn-L
Year: 1966
Sometimes you have to wonder if a record was made for the express purpose of getting even with an ex-girlfriend. Believe What I Say, the only single released by Jimmy Gilbert, is just such a record.
Artist: Things To Come (Illinois band)
Title: I'm Not Talkin'
Source: Mono CD: If You're Ready! The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mose Allison
Label: Sundazed/Here 'Tis (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Not to be confused with the California band Things To Come, this Illinois group released one single on the Dunwich label in 1966, a cover of the Yardbirds cover version of an old Mose Allison tune called I'm Not Talkin'. Other than that, absolutely nothing is known about this band, so if you have some info you'd like to pass along, you know where to send it, right?
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Talk
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
When it came time for Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, to go into the studio, the group decided to go for the best sound possible. This meant signing with tiny Original Sound Records, despite having offers from bigger labels, due to Original Sound having their own state-of-the-art eight-track studios. Unfortunately for the band, they soon discovered that having great equipment did not mean Original Sound made great decisions. One of the first, in fact, was to include a handful of cover songs on the Music Machine's first LP that were recorded for use on a local TV show. Bonniwell was livid when he found out, as he had envisioned an album made up entirely of his own compositions (although he reportedly did plan to use a slowed-down version of Hey Joe that he and Tim Rose had worked up together). From that point on it was only a matter of time until the Music Machine and Original Sound parted company, but not until after they scored a big national hit with Talk Talk in 1966.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: For Your Love
Source: Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: K-Tel (original label: Epic)
Year: 1965
The last Yardbirds song to feature guitarist Eric Clapton, For Your Love was the group's first US hit, peaking in the #6 slot. The song did even better in the UK, peaking at #3. Following its release, Clapton left the Yardbirds, citing the band's move toward a more commercial sound and this song in particular as reasons for his departure (ironic when you consider songs like his mid-90s hit Change the World or his slowed down lounge lizard version of Layla). For Your Love was written by Graham Gouldman, who would end up as a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and later 10cc with Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Thing Called Love
Source: Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s): McDonald/Melton/Cohen/Barthol/Gunning/Hirsch
Label: Big Beat (original label: Rag Baby)
Year: 1966
One of the more original ways to get one's music heard is to publish an underground arts-oriented newspaper and include a record in it. Country Joe and the Fish did just that; not once, but twice. The first one was split with another artist and featured the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The second Rag Baby EP, released in 1966, was all Fish, and featured tunes that would be re-recorded for their debut LP the following year. One of those was a group composition called Thing Called Love featuring lead vocals by Barry Melton. Retitled Love, the song was still part of the band's setlist as late as 1969, when they performed it at Woodstock.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Conquistador
Source: LP: A Salty Dog (originally released on LP: Procol Harum)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: MFP (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
For reasons that are lost to history, the first Procol Harum album was released five months earlier in the US than it was in the UK. It also was released with a slightly different song lineup, a practice that was fairly common earlier in the decade but that had been (thanks to the Beatles) pretty much abandoned by mid-1967. One notable difference is the inclusion of A Whiter Shade Of Pale on the US version (the British practice being to not include songs on LPs that had been already issued on 45 RPM records). The opening track of the UK version was Conquistador, a song that would not become well-known until 1972, when a live version with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra backing up the band became a hit single.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Summertime
Source: CD: Live At The Carousel Ballroom 1968
Writer(s): Gershwin/Heyward
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
Janis Joplin, on the 1968 Big Brother And The Holding Company album Cheap Thrills, sounds like she was born to sing Gershwin's Summertime. Maybe she was. Guitarist Sam Andrew later said that Summertime, as it appears on Cheap Thrills, was one of the hardest songs to duplicate in front of a live audience. On June 23rd, 1968 they actually exceeded the studio version live at the Carousel Ballroom, and Owsley "Bear" Stanley was there to record it for posterity, using his own technique of assigning each microphone to either an A or a B channel rather than using the standard stereo setup with vocals centered in a "sweet spot". Bear himself said the best way to listen to this recording is to put both speakers right next to each other and turn them up loud.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Key To The Highway
Source: Czech Republic import LP: Children Of The Future
Writer(s): Bronsky/Segar
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
Key To The Highway is one of those blues standards that seems to have been performed and/or recorded by just about everybody and his brother at some time or another. One version that is not as well known as, say, Eric Clapton's various versions is the extremely slowed-down take on the tune by the Steve Miller Band on their first LP, Children Of The Future. Miller's approach turns the song into a mood piece in the vein of Gershwin's Summertime while retaining a definite blues flavor throughout.
