First off, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to listeners of 89-1 the Blend, Northeast Iowa Community Radio KPVL, that has recently picked up the show and is running it Sunday evenings. As the show is now airing on multiple nights in various places I've decided to replace specific dates in the blog post title with the actual show number (1001 being the first syndicated show). I also wanted to give you advance notice (warning?) that I have a special edition of the show coming up in about three weeks called "Stuck with the hermit at Yuletime." The week after that I might just do some sort of retrospective of the past year's worth of shows, and then the week after that the numbering will jump up to #1101 and run through 1152 (which could very well be a retrospective of next year). Enough of this. On with the show:
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: How Do You Feel
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Year: 1967
We start off this week with a long set from 1967. How Do You Feel was also released as the B side of the first single from Surrealistic Pillow, My Best Friend.
Artist: Ballroom
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Year: 1967
This rather unusual arrangement of the Joe Williams classic was the creation of producer/vocalist Curt Boettcher. Reportedly an executive from Columbia was so impressed with it that he hired Boettcher to be a staff producer. Boettcher was so prolific that it was often said that the giant CBS on the side of the building stood for Curt Boettcher Studios.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Summer Is The Man
Source: LP: Electric Comic Book (mono pressing)
Year: 1967
The Blues Magoos, known for their high-energy style on tracks such as the (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet and the extended Tobacco Road, nonetheless had a softer side as well. Summer Is The Man, from the second Magoos album, is a good example of that softer side.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Desiree
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Year: 1967
After keyboardist Michael Brown made the ill-advised move of issuing the single Ivy Ivy under the Left Banke name without the participation or knowledge of his fellow band members, the entire band's career got permanently derailed. Though they resolved their differences in time to record and issue Desiree, most radio stations by then were wary of anything with the Left Banke name on it, which is a shame, since the song is a masterpiece of baroque pop.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Deadend Street
Source: 45 RPM single
Year: 1967
The last major Kinks hit in the US was Sunny Afternoon in late 1966. The follow-up Deadend Street, released in 1967, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success (although it was a hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola in 1970.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: If You Want This Love
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Part One)
Year: 1967
The first WCPAEB album, Volume One, had a limited print run on a small independent label in L.A. After landing a contract with Reprise, they recut many of the songs (most of which were cover tunes) from Volume One and called the new album Part One. This is one of those recut tracks.
Artist: Ringo Starr
Title: Early 1970
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Year: 1971
The first single to go gold by an ex-Beatle was not by John or Paul, as one would expect, but by drummer Ringo. The song was It Don't Come Easy (co-written by an uncredited George Harrison) and featured this track on the B side.
Artist: Beatles
Title: You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
Source: CD: Past Masters, vol. 2 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Year: 1970
Speaking of B sides, we have this song found on the back of the Let It Be single. Although technically a Lennon/McCartney song, this track has so many ad-libs that credit probably should have been given to the whole band. The track is also notable for a guest appearance by the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones on saxophone.
Artist: Them
Title: If You And I Could Be As Two
Source: LP: Them
Year: 1965
Them burst onto the British rock scene in late 1964 from their home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and immediately caused a stir due to both their hard-driving style and their obnoxious behavior toward the press. This track from their first album shows a more subdued side to lead vocalist Van Morrison's writing style.
Artist: Los Bravos
Title: Black Is Black
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Year: 1966
The first band from Spain to have a major pop hit was Los Bravos, who took this song to the top 10 in several countries in late 1966. Interestingly, the band's lead vocalist, Mike Kogel, was actually a German.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf the Second)
Year: 1968
A short progression through the years kicks off with a pair of tunes from the band formerly known as Sparrow. Magic Carpet Ride, from the second album, was the band at their most psychedelic, not to mention the peak of their popularity.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Move Over
Source: LP: Monster
Year: 1969
Although Monster is generally regarded as their most political album, Move Over is a throwback to the more traditional Steppenwolf style.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Whiskey Train
Source: LP: Home
Year: 1970
By 1970, Procol Harum was being pulled in two very different musical directions at once: the semi-classical progressive style of Gary Brooker and Keith Reid that had always defined the band's style, and the more hard rock sound favored by guitarist Robin Trower heard on Whiskey Train. Ultimately this would lead to Trower's leaving the group for a successful solo career.
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: Cauldron
Source: LP: Cauldron
Year: 1968
The most avant-garde group to come out of the San Francisco scene was Fifty Foot Hose, which featured homemade electronic instruments and the unique vocal style of Nancy Blossom. After recording one album the group disbanded when most of the members left to join the cast of the San Francisco production of the musical Hair.
Artist: Who
Title: Pinball Wizard
Source: CD: Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and featured on LP: Tommy)
Year: 1969
Wrapping up the first hour we have a song from the rock opera Tommy that was actually released as a single a few weeks before the album came out. It was a marketing strategy that would become the music industry standard for decades, until internet downloading changed everything.
Artist: Mamas and the Papas
Title: That Kind Of Girl
Source: CD: The Mamas and the Papas
Year: 1966
The second Mamas and Papas album was unusual in that mama Michelle, who is featured prominently on the album cover, only sings on a couple of songs, having been temporarily kicked out of the band for having an affair with papa Denny, even though she was married to papa John. Kinda makes you wonder why Denny didn't get kicked out as well.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes
Source: CD: Anthology (originally released on LP: Projections)
Year: 1966
There are actually two versions of this song: the Blues Project version heard here and an Al Kooper solo version released earlier the same year. Both are worth listening to, and one of these days I'll play the other one to prove it.
Artist: Vagrants
Title: Respect
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Year: 1967
Sounding a lot like the Rascals, the Vagrants were a Long Island band best remembered for being the band that had guitarist Leslie Weinstein in it. Weinstein would change his last name to West and record a solo album called Mountain before forming the band of the same name. This version of Respect is fairly faithful to the original Otis Redding version. Unfortunately for the Vagrants, Aretha Franklin would release here rearranged version of the song just a few weeks after the Vagrants, relegating their version of the tune (and the Vagrants themselves) to footnote status.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: LP: Nuggets vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Year: 1968
These guys were actually called the Human Beingz, but a misspelling on the label of Nobody But Me stuck the group permanently with a name they all hated. It was all moot, anyway, since they never scored another hit.
Artist: Butterfield Blues Band
Title: No Amount Of Loving
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Year: 1969
Many of the performances at Woodstock were flawed, not so much by problems in musicianship, but by technical gaffs such as the one that made the vocals to this track almost inaudible. Still, the folks at Rhino decided to include it on their 40th anniversary Woodstock collection. After all, their emphasis was on presenting the music exactly as the audience heard it, and such flaws were actually fairly common on live recordings in the late 60s, as a listen to most of the recordings made at the Monterey International Pop Festival (including the set by Butterfield) demonstrates.
Artist: James Gang
Title: The Bomber
Source: CD: James Gang Rides Again
Year: 1970
The last time I played this track I had to cut it off early due to my misreading the clock and running out of time. This time I promised myself I'd get it right. The entire middle section of the piece was edited out of the album after the first pressings after the Ravel family objected to the use of Bolero without obtaining permission. The piece was finally restored to its original length sometime in the 80s.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Everybody Knows You're Not In Love
Source: 45 RPM single
Year: 1968
The Electric Prunes had greater creative control over their second album than their first. That control continued into early 1968, when this single, penned by band members Mark Tulin and James Lowe, was released. Unfortunately, the single didn't sell well and the next album, David Axelrod's Mass In F Minor, was played almost entirely by studio musicians. The original group broke up during the recording of Mass and did not play together again until the 21st century.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Source: CD: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Year: 1968
The title track of the Beacon Street Union's second album shows a maturation of the band's sound. Sadly, it would be their last LP.
Artist: Blood, Sweat and Tears
Title: So Much Love/Underture
Source: LP: Child Is Father To The Man
Year: 1968
After leaving the Blues Project, Al Kooper made an appearance at Monterey with a pickup band then made the Super Session album with Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. The following year Kooper reunited with BP bandmate Steve Katz to form Blood, Sweat and Tears. Although Kooper wrote much of the material, there were also songs written by outside songwriters such as Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman and this track from Gerry Goffin and Carole King.
Artist: Traffic
Title: (Roamin' Through the Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Year: 1968
One of the best remembered tracks from the second Traffic album was the Steve Winwood/Jim Capaldi tune.
Artist: Cream
Title: N.S.U.
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Year: 1966
We finish out the night with a set of Cream tracks, starting with the original studio version of a Jack Bruce tune we heard a couple weeks ago from the album Live Cream.
Artist: Cream
Title: Dance The Night Away
Source: CD: Disraeli Gears
Year: 1967
With Disraeli Gears, Cream established itself as having a psychedelic side as well as their original blues orientation. Most of the more psychedelic material was from the team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown, such as Dance the Night Away.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sleepy Time Time
Source: CD: Fresh Cream
Year: 1966
Before working with Brown, Bruce collaborated with his then-wife Janet on this track from the first album, which wraps up not only this set but this week's show as well. And despite it being the weekend following Thanksgiving, there was not a turkey in the bunch (although the Fifty Foot Hose track might qualify as the squash dish, being somewhat of an acquired taste)!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Playlist 1026
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP:Projections
Year: 1966
Leading off tonight we have possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era: the Blues Project. Formed in 1965 in Greenwich Village, the band worked its way from coast to coast playing mostly college campuses, in the process blazing a path that continues to be followed by underground/progressive/alternative artists. As if founding the whole college circuit wasn't enough, they were also the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running shows. Among those drawing their inspiration from the Blues Project were the Warlocks, a group of young musicians who were traveling with Ken Kesey on the Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test tour bus. The Warlocks would soon change their name to the Grateful Dead and take the jam band concept to a whole new level.
Artist: Groupies
Title: Primitive
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Year: 1966
You know, with a name like the Groupies you would expect an all-female band or at least something like the Mothers of Invention. Instead we get a band that billed themselves as "abstract rock." I guess that is using the term abstract in the same sense that scientific journals use it: to distill something complicated down to its basic essence, because these guys were musically exactly what the title of their only single implied: primitive.
Artist: Notes From the Underground
Title: Why Did You Put Me On
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Year: 1968
Pinch-hitting for Country Joe and the Fish we have Notes From the Underground, fellow Berkleyites who played at the same club (the Jabberwock) when the Fish were busy elsewhere and even got a contract with the same record label (Vanguard). Unfortunately, like most pinch-hitters, the Notes were strictly second-string.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: All Along the Watchtower
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Year: 1968
In the cleanup spot we have The Jimi Hendrix Experience hitting it out of the park with what is generally acknowledged to be the best Bob Dylan cover ever recorded. Even Dylan himself now uses the Hendrix arrangement of All Along the Watchtower when he performs it live. You don't get much higher praise than that.
Artist: Del Shannon
Title: I Think I Love You
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Year: 1968
Del Shannon? The guy who did Runaway back in '62? Yep. Also the same Del Shannon who Tom Petty has acknowledged as his number one inspiration and who was on the verge of being asked to replace the late Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys when he himself became the late Del Shannon. Unlike many of his early 60s contemporaries such as Bobby Vee or Fabian, Shannon was able to keep up with the times, as this piece of pure psychedelia (penned by Shannon himself) from the album The Further Adventures of Charles Westover demonstrates.
Artist: David Bowie
Title: Five Years
Source: CD: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Year: 1972
If David Bowie's career had started about five years earlier than it did he would have been a major star of the psychedelic era. As it was, he came of age at a time when it took some fairly outrageous antics to get noticed, and he proved himself up to the task by pretty much singlehandedly creating glitter rock.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Year: 1967
A while back a co-worker was asking me about what kind of music I played on the show. When I told him the show was called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era he immediately said "Oh, I bet you play White Rabbit a lot, huh?" As a matter of fact, I do.
Artist: Jan and Dean
Title: Dead Man's Curve
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Year: 1964
As I talk about in a really long scholarly article elsewhere on the web site, one of the many contributing factors to the temporary democratization of the US popular music industry was the surf music craze of 1962 and 63, which morphed into the hot rod music craze of 1964 and 65. Although the style was created by instrumentalists such as Dick Dale and the Ventures, it was the vocal groups such as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean that found the greatest commercial success with it. One of the biggest hits was the eerily predictive Dead Man's Curve, about a car wreck along a particularly nasty stretch of Sunset Blvd. in the vicinity of Beverly Hills. About two years after this song topped the charts, Jan Berry was involved in a near-fatal collision just a few blocks from the infamous curve; an accident he never fully recovered from.
Artist: Merry-Go-Round
Title: Listen Listen
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Year: 1968
High school student Emitt Rhodes had his first success in 1965 as a member of the British-flavored Palace Guard with the song Like Falling Sugar. While still a teen he had an even bigger regional hit with the Merry-Go-Round song Live. Other singles followed, including this harder edged tune from 1968. Rhodes would go on have a moderately successful solo career as a singer-songwriter in the early 70s.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Wheels of Fire
Year: 1968
Although Cream was conceived as a British blues super-group (as in cream of the crop), it was psychedelic rock tunes like White Room, written by bassist Jack Bruce and his frequent collaborator Pete Brown, that gave them their greatest commercial successes.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: She May Call You Up Tonight
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Year: 1967
Unlike their first two singles, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina, this song failed to chart, possibly due to the release two months earlier of a song called Ivy Ivy, written by LB keyboardist Michael Brown and shown on the label as being by the Left Banke. However, the song was in reality performed entirely by session musicians, including lead vocals by Bert Sommer, who would be one of the acoustic acts on the opening afternoon of the Woodstock festival a couple years later. The resulting fued between Brown and the rest of the band left a large number of radio stations gun shy when came to any record with the name Left Banke on the label, and She May Call You Up Tonight tanked.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Year: 1966
When it comes to garage rock it really doesn't get any better than this 1966 classic, written by producer Ed Cobb, the Ed Wood of the record industry.
Artist: Jeannie C. Riley
Title: Harper Valley PTA
Source: 45 RPM single
Year: 1968
The second hour gets off to an unexpected start with the only number one hit for Jeannie C. Riley. It may not have been psychedelic, but it did have attitude.
Artist: Doors
Title: Soul Kitchen
Source: CD: The Doors
Year: 1967
Our 1967 Doors set starts with this tune from the first album, which starts off almost exactly the same way as When the Music's Over from the second album.
Artist: Doors
Title: Strange Days
Source: CD: Strange Days
Year: 1967
Speaking of the Doors' second album, we have the title cut in all its glory.
Artist: Doors
Title: Back Door Man
Source: CD: The Doors
Year: 1967
The song Primitive by the Groupies (heard in tonight's first set) borrowed its main riff from Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightning. Here the Doors borrow an entire Howlin' Wolf song, the classic Back Door Man.
Artist: Doors
Title: People Are Strange
Source: CD: Strange Days
Year: 1967
The first hit single from Strange Days was also the shortest song on the album, barely breaking the two minute mark at a time when songs were getting longer and longer.
