https://exchange.prx.org/p/636154
This time around we have half a dozen tracks (seven if you count the Led Zeppelin as two) that have never been played on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion before this week, along with almost as many that we have played before. It starts with a set of tunes from 1969, jumping forward to 1974 and then back to the late '60s to finish up.
Artist: David Bowie
Title: Space Oddity
Source: CD: David Bowie
Writer(s): David Bowie
Label: Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1969
David Bowie's first major hit, Space Oddity, was originally recorded on Feb 2, 1969 for his promotional film, Love You till Tuesday. On June 20, 1969 Bowie re-recorded the song to be used as the lead single for his second self-titled LP. Producer Tony Visconti, however, did not like the song, calling it a "cheap shot" at the upcoming Apollo 11 mission, and delegated the song's production duties to Gus Dudgeon. The song was released as a single on July 11, 1969, five days before Apollo 11 launched. It quickly went into the top 5 in the UK, but did not become a hit in the US until 1973, when it was re-released by RCA Victor following the success of the 1972 album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. Space Oddity has gone on to become one of the most revered songs in rock history.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: You Shook Me/Dazed And Confused
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer: Dixon/Page
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
I've heard it said that Willie Dixon sued Zeppelin over the use of You Shook Me, which is puzzling to me since Dixon is clearly credited as the songwriter on the label. Still, I don't know enough about copyright laws to say for sure whether this could have happened or not. Dazed & Confused, on the other hand, is a Jimmy Page composition that was performed by the Yardbirds (with different lyrics) as early as 1966.
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: Rolling Stones
Title: Ain't Too Proud To Beg
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Whitfield/Holland
Label: Rolling Stones
Year: 1974
From the beginning, the Rolling Stones have had an affinity for songs written and/or recorded by American rhythm and blues artists such as the Temptations. Usually those songs appeared as album tracks, especially once Mick and Keith established themselves as songwriters, but in 1974 they had a hit with Ain't Too Proud To Beg, a song the Temptations first recorded in 1966.
Artist: David Blue
Title: Outlaw Man
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): David Blue
Label: Asylum
Year: 1973
Although all the members of the Eagles are known for the songwriting abilities, some of the earliest singles were actually cover songs, including Peaceful Easy Feeling (by Jack Tempchin) and Outlaw Man (by David Blue). Blue was a recent addition to the Asylum roster, making him labelmates with the Eagles, and Outlaw Man was an obvious choice for inclusion on an album meant to have a modernized wild west theme. The song itself is a first person account of the life of an outlaw, with ambiguous enough lyrics to make it applicable to current times as well as the obvious 19th century. Blue's own version of Outlaw Man came out around the same time as the Eagles' version, which unfortunately for Blue put him on the trail to obscurity.
Artist: King Crimson
Title: One More Red Nightmare
Source: CD: Red
Writer(s): Fripp/Wetton
Label: Discipline Global Mobile
Year: 1974
King Crimson's seventh album, Red, was also its least successful commercially, spending only one week on the British album charts. One reason for this is that the band, which at this point was a trio consisting of Robert Fripp (guitar), John Wetton (bass and vocals) and drums (Bill Bruford), split up a month before the album was released. With no band to go on tour, the record label chose not to promote the album. In retrospect, the album has done better, and continues to be a favorite among King Crimson fans, thanks to hard-driving tracks like One More Red Nightmare, which features multiple electric guitar overdubs on top of what Fripp refered to as "a flying brick wall" of sound provided by Bruford and Wetton.
Artist: Doors
Title: Break On Through (To The Other Side)
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first Doors song to be released as a single was not, as usually assumed, Light My Fire. Rather, it was Break On Through (To The Other Side), the opening track from the band's debut LP, that was chosen to do introduce the band to top 40 radio. Although the single was not an immediate hit, it did eventually catch on with progressive FM radio listeners and still is heard on classic rock stations from time to time.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Fresh Garbage
Source: CD: Spirit
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year: 1968
Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a fairly hard rocker and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.
Artist: Collectors
Title: Early Morning
Source: Promo LP: Grass And Wild Strawberries
Writer(s): The Collectors/George Ryga
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
The Collectors made their debut in 1961 as the C-FUN Classics, the house band for CFUN radio in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1966 they changed their name to the Collectors and released a single, Looking At A Baby, on the Valiant label. This was followed by a self-titled album for Warner Brothers in 1967. Around this time the group was hired to provide the instrumental backing for the Electric Prunes album Mass In F Minor (after producer Dave Hassinger decided that the music written for the album by David Axelrod was too complex for the Prunes themselves to play). In 1969 the Collectors collaborated with Canadian playwrite George Ryga to create music for his play Grass And Wild Strawberries. The songs, including Early Morning, were released on an album of the same name in 1969. Not long after Grass And Wild Strawberries was released, original lead vocalist Howie Vickers left the band, which, now fronted by guitarist Bill Henderson, began calling itself Chilliwack.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: Don't Keep Me Wonderin'
Source: CD: Idlewild South
Writer(s): Gregg Allman
Label: Mercury (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
It's hard to believe now, but it took a while for the Allman Brothers band to become popular outside of the southern US. It wasn't until their second LP, Idlewild South, that rock radio began to take notice of the band, which was at the time based in Macon, Georgia. The album title itself came from an inside joke that the band's house was so busy it was like New York's Idlewild airport (the original name of what is now Kennedy International), but further south. Don't Keep Me Wonderin' is probably the most R&B sounding track the band ever recorded, and in a sense harkens back to Gregg Allman's previous band, the Hour Glass.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: Shotgun
Source: LP: Near The Beginning
Writer(s): Autry DeWalt
Label: Atco
Year: 1969
For their fourth LP, Vanilla Fudge returned to the formula that they found their original success with for the album Near The Beginning. Whereas their third LP, Renaissance, contained mostly original material, Near The Beginning was dominated by an extended version of the Junior Walker hit Shotgun. The single version of the song, which the group performed on the Ed Sullivan show, was the group's last song to hit the Billboard top 100, peaking at # 68. According to drummer Carmine Appice, it was the Vanilla Fudge version of Shotgun that convinced Jeff Beck to later form a band with Appice and bassist Tim Bogert.
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