https://exchange.prx.org/p/609354
This week's show starts on a somewhat conventional note with a well-known classic from Simon & Garfunkel. It even stays that way for the most part during the first half of the show. But then, after a nice set from Procol Harum to open the second hour of the show, the acid starts to kick in and things get a little...weird, finishing out with several tunes that have never been heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before this week.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: Mrs. Robinson
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Possibly the most enduring song in the entire Simon And Garfunkel catalog, Mrs. Robinson (in an edited version) first appeared on the soundtrack for the film The Graduate in 1967. It wasn't until the Bookends album came out in 1968 that the full four minute version was released. Also released as a single, the song shot right to the top of the charts, staying there for several weeks.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
Detroit was one of the major centers of pop music in the mid to late 1960s. In addition to the myriad Motown acts, the area boasted the popular retro-rock&roll band Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the harder rocking Bob Seger And The Heard, the non-Motown R&B band the Capitols, and Ted Nugent's outfit, the Amboy Dukes, who scored big in 1968 with Journey To The Center Of The Mind. And then came the MC5 and their "little brother" band, the Stooges, but that's another story.
Artist: Small Faces
Title: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Source: CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Writer(s): Marriott/Lane/McLagon/Jones
Label: Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year: 1968
By spring of 1968 the Small Faces, from London' East End, had already established themselves on the UK charts with the kind of catchy pop tunes that were the meat of the mid-60s British music scene. After having a falling out with industry giant Decca Records in 1967, they signed to Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham's newly formed Immediate Records. After a decent, but somewhat hurried first album for the new label the band (whose name came from the fact that they were all short), took their time with a follow-up. The result was Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, generally regarded as one of the few LPs to actually rise to the challenge laid down by the Beatles the previous year with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album opens with an instrumental title track, setting the tone for the rest of the LP.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Baby, You're A Rich Man
Source: LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
Year: 1967
Baby, You're A Rich Man was one of the last actual collaborations between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and addresses the Beatles' longtime manager Brian Epstein, although not by name. Lennon came up with the basic question "how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" (a popular term for the young and hip in late 60s London), which became the basis for the song's verses, which were combined with an existing, but unfinished, Paul McCartney chorus (Baby, You're A Rich Man, too). The finished piece was issued as the B side of the Beatles' second single of 1967, All You Need Is Love, and later remixed in stereo and included on the US-only LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Foxy Lady
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
The US and UK versions of the Are You Experienced differed considerably. For one thing, three songs that had been previously released as singles in the UK (where single tracks and albums were mutually exclusive) were added to the US version of the album, replacing UK album tracks. Another rather significant difference is that the UK version of the album was originally issued only in mono. When the 4-track master tapes arrived in the US, engineers at Reprise Records created new stereo mixes of all the songs, including Foxy Lady, which had led off the UK version of Are You Experience but had been moved to a spot near the end of side two on the US album. The original mono single mix of Foxy Lady, meanwhile, was issued as a single in the US, despite the song being only available as an album track in the UK.
Artist: Velvet Illusions
Title: Acid Head
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Weed/Radford
Label: Rhino (original label: Tell, also released on Metromedia Records)
Year: 1967
Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a suburban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle crowd as one of their own) the Velvet Illusions backtracked the Prunes' steps, leaving their native Yakima and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut Acid Head before calling it quits.