Artist: Vejtables
Title: Anything
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Year: 1965
As with any music scene, some of the early San Francisco acts fell by the wayside before the scene really took off. Such was the case with the Vejtables, who got a contract with local label Autumn Records and released this single in 1965. Lead vocalist and drummer Jan Errico would later join the Mojo Men in time for their 1967 cover of Buffalo Springfield's Sit Down I Think I Love You.
Artist: Seeds
Title: You Can't Be Trusted
Source: LP: The Seeds
Year: 1966
A listen to the first Seeds album can get a bit tedious, as Sky Saxon's writing style, while unique, also tended to be a bit repetitious. Taken individually, however, the songs themselves are quite listenable and were even lyrically adventurous. The second album, incidentally, saw Saxon's writing beginning to branch out somewhat, while still retaining the distinctive Seeds sound.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Going To The Country
Source: LP: Number 5
Year: 1970
The Steve Miller Band started recording for Capitol as part of the San Francisco explosion, but didn't achieve true stardom until the mid 1970s with the release of The Joker. In the intervening years they cranked out a series of fine albums that got most of their airplay on progressive FM stations. (Top 40 radio was generally not heard on FM until around 1978. This is due to a variety of factors that I'm not going to go into here.)
Artist: Spirit
Title: Morning Will Come
Source: CD: The 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
Year: 1970
When Lou Adler switched distribution of Ode Records from Columbia to A&M, part of the deal was to sell Spirit's recording to Columbia's parent company, CBS. CBS then assigned the band to its Epic label, while strongly hinting that if the next album didn't show an improvement in sales over their previous efforts their contract would be terminated. Spirit responded with the 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, widely regarded as their best album.
Artist: Neil Young with Crazy Horse
Title: Down By The River
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Year: 1969
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was Neil Young's second solo album. It was also the first one with Crazy Horse. Down By the River was one of three tracks on the album to get significant FM airplay and continued to be a staple of album rock stations for years.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Your Time Is Gonna Come/Black Mountain Side
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Year: 1969
And speaking of album rock radio, here we have the group that most typifies the format, albeit with a track that never got a lot of commercial airplay. 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 live. This pair of tracks from the debut Zeppelin album was written by those two members, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.
Artist: Who
Title: My Generation
Source: LP: The Who Sings My Generation
Year: 1966
My Generation was the signature song of the pre-Tommy Who. Although it was first released in the UK in late 1965, I'm counting it as a 1966 track for this set that progresses through the years. The reason? The US version of the album (used here) didn't come out until April of '66.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets
Year: 1967
If any one song is representative of the psychedelic era, it's this one. Lenny Kaye thought so, too, when he assembled the very first Nuggets album in the early '70s. He used it as the opening track on the album.
Artist: Them
Title: I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source: LP: Now and Them
Year: 1968
Tonight's closer is an oddity: a pyschedelicized version of a John Mayall song by Van Morrison's old band with a new vocalist. Just to make it even odder we have sound effects at the beginning of the song that were obviously added after the fact by the producer (and not done particularly well at that). But then, what else would you expect from the label that put out an LP by a band that didn't even participate in the recording of half the tracks on the album (Chocolate Watchband's No Way Out), a song about a city that none of the band members had even been to (the Standells' Dirty Water), and soundtrack albums to films like Wild In the Streets, Riot On Sunset Strip and The Love In? Let's hear it for Tower Records!
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP:Projections
Year: 1966
Leading off tonight we have possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era: the Blues Project. Formed in 1965 in Greenwich Village, the band worked its way from coast to coast playing mostly college campuses, in the process blazing a path that continues to be followed by underground/progressive/alternative artists. As if founding the whole college circuit wasn't enough, they were also the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running shows. Among those drawing their inspiration from the Blues Project were the Warlocks, a group of young musicians who were traveling with Ken Kesey on the Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test tour bus. The Warlocks would soon change their name to the Grateful Dead and take the jam band concept to a whole new level.
Artist: Groupies
Title: Primitive
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Year: 1966
You know, with a name like the Groupies you would expect an all-female band or at least something like the Mothers of Invention. Instead we get a band that billed themselves as "abstract rock." I guess that is using the term abstract in the same sense that scientific journals use it: to distill something complicated down to its basic essence, because these guys were musically exactly what the title of their only single implied: primitive.
Artist: Notes From the Underground
Title: Why Did You Put Me On
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Year: 1968
Pinch-hitting for Country Joe and the Fish we have Notes From the Underground, fellow Berkleyites who played at the same club (the Jabberwock) when the Fish were busy elsewhere and even got a contract with the same record label (Vanguard). Unfortunately, like most pinch-hitters, the Notes were strictly second-string.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: All Along the Watchtower
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Year: 1968
In the cleanup spot we have The Jimi Hendrix Experience hitting it out of the park with what is generally acknowledged to be the best Bob Dylan cover ever recorded. Even Dylan himself now uses the Hendrix arrangement of All Along the Watchtower when he performs it live. You don't get much higher praise than that.
Artist: Del Shannon
Title: I Think I Love You
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Year: 1968
Del Shannon? The guy who did Runaway back in '62? Yep. Also the same Del Shannon who Tom Petty has acknowledged as his number one inspiration and who was on the verge of being asked to replace the late Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys when he himself became the late Del Shannon. Unlike many of his early 60s contemporaries such as Bobby Vee or Fabian, Shannon was able to keep up with the times, as this piece of pure psychedelia (penned by Shannon himself) from the album The Further Adventures of Charles Westover demonstrates.
Artist: David Bowie
Title: Five Years
Source: CD: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Year: 1972
If David Bowie's career had started about five years earlier than it did he would have been a major star of the psychedelic era. As it was, he came of age at a time when it took some fairly outrageous antics to get noticed, and he proved himself up to the task by pretty much singlehandedly creating glitter rock.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Year: 1967
A while back a co-worker was asking me about what kind of music I played on the show. When I told him the show was called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era he immediately said "Oh, I bet you play White Rabbit a lot, huh?" As a matter of fact, I do.
Artist: Jan and Dean
Title: Dead Man's Curve
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Year: 1964
As I talk about in a really long scholarly article elsewhere on the web site, one of the many contributing factors to the temporary democratization of the US popular music industry was the surf music craze of 1962 and 63, which morphed into the hot rod music craze of 1964 and 65. Although the style was created by instrumentalists such as Dick Dale and the Ventures, it was the vocal groups such as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean that found the greatest commercial success with it. One of the biggest hits was the eerily predictive Dead Man's Curve, about a car wreck along a particularly nasty stretch of Sunset Blvd. in the vicinity of Beverly Hills. About two years after this song topped the charts, Jan Berry was involved in a near-fatal collision just a few blocks from the infamous curve; an accident he never fully recovered from.
Artist: Merry-Go-Round
Title: Listen Listen
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Year: 1968
High school student Emitt Rhodes had his first success in 1965 as a member of the British-flavored Palace Guard with the song Like Falling Sugar. While still a teen he had an even bigger regional hit with the Merry-Go-Round song Live. Other singles followed, including this harder edged tune from 1968. Rhodes would go on have a moderately successful solo career as a singer-songwriter in the early 70s.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Wheels of Fire
Year: 1968
Although Cream was conceived as a British blues super-group (as in cream of the crop), it was psychedelic rock tunes like White Room, written by bassist Jack Bruce and his frequent collaborator Pete Brown, that gave them their greatest commercial successes.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: She May Call You Up Tonight
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Year: 1967
Unlike their first two singles, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina, this song failed to chart, possibly due to the release two months earlier of a song called Ivy Ivy, written by LB keyboardist Michael Brown and shown on the label as being by the Left Banke. However, the song was in reality performed entirely by session musicians, including lead vocals by Bert Sommer, who would be one of the acoustic acts on the opening afternoon of the Woodstock festival a couple years later. The resulting fued between Brown and the rest of the band left a large number of radio stations gun shy when came to any record with the name Left Banke on the label, and She May Call You Up Tonight tanked.
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Year: 1966
When it comes to garage rock it really doesn't get any better than this 1966 classic, written by producer Ed Cobb, the Ed Wood of the record industry.
Artist: Jeannie C. Riley
Title: Harper Valley PTA
Source: 45 RPM single
Year: 1968
The second hour gets off to an unexpected start with the only number one hit for Jeannie C. Riley. It may not have been psychedelic, but it did have attitude.
Artist: Doors
Title: Soul Kitchen
Source: CD: The Doors
Year: 1967
Our 1967 Doors set starts with this tune from the first album, which starts off almost exactly the same way as When the Music's Over from the second album.
Artist: Doors
Title: Strange Days
Source: CD: Strange Days
Year: 1967
Speaking of the Doors' second album, we have the title cut in all its glory.
Artist: Doors
Title: Back Door Man
Source: CD: The Doors
Year: 1967
The song Primitive by the Groupies (heard in tonight's first set) borrowed its main riff from Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightning. Here the Doors borrow an entire Howlin' Wolf song, the classic Back Door Man.
Artist: Doors
Title: People Are Strange
Source: CD: Strange Days
Year: 1967
The first hit single from Strange Days was also the shortest song on the album, barely breaking the two minute mark at a time when songs were getting longer and longer.
Artist: Vejtables
Title: Anything
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Year: 1965
As with any music scene, some of the early San Francisco acts fell by the wayside before the scene really took off. Such was the case with the Vejtables, who got a contract with local label Autumn Records and released this single in 1965. Lead vocalist and drummer Jan Errico would later join the Mojo Men in time for their 1967 cover of Buffalo Springfield's Sit Down I Think I Love You.
Artist: Seeds
Title: You Can't Be Trusted
Source: LP: The Seeds
Year: 1966
A listen to the first Seeds album can get a bit tedious, as Sky Saxon's writing style, while unique, also tended to be a bit repetitious. Taken individually, however, the songs themselves are quite listenable and were even lyrically adventurous. The second album, incidentally, saw Saxon's writing beginning to branch out somewhat, while still retaining the distinctive Seeds sound.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Title: Going To The Country
Source: LP: Number 5
Year: 1970
The Steve Miller Band started recording for Capitol as part of the San Francisco explosion, but didn't achieve true stardom until the mid 1970s with the release of The Joker. In the intervening years they cranked out a series of fine albums that got most of their airplay on progressive FM stations. (Top 40 radio was generally not heard on FM until around 1978. This is due to a variety of factors that I'm not going to go into here.)
Artist: Spirit
Title: Morning Will Come
Source: CD: The 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
Year: 1970
When Lou Adler switched distribution of Ode Records from Columbia to A&M, part of the deal was to sell Spirit's recording to Columbia's parent company, CBS. CBS then assigned the band to its Epic label, while strongly hinting that if the next album didn't show an improvement in sales over their previous efforts their contract would be terminated. Spirit responded with the 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, widely regarded as their best album.
Artist: Neil Young with Crazy Horse
Title: Down By The River
Source: CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Year: 1969
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was Neil Young's second solo album. It was also the first one with Crazy Horse. Down By the River was one of three tracks on the album to get significant FM airplay and continued to be a staple of album rock stations for years.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Your Time Is Gonna Come/Black Mountain Side
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Year: 1969
And speaking of album rock radio, here we have the group that most typifies the format, albeit with a track that never got a lot of commercial airplay. 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 live. This pair of tracks from the debut Zeppelin album was written by those two members, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.
Artist: Who
Title: My Generation
Source: LP: The Who Sings My Generation
Year: 1966
My Generation was the signature song of the pre-Tommy Who. Although it was first released in the UK in late 1965, I'm counting it as a 1966 track for this set that progresses through the years. The reason? The US version of the album (used here) didn't come out until April of '66.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets
Year: 1967
If any one song is representative of the psychedelic era, it's this one. Lenny Kaye thought so, too, when he assembled the very first Nuggets album in the early '70s. He used it as the opening track on the album.
Artist: Them
Title: I'm Your Witch Doctor
Source: LP: Now and Them
Year: 1968
Tonight's closer is an oddity: a pyschedelicized version of a John Mayall song by Van Morrison's old band with a new vocalist. Just to make it even odder we have sound effects at the beginning of the song that were obviously added after the fact by the producer (and not done particularly well at that). But then, what else would you expect from the label that put out an LP by a band that didn't even participate in the recording of half the tracks on the album (Chocolate Watchband's No Way Out), a song about a city that none of the band members had even been to (the Standells' Dirty Water), and soundtrack albums to films like Wild In the Streets, Riot On Sunset Strip and The Love In? Let's hear it for Tower Records!
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Playlist 1025
This week it's the sequel to the "25" show from early summer. What that means is that once again we have 25 songs from 25 artists, some of which were probably into some 25 of their own.
Artist: Them
Song: One Two Brown Eyes
Source: LP: Them
Year: 1965
This Van Morrison original was first released in the UK in late 1964 as the B side of Them's first single. It was included on the US version of Them's first album, but not the version released in the UK.
Artist: Moby Grape
Song: Rose Colored Eyes
Source: LP: Wow
Year: 1968
Moby Grape's second album is considered generally inferior to the first, possibly because the band seemed to be moving in several directions at once. This is due to the fact that they had a wealth of songwriters, each in the process of developing their own style. This song is indicative of the direction bass player Bob Mosley was going in.
Artist: Mothers of Invention
Song: Trouble Coming Every Day
Source: LP: Freak Out!
Year: 1966
Starting off a progression through the years we have Frank Zappa with the original version of a song that he would update and re-record on more than one occassion. Although some of the references are topical and thus dated, the general tone of the song remains as relevant today as when it was first recorded.
Artist: Dave Davies
Song: Death of a Clown
Source: CD: Kinks-25 Years-The Ultimate Collection
Year: 1967
Although Ray Davies was the leader and primary songwriter of the Kinks, it was brother Dave who first recorded as a solo artist with this 1967 single.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Song: Mrs. Robinson
Source: CD: Collected Works
Year: 1968
A shortened version of Mrs. Robinson first appeared on the soundtrack for the file The Graduate in 1967, but it wasn't until the Bookends album came out in 1968 that the full four minute version was released.
Artist: Tommy James and the Shondells
Song: I Know Who I Am
Source: LP: Cellophane Symphony
Year: 1969
By 1969 Tommy James and the Shondells had already seen their best years and were trying to find a way to remain relevant. The album Cellophane Symphony was an attempt at moving the band in a more progressive direction while also trying to satisfy the demands of a dying record company that really had no other successful artists left on its roster.
Artist: Richie Havens
Song: Eyesight to the Blind
Source: 45 RPM single
Year: 1972
In between the original release of Tommy in 1969 and the movie version in 1975 there was the Orchestral Tommy in 1972, featuring performances by several artists that did not perform on either of the other versions. Among those were Richie Havens, who was then at the peak of his popularity.
Artist: Cream
Song: N.S.U.