Artist: Brass Buttons
Title: Hell Will Take Care Of Her
Source: Mono CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jay Copozzi
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Cotillion)
Year: 1968
Rochester, New York, was home to both guitarist Gene Cornish and a band called the Brass Buttons. Cornish, who had been born in Ottawa, Canada, left Rochester for New York City in the early 1960s, eventually co-founding the most successful blue-eyed soul band in history, the (Young) Rascals. By 1968 the Rascals had formed their own production company, Peace, and Cornish invited his friends from the Brass Buttons to record a pair of songs for Peace. The recordings, including a scathing breakup song called Hell Will Take Care Of Her, were released on Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary in 1968.
Artist: Rising Sons
Title: : 44 Blues
Source: CD: The Rising Sons featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder
Writer: Willie Dixon
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
Considering that by 1970 Columbia had established itself as one of the two dominant record companies when it came to the music of the left-leaning counter-culture (the other being Warner Brothers), it's odd to realize that a scant five years earlier they were known for their essential conservatism. Take the case of the Rising Sons, a multi-racial band featuring such future stars as Taj Mahal, Ry Cooder and Jessie Kincaid. Although they had been signed by Columbia in 1965, nobody at the label had a clue on how to market or even properly produce the band's recordings. By mid-1966 the entire project was shelved and the tapes sat on a shelf in the vault until 1992, when someone at the label realized the historical significance of what they had.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: J.P.P. McStep B Blues
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow (bonus track originally released on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: RCA/BMG Heritage
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1974
One of the first songs recorded for the Surrealistic Pillow album, J.P.P. McStep B. Blues ended up being shelved, possibly because drummer Skip Spence, who wrote the song, had left the band by the time the album came out.
Artist: Them
Title: I Happen To Love You
Source: Simulated stereo British import CD: Now And Them (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Rev-Ola (original US label: Ruff)
Year: 1967
Following the departure of frontman Van Morrison in June of 1966, the remaining members of Them returned to Belfast, where they recruited Kenny McDowell, formerly of a band called the Mad Lads, who had in fact opened for Them on several occasions. With no record deal, however, the band was at a loss as to what to do next; the solution came in the form of a recommendation from Carol Deck, editor of the California-based magazine The Beat, which led to the band relocating to Amarillo, Texas, where they cut a single for the local Scully label. The follow up single, released on Ruff Records, was a tune called Walking In The Queen's Garden that came to the attention of the people at Capitol Records, who reissued the single on their Tower subsidiary. Within a month the record company had issued a promo version of the single that shifting the emphasis to the original B side, a Gerry Goffin/Carole King collaboration called I Happen To Love You that had been previously recorded by the Electric Prunes, but not issued as a single. This led to Now And Them, the first of two albums that the band, now living in California, released on the Tower label in 1968. A fake stereo mix of the original recording of I Happen To Love You was created specifically for the LP.
Artist: Them
Title: Here Comes The Night
Source: Mono LP: Them
Writer(s): Bert Berns
Label: Parrot
Year: 1965
Them's first album was originally released in the UK as The Angry Young Them, and did not include their first US hit single, Here Comes The Night. Originally recorded by Lulu (of To Sir With Love"fame) and the Luvvers, this track was not only added to the US version of the LP (entitled simply Them), it was given the coveted opening slot. The guitar leads on Here Comes The Night were provided by a young studio guitarist named Jimmy Page.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: The Blues Project Anthology
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Polydor
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1997
Featuring the most recognizable riff in blues history, Hoochie Coochie man was first recorded in 1954 by Muddy Waters, becoming his biggest hit. It was also the turning point for songwriter Willie Dixon, who was able to leverage the song's success into a position with Chess Records as the label's chief songwriter. The song has been recorded by dozens of artists over the years, including several rock bands. One of the most unusual versions of Hoochie Coochie Man was recorded by the Blues Project for the 1966 debut LP, Live At The Cafe Au Go Go. The Project's version speeds up the tempo to a frantic pace, pretty much obscuring the song's signature riff in the process. It was one of several tracks that was intended for the LP, but cut when lead vocalist Tommy Flanders abruptly left the group before the album's release.
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