https://exchange.prx.org/p/627229
This week, following an opening number from Stevie Wonder, we have a set of tunes from 1970 that takes us well past the half-hour mark, but then we drop back a year or two for some blues rock and then finish out the hour with mellower stuff.
Artist: Stevie Wonder
Title: Superstition
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Stevie Wonder
Label: Tamla
Year: 1972
Superstition was not originally meant to be a Stevie Wonder hit record. The song was actually written with the intention of giving it to guitarist Jeff Beck, in return for his participation of Wonder's Talking Book album. In fact, it was Beck that came up with the song's opening drum riff, creating, with Wonder, the first demo of the song. The plan was for Beck to release the song first as the lead single from the album Beck, Bogert & Appice. However, that album's release got delayed, and Motown CEO Barry Gordy Jr. insisted that Wonder go ahead and release his own version of the song first, as Barry saw the song as a potential #1 hit. It turned out Gordy was right, and Superstition ended up topping both the pop and soul charts in 1973, doing well in other countries as well. A 1986 live version of the song by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble continues to get a lot of airplay on classic rock radio.
Artist: Wishbone Ash
Title: Lady Whiskey
Source: CD: Wishbone Ash
Writer(s): Turner/Turner/Powell/Upton
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1970
In its own way, the first Wishbone Ash album rocks out as hard as any album released in 1970, and is certainly one of the better debut LPs in rock history. The band would actually soften their sound a touch for later albums, but on tunes like Lady Whiskey they showed that they could hold their own in a world that included bands like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Led Zeppelin.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Gone Again
Source: British import CD: Just For Love
Writer(s): Chet Powers
Label: BGO (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
Chet Powers, aka Dino Valenti, was a legendary figure on the San Francisco scene long before that scene became a national phenomena. He recorded a demo of his most famous song, Get Together, in 1964, and was, by some accounts, the guy who came up with the idea of forming Quicksilver Messenger Service a couple of years later. Powers, however, was on the police radar by then, and before the band was even officially a band, he found himself serving time at San Quentin for marijuana possession, missing out on the Haight-Ashbury summer of love thing altogether. When he got out of prison he quickly hooked up with Quicksilver Messenger Service, providing nearly all the material for their 1970 LP Just For Love as both songwriter and lead vocalist. This resulted in an album that had little in common with the band's earlier efforts, but did provide the group with their only hit single, Fresh Air. Other tracks written by Powers (using the alias Jesse Oris Farrow) include the seven-minute long Gone Again, a low energy piece that, quite frankly, sounds like it was written by a San Quentin inmate.
Artist: Santana
Title: Samba Pa Ti
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer(s): Carlos Santana
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
One of the most enduring tracks from Santana's second LP, Abraxas, Samba Pa Ti starts off as a slow instrumental, slowly picking up the pace and adding percussion to give it a decidedly latin flavor. As far as I know, Carlos Santana still includes Samba Pa Ti in his concert repertoire.
Artist: Seatrain
Title: Willin'
Source: British import CD: Seatrain/Marblehead Messenger (originally released on LP: Seatrain)
Writer(s): Lowell George
Label: BGO (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
Al Kooper, then Steve Katz and Danny Kalb all left the Blues Project in 1967. By all rights that should have been the end of the story, but the remaining original members Roy Blumenfeld and Andy Kulberg decided to stay together and form a new band, Seatrain. After one album for A&M (entitled Sea Train), the group underwent personnel changes that left only Kulberg (on bass and flute) from the original Blues Project lineup, along with violinist Richard Greene, guitarist/vocalist Peter Rowan, keyboardist/vocalist Lloyd Baskin and drummer Larry Atamanuik. Additionally, dedicated lyricist Jim Roberts provided background vocals for the band's next two albums, Seatrain and The Marblehead Messenger. The band's sound was unique. Perhaps it was too unique. Among the most accessible songs on their first album was Willin', the tune that got Lowell George kicked out of the Mothers Of Invention (actually, it was more of a suggestion by Frank Zappa that George might be better off forming his own band).