Source: LP: Live Cream
Year: 1968
After the breakup of Cream, Atco decided to issue a live album in 1970, featuring songs that had originally appeared on the album Fresh Cream. This ten minute version of N.S.U., recorded at Winterland in 1968, shows how far the band had progressed in the two years since recording the studio version.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Song: Glad All Over
Source: CD: 5 By Five
Year: 1964
The Dave Clark Five were originally formed as a way of raising money for Clark's football (soccer) team. Toward the end of 1963 they scored a number one hit in England with Glad All Over, which was released to an enthusiastic US audience a few months later.
Artist: Turtles
Song: She's My Girl
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Year: 1967
After a moderate amount of success in 1965 with a series of singles starting with a cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles found themselves running out of steam by the end of 1966. Rather than throw in the towel, they enlisted the services of the Bonner/Gordon songwriting team and recorded their most successful single, Happy Together, in 1967. They dipped into the same well for this tune later the same year.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Song: (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Year: 1967
Ultimate Spinach was the brainchild of Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. Although the group had no hit singles, some tracks, such as (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess received a significant amount of airplay on progressive "underground" FM stations.
Artist: Stephen Stills
Song: Love the One You're With
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo promo pressing)
Year: 1971
Depending on your point of view Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) have either split up several times over the years or have never actually split up at all. It was during one of these maybe split-ups that Stills recorded this classic. Presumably he and Judy Collins were no longer an item at that point.
Artist: Traffic
Song: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Year: 1967
A long set of tunes from 1967 starts with this classic from the first Traffic album.
Artist: Love
Song: Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Year: 1967
When Forever Changes was recorded, the band took some flack for the use of horns and strings. What the critics of the time failed to take into account was that the added instruments were not, as was usually the case, added by the producer as a way to cover up weak musicianship. In fact the band members themselves (particularly leader Arthur Lee) were responsible for the addition and worked closely with arranger David Angel to come up with the sound they wanted.
Artist: Box Tops
Song: The Letter
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock and Roll Hits-1967
Year: 1967
Here's an unusual recipe for you: take one novice producer, add a newly-signed band that hadn't even decided on a name yet, and mix in a songwriter that had recently submitted his first demo tape to the novice producer's ex-boss. Put them all together and you get a song that goes all the way to the top of the charts and stays there for four weeks.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Song: Bright Light Lovers
Source: LP: Circus Maximus
Year: 1967
Although keyboardist Bob Bruno's contributions as a songwriter to Circus Maximus tended to favor jazz arrangements, he shows here that he could rock out with the best of the garage bands when the mood hit.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Song: Get Me To the World On Time
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Year: 1967
Songwriter Annette Tucker usually worked with Nancy Mantz, and the pair was responsible for the Prunes biggest hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night). For this composition she instead teamed up with Jill Jones and came up with a kind of psychedelic Bo Diddley song that ended up being the Prunes second biggest hit (and the first rock song that I ever heard first on an FM station rather than an AM one).
Artist: Leaves
Song: To Try For the Sun
Source: CD: All the Good That's Happening
Year: 1967
After their success with the fast version of Hey Joe in 1966 the Leaves signed with Capitol Records and recorded their second LP. Unfortunately, the band was already in the process of disintegrating by then and no more hits were forthcoming. One song that shows their interest in folk music was their cover of Donovan's To Try For the Sun. It was the only purely acoustic song the band ever recorded.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Song: Season of the Witch
Source: LP: Renaissance
Year: 1968
Another Donovan tune, this time given the patented Vanilla Fudge treatment on the album Renaissance. The Fudge arrangement includes spoken lyrics from Essra Mohawk's We Never Learn. Interestingly enough, the only other cover tune on the album is The Spell That Comes After, also written by Mohawk.
Artist: Music Machine
Song: Talk Talk
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Year: 1966
From 1965 to 1968 L.A. was home to a thriving club scene that gave bands the opportunity to perform their own original material. One of the most sophisticated of those bands was the Music Machine, which would fire off song after song without pause until it was break time, then come back and do it again for the next set.
Artist: Beach Boys
Song: That's Not Me
Source: CD: Pet Sounds
Year: 1966
The Beach Boys were about as mainstream as the Music Machine was underground, yet Brian Wilson was turning out music every bit as original as any of the club bands in town. The album Pet Sounds is considered one of the masterpieces of the era, with the majority of songs, including That's Not Me, written by Wilson with lyrics by Tony Asher.
Artist: Canned Heat
Song: Catfish Blues
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Year: 1967
Canned Heat's entire first album consisted of covers of blues classics like this one: Robert Petway's Catfish Blues, considered by most blues experts to be the inspiration for Muddy Waters's first recording Rolling Stone.
Artist: Monkees
Song: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Year: 1968
This Gerry Goffin/Carole King tune was the feature track from the Monkees movie Head. Although the song and movie pretty much flopped on release, both have achieved cult status in the years since.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song: A New Day Yesterday
Source: CD: Stand Up
Year: 1969
Stand Up was the second Jethro Tull album and the first with new guitarist Martin Barre replacing founding member Mick Abrahams. There was, however, another guitarist that made an appearance as a member of the band before Barre joined, but only on the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus TV special that was never broadcast. The name of that interim guitarist was Tony Iommi, who would soon go on to found Black Sabbath. Starting with Stand Up, each successive Jethro Tull album would feature one additional personnel change until, as of Thick As a Brick, Ian Anderson was the only original member left.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song: White Rabbit
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Year: 1967
It only seems appropriate for the 25th song this week to be White Rabbit. Conspiracy buffs enjoy!
Artist: Them
Song: One Two Brown Eyes
Source: LP: Them
Year: 1965
This Van Morrison original was first released in the UK in late 1964 as the B side of Them's first single. It was included on the US version of Them's first album, but not the version released in the UK.
Artist: Moby Grape
Song: Rose Colored Eyes
Source: LP: Wow
Year: 1968
Moby Grape's second album is considered generally inferior to the first, possibly because the band seemed to be moving in several directions at once. This is due to the fact that they had a wealth of songwriters, each in the process of developing their own style. This song is indicative of the direction bass player Bob Mosley was going in.
Artist: Mothers of Invention
Song: Trouble Coming Every Day
Source: LP: Freak Out!
Year: 1966
Starting off a progression through the years we have Frank Zappa with the original version of a song that he would update and re-record on more than one occassion. Although some of the references are topical and thus dated, the general tone of the song remains as relevant today as when it was first recorded.
Artist: Dave Davies
Song: Death of a Clown
Source: CD: Kinks-25 Years-The Ultimate Collection
Year: 1967
Although Ray Davies was the leader and primary songwriter of the Kinks, it was brother Dave who first recorded as a solo artist with this 1967 single.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Song: Mrs. Robinson
Source: CD: Collected Works
Year: 1968
A shortened version of Mrs. Robinson first appeared on the soundtrack for the file The Graduate in 1967, but it wasn't until the Bookends album came out in 1968 that the full four minute version was released.
Artist: Tommy James and the Shondells
Song: I Know Who I Am
Source: LP: Cellophane Symphony
Year: 1969
By 1969 Tommy James and the Shondells had already seen their best years and were trying to find a way to remain relevant. The album Cellophane Symphony was an attempt at moving the band in a more progressive direction while also trying to satisfy the demands of a dying record company that really had no other successful artists left on its roster.
Artist: Richie Havens
Song: Eyesight to the Blind
Source: 45 RPM single
Year: 1972
In between the original release of Tommy in 1969 and the movie version in 1975 there was the Orchestral Tommy in 1972, featuring performances by several artists that did not perform on either of the other versions. Among those were Richie Havens, who was then at the peak of his popularity.
Artist: Cream
Song: N.S.U.
Source: LP: Live Cream
Year: 1968
After the breakup of Cream, Atco decided to issue a live album in 1970, featuring songs that had originally appeared on the album Fresh Cream. This ten minute version of N.S.U., recorded at Winterland in 1968, shows how far the band had progressed in the two years since recording the studio version.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Song: Glad All Over
Source: CD: 5 By Five
Year: 1964
The Dave Clark Five were originally formed as a way of raising money for Clark's football (soccer) team. Toward the end of 1963 they scored a number one hit in England with Glad All Over, which was released to an enthusiastic US audience a few months later.
Artist: Turtles
Song: She's My Girl
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Year: 1967
After a moderate amount of success in 1965 with a series of singles starting with a cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles found themselves running out of steam by the end of 1966. Rather than throw in the towel, they enlisted the services of the Bonner/Gordon songwriting team and recorded their most successful single, Happy Together, in 1967. They dipped into the same well for this tune later the same year.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Song: (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Year: 1967
Ultimate Spinach was the brainchild of Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. Although the group had no hit singles, some tracks, such as (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess received a significant amount of airplay on progressive "underground" FM stations.
Artist: Stephen Stills
Song: Love the One You're With
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo promo pressing)
Year: 1971
Depending on your point of view Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) have either split up several times over the years or have never actually split up at all. It was during one of these maybe split-ups that Stills recorded this classic. Presumably he and Judy Collins were no longer an item at that point.
Artist: Traffic
Song: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Year: 1967
A long set of tunes from 1967 starts with this classic from the first Traffic album.
Artist: Love
Song: Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale
Source: CD: Forever Changes
Year: 1967
When Forever Changes was recorded, the band took some flack for the use of horns and strings. What the critics of the time failed to take into account was that the added instruments were not, as was usually the case, added by the producer as a way to cover up weak musicianship. In fact the band members themselves (particularly leader Arthur Lee) were responsible for the addition and worked closely with arranger David Angel to come up with the sound they wanted.
Artist: Box Tops
Song: The Letter
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock and Roll Hits-1967
Year: 1967
Here's an unusual recipe for you: take one novice producer, add a newly-signed band that hadn't even decided on a name yet, and mix in a songwriter that had recently submitted his first demo tape to the novice producer's ex-boss. Put them all together and you get a song that goes all the way to the top of the charts and stays there for four weeks.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Song: Bright Light Lovers
Source: LP: Circus Maximus
Year: 1967
Although keyboardist Bob Bruno's contributions as a songwriter to Circus Maximus tended to favor jazz arrangements, he shows here that he could rock out with the best of the garage bands when the mood hit.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Song: Get Me To the World On Time
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Year: 1967
Songwriter Annette Tucker usually worked with Nancy Mantz, and the pair was responsible for the Prunes biggest hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night). For this composition she instead teamed up with Jill Jones and came up with a kind of psychedelic Bo Diddley song that ended up being the Prunes second biggest hit (and the first rock song that I ever heard first on an FM station rather than an AM one).
Artist: Leaves
Song: To Try For the Sun
Source: CD: All the Good That's Happening
Year: 1967
After their success with the fast version of Hey Joe in 1966 the Leaves signed with Capitol Records and recorded their second LP. Unfortunately, the band was already in the process of disintegrating by then and no more hits were forthcoming. One song that shows their interest in folk music was their cover of Donovan's To Try For the Sun. It was the only purely acoustic song the band ever recorded.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Song: Season of the Witch
Source: LP: Renaissance
Year: 1968
Another Donovan tune, this time given the patented Vanilla Fudge treatment on the album Renaissance. The Fudge arrangement includes spoken lyrics from Essra Mohawk's We Never Learn. Interestingly enough, the only other cover tune on the album is The Spell That Comes After, also written by Mohawk.
Artist: Music Machine
Song: Talk Talk
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Year: 1966
From 1965 to 1968 L.A. was home to a thriving club scene that gave bands the opportunity to perform their own original material. One of the most sophisticated of those bands was the Music Machine, which would fire off song after song without pause until it was break time, then come back and do it again for the next set.
Artist: Beach Boys
Song: That's Not Me
Source: CD: Pet Sounds
Year: 1966
The Beach Boys were about as mainstream as the Music Machine was underground, yet Brian Wilson was turning out music every bit as original as any of the club bands in town. The album Pet Sounds is considered one of the masterpieces of the era, with the majority of songs, including That's Not Me, written by Wilson with lyrics by Tony Asher.
Artist: Canned Heat
Song: Catfish Blues
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Year: 1967
Canned Heat's entire first album consisted of covers of blues classics like this one: Robert Petway's Catfish Blues, considered by most blues experts to be the inspiration for Muddy Waters's first recording Rolling Stone.
Artist: Monkees
Song: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Year: 1968
This Gerry Goffin/Carole King tune was the feature track from the Monkees movie Head. Although the song and movie pretty much flopped on release, both have achieved cult status in the years since.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song: A New Day Yesterday
Source: CD: Stand Up
Year: 1969
Stand Up was the second Jethro Tull album and the first with new guitarist Martin Barre replacing founding member Mick Abrahams. There was, however, another guitarist that made an appearance as a member of the band before Barre joined, but only on the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus TV special that was never broadcast. The name of that interim guitarist was Tony Iommi, who would soon go on to found Black Sabbath. Starting with Stand Up, each successive Jethro Tull album would feature one additional personnel change until, as of Thick As a Brick, Ian Anderson was the only original member left.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song: White Rabbit
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Year: 1967
It only seems appropriate for the 25th song this week to be White Rabbit. Conspiracy buffs enjoy!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Playlist 11/5-7/10
For years I've had this recurring nightmare of being in a radio station where the last song has just run out and I don't have another one ready yet. This week's first segment comes about as close to that happening as I ever want to get. I mean, nine songs in under 27 minutes; Holy Top 40 Radio, Batman!.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Song Title: Incense and Peppermints
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Release Year: 1967
The first track of the segment is also the longest, clocking in at two minutes and 46 seconds. Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was released it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a radio DJ flipped the record over and the rest is history.
Artist: Cream
Song Title: Anyone For Tennis
Source: CD: Goodbye Cream (Bonus track not on original LP. Originally released in UK on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
Although credited to the entire band, this song is actually Eric Clapton's first release as a solo artist.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Song Title: Full Measure
Source: LP: Best of the Lovin' Spoonful-Vol. 2 (originally charted as a B side)
Release Year: 1966
1966 was a fairly solid year for the Spoonful. In addition to Summer in the City, their only song to make it to the # 1 spot on the charts, they also had one of their most enduring hits, Nashville Cats. The B side of that record, Full Measure, managed to chart briefly as well, peaking in the lower 90s.
Artist: Hollies
Song Title: Don't Run and Hide
Source: single B side
Release Year: 1966
The Hollies were already established in the UK with a series of hit records by the time they scored their breakthrough US hit, Bus Stop, in 1966. Don't Run and Hide is the B side of that US single.
Artist: Standells
Song Title: Dirty Water
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
This song has long since been adopted by the city of Boston, yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes in the early 60s. Lead vocalist Dickie Dodd, incidently, was the little blond kid in the front row on the original Micky Mouse Club TV show.
Artist: Richard and the Young Lions
Song Title: Open Up Your Door
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
Continuing out 1966 set we have this tune originally released on the Philips label, best known at the time as the home of the Four Seasons. Richard and the Young Lions, hailing from New Jersey, rocked out a whole lot harder on one record than Frankie Valli and the boys did in their entire career.
