https://exchange.prx.org/p/608482
This week we have a series of short sets, each with its own mini-theme. The fun part is figuring out exactly what those themes are (hint: we don't tell you).
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Do You Believe In Magic
Source: CD: Battle Of The Bands (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Do You Believe In Magic)
Writer(s): John Sebastian
Label: Era (original label: Kama Sutra)
Year: 1965
Do You Believe In Magic, the debut single by the Lovin' Spoonful, was instrumental in establishing not only the band itself, but the Kama Sutra label as well. Over the next couple of years, the Spoonful would crank out a string of hits, pretty much single-handedly keeping Kama Sutra in business. In 1967 the band's lead vocalist and primary songwriter John Sebastian departed the group for a solo career, and Kama Sutra itself soon morphed into a company called Buddah Records. Buddah (the misspelling being discovered too late to be fixed) soon came to dominate the "bubble gum" genre of top 40 music throughout 1968 and well into 1969, but eventually proved in its own way to be as much a one-trick pony as its predecessor.
Artist: Masters Of Stonehouse
Title: If You Treat Me Bad Again
Source: Mono LP: Highs In The Mid Sixties Vol 6: Michigan Part Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Drake
Label: AIP (original label: Discotheque)
Year: 1966
The Masters Of Stonehouse was (were?) formed in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1964 by Paul Overiener (lead guitar, vocals), Bruce Robey (drums) and Bill Eckberg (rhythm guitar, lead vocals). An apparent fourth member was future Christian rock artist Ed Drake, although nobody seems to remember exactly what his role with Masters Of Stonehouse was, other than writing both songs on the band's only single. Not long after the release of If You Treat Me Bad Again, the band split up.
Artist: Who
Title: Rael
Source: LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: Decca
Year: 1967
The Who Sell Out, released in December 1967, was the last album by the group before their 1969 rock-opera Tommy. The last track on the LP, Rael, is itself a mini-opera that tells the story of a wealthy man who has taken on the role of a crusader, out to free his ancestral homeland from its current occupiers. He tells the captain of his ship to come back for him on Christmas Day to see if he is ready to return. If not, he tells the captain, the boat is yours. Of course the captain has no intention of returning, as he declares soon after putting back out to sea. The piece then goes into an instrumental passage that would be copied pretty much note for note on the Tommy album as part of the Underture. The track ends with a repeat of the owner's instructions to the captain. The events surrounding the recording of Rael have become the stuff of legend. The band spent an entire day recording and mixing the song, and were apparently so exhausted at the end of the session that they left without securing the multi-track master in a safe place. The cleaning woman came in the next morning and tossed the tape into the waste basket. She then emptied the ashtrays and other trash into the same waste basket. When the band came in around noon the recording engineer who had found the tape had the unenviable task of telling them what had happened. Pete Townsend was in a rage, and the engineer tried to placate him by saying "these things happen". Townshend then proceeded to throw a chair through the glass wall separating the studio from the control room, informing the engineer that "these things happen".
Artist: Lothar And The Hand People
Title: Milkweed Love
Source: LP: Also Dug-Its (originally released on LP: Presenting…Lothar And The Hand People)
Writer(s): Conly/Emelin/Ford/Flye/King
Label: Elektra (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
Originally from Denver, Colorado, Lothar and the Hand People found themselves relocating to New York City in 1967, releasing a series of singles that ranged from blue-eyed soul to pop. By 1968, however, the band had fully incorporated the Moog synthesizer and the theramine into their sound. Lothar was, in fact, the name of the theramine itself, essentially a black box with an audio modulater that was activated by waving one's hands above it. As for this week's track, Milkweed Love (from the band's debut LP)...well, you can decide for yourself what to think of it.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: 4th Time Around
Source: Austrian import CD: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
It's often been speculated that Bob Dylan felt that John Lennon had ripped off his style for the 1965 song Norwegian Wood, and that he wrote 4th Time Around specifically to admonish Lennon for it (artistically speaking). Then again, that could simply be a case of rock critics, needing something to write about, coming up their own interpretation of things. Regardless of origins or intentions, the song was included on what many feel to be Dylan's finest album, Blonde On Blonde, which was released in 1966. Still, the song's closing line "I never asked for your crutch, now don't ask for mine" is a bit cryptic, isn't it?
Artist: Janis Ian
Title: Mrs. McKenzie
Source: Mono LP: Janis Ian
Writer(s): Janis Ian
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1967
Janis Ian was all of fourteen years old when she first recorded the song Society's Child. The song was recorded for Atlantic Records, but the label, fearing reprisals due to the song's subject matter (interracial romance), returned the master tape to Ian and refused to release the record. The song ended up being released on the Verve Forecast label three times between 1965 and 1967, when it finally became a top 20 hit. A self-titled album soon followed that was full of outstanding tracks such as Mrs. McKenzie. The album went out of print for a few years and was re-released on the Polydor label in the mid-70s following the success of Ian's comeback single, At Seventeen.