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man (live version)
Source: CD: Fillmore East February 1970
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Bear's Sonic Journals
Year: 1970
Even before hitting it big with the Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East album, the band was rockin' the Fillmore with tunes like Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man. Recorded a year earlier by Owsley "Bear" Stanley, this recording shows that the Allman Brothers Band was already one of the most exciting live performance bands in the country.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: Me And My Baby
Source: CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
Cricklewood Green, the fourth studio LP from Ten Years After, is generally considered to be the British blues rockers' best. All the tracks were written by guitarist/vocalist Alvin Lee, including Me And My Baby, which showcases the band's ability to emulate a Wes Montgomery-like 1950s jazz style. The track opens side two of the original LP.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: That Same Feelin'
Source: LP: Raw Sienna
Writer(s): Kim Simmonds
Label: Parrot
Year: 1970
Savoy Brown's fifth LP, Raw Sienna, is often cited as the band's best album. It was also the last to feature vocalist Chris Youlden, who left the group for a less than stellar solo career following its release. Although Youlden wrote most of the songs on the album, bandleader Kim Simmonds provided the group with That Same Feelin', featuring Simmonds on lead guitar and piano, "Lonesome" Dave Peverett on rhythm guitar, Tone Stevens on bass and Roger Earl on drums.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Merry Go Round
Source: European import CD: The Essential Fleetwood Mac (originally released in UK on LP: Fleetwood Mac)
Writer(s): Peter Green
Label: Columbia/Sony Music (original label: Blue Horizon)
Year: 1968
Fleetwood Mac was formed in 1967 when John Mayall gave guitarist Peter Green free studio time as a gift. Green used that time to record five tunes with his Bluesbreakers bandmates Mick Fleeetwood and John McVie. Green and drummer Fleetwood were so enthused by the sessions that they decided to form a new band. Green, hoping to entice bassist McVie to join them, decided to call the new band Fleetwood Mac, recruiting slide specialist Jeremy Spencer as the group's second guitarist. McVie, not wanting to lose his steady income, declined at first, but after the band's well-received live debut at the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival as Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, also featuring Jeremy Spencer, McVie joined up as well. The band entered CBS Studios in London on November 22, 1967 to begin work on their debut LP, recording nine songs in a single session. Among the first songs recorded was Green's Merry Go Round, which at slightly over four minutes became the longest track on the album. Simply titled Fleetwood Mac (but now usually known as Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac to differentiate it from the band's self-titled album from 1975), the LP was released in February of 1968 and climbed to the #4 spot on the British album charts, barely making the Billboard 200 at #198 in the US.
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: Spirit
Title: Nature's Way
Source: CD: Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer: Randy California
Label: Epic
Year: 1970
Nature's Way is one of the best-known and best-loved songs in the Spirit catalog. Originally released on the 1970 LP Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, the song was finally issued as a single in 1973, long after lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes had left Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne.
Artist: Pink Fairies
Title: War Girl
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Neverneverland)
Writer(s): Twink aka John Charles Edward Alder
Label: Polydor
Year: 1971
The Pink Fairies were formed when three members of the Deviants (Paul Rudolph, Duncan Sanderson, and Russell Hunter), who had fired their own band leader during a disastrous North American tour, decided to hook up with Twink (John Charles Edward Alder), the former drummer of Tomorrow and the Pretty Things. Twink had done a one-shot gig with an ad hoc group of musicians under the name Pink Fairies in 1969, and the new group decided that they liked the name and appropriated it for themselves. The band gained immediate notoriety for putting on free concerts, often just outside the gates of places that were charging premium prices for tickets to see more well-known bands. By the end of 1970 the Fairies had secured a contract with Polydor and releasing their first single late in the year. This was followed by a 1971 album called Neverneverland that featured several tracks originally credited to the entire band, such as War Girl, that on later releases are credited to Twink. Although the Pink Fairies split up in 1976, they still get together from time to time to put on a show.
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