Artist: Rare Breed
Song Title: Beg, Borrow and Steal
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
Our final 1966 track is from one of the first bands signed to the Kasenatz-Katz stable of artists and one of the first to leave that organization as well, citing a stifling of creativity. Kasenatz-Katz would become quite successful the following year with a new style of top 40 song known as "bubble gum", so it's not difficult to see why a legitimate band would have problems with them.
Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Song Title: Love
Source: LP: Electric Music For the Mind and Body
Release Year: 1967
In the mid 60s the primary performance venues for rock bands were dances, and the audiences (mostly middle-class baby boomers) demanded a healthy dose of both rock and soul. Rather than to record covers of Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding songs, Country Joe McDonald chose to write his own brand of rock and soul music. Love, from the Fish's first album, is a good example of this.
Artist: Syndicate of Sound
Song Title: Little Girl
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
San Jose California was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced an extraordinarily high number of national successes. Among those successes was this hit from the Syndicate of Sound, considered a punk classic for its abundance of attitude.
For this week's second segment I made a conscious attempt to play some longer tracks by focusing on the year 1969. As you will see, that lasted for all of three songs before the shorter tunes once again hijacked the show.
Artist: Pentangle
Song Title: House Carpenter
Source: LP: Basket of Light
Release Year: 1969
Pentangle, Britains first folk supergroup, lasted longer than most supergroups do, keeping their original lineup intact from 1967 until their breakup in 1973. This track, taken from their third album, features the group's two guitarists branching out a bit, with John Renbourne on banjo and Bert Jansch on sitar.
Artist: David Bowie
Song Title: Space Oddity
Source: CD: Sound and Vision Sampler (originally released on LP: Space Oddity)
Release Year: 1969
When David Jones first started his recording career he was a fairly conventional folk singer. With Space Oddity he became David Bowie (or maybe Ziggy Stardust) and the rock world was never quite the same.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Song Title: I Put a Spell On You
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
Even a casual Creedence fan knows that the band started their chart success in 1968 with a cover of Dale Hawkins' hit Suzy Q. What most are not aware of, however, is that CCR also released a single covering a different Hawkins in 1968, in this case Screaming Jay Hawkins. The band's performance of the song at Woodstock shows a side of John Fogerty not often heard: the hard rockin' lead guitarist.
Artist: Seeds
Song Title: Tripmaker
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: A Web of Sound)
Release Year: 1966
We only have one progression through the years this week, and it starts in 1966 with this Seeds album track. Any resemblance to a tune on Smash Mouth's Astral Lounge album from the late 1990s is probably intentional.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Somebody To Love
Source: single
Release Year: 1967
One of the most important singles ever released, heard here in its original mono mix.
Artist: Doors
Song Title: Touch Me
Source: single
Release Year: 1968
The Doors took an unusual turn by adding a horn section for this December 1968 single. It was a major hit.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Song Title: Electric Funeral
Source: CD: Paranoid
Release Year: 1970
When Black Sabbath first appeared on vinyl they were perceived as the next step in the evolution of rock, building on the acid rock of the late sixties and laying the groundwork for what would become heavy metal. This song shows that evolution in progress.
Artist: Sonics
Song Title: Strychnine
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Here Are the Sonics)
Release Year: 1965
Starting off hour # 2 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered the foundation stone of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics are often cited as the first true punk rock band.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Song Title: Turtle Blues
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Release Year: 1968
Only one artist set this week, and technically it actually features two entirely different bands. The connecting factor is, of course, Janis Joplin, considered by many to be the greatest rock vocalist of the psychedelic era. The first track in the set is a Joplin original that features producer John Simon on piano.
Artist: Janis Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band
Song Title: Ball and Chain
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
From Woodstock we have Janis performing her show stopper, Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball and Chain. The Kozmic Blues Band was Joplin's only group to feature a horn section, and, despite its members having a higher degree of technical proficiency than Big Brother, is generally considered to be lacking in the type of raw energy that helped propel Joplin to stardom.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Song Title: I Need a Man To Love
Source: CD:Cheap Thrills
Release Year: 1968
To prove the point made in the previous song's commentary we have a live performance of a tune co-written by Joplin and bandmate Sam Houston Andrew III. Now this is the context in which Janis truly shines.
Artist: Moby Grape
Song Title: Fall On You
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Release Year: 1967
Once again the short songs hijack the show to finish out the third segment. This track from the first Moby Grape album clocks in at under two minutes.
Artist: Knickerbockers
Song Title: Lies
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Release Year: 1965
A lot of people thought this was the Beatles recording under a pseudonym when it came out. It wasn't, and I can't help but wonder why anyone would have thought the Beatles had any need to record under a different name in the first place. Is it a Richard Bachman kind of thing?
Artist: New Breed
Song Title: Want Ad Reader
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Release Year: 1966
An energetic 1966 track from a Sacramento band that was never heard from again. Well, not as the New Breed anyway. A couple years later they resurfaced in L.A. using the name Glad and cut a couple albums for Dunhill. After that, most of the members went on to form Redbone, known for their recording of Witch Queen of New Orleans. The bass-playing lead vocalist, on the other hand, went on to replace Randy Meisner in Poco when he left that band to help form the Eagles. That same bass-playing lead vocalist would eventually replace Meisner in the Eagles as well. His name: Timothy B. Schmidt.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Song Title: Death Row
Source: single B side
Release Year: 1968
I like to play this song for fans of the Silver Bullet Band who think that Turn the Page is about as intense as it gets. I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across this record.
Artist: Monkees
Song Title: Gravy
Source: LP: Head
Release Year: 1968
With this track the short cuts declare total victory. It's five seconds long.
Artist: James Brown
Song Title: Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose
Source: CD: 20 All-Time Greatest Hits
Release Year: 1968
James Brown earned his myriad of titles (Godfather of Soul, King of Funk, Soul Brother # 1, etc.) with tracks like this one, written by his personal manager Charles Bobbit.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Song Title: The Windmills of Your Mind
Source: LP: Rock and Roll
Release Year: 1969
Vanilla Fudge all but abandoned their early practice of slowing down and psychedelicizing pop tunes with their third LP Renaissance, but by their fifth album Rock and Roll were at it again, as this revisioning of this Dusty Springfield tune shows.
Artist: Flock
Song Title: Tired of Waiting
Source: LP: The Flock
Release Year: 1969
In 1969, while living in Germany, I ran across a sampler album from CBS records called Underground in a local department store. This collection of tracks from US albums that had not been released in Europe was priced considerably lower than most other LPs so I decided to give it a shot. I was immediately struck by two things: the guy playing electric violin on the cover and the fact that the record itself was pressed on purple vinyl (which I later discovered glowed under a black light). I soon discovered that the guy on the cover was Jerry Goodman, whose solo opens one of the best Kinks covers ever recorded. Some of the other artists on the album included Chicago, the Chambers Brothers, NRBQ and Pacific Gas and Electric, by the way. Too bad my copy mysteriously disappeared many years ago.
Artist: Blues Image
Song Title: Pay My Dues
Source: LP: Open
Release Year: 1970
When I first heard Ride Captain Ride on the radio I wasn't all that impressed with it. Then the local club I hung out at got it on the jukebox and people started playing the B side, a song called Pay My Dues. Then I went out and bought the album. Yes, Pay My Dues is that good. As it turns out, so is the rest of the album. Even Ride Captain Ride sounds better now.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Song Title: The Great Banana Hoax
Source: CD: Underground
Release Year: 1967
Following the success of I Had Too Much To Dream, the Electric Prunes were given a bit more artistic freedom for their second album, Underground (no relation to the Europe-only-issue sampler album referred to a couple songs ago). The opening track, The Great Banana Hoax, is notable for two reasons: first, it was composed by band members and second, it has nothing to do with bananas.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Song Title: Little Wing
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Release Year: 1967
Just when I thought I had re-established control of the show with a set of longer tracks, along comes Jimi Hendrix (who I would expect a lengthy jam from) with Little Wing. All two minutes and twenty-nine seconds worth. I give up.
Artist: Strawberry Alarm Clock
Song Title: Incense and Peppermints
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop
Release Year: 1967
The first track of the segment is also the longest, clocking in at two minutes and 46 seconds. Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was released it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a radio DJ flipped the record over and the rest is history.
Artist: Cream
Song Title: Anyone For Tennis
Source: CD: Goodbye Cream (Bonus track not on original LP. Originally released in UK on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
Although credited to the entire band, this song is actually Eric Clapton's first release as a solo artist.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Song Title: Full Measure
Source: LP: Best of the Lovin' Spoonful-Vol. 2 (originally charted as a B side)
Release Year: 1966
1966 was a fairly solid year for the Spoonful. In addition to Summer in the City, their only song to make it to the # 1 spot on the charts, they also had one of their most enduring hits, Nashville Cats. The B side of that record, Full Measure, managed to chart briefly as well, peaking in the lower 90s.
Artist: Hollies
Song Title: Don't Run and Hide
Source: single B side
Release Year: 1966
The Hollies were already established in the UK with a series of hit records by the time they scored their breakthrough US hit, Bus Stop, in 1966. Don't Run and Hide is the B side of that US single.
Artist: Standells
Song Title: Dirty Water
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
This song has long since been adopted by the city of Boston, yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes in the early 60s. Lead vocalist Dickie Dodd, incidently, was the little blond kid in the front row on the original Micky Mouse Club TV show.
Artist: Richard and the Young Lions
Song Title: Open Up Your Door
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
Continuing out 1966 set we have this tune originally released on the Philips label, best known at the time as the home of the Four Seasons. Richard and the Young Lions, hailing from New Jersey, rocked out a whole lot harder on one record than Frankie Valli and the boys did in their entire career.
Artist: Rare Breed
Song Title: Beg, Borrow and Steal
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
Our final 1966 track is from one of the first bands signed to the Kasenatz-Katz stable of artists and one of the first to leave that organization as well, citing a stifling of creativity. Kasenatz-Katz would become quite successful the following year with a new style of top 40 song known as "bubble gum", so it's not difficult to see why a legitimate band would have problems with them.
Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Song Title: Love
Source: LP: Electric Music For the Mind and Body
Release Year: 1967
In the mid 60s the primary performance venues for rock bands were dances, and the audiences (mostly middle-class baby boomers) demanded a healthy dose of both rock and soul. Rather than to record covers of Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding songs, Country Joe McDonald chose to write his own brand of rock and soul music. Love, from the Fish's first album, is a good example of this.
Artist: Syndicate of Sound
Song Title: Little Girl
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
San Jose California was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced an extraordinarily high number of national successes. Among those successes was this hit from the Syndicate of Sound, considered a punk classic for its abundance of attitude.
For this week's second segment I made a conscious attempt to play some longer tracks by focusing on the year 1969. As you will see, that lasted for all of three songs before the shorter tunes once again hijacked the show.
Artist: Pentangle
Song Title: House Carpenter
Source: LP: Basket of Light
Release Year: 1969
Pentangle, Britains first folk supergroup, lasted longer than most supergroups do, keeping their original lineup intact from 1967 until their breakup in 1973. This track, taken from their third album, features the group's two guitarists branching out a bit, with John Renbourne on banjo and Bert Jansch on sitar.
Artist: David Bowie
Song Title: Space Oddity
Source: CD: Sound and Vision Sampler (originally released on LP: Space Oddity)
Release Year: 1969
When David Jones first started his recording career he was a fairly conventional folk singer. With Space Oddity he became David Bowie (or maybe Ziggy Stardust) and the rock world was never quite the same.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Song Title: I Put a Spell On You
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
Even a casual Creedence fan knows that the band started their chart success in 1968 with a cover of Dale Hawkins' hit Suzy Q. What most are not aware of, however, is that CCR also released a single covering a different Hawkins in 1968, in this case Screaming Jay Hawkins. The band's performance of the song at Woodstock shows a side of John Fogerty not often heard: the hard rockin' lead guitarist.
Artist: Seeds
Song Title: Tripmaker
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: A Web of Sound)
Release Year: 1966
We only have one progression through the years this week, and it starts in 1966 with this Seeds album track. Any resemblance to a tune on Smash Mouth's Astral Lounge album from the late 1990s is probably intentional.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Somebody To Love
Source: single
Release Year: 1967
One of the most important singles ever released, heard here in its original mono mix.
Artist: Doors
Song Title: Touch Me
Source: single
Release Year: 1968
The Doors took an unusual turn by adding a horn section for this December 1968 single. It was a major hit.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Song Title: Electric Funeral
Source: CD: Paranoid
Release Year: 1970
When Black Sabbath first appeared on vinyl they were perceived as the next step in the evolution of rock, building on the acid rock of the late sixties and laying the groundwork for what would become heavy metal. This song shows that evolution in progress.
Artist: Sonics
Song Title: Strychnine
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Here Are the Sonics)
Release Year: 1965
Starting off hour # 2 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered the foundation stone of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics are often cited as the first true punk rock band.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Song Title: Turtle Blues
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Release Year: 1968
Only one artist set this week, and technically it actually features two entirely different bands. The connecting factor is, of course, Janis Joplin, considered by many to be the greatest rock vocalist of the psychedelic era. The first track in the set is a Joplin original that features producer John Simon on piano.
Artist: Janis Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band
Song Title: Ball and Chain
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
From Woodstock we have Janis performing her show stopper, Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball and Chain. The Kozmic Blues Band was Joplin's only group to feature a horn section, and, despite its members having a higher degree of technical proficiency than Big Brother, is generally considered to be lacking in the type of raw energy that helped propel Joplin to stardom.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Song Title: I Need a Man To Love
Source: CD:Cheap Thrills
Release Year: 1968
To prove the point made in the previous song's commentary we have a live performance of a tune co-written by Joplin and bandmate Sam Houston Andrew III. Now this is the context in which Janis truly shines.
Artist: Moby Grape
Song Title: Fall On You
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Release Year: 1967
Once again the short songs hijack the show to finish out the third segment. This track from the first Moby Grape album clocks in at under two minutes.
Artist: Knickerbockers
Song Title: Lies
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Release Year: 1965
A lot of people thought this was the Beatles recording under a pseudonym when it came out. It wasn't, and I can't help but wonder why anyone would have thought the Beatles had any need to record under a different name in the first place. Is it a Richard Bachman kind of thing?
Artist: New Breed
Song Title: Want Ad Reader
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Release Year: 1966
An energetic 1966 track from a Sacramento band that was never heard from again. Well, not as the New Breed anyway. A couple years later they resurfaced in L.A. using the name Glad and cut a couple albums for Dunhill. After that, most of the members went on to form Redbone, known for their recording of Witch Queen of New Orleans. The bass-playing lead vocalist, on the other hand, went on to replace Randy Meisner in Poco when he left that band to help form the Eagles. That same bass-playing lead vocalist would eventually replace Meisner in the Eagles as well. His name: Timothy B. Schmidt.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Song Title: Death Row
Source: single B side
Release Year: 1968
I like to play this song for fans of the Silver Bullet Band who think that Turn the Page is about as intense as it gets. I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across this record.