Artist: Insect Trust
Title: Foggy River Bridge Fly
Source: LP: The Insect Trust
Writer(s): Trevor Keohler
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
It's sometimes assumed that psychedelic rock was purely a west coast phenomena. The truth is that there were psychedelic bands popping up all over the place in the late 1960s. New York's brand of psychedelia was decidedly more avant garde than in other locations, due to the city's position as a major art center. The most famous link between pop art and psychedelic rock was Andy Warhol's sponsorship of the Velvet Underground, but it was not the only one. The United States Of America was born directly out of the New York art scene before relocating to Los Angeles. Less known was the Insect Trust, an eclectic group that included saxophonist Robert Palmer, who would go on to greater fame as the longtime popular music critic for the new York Times, and vocalist Nancy Jeffries, who would end up being the record company executive who signed Suzanne Vega to A&M Records in the mid-1980s. Jeffries once said that The Insect Trust was known to be a safe opening act, due to not having a particular style associated with them that could upstage the headliner. A listen to the off-kilter (and short!) country track Foggy River Bridge Fly kind of verifies that statement. After a second, more R&B-oriented album for a different label, the Insect Trust disbanded in the early 1970s.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Flying On The Ground Is Wrong
Source: Mono CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Atco
Year: 1966
It's a fact: the people at Atco Records thought Neil Young's voice was "too weird" to record, and insisted that fellow Buffalo Springfield member Richie Furay sing most of his songs instead of Young himself. Among the Young tunes sung by Furay on the first Buffalo Springfield album is Flying On The Ground Is Wrong. By the time the band got around to recording a second LP things had changed a bit and Young sang all his own material.
Artist: Harbinger Complex
Title: I Think I'm Down
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Writer: Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label: Rhino (original label: Brent)
Year: 1966
Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. The Harbinger Complex, from Freemont, California, however, benefitted from a talent search conducted by Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records. The band was one of about half a dozen acts from the Bay Area to be signed by Shad in July of 1966, with the single I Think I'm Down appearing on the Brent label later that year. The song was also included on Shad's Mainstream sampler LP, With Love-A Pot Of Flowers, in 1967.
Artist: Castaways
Title: Liar Liar
Source: LP: KHJ Boss Goldens Volume 1 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): James Donna
Label: Original Sound (original label: Soma)
Year: 1965
The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for slightly less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves in 1965 with their song Liar Liar for a couple months before fading off into obscurity.
Artist: Animals
Title: Inside Looking Out
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Animalization
Writer: Lomax/Lomax/Burdon/Chandler
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
The last Animals single to feature original drummer John Steel, Inside Looking Out (a powerful song about life in prison) was adapted from an actual chain gang chant called Rosie, which was included as part of Alan Lomax's Popular Songbook around 1960 or so. Released as a single in early 1966, the song was later included on the LP Animalization. Three years later Grand Funk Railroad recorded an extended version of Inside Looking Out that became a staple of their live show.
Artist: Jeff Beck
Title: Tallyman
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Sundazed/Epic
Year: 1967
Mickey Most (born Michael Peter Hayes) was a British record producer who was responsible for some of the biggest hits of the British Invasion, working with bands like the Animals and Herman's Hermits, as well as individual artists like Donovan and Lulu. In most instances he chose the songs himself for the bands to record, something that did not sit well with Eric Burdon of the Animals in particular. Nonetheless, he had the reputation as the man to go to for the best chance of getting a hit on the charts and he rarely disappointed. In 1967, guitarist Jeff Beck, having recently left the Yardbirds, had dreams of becoming a pop star, and turned to Most for help in making it happen. Most, as usual, picked out the songs for Beck's first two singles, the second of which was Tallyman, a song written by the same Graham Gouldman that had provided the Yardbirds with their first Beck era hit, Heart Full Of Soul. Beck would continue to work with Most for the next couple of years, although by the time the album Beck-Ola was released, Beck himself was choosing the material to record and starting with his next LP, Rough And Ready, would be producing his own records.