Artist: Cream
Title: Dance The Night Away
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The album Fresh Cream was perhaps the first LP from a rock supergroup, although at the time a more accurate description would have been British blues supergroup. Much of the album was reworking of blues standards by the trio of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, all of whom had established their credentials with various British blues bands. With their second album, Disraeli Gears, Cream showed a psychedelic side as well as their original blues orientation. Most of the more psychedelic material, such as Dance the Night Away, was from the songwriting team of Bruce and lyricist Pete Brown.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: I Can't Keep From Crying, Sometimes
Source: CD: Ten Years After
Writer(s): Blind Willie Johnson, arr. Al Kooper
Label: Deram
Year: 1967
The first Ten Years After album had several cover tunes on it, including one that was actually a cover of a cover. Al Kooper of the Blues Project had initially reworked Blind Willie Johnson's adaptation of the traditional Lord I Can't Keep From Crying for inclusion on a blues sampler album for Elektra Records called What's Shakin', while at the same time working up a harder-edged version of the song for the Blues Project, which became the opening track for their Projections LP. Alvin Lee based his own interpretation of the tune on Kooper's solo arrangement, giving it a quiet intensity.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Dedicated Follower Of Fashion
Source: Mono Canadian import CD: 20 Years-The Ultimate collection (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Polygram/Polytel (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1966
By 1966 Ray Davies's songwriting had taken a satirical turn with songs like Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, which lampooned the flamboyant lifestyle embraced by the Mods, a group of young fashionable Londoners who seem to have bought all their clothes on Carnaby Street. The Kinks, at this point, were having greater success in the UK than in the US, where they had been denied visas and were thus unable to tour to promote their records. That condition would only worsen until 1970, when the song Lola became an international smash, reviving the band's flagging fortunes.
Artist: Animals
Title: See See Rider
Source: CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals 1966-1968 (originally released on LP: Animalization and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ma Rainey
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
One of the last singles released by the original incarnation of the Animals (and the first to use the name Eric Burdon And The Animals on the label), See See Rider traces its roots back to the 1920s, when it was first recorded by Ma Rainey. The Animals version is considerably faster than most other recordings of the song, and includes a signature opening rift by organist Dave Rowberry (who had replaced founder Alan Price prior to the recording of the Animalization album that the song first appeared on) that is unique to the Animals' take on the tune.
Artist: Seeds
Title: No Escape
Source: LP: The Seeds
Writer(s): Saxon/Savage/Lawrence
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
Following up on their 1965 Los Angeles area hit Can't Seem To Make You Mine, the Seeds released their self-titled debut LP the following year. The album contained what would be the band's biggest (and only national) hit, Pushin' Too Hard, as well as several other tracks such as No Escape that can be considered either as stylistic consistent or blatantly imitative of the big hit record. As Pushin' Too Hard was not yet a well-known song when the album was released, I tend to lean more toward the first interpretation.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s): McGannahan Skjellyfetti
Label: Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
The Grateful Dead's major label debut single actually sold pretty well in the San Francisco Bay area, where it got airplay on top 40 stations from San Francisco to San Jose. Around the rest of the country, not so much, but the Dead would soon prove that there was more to survival than having a hit record. Writing credits on The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion) were given to McGannahan Skjellyfetti, which like the Rolling Stones' Nanker Phelge was a name used for songs written by the entire band (there was probably some royalties-related reason for doing so).
Artist: Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title: You Can't Be Found
Source: CD: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading/The Great Conspiracy (original LP: The Great Conspiracy)
Writer(s): Alan Brackett
Label: Collectables (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1967
Originally formed in 1964 as Ashes, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy was a popular Los Angeles club band. Signed to Columbia in late 1966, the group recorded two LPs for the label, both of which were released in 1967. Critics generally agree that the second album, on which the band was given more artistic freedom, was the better of the two. The first album, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading, did have its high points however, such as bassist Alan Brackett's You Can't Be Found. By the time a third album was released in 1969, both the membership and the record label had changed. The PBC disbanded the following year.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: CD: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
I seem to recall some TV show (Ed Sullivan, maybe?) making Mick Jagger change the words to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now. Nor can I imagine the band responding to such a request with anything but derisive laughter.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Heroes And Villains