Artist: Monkees
Song Title: Gravy
Source: LP: Head
Release Year: 1968
With this track the short cuts declare total victory. It's five seconds long.
Artist: James Brown
Song Title: Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose
Source: CD: 20 All-Time Greatest Hits
Release Year: 1968
James Brown earned his myriad of titles (Godfather of Soul, King of Funk, Soul Brother # 1, etc.) with tracks like this one, written by his personal manager Charles Bobbit.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Song Title: The Windmills of Your Mind
Source: LP: Rock and Roll
Release Year: 1969
Vanilla Fudge all but abandoned their early practice of slowing down and psychedelicizing pop tunes with their third LP Renaissance, but by their fifth album Rock and Roll were at it again, as this revisioning of this Dusty Springfield tune shows.
Artist: Flock
Song Title: Tired of Waiting
Source: LP: The Flock
Release Year: 1969
In 1969, while living in Germany, I ran across a sampler album from CBS records called Underground in a local department store. This collection of tracks from US albums that had not been released in Europe was priced considerably lower than most other LPs so I decided to give it a shot. I was immediately struck by two things: the guy playing electric violin on the cover and the fact that the record itself was pressed on purple vinyl (which I later discovered glowed under a black light). I soon discovered that the guy on the cover was Jerry Goodman, whose solo opens one of the best Kinks covers ever recorded. Some of the other artists on the album included Chicago, the Chambers Brothers, NRBQ and Pacific Gas and Electric, by the way. Too bad my copy mysteriously disappeared many years ago.
Artist: Blues Image
Song Title: Pay My Dues
Source: LP: Open
Release Year: 1970
When I first heard Ride Captain Ride on the radio I wasn't all that impressed with it. Then the local club I hung out at got it on the jukebox and people started playing the B side, a song called Pay My Dues. Then I went out and bought the album. Yes, Pay My Dues is that good. As it turns out, so is the rest of the album. Even Ride Captain Ride sounds better now.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Song Title: The Great Banana Hoax
Source: CD: Underground
Release Year: 1967
Following the success of I Had Too Much To Dream, the Electric Prunes were given a bit more artistic freedom for their second album, Underground (no relation to the Europe-only-issue sampler album referred to a couple songs ago). The opening track, The Great Banana Hoax, is notable for two reasons: first, it was composed by band members and second, it has nothing to do with bananas.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Song Title: Little Wing
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Release Year: 1967
Just when I thought I had re-established control of the show with a set of longer tracks, along comes Jimi Hendrix (who I would expect a lengthy jam from) with Little Wing. All two minutes and twenty-nine seconds worth. I give up.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Playlist 10/29-31/10
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Streetmasse
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Release Year: 1967
After Bathing At Baxter's is generally considered the most pyschedelic of all the Jefferson Airplane albums. For one thing, the members were reportedly all on LSD through most of the creative process and were involved in entire package, right down to the decision to divide the album up into five suites and press the vinyl in such a way that the spaces in the vinyl normally found between songs were only present between the suites themselves, making it almost impossible to set the needle down at the beginning of the second or third song of a suite (there is a slight overlap between songs as well). I tell you this because my copy of the album is the original pressing and thus each suite counts as a single track, keeping me within the three track per artist limit imposed by Congress for stations that carry the show over the internet. The first suite on After Bathing At Baxter's is called Streetmasse. It consists of three compositions: Paul Kantner's The Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel; A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly (a free-form jazz piece led by drummer Spencer Dryden); and the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin composition Young Girl Sunday Blues.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: It's No Secret (mono single version)
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1966
Released in March of 1966, It's No Secret was an instant hit on San Francisco Bay area radio stations. This version differs from the album version released six months later in that it has a fade out ending and is thus a few seconds shorter.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Hymn To An Older Generation
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Release Year: 1967
The first side of After Bathing At Baxter's wraps up with a two-song suite: The Last Wall of the Castle is lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's contribution to the album as a songwriter and lead vocalist, while Grace Slick's Rejoyce is an avant-garde adaptation of the James Joyce poem Ulysses.
Artist: Ten Years After
Song Title: A Sad Song
Source: CD: Stonedhenge
Release Year: 1971
TYA's third album, Stonedhenge, is a departure from the straight-ahead blues of the band's first two efforts. Instead, Stonedhenge consists of six songs in a variety of styles, alternating with short individual pieces from each member of the band. A Sad Song is a slow moody piece that shows the influence of the dean of British blues, John Mayall.
Artist: Canned Heat
Song Title: Catfish Blues
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Canned Heat)
Release Year: 1967
In contrast to the Ten Years After track we have a song with a more traditional blues structure. Catfish Blues was first recorded by Robert Petway in 1941, one of only a dozen or so recordings by the legendary delta blues master. Muddy Waters lifted the song almost word for word (and note for note) for his very first recording, Rolling Stone. Canned Heat themselves were blues purists whose first album consisted entirely of cover tunes such as this one.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Song Title: Bald Headed Lena
Source: LP: Daydream
Release Year: 1966
Drummer Zal Yanovsky took his turn on vocals for this not-entirely-serious rendition of the old Piano Red tune Bald Headed Lena. Then again, some songs are meant to be taken lightly anyway. Piano Red, by the way, was the original stage name of William Perryman, who would later be known as Doctor Feelgood.
Artist: Dick Dale and His Del-Tones
Song Title: The Wedge
Source: CD: Best of Dick Dale and His Del-Tones (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1963
It may seem odd hearing surf music on a show called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, but (as described in more detail elsewhere on this web site) the genre was an important foundation stone to what would become psychedelic rock. And when it comes to surf music, none did it better than the king of the surf guitar, Dick Dale. Dale's stature as a guitarist was such that when Fender Musical Instruments first developed the reverb unit they turned to Dick Dale to field test it.
Artist: Seeds
Song Title: Rollin' Machine
Source: LP: A Web of Sound
Release Year: 1966
I probably should have saved this song to play back to back with Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 later in the show. Is there anyone out there that really thinks this is a song about a car? I thought not.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: I Knew I'd Want You
Source: LP: Mr. Tambourine Man
Release Year: 1965
The Byrds did not have many original tunes on their first album, and most of those came from Gene Clark, who would be the first member to leave the band (due to his fear of flying). I Knew I'd Want You is among the most upbeat of Clark's songs.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock and Roll Hits-1965 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Release Year: 1965
After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the band turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: Chimes of Freedom
Source: Mr. Tambourine Man
Release Year: 1965
Although not released as a single, the Byrds cover of Dylan's Chimes of Freedom was a staple of the band's stage repertoire and was one of three songs captured on film by D.R. Pennebacker for his Monterrey Pop Festival TV special. None of the tracks were actually used on the show, but all have been issued on an outtake disc that comes as part of the expanded DVD edition of Pennebacker's film.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song Title: Hymn 43
Source: CD: Aqualung
Release Year: 1971
Just for something completely different we have Ian Anderson taking on the religious establishment. He had already fired the first shot a couple years before with Christmas Song, but this time he had an entire album side to work with, and he did not pull any punches with his scathing criticism of what he perceived as rampant hypocrisy within the Anglican church.
Artist: Sly and the Family Stone
Song Title: I Want To Take You Higher
Source: CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Stand!)
Release Year: 1969
Sylvester Stone was a major presence on the San Francisco music scene for several years, both as a producer for Autumn Records and as a popular local disc jockey. In 1968 he decided to take it to the next level, using his studio connections to put together a solid lineup of musicians, including bassist Larry Graham. The result was a band that layed the groundwork for 70s funk bands such as Parlaiment-Funkadelic and Graham's own band, Graham Central Station.
Artist: Velvet Illusions
Song Title: Acid Head
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1967
Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (an L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle scene as one of their own) the 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 this lone single before calling it quits.
Artist: Doors
Song Title: When the Music's Over
Source: CD: Strange Days
Release Year: 1967
In the final analysis, the most successful band to come out of the late 60s L.A. club scene was undoubtably the Doors. Their second album, Strange Days, followed the pattern of the first one, including an extended cut with a Jim Morrison monologue to close out the second side.
Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Song Title: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source: CD: Electric Music For the Mind and Body
Release Year: 1967
While not as commercially successful as the Airplane or as long-lived as the Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about. Of all the tracks on their first album, this one probably got the most airplay.
Artist: Monkees
Song Title: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released in altered form on LP: Head)
Release Year: 1968
The entire existence of the Monkees was a struggle for legitimacy amid massive commercial success. In 1968, with their TV show cancelled and each successive album selling fewer copies than the previous one, the band decided to go the experimental route with the movie Head. With a script by Jack Nicholson and an appearance by Frank Zappa, the movie was designed for the underground crowd, who naturally avoided anything associated with the Monkees like the plague. Meanwhile, what was left of the Monkees fan base found Head to be not at all what they expected, and not at all to their tastes. In the long run Michael Nesmith would find success with many of the visual approaches used in the film years later when he pioneered what would come to be known as the music video (subsequently selling the idea, which he called Music Television, or MTV for short, to Warner Communications).
Artist: Who
Song Title: Amazing Journey
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
I realized fairly early on that this week's show seemed to be featuring a lot of bands that appeared at Woodstock and/or Monterey. I figured it was somehow appropriate then to start the last segment with an unreleased track from a band that appeared at both festivals. Amazing Journey was part of the Who's performance of the rock opera Tommy at Woodstock and did not get released until 2009.
Artist: Joe Cocker and the Grease Band
Song Title: Feelin' Alright
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
It seems a bit odd that, even at the peak of (Joe Cocker's version of) this song's popularity in the late 70s, when John Belushi joined Cocker onstage for a performance of it on Saturday Night Live, this particular recording of the song didn't get released until 2009. I guess it's an indication of just how much music there was at Woodstock that most of us never got to hear.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Song Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Blonde On Blonde)
Release Year: 1966
Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35's lyrics "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution. On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Final Sequence)
Source: CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Release Year: 1967
The original UK pressing of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was not banded. This means that instead of having blank spaces in the vinyl for easy location of songs, the album was one continuous track. This was reportedly done to encourage buyers of the album to listen to it as a complete work as opposed to a collection of unrelated songs. The Beatles took it a step further with the final three tracks on the album, which flow seamlessly from song to song without a break. One result of this was the famous "chicken turning into a guitar" sequence when the sounds of farm animals at the end of Good Morning Good Morning segue into the opening beats of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise). The final track, A Day In the Life, features the seemingly endless final chord that fades slowly away (and I even cut it off with 30 seconds left on the disc!).
Song Title: Streetmasse
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Release Year: 1967
After Bathing At Baxter's is generally considered the most pyschedelic of all the Jefferson Airplane albums. For one thing, the members were reportedly all on LSD through most of the creative process and were involved in entire package, right down to the decision to divide the album up into five suites and press the vinyl in such a way that the spaces in the vinyl normally found between songs were only present between the suites themselves, making it almost impossible to set the needle down at the beginning of the second or third song of a suite (there is a slight overlap between songs as well). I tell you this because my copy of the album is the original pressing and thus each suite counts as a single track, keeping me within the three track per artist limit imposed by Congress for stations that carry the show over the internet. The first suite on After Bathing At Baxter's is called Streetmasse. It consists of three compositions: Paul Kantner's The Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel; A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly (a free-form jazz piece led by drummer Spencer Dryden); and the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin composition Young Girl Sunday Blues.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: It's No Secret (mono single version)
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1966
Released in March of 1966, It's No Secret was an instant hit on San Francisco Bay area radio stations. This version differs from the album version released six months later in that it has a fade out ending and is thus a few seconds shorter.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Hymn To An Older Generation
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Release Year: 1967
The first side of After Bathing At Baxter's wraps up with a two-song suite: The Last Wall of the Castle is lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's contribution to the album as a songwriter and lead vocalist, while Grace Slick's Rejoyce is an avant-garde adaptation of the James Joyce poem Ulysses.
Artist: Ten Years After
Song Title: A Sad Song
Source: CD: Stonedhenge
Release Year: 1971
TYA's third album, Stonedhenge, is a departure from the straight-ahead blues of the band's first two efforts. Instead, Stonedhenge consists of six songs in a variety of styles, alternating with short individual pieces from each member of the band. A Sad Song is a slow moody piece that shows the influence of the dean of British blues, John Mayall.
Artist: Canned Heat
Song Title: Catfish Blues
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Canned Heat)
Release Year: 1967
In contrast to the Ten Years After track we have a song with a more traditional blues structure. Catfish Blues was first recorded by Robert Petway in 1941, one of only a dozen or so recordings by the legendary delta blues master. Muddy Waters lifted the song almost word for word (and note for note) for his very first recording, Rolling Stone. Canned Heat themselves were blues purists whose first album consisted entirely of cover tunes such as this one.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Song Title: Bald Headed Lena
Source: LP: Daydream
Release Year: 1966
Drummer Zal Yanovsky took his turn on vocals for this not-entirely-serious rendition of the old Piano Red tune Bald Headed Lena. Then again, some songs are meant to be taken lightly anyway. Piano Red, by the way, was the original stage name of William Perryman, who would later be known as Doctor Feelgood.
Artist: Dick Dale and His Del-Tones
Song Title: The Wedge
Source: CD: Best of Dick Dale and His Del-Tones (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1963
It may seem odd hearing surf music on a show called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, but (as described in more detail elsewhere on this web site) the genre was an important foundation stone to what would become psychedelic rock. And when it comes to surf music, none did it better than the king of the surf guitar, Dick Dale. Dale's stature as a guitarist was such that when Fender Musical Instruments first developed the reverb unit they turned to Dick Dale to field test it.
Artist: Seeds
Song Title: Rollin' Machine
Source: LP: A Web of Sound
Release Year: 1966
I probably should have saved this song to play back to back with Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 later in the show. Is there anyone out there that really thinks this is a song about a car? I thought not.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: I Knew I'd Want You
Source: LP: Mr. Tambourine Man
Release Year: 1965
The Byrds did not have many original tunes on their first album, and most of those came from Gene Clark, who would be the first member to leave the band (due to his fear of flying). I Knew I'd Want You is among the most upbeat of Clark's songs.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock and Roll Hits-1965 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Release Year: 1965
After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the band turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: Chimes of Freedom
Source: Mr. Tambourine Man
Release Year: 1965
Although not released as a single, the Byrds cover of Dylan's Chimes of Freedom was a staple of the band's stage repertoire and was one of three songs captured on film by D.R. Pennebacker for his Monterrey Pop Festival TV special. None of the tracks were actually used on the show, but all have been issued on an outtake disc that comes as part of the expanded DVD edition of Pennebacker's film.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song Title: Hymn 43
Source: CD: Aqualung
Release Year: 1971
Just for something completely different we have Ian Anderson taking on the religious establishment. He had already fired the first shot a couple years before with Christmas Song, but this time he had an entire album side to work with, and he did not pull any punches with his scathing criticism of what he perceived as rampant hypocrisy within the Anglican church.