Artist: Third Bardo
Title: I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Evans/Pike
Label: Rhino (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: (Not the) Chocolate Watchband
Title: Dark Side Of The Mushroom
Source: CD: No Way Out
Writer(s): Cooper/Podolor
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Just who played on Dark Side Of The Mushroom is lost to history. What is certain, however, is that it is not the Chocolate Watchband, despite its inclusion on that band's debut LP. Producer Ed Cobb apparently had his own agenda when it came to the Watchband, which included making them sound much more psychedelic on vinyl than when they performed onstage (in fact it is doubtful that Cobb ever actually attended any of the band's live gigs). To accomplish his goal, Cobb enlisted the help of songwriter/musician/studio owner Richie Podolor, who would later go on to produce Three Dog Night's records. Podolor put together the group of anonymous studio musicians that recorded Dark Side Of The Mushroom, which, despite its shady origins, is a decent slice of instrumental psychedelia.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: Bass Strings
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
A lot of songs released in 1966 and 1967 got labeled as drug songs by influential people in the music industry. In many cases, those labels were inaccurate, at least according to the artists who recorded those songs. On the other hand, you have songs like Bass Strings by Country Joe and the Fish that really can't be about anything else. Then again, it was never going to be played on top 40 radio anyway.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: EXP/Up From The Skies
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The second Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Axis: Bold As Love, is very much a studio creation. Hendrix had been taking a growing interest in what could be done with multiple tracks to work with, and came up with a masterpiece. What makes the achievement even more remarkable is the fact that he actually only had four tracks to work with (compared to the virtually unlimited number available with modern digital equipment). EXP, which opens the album, is an exercise in creative feedback, using volume and panning to create the illusion of circular motion. The intro to the piece is a faux interview of a slowed-down Hendrix (posing as his friend Paul Caruso) by a slightly sped up bassist Noel Redding. The track leads directly into Up From The Skies, the only song on the album to be issued as a single in the US. Up From The Skies features Hendrix's extensive use of a wah-wah pedal, with vocals and guitar panning back and forth from speaker to speaker over the jazz-styled brushes of drummer Mitch Mitchell.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Little Wing
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Although it didn't have any hit singles on it, Axis: Bold As Love, the second album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was full of memorable tunes, including one of Hendrix's most covered songs, Little Wing. The album itself is a showcase for Hendrix's rapidly developing skills, both as a songwriter and in the studio. The actual production of the album was a true collaborative effort, combining Hendrix's creativity, engineer Eddie Kramer's expertise and producer Chas Chandler's strong sense of how a record should sound, acquired through years of recording experience as a member of the Animals.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: Woodchopper's Ball
Source: LP: Goin' Home-Ten Years After Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Undead)
Writer(s): Bishop/Herman
Label: Deram
Year: 1968
Live albums were still somewhat of a rarity in the 60s, and generally featured material that had not been previously released in the studio. Such was the case with the second Ten Years After album, Undead. Guitarist Alvin Lee flat out smokes on Woodchopper's Ball, a song first recorded by the Woody Herman Orchestra in 1939.
Artist: John Kay (Sparrow)
Title: Twisted
Source: CD: Born To Be Wild-A [Steppenwolf] Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): John Kay
Label: MCA (original label: Columbia)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1969
Toronto, Ontario's Yorkville Village had a thriving music scene in the mid-1960s that included such future stars as Joni Mitchell, David Clayton-Thomas, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfood and Rick James, among others. Also on the scene was a young singer who had spent most of his formative years in the area before his family had relocated to Buffalo, and later, Los Angeles. John Kay eventually found his way back to Toronto, where he joined a band called Sparrow. Not long after Kay joined the band, they decided to relocate to New York, where they managed to record a few tracks at the Columbia Records studios in 1966. Four of the songs were released as a pair of singles in 1966, but neither record charted. Among the unreleased tracks was a Kay song called Twisted, which remained unreleased until 1969, when Columbia, in the wake of the band's success under their new name, Steppenwolf, released all but one of the tunes on an album called John Kay and Sparrow. The label also released a single from the album under John Kay's name that featured Twisted as the B side. Twisted, along with the Sparrow's cover of Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, is now available on the double-CD Steppenwolf anthology Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a tune originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work from Michael Monarch.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: The Ostrich
Source: CD: Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s): John Kay
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1967
Although John Kay's songwriting skills were still a work in progress on the first Steppenwolf album, there were some outstanding Kay songs on that LP, such as The Ostrich, a song that helped define Steppenwolf as one of the most politically savvy rock bands in history. An edited version of The Ostrich was released several weeks earlier than the album itself as the B side of Steppenwolf's first single, A Girl I Knew.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Think For Yourself
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1965
By the end of 1965 George Harrison was writing an average of two songs per Beatles album. On Rubber Soul, however, one of his two songs was deleted from the US version of the album and appeared on 1966's Yesterday...And Today LP instead. The remaining Harrison song on Rubber Soul was Think For Yourself. Harrison later said that he was still developing his songwriting at this point and that bandmate John Lennon had helped write Think For Yourself.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Grim Reaper Of Love