Source: Mono British import CD: Peace And Love-The Woodstock Generation (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Wilson/Parks
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: Brother)
Year: 1967
The last major Beach Boys hit of the 1960s was Heroes And Villains, released as a follow-up to Good Vibrations in early 1967. The song was intended to be part of the Smile album, but ended up being released as a single in an entirely different form than Brian Wilson originally intended.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Subterranean Homesick Blues
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
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. 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: Yardbirds
Title: Rack My Mind
Source: CD: Roger The Engineer (original US title: Over Under Sideways Down)
Writer(s): Dreja/McCarty/Beck/Relf/Samwell-Smith
Label: Great American (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
It may come as a surprise to some, but, despite their status as one of the most influential bands in rock history, the Yardbirds actually only recorded one studio album. The album, released in 1966, was originally titled The Yardbirds, but has since come to be known as Roger The Engineer, thanks to the distinctive cover drawn by band member Chris Dreja. In the US, the album was released under a different title (Over Under Sideways Down) and had an entirely different cover as well. To add to the confusion, a compilation of British singles and EP tracks had been released in the US under the title Having A Rave Up the previous year. Roger The Engineer was co-produced by Simon Napier-Bell and Yardbirds bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, and was made up entirely of original songs such as Rack My Mind. Samwell-Smith would leave the band to become a full-time producer not long after the album's release; his replacement would be a guitarist named Jimmy Page.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Giving To You
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood/Mason
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Traffic's first LP, Mr. Fantasy, was released in late 1967 under the name Heaven Is In Your Mind by United Artists Records in the US. The reason for this is not entirely clear, although the label may have been expecting the song Heaven Is In Your Mind to be a hit and wanted to capitalize on the title. As it turns out the song didn't do much on the US charts, despite the lead vocals of Steve Winwood, whose voice had already graced two top 10 singles by the Spencer Davis Group (Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man) earlier that year. More recently Island Records, which always had the UK rights to Traffic's material and has had US rights since the early 70s, decided to release CDs under both titles. Mr. Fantasy contains the mono mixes of the songs (plus mono bonus tracks), while Heaven Is In Your Mind has the stereo mixes of the same songs (with some slight differences in bonus tracks). One track that benefits from the stereo mix is Giving To You. Basically an instrumental, the song has a short lounge lizard style vocal introduction, along with some interesting spoken parts and stereo sound effects at the beginning and end of what is otherwise a rather tasty jam session.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Wish Me Well
Source: CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M/Rebound
Year: 1968
The second Procol Harum album, Shine On Brightly, saw the group moving in an increasingly progressive direction, incorporating elements of a variety of styles, including Indian, classical and even gospel music. An example of the latter is Wish Me Well. Gary Brooker's gospel-styled piano work and vocals on the track are enhanced by some tasty fills from guitarist Robin Trower.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Source: Simulated stereo LP: The Best Of Procol Harum (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Often credited as the first progressive rock band, Procol Harum drew heavily from classical music sources, such as the Bach inspired theme used by organist Matthew Fisher as the signature rift for A Whiter Shade of Pale. The song itself hold the distinction of being the most-played song on the British airwaves over the past 70 years.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Rambling On
Source: CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M/Rebound
Year: 1968
Procol Harum is generally considered to be one of the first progressive rock bands, thanks in part to their second LP, Shine On Brightly. In addition to the album's showpiece, the seventeen minute In Held Twas In I, the album has several memorable tracks, including Rambling On, which closes out side one of the original LP. The song's rambling first-person lyrics (none of which actually rhyme) tell the story of a guy who, inspired by a Batman movie, decides to jump off a roof and fly. Oddly enough, he succeeds.
Artist: Clark-Hutchinson
Title: Improvisations On And Indian Scale
Source: LP: A=MH²
Writer(s): Clark/Hutchinson
Label: Sire/London
Year: 1969
By the 1980s, it had become common to find out that a "band" actually consisted by just one or two people, who used studio techniques to fill out their sound. The beginnings of this can be traced to the late 1960s when people like Andy Clark and Mitch Hutchinson were putting out albums like LP: A=MH². The album itself is made up mostly of lengthy pieces like Improvisations On And Indian Scale, which features Clark on pianos and Hutchinson on bass guitar. And rhythm guitar. And tympani. And lead guitar.