Artist: Sly and the Family Stone
Song Title: I Want To Take You Higher
Source: CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Stand!)
Release Year: 1969
Sylvester Stone was a major presence on the San Francisco music scene for several years, both as a producer for Autumn Records and as a popular local disc jockey. In 1968 he decided to take it to the next level, using his studio connections to put together a solid lineup of musicians, including bassist Larry Graham. The result was a band that layed the groundwork for 70s funk bands such as Parlaiment-Funkadelic and Graham's own band, Graham Central Station.
Artist: Velvet Illusions
Song Title: Acid Head
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1967
Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (an L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle scene as one of their own) the 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 this lone single before calling it quits.
Artist: Doors
Song Title: When the Music's Over
Source: CD: Strange Days
Release Year: 1967
In the final analysis, the most successful band to come out of the late 60s L.A. club scene was undoubtably the Doors. Their second album, Strange Days, followed the pattern of the first one, including an extended cut with a Jim Morrison monologue to close out the second side.
Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
Song Title: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source: CD: Electric Music For the Mind and Body
Release Year: 1967
While not as commercially successful as the Airplane or as long-lived as the Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about. Of all the tracks on their first album, this one probably got the most airplay.
Artist: Monkees
Song Title: Porpoise Song
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released in altered form on LP: Head)
Release Year: 1968
The entire existence of the Monkees was a struggle for legitimacy amid massive commercial success. In 1968, with their TV show cancelled and each successive album selling fewer copies than the previous one, the band decided to go the experimental route with the movie Head. With a script by Jack Nicholson and an appearance by Frank Zappa, the movie was designed for the underground crowd, who naturally avoided anything associated with the Monkees like the plague. Meanwhile, what was left of the Monkees fan base found Head to be not at all what they expected, and not at all to their tastes. In the long run Michael Nesmith would find success with many of the visual approaches used in the film years later when he pioneered what would come to be known as the music video (subsequently selling the idea, which he called Music Television, or MTV for short, to Warner Communications).
Artist: Who
Song Title: Amazing Journey
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
I realized fairly early on that this week's show seemed to be featuring a lot of bands that appeared at Woodstock and/or Monterey. I figured it was somehow appropriate then to start the last segment with an unreleased track from a band that appeared at both festivals. Amazing Journey was part of the Who's performance of the rock opera Tommy at Woodstock and did not get released until 2009.
Artist: Joe Cocker and the Grease Band
Song Title: Feelin' Alright
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
It seems a bit odd that, even at the peak of (Joe Cocker's version of) this song's popularity in the late 70s, when John Belushi joined Cocker onstage for a performance of it on Saturday Night Live, this particular recording of the song didn't get released until 2009. I guess it's an indication of just how much music there was at Woodstock that most of us never got to hear.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Song Title: Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source: CD: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Blonde On Blonde)
Release Year: 1966
Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35's lyrics "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution. On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Final Sequence)
Source: CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Release Year: 1967
The original UK pressing of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was not banded. This means that instead of having blank spaces in the vinyl for easy location of songs, the album was one continuous track. This was reportedly done to encourage buyers of the album to listen to it as a complete work as opposed to a collection of unrelated songs. The Beatles took it a step further with the final three tracks on the album, which flow seamlessly from song to song without a break. One result of this was the famous "chicken turning into a guitar" sequence when the sounds of farm animals at the end of Good Morning Good Morning segue into the opening beats of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise). The final track, A Day In the Life, features the seemingly endless final chord that fades slowly away (and I even cut it off with 30 seconds left on the disc!).
Friday, October 22, 2010
Playlist 10/22-24/10
This week's show covers a lot of musical ground, starting off with a set from 1967.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Song Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: No Way Out)
Release Year: 1967
It took me many years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in truth the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.
Artist: Unrelated Segments
Song Title: Story of My Life
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1967
Detroit's musical history is so dominated by the Motown story that it's easy to overlook contributions from non-Motown artists over the years. Yet the motor city was the home of several successful and not-so-successful acts over the years, including the Amboy Dukes, Mitch Ryder, Bob Seger, and even a non-Motown soul band, the Capitols. The Unrelated Segments were from nearby Taylor, Michigan and recorded three singles in 1967 and 1968. The first of these, Story of My Life, got massive airplay in Detroit but had little impact anywhere else.
Artist: Yellow Balloon
Song Title: Yellow Balloon
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and included on LP: The Yellow Balloon)
Release Year: 1967
After Jan Berry's near-fatal car wreck in April of 1966, partner Dean Torrance turned to songwriter Gary Zeckley for material for a new album. Zeckley responded by writing the song Yellow Balloon, but was unhappy with Jan and Dean's recording of the song and decided to cut his own version. The resulting recording, utilizing studio musicians for the instrumental tracks was released in May of 1967 on the Canterbury label and was a moderately successful hit, peaking at #25 (Jan and Dean's version stalled out at #111).
Once again we take a romp through the years, this one stretching from 1966 to 1970.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Let Me In
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Release Year: 1966
Marty Balin deserves recognition for his outstanding abilities as a leader. Most people don't even realize he was the founder of the Airplane, yet it was Balin who brought together the diverse talents of what would become San Francisco's most successful band of the 60s and managed to keep the band together through more than its share of controversies. One indication of his leadership abilities is that he encouraged Paul Kantner to sing lead on this track, despite the fact that Balin himself had no other onstage role than to sing lead vocals.
Artist: Who
Song Title: Rael 2
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Release Year: 1967
This odd little piece was apparently intended as a coda to the final track of The Who Sell Out, but was not included on the album (although the label itself reads "Rael 1&2"). It is among the many bonus tracks on both the 90s and 2000s CD versions of the album.
Artist: Traffic
Song Title: (Roamin' Through the Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Release Year: 1968
In its original run, Traffic only released two full albums (and a third that consisted of non-LP singles, studio outtakes and live tracks). The second of these, simply titled Traffic, featured several memorable tunes, including this Steve Winwood/Jim Capaldi collaboration.
Artist: Fairport Convention
Song Title: Tam Lin
Source: LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Leige and Leaf)
Release Year: 1969
Fairport Convention was hailed as England's answer to Jefferson Airplane when they first appeared. As this track from 1969 shows, they soon established a sound all their own. Sandy Denny, heard here on lead vocals, is best known to US audiences for her backup vocals on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore.
Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Song Title: 4+20
Source: CD: déjà vu
Release Year: 1970
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were always more a collection of individuals than a true group. This tune from the second album is actually a Stephen Stills solo track, illustrating the point.
The second segment of tonight's show is another progression through the years, albeit somewhat shorter than the first one, covering the years 1966-1968.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: Eight Miles High
Source: CD: 5D
Release Year: 1966
After two albums dominated by cover tunes such as Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Byrds surprised everyone with an album consisting of almost all original material. Eight Miles High, co-written by Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark, was to be the first hit single composed by group members, but got derailed when Top 40 radio czar Bill Drake branded it a drug song. Despite the song being banned on several key radio stations, it still managed to crack the top 20.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Song Title: May This Be Love
Source: CD: Are You Experienced?
Release Year: 1967
The original UK version of Are You Experienced? featured this song as the opening track of side two of the album. In the US, the UK single The Wind Cries Mary was substituted for it, with May This Be Love buried deep on side one.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Song Title: Gilded Lamp of the Cosmos
Source: LP: Behold and See (mono promo pressing)
Release Year: 1968
By 1968, even the cheap $10 record players used diamond needles and were able to play stereo albums without damaging the grooves (older sapphire needles were another story). Accordingly, most albums were only released in stereo, often with the notation "also playable mono" somewhere on the cover. A significant number of radio stations, however, were still using equipment that was several years old, and the major record labels often made special mono pressings that were only available to broadcasters. This version of the opening track from Behold and See is from one of those pressings, found among the vinyl archives of WEOS-FM. Interestingly enough, WEOS-FM was not actually on the air in 1968, so who this copy was originally distributed to is anyone's guess. My own best guess is that it was originally sent to the campus carrier current station (received by plugging an AM radio into a wall socket) at Hobart and William Smith Colleges that eventually became WEOS.
The great argument among school-aged Americans in the mid-sixties was "Beatles or Stones. Who's better?" Sometimes this argument actually ended in fisticuffs. Ultimately it decided that the Beatles were for the girls while the Stones were more of a guys' band. Obviously whoever decided that never caught the Stones backstage.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Song Title: Not Fade Away
Source: LP: More Hot Rocks (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1964
Like most British Invasion bands, the Rolling Stones were inspired by the early US rock and roll and rhythm and blues artists of the 1950s and often started their recording careers covering songs from that period. Not Fade Away was one of Buddy Holly's best-known tunes, and the Stones recording of it became their first US hit and the first of their UK singles to hit the top 10 in that country.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: Nowhere Man
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Release Year: 1965
The original UK version of Rubber Soul, released in December 1965, had several songs that were left off the shorter US version. In the case of Nowhere Man, it was because Capitol Records decided to hold back the song for release as a single in early 1966.
By 1968, album rock stations were starting to have an impact on the recording industry, resulting in a much more eclectic mix of material being released, as is evidenced by the following set.
Artist: Pentangle
Song Title: Way Behind the Sun
Source: LP: The Pentangle
Release Year: 1968
Every member of the Pentangle was an established member of the British folk music community, making Pentangle a folk supergroup by definition. Using elements of jazz and rock mixed with traditional folk music, they had a successful run up through the mid 1970s. This track from the first album is an adaptation of Rollin' and Tumblin' with new lyrics and a more sophisticated arrangement than better known versions by Cream and Johnny Winter.
Artist: First Edition
Song Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
The First Edition was led by former New Christy Minstrels members Mickey Newbury (who wrote this tune), and lead vocalist Kenny Rogers. As is usual in the US, the singer went on to become a superstar while the songwriter faded off into obscurity.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Song Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Release Year: 1968
European electronics giant Philips had its own record label in the 1960s. In the US, the label was distributed by Mercury Records, and was known primarily for a long string of hits by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1968 the label surprised everyone by signing the loudest band in San Francisco, Blue Cheer. Their cover of the 50s Eddie Cochrane hit Summertime Blues was all over both the AM and FM airwaves that summer.
And now for something completely different:
Artist: Freddie and the Dreamers
Song Title: Money (That's What I Want)
Source: LP: Freddie and the Dreamers
Release Year: 1965
With hits like I'm Telling You Now and Do The Freddie, Freddie and the Dreamers established themselves as the clown princes of the British Invasion. Their 1965 album for Mercury is mostly covers, including this reworking of the Barrett Strong classic.
Our second 1967 set of the night focuses on album tracks.
Artist: Moby Grape
Song Title: Mr. Blues
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Release Year: 1967
Moby Grape got their name from the punchline of a joke that was circulating around the high schools of the time: What is purple and swims in the ocean? Regardless of that, the band's debut album was one of the strongest ever, but was marred by Columbia Records decision to release 10 of the albums 13 tracks simultaneously as singles, which was perceived as over-the-top hyperbole. Mr. Blues was one of those chosen to be a B side.
Artist: Music Machine
Song Title: Discrepancy
Source: CD: Beyond the Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Release Year: 1967
Sean Bonniwell was a former folk singer who emerged as one of the most talented songwriters on the L.A. club scene. A champion of bands performing their own material, he made sure the Music Machine's onstage sets moved quickly from song to song, in order to keep unwanted requests for cover tunes to a minimum. After a series of clashes with the band's first label, Original Sound Records, Bonniwell moved over to Warner Brothers, recruiting a new Music Machine in the process. Discrepancy is one of the finest album tracks of 1967, but received very little airplay at the time. Getting songs like this one heard is one of the main reasons I do this show.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Song Title: Pow R. Toc H.
Source: CD: Piper At the Gates of Dawn
Release Year: 1967
British psychedelic music was always more avant-garde than its US counterpart, and Pink Floyd was probably the most avant-garde of the British psychedelic bands. This track, written by the entire group, was a hint of things to come.
Here we have another short yearly progression from 1964-1966.
Artist: Beau Brummels
Song Title: Laugh Laugh
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Release Year: 1964
It was difficult for an American band to get a hit record in 1964. Some, such as San Francisco's Beau Brummels, decided the best way was to beat the Brits at their own game. Laugh Laugh, their debut single, was released in December of that year. Ultimately, the decision to emulate British rock worked against the Brummels, as they were never considered part of the blossoming San Francisco music scene.
Artist: Barry McGuire
Song Title: Eve of Destruction
Source: 45 RPM vinyl (reissue)
Release Year: 1965
One of the top folk-rock hits of 1965, Eve of Destruction was actually written by professional songwriter P.F. Sloane, who also wrote tunes for the Turtles, among others.
Artist: Donovan
Song Title: Mellow Yellow
Source: LP: Mellow Yellow
Release Year: 1966
Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to a contract dispute with Pye Records.
Artist: Them
Song Title: Black Widow Spider
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Release Year: 1968
Usually when a band used outside songwriters it's because their producer forced them into it, and almost always was a sore point with the band members. The liner notes for Them's second album for Tower (and the second without founder Van Morrison) included a thank you note from the band to Tom Lane and Sharon Pulley, who wrote nearly every song on Time Out! Time In! For Them.
This week's final segment begins with a set from 1969.
Artist: Country Weather
Song Title: Fly To New York
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released to radio stations as a single-sided promo album).
Release Year: 1969
Country Weather was a band from Walnut Creek, California that for two years regularly played all the hot spots in San Francisco but never seemed to be able to land a recording contract. Finally in 1969 they decided to take matters into their own hands, self-producing this six-plus minute track and distributing it to local radio stations.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Song Title: Green River
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
For some reason, nobody seems to remember that Creedence played Woodstock. I'm not sure why.
Artist: Zephyr
Song Title: Cross the River
Source: Zephyr
Release Year: 1969
I've been playing a bit of Denver's Sugarloaf lately, so I thought I'd switch over to a band from nearby Boulder that actually predated their neighbors by a few months. Zephyr featured the vocal talents of Candy Givens, who had an octave range that would not be equalled until Mariah Carey hit the scene years later. Also in the band was lead guitarist Tommy Bolin, who would go on to take over lead guitar duties with first the James Gang and then Deep Purple before embarking on a solo career. Unfortunately that career (and Bolin's life) was permanently derailed by a heroin overdose at age 28.
Artist: Tim Hardin
Song Title: A Tribute To Hank Williams
Source: LP: Tim Hardin 2
Release Year: 1967
Tim Hardin was one of the first singer-songwriters to hit the scene. He is best known for his song If I Were a Carpenter, recorded first by Bobby Darin and later by Johnny Cash and June Carter.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Song Title: Suppose They Give a War and No One Comes
Source: LP: Volume 2
Release Year: 1967
This song is either really cool or really pretentious. I've had a copy of it for over 30 years and still haven't figured out which.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Song Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: No Way Out)
Release Year: 1967
It took me many years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in truth the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Even more ironic is the fact that the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.
