https://exchange.prx.org/p/618448
It's a week of firsts on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion this time around, as we feature tracks from the debut albums of Steppenwolf, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and others. Even Cheech and Chong get in the act. After noticing that a lot of these debut albums came out in 1969 we decided to finish out the show with a couple more tracks from that year by slightly more established artists.
Artist: Buoys
Title: Timothy
Source: Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Rupert Holmes
Label: Scepter
Year: 1970
Rupert Holmes wrote the 1970 song Timothy, dealing with cannibalism, specifically to get banned from top 40 radio, thus giving him a measure of notoriety. What he didn't bargain for, however, was the song becoming a hit single anyway, despite the best efforts of the shirts at Scepter Records to convince everyone that "Timothy" was in fact, a mule, and not one of the miners caught in a cave-in. Holmes himself set the record straight in an interview, but by that time the song had hit the #17 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Holmes had intended the song to be recorded by a band called the Glass Prism, who had released an album of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry set to music the previous year. The Glass Prism, however, was under contract to RCA Victor, and was unavailable to record the song. Instead, Holmes chose the Buoys, a band from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who had been signed to, and then virtually ignored by, the New York-based Scepter Records. Holmes, who played keyboards on the song, went on to write several more songs for the Buoys, all of which were from the point of view of someone who had committed some sort of crime. Holmes ended up becoming more famous, in the long run, for a song called Escape (The Piña Colada Song) that he released under his own name in 1979.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Sookie Sookie
Source: CD: Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Covay/Cropper
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
For years I was under the impression that the follow-up single to Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild was Magic Carpet Ride, from the album Steppenwolf The Second. I was wrong. In fact, Born To Be Wild was not even the first single released from the band's first LP. That honor goes to A Girl I Knew, which was released in 1967, several months before the first Steppenwolf album hit the record racks. The third single from that debut LP was Sookie Sookie, the opening track of the album. The song, co-written by Steve Cropper, had been a minor R&B hit for Don Covay before coming to the attention of Steppenwolf, who cranked up the volume for their version of the tune.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Your Time Is Gonna Come/Black Mountain Side/Communication Breakdown
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s): Page/Jones/Bonham
Year: 1969
One of the great ironies of Led Zeppelin is that half the members of a band that was revered for its live performances were in fact in-demand studio musicians long before they started performing onstage. Your Time Is Gonna Come and Black Mountain Side, from the debut Zeppelin album was written by those two members, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The two songs run together on the album, and are immediately followed by the B side of the band's first single, Communication Breakdown. I'm pretty sure that back when the album first came out, some unknown DJ was unable to stop the turntable fast enough to cut off Communication Breakdown and ended up just letting the two and a half minute track play on through. Somebody liked the way it sounded and the three have been played as a continuous set ever since. Who am I to argue with a tradition like that?
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Wicked World
Source: CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1969
The Secret Origin of Heavy Metal-Part One: After a short (one month) stint as Mick Abrahams's replacement in Jethro Tull, guitarist Tony Iommi rejoined his former bandmates Ozzy Osborne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward in the blues-rock band Earth in January of 1969. Later that year they realized that there was already another English band called Earth and decided to change their name. Taking inspiration from a playbill of a movie theater showing classic Boris Karloff horror films across the street from where they were rehearsing, they started calling themselves Black Sabbath in August of 1969 and began to forge a new sound for the band in keeping with their new name. Three months later Black Sabbath got their first record contract, releasing a cover of Crow's Evil Woman in November. They followed the (UK only) single up with their self-titled debut LP, recorded in just two days, on Friday, February 13th, 1970. The album was released three months later in the US, and spent over a year on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. Although Evil Woman was included on the UK version of the LP, Warner Brothers chose to instead include the B side of the band's British single, a song called Wicked World that was not on the UK version of the album. Most Black Sabbath fans, it turns out, consider Wicked World a stronger track, as it shows a trace of the band's original blues-rock sound, especially on its fast paced intro and closing sections.
Artist: Cheech And Chong
Title: Dave
Source: LP: Cheech & Chong
Writer(s): Marin/Chong
Label: Ode
Year: 1971
OK, is there ANYONE out there who has not heard (or at least heard of) Dave, from the first Cheech And Chong LP? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Time Machine
Source: CD: Heavy Hitters (originally released on LP: On Time)
Writer: Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1969
Universally panned by the rock press, the first Grand Funk Railroad album, On Time, was at best a moderate success when it was first released. Thanks to the band's extensive touring, however, GFR had built up a sizable following by the time their self-titled follow up LP (aka the Red Album) was released in 1970. That year, Grand Funk Railroad became the first rock band to chalk up four gold albums in the same year, with Closer To Home and their double-LP live album joining the first two studio albums on the million seller list. One of the most popular tracks from On Time was Time Machine, which captures the essence of the band's early years.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Purple Haze
Source: CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Following up on the success of their first UK single, Hey Joe, the Jimi Hendrix Experience released Purple Haze in early 1967. The popularity of the two singles (released only in Europe) led to a deal with Reprise Records to start issuing the band's material in the US. By then, however, the Experience had already released Are You Experienced without either of the two hit singles on it. Reprise, hedging their bets, included both singles (but not their B sides), as well as a third UK single, The Wind Cries Mary, deleting several tracks from the original version of Are You Experienced to make room for them.
Artist: Robin Trower
Title: Daydream
Source: CD: Essential Robin Trower (originally released on LP: Twice Removed From Yesterday
Writer(s): Dewar/Trower
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1973
Robin Trower's nearly six year long run with Procol Harum became increasingly frustrating for the guitarist, who felt that the band's songs, mostly written by keyboardist Gary Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid, did not give him a lot of opportunity to express himself as a musician. So in 1971 he left the group and co-founded a group called Jude. Although this group was short-lived and made no recordings, it did serve to establish the songwriting partnership of Trower and the Scottish bassist/vocalis James Dewar. With drummer Reg Isidore they formed the Robin Trower Band in 1973, releasing their first album, Twice Removed From Yesterday, that same year. The longest track on the album was Daydream, a slow moody piece that runs in excess of six minutes.
Artist: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Title: You Don't Have To Cry
Source: LP: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer: Stephen Stills
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield in 1968, Stephen Stills spent some time in the studio cutting demo tapes as well as pitching in to help his friend Al Kooper complete the Super Session album when guitarist Mike Bloomfield became incapacitated by his heroin addiction. He then started hanging out at David Crosby's place in Laurel Canyon. Joined by Graham Nash, who had recently left the Hollies, they recorded the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album. Several of the tunes Stills had penned since the Springfield breakup were included on the album, including You Don't Have To Cry. The song addresses his own breakup with singer Judy Collins.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Be Careful With A Fool
Source: German import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s): King/Josea
Label: Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Johnny Winter's first album for Columbia (his second overall) is nothing less than a blues masterpiece. Accompanied by bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner, Winter pours his soul into classics like B.B. King's Be Careful With A Fool, maybe even improving on the original (if such a thing is possible).
Artist: Beatles
Title: Because
Source: LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1969
Take Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Turn a few notes around, add some variations and write some lyrics. Add the Beatles' trademark multi-part harmonies and you have John Lennon's Because, from the Abbey Road album. A simply beautiful recording.
Title: Down By The River
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
Down By The River is one of four songs on the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere that Neil Young wrote while running a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 39.5 degrees for people in civilized nations that use the Celsius, aka centrigrade, scale). By some strange coincidence, they are the four best songs on the album. I wish I could have been that sick in my days as a wannabe rock star.
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