Source: Mono LP: Turtles' Golden Hits: 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: Monkees
Title: A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Neil Diamond
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The members of the Monkees were already royally pissed off at Don Kirschner in early 1967 for releasing the album More Of The Monkees without the knowledge or input of the band itself (other than vocal tracks that had been recorded the previous year for use on The Monkees TV show). Things only got worse two months later when, after flying Davy Jones out to New York to record vocal tracks for a pair of new tunes with producer Jeff Barry, Kirschner released promo copies of the recordings to select radio stations as the third Monkees single, along with a promo package referring to Jones as "my favorite Monkee". This time, however, it was not only the band that was kept in the dark; apparently nobody associated with the Monkees knew anything about the release, which was intended to strengthen Kirschner's position as the Monkees' musical director. As a result Kirschner found himself fired for taking the unauthorized action, the single was cancelled, and the band members were given control over their own musical destiny. The Monkees immediately went to work on what would become their third consecutive #1 LP, Headquarters, but agreed to release one of the new songs, a Neil Diamond number called A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, with a different B side as their next single.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Recitation/My Love Is
Source: LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
For a time in early 1968 my favorite album was The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union, which is in a sense kind of strange, since I didn't own a copy of the LP. I did, however, have access to my dad's Dual turntable and Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder, and used to fall asleep on the couch with the headphones on nearly every night (hey, it beat sharing a room with my 8-year-old brother). So when one of my bandmates invited the rest of us over to hear his new album by this new band from Boston I naturally asked to borrow it long enough to tape a copy for myself. As it turned out, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union is one of those albums best listened to with headphones on, with all kinds of cool (dare I say groovy?) stereo effects, like the organ and cymbals going back and forth from side to side following the spoken intro (by producer Tom Wilson, it turns out) on the album's first track, My Love Is. Years later I acquired a mono copy of the LP, but it just wasn't the same, so I spent even more years looking for a decent stereo copy. This one, although not perfect, is the third and best copy I could find.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: It's Been Too Long
Source: CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Writer(s): Ron Polte
Label: Rock Beat
Year: 1968
One of the last of the Blues Project-inspired San Francisco jam bands to get a record contract was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Formed in 1966, the group was one of the top local attractions at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and was featured (along with Mother Nature and the Steve Miller Band) in the 1968 film Revolution. Finally getting a contract with Capital in mid-1968, the group, led by Gary Duncan and John Cippolina, went to work on a self-titled LP. Although some of the tracks reflected the band's propensity for improvisation, others songs on the album, such as It's Been Too Long, written by their manager, Ron Polte, feature relatively tight arrangements.
Artist: Move
Title: Walk Upon The Water
Source: British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Roy Wood
Label: Grapefruit (original US label: A&M)
Year: 1968
Throughout the 1960s, it was common practice in the UK to follow up a new artist's first hit single with an LP, in order to cash in on that artist's popularity when they were still hot. For some reason, however, one of the most successful British bands, the Move, did not release an album until two months after their fourth single came out. This, however, was not the band's original plan. A newsletter released to the band's fan club around Christmas 1966 said that the Move's debut LP would be available by February of 1967, two months after their debut single, Night Of Fear hit the #2 spot on the British chart. But then their manager decided to torture the band's fans by delaying the album for a few months, until fall of 1967. But in April the band announced that they were offering a reward for the return of the master tapes, which had been stolen from a parked car in London's West End. The tapes were eventually found in a dumpster, but damaged beyond repair, necessitating a complete remix of the album. Eventually the LP did come out in April of 1968. By then four of the songs on the album, including Walk Upon The Water, had already been released as either A or B sides (and a fifth had been planned for release but cancelled at the last minute).
Artist: Paupers
Title: Yes, I Know
Source: Mono LP: Ellis Island
Writer(s): Campbell/Mitchell/Prokop
Label: Verve Forecast (mono promo copy)
Year: 1968
Rock history is filled with stories of bands that were legendary stage performers, yet had little success in the recording studio. One of the best examples of this phenomena is a Canadian band called the Paupers. Formed in Toronto in 1964 by guitarist/vocalist Bill Marion and drummer Skip Prokop, the Paupers (called the Spats until 1965) reportedly put in 40 hours a week rehearsing, and were generally considered the tightest band on the Toronto music scene. Marion left the group in 1966, and was replaced by Scottish-born Adam Mitchell, who, with Prokop, wrote nearly all the band's original material. In 1967 they signed with the Verve Forecast label and began making appearances in the Eastern US, often opening for major acts like Jefferson Airplane (and reportedly blowing them off the stage, so to speak). The band released their first LP, Magic People, in 1967, touring extensively to promote it, but the album did not sell well, and Prokop left the group before their second LP, Ellis Island, was released in 1968, deciding to try his hand as a session musician (he played on Peter, Paul and Mary's I Dig Rock 'N' Roll Music, among other things), and eventually was a co-founder of a band called Lighthouse. After a final single from Ellis Island, Cairo Hotel, failed to chart, the Paupers disbanded, with Mitchell going on to become a solo artist. A new version of the Paupers was formed later that year to pay off debts, but did not make any studio recordings.
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.
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