Artist: Unrelated Segments
Song Title: Story of My Life
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1967
Detroit's musical history is so dominated by the Motown story that it's easy to overlook contributions from non-Motown artists over the years. Yet the motor city was the home of several successful and not-so-successful acts over the years, including the Amboy Dukes, Mitch Ryder, Bob Seger, and even a non-Motown soul band, the Capitols. The Unrelated Segments were from nearby Taylor, Michigan and recorded three singles in 1967 and 1968. The first of these, Story of My Life, got massive airplay in Detroit but had little impact anywhere else.
Artist: Yellow Balloon
Song Title: Yellow Balloon
Source: CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl and included on LP: The Yellow Balloon)
Release Year: 1967
After Jan Berry's near-fatal car wreck in April of 1966, partner Dean Torrance turned to songwriter Gary Zeckley for material for a new album. Zeckley responded by writing the song Yellow Balloon, but was unhappy with Jan and Dean's recording of the song and decided to cut his own version. The resulting recording, utilizing studio musicians for the instrumental tracks was released in May of 1967 on the Canterbury label and was a moderately successful hit, peaking at #25 (Jan and Dean's version stalled out at #111).
Once again we take a romp through the years, this one stretching from 1966 to 1970.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Let Me In
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Release Year: 1966
Marty Balin deserves recognition for his outstanding abilities as a leader. Most people don't even realize he was the founder of the Airplane, yet it was Balin who brought together the diverse talents of what would become San Francisco's most successful band of the 60s and managed to keep the band together through more than its share of controversies. One indication of his leadership abilities is that he encouraged Paul Kantner to sing lead on this track, despite the fact that Balin himself had no other onstage role than to sing lead vocals.
Artist: Who
Song Title: Rael 2
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Release Year: 1967
This odd little piece was apparently intended as a coda to the final track of The Who Sell Out, but was not included on the album (although the label itself reads "Rael 1&2"). It is among the many bonus tracks on both the 90s and 2000s CD versions of the album.
Artist: Traffic
Song Title: (Roamin' Through the Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Release Year: 1968
In its original run, Traffic only released two full albums (and a third that consisted of non-LP singles, studio outtakes and live tracks). The second of these, simply titled Traffic, featured several memorable tunes, including this Steve Winwood/Jim Capaldi collaboration.
Artist: Fairport Convention
Song Title: Tam Lin
Source: LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Leige and Leaf)
Release Year: 1969
Fairport Convention was hailed as England's answer to Jefferson Airplane when they first appeared. As this track from 1969 shows, they soon established a sound all their own. Sandy Denny, heard here on lead vocals, is best known to US audiences for her backup vocals on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore.
Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Song Title: 4+20
Source: CD: déjà vu
Release Year: 1970
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were always more a collection of individuals than a true group. This tune from the second album is actually a Stephen Stills solo track, illustrating the point.
The second segment of tonight's show is another progression through the years, albeit somewhat shorter than the first one, covering the years 1966-1968.
Artist: Byrds
Song Title: Eight Miles High
Source: CD: 5D
Release Year: 1966
After two albums dominated by cover tunes such as Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Byrds surprised everyone with an album consisting of almost all original material. Eight Miles High, co-written by Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark, was to be the first hit single composed by group members, but got derailed when Top 40 radio czar Bill Drake branded it a drug song. Despite the song being banned on several key radio stations, it still managed to crack the top 20.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Song Title: May This Be Love
Source: CD: Are You Experienced?
Release Year: 1967
The original UK version of Are You Experienced? featured this song as the opening track of side two of the album. In the US, the UK single The Wind Cries Mary was substituted for it, with May This Be Love buried deep on side one.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Song Title: Gilded Lamp of the Cosmos
Source: LP: Behold and See (mono promo pressing)
Release Year: 1968
By 1968, even the cheap $10 record players used diamond needles and were able to play stereo albums without damaging the grooves (older sapphire needles were another story). Accordingly, most albums were only released in stereo, often with the notation "also playable mono" somewhere on the cover. A significant number of radio stations, however, were still using equipment that was several years old, and the major record labels often made special mono pressings that were only available to broadcasters. This version of the opening track from Behold and See is from one of those pressings, found among the vinyl archives of WEOS-FM. Interestingly enough, WEOS-FM was not actually on the air in 1968, so who this copy was originally distributed to is anyone's guess. My own best guess is that it was originally sent to the campus carrier current station (received by plugging an AM radio into a wall socket) at Hobart and William Smith Colleges that eventually became WEOS.
The great argument among school-aged Americans in the mid-sixties was "Beatles or Stones. Who's better?" Sometimes this argument actually ended in fisticuffs. Ultimately it decided that the Beatles were for the girls while the Stones were more of a guys' band. Obviously whoever decided that never caught the Stones backstage.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Song Title: Not Fade Away
Source: LP: More Hot Rocks (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1964
Like most British Invasion bands, the Rolling Stones were inspired by the early US rock and roll and rhythm and blues artists of the 1950s and often started their recording careers covering songs from that period. Not Fade Away was one of Buddy Holly's best-known tunes, and the Stones recording of it became their first US hit and the first of their UK singles to hit the top 10 in that country.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: Nowhere Man
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Release Year: 1965
The original UK version of Rubber Soul, released in December 1965, had several songs that were left off the shorter US version. In the case of Nowhere Man, it was because Capitol Records decided to hold back the song for release as a single in early 1966.
By 1968, album rock stations were starting to have an impact on the recording industry, resulting in a much more eclectic mix of material being released, as is evidenced by the following set.
Artist: Pentangle
Song Title: Way Behind the Sun
Source: LP: The Pentangle
Release Year: 1968
Every member of the Pentangle was an established member of the British folk music community, making Pentangle a folk supergroup by definition. Using elements of jazz and rock mixed with traditional folk music, they had a successful run up through the mid 1970s. This track from the first album is an adaptation of Rollin' and Tumblin' with new lyrics and a more sophisticated arrangement than better known versions by Cream and Johnny Winter.
Artist: First Edition
Song Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
The First Edition was led by former New Christy Minstrels members Mickey Newbury (who wrote this tune), and lead vocalist Kenny Rogers. As is usual in the US, the singer went on to become a superstar while the songwriter faded off into obscurity.
Artist: Blue Cheer
Song Title: Summertime Blues
Source: LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Release Year: 1968
European electronics giant Philips had its own record label in the 1960s. In the US, the label was distributed by Mercury Records, and was known primarily for a long string of hits by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1968 the label surprised everyone by signing the loudest band in San Francisco, Blue Cheer. Their cover of the 50s Eddie Cochrane hit Summertime Blues was all over both the AM and FM airwaves that summer.
And now for something completely different:
Artist: Freddie and the Dreamers
Song Title: Money (That's What I Want)
Source: LP: Freddie and the Dreamers
Release Year: 1965
With hits like I'm Telling You Now and Do The Freddie, Freddie and the Dreamers established themselves as the clown princes of the British Invasion. Their 1965 album for Mercury is mostly covers, including this reworking of the Barrett Strong classic.
Our second 1967 set of the night focuses on album tracks.
Artist: Moby Grape
Song Title: Mr. Blues
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Release Year: 1967
Moby Grape got their name from the punchline of a joke that was circulating around the high schools of the time: What is purple and swims in the ocean? Regardless of that, the band's debut album was one of the strongest ever, but was marred by Columbia Records decision to release 10 of the albums 13 tracks simultaneously as singles, which was perceived as over-the-top hyperbole. Mr. Blues was one of those chosen to be a B side.
Artist: Music Machine
Song Title: Discrepancy
Source: CD: Beyond the Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Release Year: 1967
Sean Bonniwell was a former folk singer who emerged as one of the most talented songwriters on the L.A. club scene. A champion of bands performing their own material, he made sure the Music Machine's onstage sets moved quickly from song to song, in order to keep unwanted requests for cover tunes to a minimum. After a series of clashes with the band's first label, Original Sound Records, Bonniwell moved over to Warner Brothers, recruiting a new Music Machine in the process. Discrepancy is one of the finest album tracks of 1967, but received very little airplay at the time. Getting songs like this one heard is one of the main reasons I do this show.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Song Title: Pow R. Toc H.
Source: CD: Piper At the Gates of Dawn
Release Year: 1967
British psychedelic music was always more avant-garde than its US counterpart, and Pink Floyd was probably the most avant-garde of the British psychedelic bands. This track, written by the entire group, was a hint of things to come.
Here we have another short yearly progression from 1964-1966.
Artist: Beau Brummels
Song Title: Laugh Laugh
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s
Release Year: 1964
It was difficult for an American band to get a hit record in 1964. Some, such as San Francisco's Beau Brummels, decided the best way was to beat the Brits at their own game. Laugh Laugh, their debut single, was released in December of that year. Ultimately, the decision to emulate British rock worked against the Brummels, as they were never considered part of the blossoming San Francisco music scene.
Artist: Barry McGuire
Song Title: Eve of Destruction
Source: 45 RPM vinyl (reissue)
Release Year: 1965
One of the top folk-rock hits of 1965, Eve of Destruction was actually written by professional songwriter P.F. Sloane, who also wrote tunes for the Turtles, among others.
Artist: Donovan
Song Title: Mellow Yellow
Source: LP: Mellow Yellow
Release Year: 1966
Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to a contract dispute with Pye Records.
Artist: Them
Song Title: Black Widow Spider
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Release Year: 1968
Usually when a band used outside songwriters it's because their producer forced them into it, and almost always was a sore point with the band members. The liner notes for Them's second album for Tower (and the second without founder Van Morrison) included a thank you note from the band to Tom Lane and Sharon Pulley, who wrote nearly every song on Time Out! Time In! For Them.
This week's final segment begins with a set from 1969.
Artist: Country Weather
Song Title: Fly To New York
Source: CD: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released to radio stations as a single-sided promo album).
Release Year: 1969
Country Weather was a band from Walnut Creek, California that for two years regularly played all the hot spots in San Francisco but never seemed to be able to land a recording contract. Finally in 1969 they decided to take matters into their own hands, self-producing this six-plus minute track and distributing it to local radio stations.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Song Title: Green River
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
For some reason, nobody seems to remember that Creedence played Woodstock. I'm not sure why.
Artist: Zephyr
Song Title: Cross the River
Source: Zephyr
Release Year: 1969
I've been playing a bit of Denver's Sugarloaf lately, so I thought I'd switch over to a band from nearby Boulder that actually predated their neighbors by a few months. Zephyr featured the vocal talents of Candy Givens, who had an octave range that would not be equalled until Mariah Carey hit the scene years later. Also in the band was lead guitarist Tommy Bolin, who would go on to take over lead guitar duties with first the James Gang and then Deep Purple before embarking on a solo career. Unfortunately that career (and Bolin's life) was permanently derailed by a heroin overdose at age 28.
Artist: Tim Hardin
Song Title: A Tribute To Hank Williams
Source: LP: Tim Hardin 2
Release Year: 1967
Tim Hardin was one of the first singer-songwriters to hit the scene. He is best known for his song If I Were a Carpenter, recorded first by Bobby Darin and later by Johnny Cash and June Carter.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Song Title: Suppose They Give a War and No One Comes
Source: LP: Volume 2
Release Year: 1967
This song is either really cool or really pretentious. I've had a copy of it for over 30 years and still haven't figured out which.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Playlist 10/15-17/10
This week we pay tribute to the golden age of album rock, with only a handful of tunes that were released as singles. And what better place to start than the year 1970?
Artist: Sugarloaf
Song Title: I Don't Need You Baby
Source: LP: Spaceship Earth
Release Year: 1970
The trend in recent years is for one member of a band to become the front man. Usually this is the lead singer, and for the most part this person is unencumbered by a musical instrument and able to strut around the stage throughout the performance. In the sixties such as setup was far less common. Often bands even had more than one member capable of providing lead vocals. Such was the case with Sugarloaf from Denver, Colorado. Guitarist Robert Yeazel and keyboardist Jerry Corbetta trade off lead vocals on I Don't Need You Baby, with Yeazel starting off each verse and Corbetta finishing.
Artist: Three Dog Night
Song Title: Rock and Roll Widow
Source: 45 RPM vinyl
Release Year: 1970
Three Dog Night are generally not remembered for their songwriting abilities. Almost all of their hits were covers of songs that had been previously recorded by the songwriters themselves, such as Randy Newman's Mama Told Me (Not To Come). This song, appearing on the B side of that record, is a rare exception, credited to all seven band members.
Artist: Mountain
Song Title: For Yasgur's Farm
Source: LP: Climbing
Release Year: 1970
Leslie West's first solo album was titled Mountain, and featured several prominent studio musicians, including Felix Pappalardi, who had played keyboards on Cream's Wheels of Fire, among other things. After the album was released, West, Pappaliardi and drummer Corky Laing decided to start a band. Naturally, they decided to call the band Mountain, and after a successful appearance at the Woodstock festival, a second album was released. All three band members share writing credit on this song about the Woodstock experience.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Song Title: Your Saving Grace
Source: LP: Anthology
Release Year: 1969
One of the most highly regarded of the Steve Miller Band's early albums was 1969's Your Saving Grace. A listen to the title track of the album shows why.
Artist: Traffic
Song Title: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Release Year: 1967
Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's this one from the Mr. Fantasy album.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Song Title: I'm Gonna Make You Mine
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
After scoring a huge national hit with their version of Van Morrison's Gloria, the Shadows of Knight were unable to come up with a successful follow-up. I'm Gonna Make You Mine, in retrospect, was probably just a bit too loud and brash for its time. Only in recent years has it gotten recognition as a forerunner to the harder rock that would dominate the early 70s.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Song Title: That's All Folks
Source: LP: Electric Comic Book
Release Year: 1967
The Blues Magoos showed their sense of humor by including this nine seconds worth of looniness as the final track on Electric Comic Book, their follow-up to the successful Psychedelic Lollipop album.
Following up on the album rock we have a set of tunes from artists with a more acoustic orientation.
Artist: McKendree Spring
Song Title: What Will We Do With the Child
Source: LP: McKendree Spring
Release Year: 1969
From Glens Falls, NY, McKendree Spring was one of the last folk-rock groups to begin their recording career, and (to my knowledge) the only one to use synthesizers. The band kept recording steadily through 1976, and reunited for an album of new material in 2007. This track is from their somewhat rare first album.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Triad
Source: LP: Crown of Creation
Release Year: 1968
After David Crosby got fired from the Byrds in mid-1967, he took this tune, which the Byrds had recorded but not released, to his friends in the Jefferson Airplane. The song ended up being one of the most played tracks on the Crown of Creation album.
Artist: Joan Baez
Song Title: Joe Hill
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
This song, written as a poem in the early part of the 20th century and set to music a few years later, was a highlight of Joan Baez's Woodstock performance.
Hour #1 ends with a progression through the years 1965-68.