Artist: Magicians
Title: An Invitation To Cry
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Woods/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1965
In the late 1960s Columbia emerged as one of the top rock labels, with bands such as Blood, Sweat & Tears, Moby Grape and Chicago selling millions of copies of their LPs. It may come as a surprise, then, that just two years before the release of the first Moby Grape album, Columbia had not signed a single rock act. Prior to 1965, Columbia had established itself as a leading force in Jazz, Classical, and what had been known as popular music as personified by such middle of the road acts as Mitch Miller, Anita Bryant and Percy Faith. In addition, Columbia had a virtual lock on Broadway show soundtrack albums, but, other than Bob Dylan, who had originally been signed as a pure folk artist, the label had nothing approaching rock and roll. That began to change, however, with the label's signing of Paul Revere and the Raiders on the West coast and a Greenwich Village based band called the Magicians on the East. While the label turned to staff producer Terry Melcher for the Raiders, they instead went with the management/production team of Bob Wyld and Art Polhemus, who would later find success at Mercury Records with the Blues Magoos. The Magicians, however, were not so successful, despite the presence of band members Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon, who would go on to write major hits Happy Together and She's My Girl (among others) for the Turtles, as well as songs for other artists. It was Gordon, along with non-member James Woods, that wrote the Magicians' first single, An Invitation To Cry, which was released in November of 1965. I guess the mostly adolescent top 40 audience of the time just wasn't ready for a rock song in waltz tempo.
Artist: Janis Ian
Title: Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Janis Ian
Label: Verve Folkways
Year: 1966
Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one willing to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record was released in September of 1966 by M-G-M subsidiary Verve Folkways, a label whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations the song became a major hit when re-released the following year after being featured on an April 1967 Leonard Bernstein TV special. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Interstellar Overdrive/The Gnome
Source: CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Barrett/Waters/Wright/Mason
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Syd Barrett was still very much at the helm for Pink Floyd's first LP, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, released in 1967. The group had already released a pair of Barrett-penned singles, Arnold Layne (which was banned by the BBC) and See Emily Play. Piper, though, was the first full album for the group, and some tracks, notably the nine-minute psychedelic masterpiece Interstellar Overdrive, were entirely group efforts. On the original UK version of the LP Overdrive tracks directly into a Barrett piece, the Gnome. The US version, issued on Tower records, truncated Overdrive and re-arranged the song order. The only CD version of Piper currently available, heard here, follows the original UK ordering of the tracks.
Artist: John Renbourne
Title: Transfusion
Source: LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Record Show (originally released on LP: Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng and ye Grene Knyghte
Writer(s): Charles Lloyd
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In addition to being a founding member of Pentangle, guitarist John Renbourne maintained a successful solo career, releasing 20 studio albums and five live albums from 1965 to 2011. One of the most notable of these was the 1968 LP Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng and ye Grene Knyghte. The album featured Renbourne's own arrangement of traditional English folk ballads, along with more recent tunes such as Transfusion, written by jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd.
Artist: Jacob Creek
Title: Behind The Door
Source: German import LP: Underground '70 (originally released in LP: Jacobs Creek)
Writer(s): Lon Van Eaton
Label: CBS (US label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Formed as Elisium in Trenton, NJ in 1968 by brothers Lon and Derrek Van Eaton, Jacobs Creek was based in New York, where a gig at Andy Warhol's Factory led to a contract with Columbia Records the following year. In addition to the Van Eatons (multi-instrumentalist Lon and vocalist Derrek, the band featured Steve Burgh on guitars, organ, vocals, Tim Case on drums, Bruce Foster on guitar, banjo and organ and Steve Mosley on drums. Columbia had signed several new rock bands in 1969, and when it came to promotion, Jacob Creek kind of slipped through the cracks. Still, they continued to get regular work in the New Jersey area for the next couple of years, finally disbanding in 1971. The Von Eatons then recorded some demos that found their way to George Harrison, who produced their album Brother for Apple in 1972.
Artist: Alice Cooper
Title: Still No Air
Source: LP: Easy Action
Writer(s): Cooper/Smith/Dunaway/Bruce/Buxton
Label: Straight
Year: 1970
Alice Cooper's second album, Easy Action, was no more of a commercial success than their first one, but it did have its moments. Still No Air, for instance, sneaks in references to West Side Story while showing glimpses of the hard rock the band would later become famous for.