Artist: Kinks
Song Title: Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy
Source: LP: Kinda Kinks
Release Year: 1965
This song is perhaps recognizable from a relatively recent TV commercial. It was originally the opening track from the 1965 album Kinda Kinks, which, like most British albums of the time, had a different song lineup on its US release than the original UK version. In this case, it also had an entirely different cover, for reasons that are not clear.
Artist: Charlatans
Song Title: Codine
Source: CD: The Amazing Charlatans
Release Year: 1966
The Charlatans did not have much luck in the studio. Getting signed by Kama Sutra Records seemed like a good idea at the time (as the Lovin' Spoonful was the label's only nationally-known act). When it came time to actually release the recordings they had made for the label, however, the problems began. The band wanted to release Buffy Saint-Marie's anti-drug song Codine as their first single, but Kama Sutra refused to issue it, instead choosing the Charlatan's cover of an obscure Coaster tune, The Shadow Knows. The single tanked, and the rest of the recordings remained unissued until Sundazed put them on a CD in the 1990s (erroneously listing this song as being Codine Blues in the process).
Artist: Love
Song Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: CD: De Capo
Release Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of an enigma. His band, Love, was generally accepted as the top band on the Strip in L.A., yet Lee himself was a bit of a recluse living up on the hill overlooking the scene. With one notable exception, his songs were not hits, yet he was critically acknowledged as a musical genius on a par with his friend Jimi Hendrix. Stylistically, his songs varied from intensely hard rock (Stephanie Knows Who, 7&7 Is), to softer, almost jazzy tunes such as this one from the same album.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Song Title: Mind Flowers
Source: LP: Behold and See
Release Year: 1968
Along with Orpheus and the Beacon Street Union, Ultimate Spinach was part of what M-G-M Records promoted as the "boss-town sound". Unlike Orpheus and the Beacon Street Union, whose music was more of a group effort, Ultimate Spinach was very much the artistic vision of one man: Ian Bruce-Douglas. Mind Flowers, from the second album, certainly qualifies as one of the most psychedelic compositions ever recorded.
Artist: Supremes
Song Title: Reflections
Source: 45 RPM vinyl (Motown Yesteryear re-issue)
Release Year: 1967
The Supremes weren't exactly known as a psychedelic group, nor were their primary songwriters, the Holland/
Dozier/Holland team. Nonetheless, together they produced one of the most psychedelic tunes ever to come out of Motown. Well, it was 1967, after all.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Song Title: Sky Pilot
Source: CD: Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals
Release Year: 1968
After the original Animals lineup disbanded in late 1966, lead vocalist Eric Burdon quickly set out to form a "New Animals" group that would come to be called Eric Burdon and the Animals. Thier biggest hit was 1968's Sky Pilot, that was so long it had to be split across two sides of a 45 RPM record. The full-length version of the song was included on the group's second album, The Twain Shall Meet.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Song Title: Winds of Change
Source: CD: Winds of Change
Release Year: 1967
The new Animals first album was Winds of Change, an ambitious album that gave writing credit to all five band members for all the tracks on the album (with the exception of a cover of Paint It Black). The opening track is basically Eric Burdon paying tribute to all his musical heroes, and it's quite an impressive list, including jazz and blues greats as well as some of the most important names in the annals of rock and roll.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Song Title: Monterey
Source: CD: Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals
Release Year: 1967
The new Animals made their live debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. By the end of the year they had issued this single celebrating the festival itself.
Artist: Them
Song Title: Truth Machine
Source: LP: Now and Them
Release Year: 1968
A track from the second post-Van Morrison Them album featuring Kenny McDowell on lead vocals.
Artist: Flock
Song Title: Crabfoot
Source: CD: Dinosaur Swamps
Release Year: 1970
Chicago is a town known for its horn players, and the Flock had one of the best horn sections ever to come out of the windy city. On top of that they had Jerry Goodman playing a mean electric violin. Nonetheless, they never seemed to be able to connect up with a large audience, and after a couple critically well-received but poor selling albums, the members moved on, with Goodman in particular gaining fame as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Artist: Great Society
Song Title: Where
Source: CD: Born To Be Burned
Release Year: 1965
Our second and longest progression through the years starts with one of the unreleased tracks recorded in late 1965 by the Great Society, led by the Slick brothers and featuring Darby Slick's wife Grace on vocals.
Artist: Standells
Song Title: Dirty Water
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Release Year: 1966
The Standells' biggest hit.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: The Fool On the Hill
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Release Year: 1967
1967 was a schizophrenic year for the fab four, starting off the with immensly successful double A sided single Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, continuing with the landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and finishing with their first major flop, the Magical Mystery Tour telefilm. The soundtrack album from that film came out in very different forms in the UK and the US. The British version was a double EP set featuring the six songs from the film, while the US version was a full-length LP that added the band's five singles from 1967 as the second side of the album. The songs themselves were far better received than the telefilm.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Song Title: Gypsy Eyes
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Release Year: 1968
The last album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was a double LP mixture of studio recordings and live jams in the studio with an array of guest musicians. Gypsy Eyes is a good example of Hendrix's prowess at the mixing board as well as on guitar.
Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Song Title: Sea of Madness
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
Neil Young joined Crosby, Stills and Nash for this performance at Woodstock, and would be a full member of the group when their next album, Deja Vu, came out.
Artist: Turtles
Song Title: You Know What I Mean
Source: CD: Happy Together
Release Year: 1967
This 1967 single is included on the French import version of the Happy Together CD. To my knowledge, this is the only copy of the album currently in print.
Artist: Turtles
Song Title: She's My Girl
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Release Year: 1967
Another 1967 single from the future Flo and Eddie, this tune is also included on the above-mentioned French import (in fact there are as many bonus tracks as original album cuts on said CD).
Artist: Sugarloaf
Song Title: I Don't Need You Baby
Source: LP: Spaceship Earth
Release Year: 1970
The trend in recent years is for one member of a band to become the front man. Usually this is the lead singer, and for the most part this person is unencumbered by a musical instrument and able to strut around the stage throughout the performance. In the sixties such as setup was far less common. Often bands even had more than one member capable of providing lead vocals. Such was the case with Sugarloaf from Denver, Colorado. Guitarist Robert Yeazel and keyboardist Jerry Corbetta trade off lead vocals on I Don't Need You Baby, with Yeazel starting off each verse and Corbetta finishing.
Artist: Three Dog Night
Song Title: Rock and Roll Widow
Source: 45 RPM vinyl
Release Year: 1970
Three Dog Night are generally not remembered for their songwriting abilities. Almost all of their hits were covers of songs that had been previously recorded by the songwriters themselves, such as Randy Newman's Mama Told Me (Not To Come). This song, appearing on the B side of that record, is a rare exception, credited to all seven band members.
Artist: Mountain
Song Title: For Yasgur's Farm
Source: LP: Climbing
Release Year: 1970
Leslie West's first solo album was titled Mountain, and featured several prominent studio musicians, including Felix Pappalardi, who had played keyboards on Cream's Wheels of Fire, among other things. After the album was released, West, Pappaliardi and drummer Corky Laing decided to start a band. Naturally, they decided to call the band Mountain, and after a successful appearance at the Woodstock festival, a second album was released. All three band members share writing credit on this song about the Woodstock experience.
Artist: Steve Miller Band
Song Title: Your Saving Grace
Source: LP: Anthology
Release Year: 1969
One of the most highly regarded of the Steve Miller Band's early albums was 1969's Your Saving Grace. A listen to the title track of the album shows why.
Artist: Traffic
Song Title: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies
Release Year: 1967
Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's this one from the Mr. Fantasy album.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Song Title: I'm Gonna Make You Mine
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era
Release Year: 1966
After scoring a huge national hit with their version of Van Morrison's Gloria, the Shadows of Knight were unable to come up with a successful follow-up. I'm Gonna Make You Mine, in retrospect, was probably just a bit too loud and brash for its time. Only in recent years has it gotten recognition as a forerunner to the harder rock that would dominate the early 70s.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Song Title: That's All Folks
Source: LP: Electric Comic Book
Release Year: 1967
The Blues Magoos showed their sense of humor by including this nine seconds worth of looniness as the final track on Electric Comic Book, their follow-up to the successful Psychedelic Lollipop album.
Following up on the album rock we have a set of tunes from artists with a more acoustic orientation.
Artist: McKendree Spring
Song Title: What Will We Do With the Child
Source: LP: McKendree Spring
Release Year: 1969
From Glens Falls, NY, McKendree Spring was one of the last folk-rock groups to begin their recording career, and (to my knowledge) the only one to use synthesizers. The band kept recording steadily through 1976, and reunited for an album of new material in 2007. This track is from their somewhat rare first album.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Song Title: Triad
Source: LP: Crown of Creation
Release Year: 1968
After David Crosby got fired from the Byrds in mid-1967, he took this tune, which the Byrds had recorded but not released, to his friends in the Jefferson Airplane. The song ended up being one of the most played tracks on the Crown of Creation album.
Artist: Joan Baez
Song Title: Joe Hill
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
This song, written as a poem in the early part of the 20th century and set to music a few years later, was a highlight of Joan Baez's Woodstock performance.
Hour #1 ends with a progression through the years 1965-68.
Artist: Kinks
Song Title: Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy
Source: LP: Kinda Kinks
Release Year: 1965
This song is perhaps recognizable from a relatively recent TV commercial. It was originally the opening track from the 1965 album Kinda Kinks, which, like most British albums of the time, had a different song lineup on its US release than the original UK version. In this case, it also had an entirely different cover, for reasons that are not clear.
Artist: Charlatans
Song Title: Codine
Source: CD: The Amazing Charlatans
Release Year: 1966
The Charlatans did not have much luck in the studio. Getting signed by Kama Sutra Records seemed like a good idea at the time (as the Lovin' Spoonful was the label's only nationally-known act). When it came time to actually release the recordings they had made for the label, however, the problems began. The band wanted to release Buffy Saint-Marie's anti-drug song Codine as their first single, but Kama Sutra refused to issue it, instead choosing the Charlatan's cover of an obscure Coaster tune, The Shadow Knows. The single tanked, and the rest of the recordings remained unissued until Sundazed put them on a CD in the 1990s (erroneously listing this song as being Codine Blues in the process).
Artist: Love
Song Title: She Comes In Colors
Source: CD: De Capo
Release Year: 1967
Arthur Lee was a bit of an enigma. His band, Love, was generally accepted as the top band on the Strip in L.A., yet Lee himself was a bit of a recluse living up on the hill overlooking the scene. With one notable exception, his songs were not hits, yet he was critically acknowledged as a musical genius on a par with his friend Jimi Hendrix. Stylistically, his songs varied from intensely hard rock (Stephanie Knows Who, 7&7 Is), to softer, almost jazzy tunes such as this one from the same album.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Song Title: Mind Flowers
Source: LP: Behold and See
Release Year: 1968
Along with Orpheus and the Beacon Street Union, Ultimate Spinach was part of what M-G-M Records promoted as the "boss-town sound". Unlike Orpheus and the Beacon Street Union, whose music was more of a group effort, Ultimate Spinach was very much the artistic vision of one man: Ian Bruce-Douglas. Mind Flowers, from the second album, certainly qualifies as one of the most psychedelic compositions ever recorded.
Artist: Supremes
Song Title: Reflections
Source: 45 RPM vinyl (Motown Yesteryear re-issue)
Release Year: 1967
The Supremes weren't exactly known as a psychedelic group, nor were their primary songwriters, the Holland/
Dozier/Holland team. Nonetheless, together they produced one of the most psychedelic tunes ever to come out of Motown. Well, it was 1967, after all.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Song Title: Sky Pilot
Source: CD: Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals
Release Year: 1968
After the original Animals lineup disbanded in late 1966, lead vocalist Eric Burdon quickly set out to form a "New Animals" group that would come to be called Eric Burdon and the Animals. Thier biggest hit was 1968's Sky Pilot, that was so long it had to be split across two sides of a 45 RPM record. The full-length version of the song was included on the group's second album, The Twain Shall Meet.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Song Title: Winds of Change
Source: CD: Winds of Change
Release Year: 1967
The new Animals first album was Winds of Change, an ambitious album that gave writing credit to all five band members for all the tracks on the album (with the exception of a cover of Paint It Black). The opening track is basically Eric Burdon paying tribute to all his musical heroes, and it's quite an impressive list, including jazz and blues greats as well as some of the most important names in the annals of rock and roll.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Song Title: Monterey
Source: CD: Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals
Release Year: 1967
The new Animals made their live debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. By the end of the year they had issued this single celebrating the festival itself.
Artist: Them
Song Title: Truth Machine
Source: LP: Now and Them
Release Year: 1968
A track from the second post-Van Morrison Them album featuring Kenny McDowell on lead vocals.
Artist: Flock
Song Title: Crabfoot
Source: CD: Dinosaur Swamps
Release Year: 1970
Chicago is a town known for its horn players, and the Flock had one of the best horn sections ever to come out of the windy city. On top of that they had Jerry Goodman playing a mean electric violin. Nonetheless, they never seemed to be able to connect up with a large audience, and after a couple critically well-received but poor selling albums, the members moved on, with Goodman in particular gaining fame as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Artist: Great Society
Song Title: Where
Source: CD: Born To Be Burned
Release Year: 1965
Our second and longest progression through the years starts with one of the unreleased tracks recorded in late 1965 by the Great Society, led by the Slick brothers and featuring Darby Slick's wife Grace on vocals.
Artist: Standells
Song Title: Dirty Water
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits
Release Year: 1966
The Standells' biggest hit.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: The Fool On the Hill
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Release Year: 1967
1967 was a schizophrenic year for the fab four, starting off the with immensly successful double A sided single Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, continuing with the landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and finishing with their first major flop, the Magical Mystery Tour telefilm. The soundtrack album from that film came out in very different forms in the UK and the US. The British version was a double EP set featuring the six songs from the film, while the US version was a full-length LP that added the band's five singles from 1967 as the second side of the album. The songs themselves were far better received than the telefilm.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Song Title: Gypsy Eyes
Source: LP: Electric Ladyland
Release Year: 1968
The last album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was a double LP mixture of studio recordings and live jams in the studio with an array of guest musicians. Gypsy Eyes is a good example of Hendrix's prowess at the mixing board as well as on guitar.
Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Song Title: Sea of Madness
Source: CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Release Year: 1969
Neil Young joined Crosby, Stills and Nash for this performance at Woodstock, and would be a full member of the group when their next album, Deja Vu, came out.
Artist: Turtles
Song Title: You Know What I Mean
Source: CD: Happy Together
Release Year: 1967
This 1967 single is included on the French import version of the Happy Together CD. To my knowledge, this is the only copy of the album currently in print.
Artist: Turtles
Song Title: She's My Girl
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock
Release Year: 1967
Another 1967 single from the future Flo and Eddie, this tune is also included on the above-mentioned French import (in fact there are as many bonus tracks as original album cuts on said CD).
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