Artist: Beatles
Title: Magical Mystery Tour
Source: Stereo British import 45 RPM EP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1967
1967 had been a great year for the Beatles, starting with their double-sided hit single Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, followed by the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album and their late summer hit All You Need Is Love, with its worldwide TV debut (one of the few events of the time to utilize satellite technology). The next project, however, did not go over quite so well. It had been over two years since the group's last major movie (HELP!), and the band decided that their next film would be an exclusive for broadcast on BBC-TV. Unlike the previous two films, this new project would not follow traditional filmmaking procedures. Instead it would be a more experimental piece; a series of loosely related songs and comedy vignettes connected by a loose plot about a bus trip to the countryside. Magical Mystery Tour made its debut in early December of 1967 to overwhelmingly negative reaction by viewers and critics alike (partially because the film was shown in black and white on the tradition minded BBC-1 network; a later rebroadcast in color on BBC-2 went over much better). The songs used in the film, however, were quite popular. Since there were only six of them, far too few for a regular LP, it was decided to issue the album as a pair of 45 RPM EPs, complete with lyric sheets and booklet recounting the story from the film. The original EPs were available in both stereo and mono versions in Europe and the UK. In the US, where the six tunes were supplemented by the band's five remaining single sides from 1967 to create an LP, Magical Mystery Tour was only available in stereo. Although both the EP and LP versions have different song orders than the telefilm, all three open the same way, with the film's title song. As it turns out, it's a particularly good way to start off this week's show as well.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: 2000 Man
Source: CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
Setting any work of art in the relatively near future is always risky business (remember 1984?), but then again 33 years seems like forever when you yourself are still in your twenties. I mean who, including the Rolling Stones themselves, could have imagined that Mick, Keith, Charlie and company would still be performing well into the 21st century when they recorded 2000 Man for their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request? It's actually kind of interesting to listen to the lyrics now and see just how much of the song turned out to be an accurate prediction of what was to come.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Suppose They Give A War And No One Comes
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer(s): Markley/Bryant
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the more popular posters of the pyschedelic era took the phrase Suppose They Give A War And No One Comes and highlighted the letters P,E,A,C and E with colors that, when viewed under a black light, stood out from the rest of the text. At around the same time a movie came out with a similar title. Quite possibly both were inspired by a track from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's late 1967 LP Volume II. The song itself 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: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Two Heads
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
The third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, saw the group moving in increasingly experimental directions, as Grace Slick's two contributions to the LP attest. The more accessible of the two was Two Heads, which was the first part of the fifth and final "suite" on the album.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Only a handful of tunes make virtually everyone's list of "psychedelic" songs. The Electric Prunes' I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) so well defines the genre that Lenny Kaye himself chose it to be the opening track on the original Nuggets album.
Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: Simon The Bullet Freak
Source: LP: Salisbury
Writer(s): Ken Hensley
Label: Mercury
Year: 1971
Uriah Heep combined elements of progressive rock and heavy metal to create a sound that was uniquely their own. The band had two main songwriting sources: the team of vocalist David Byron and guitarist Mick Box, who wrote most of the band's early material, and keyboardist Ken Hensley, whose writing dominated the band's most popular period. The group' second LP, Salisbury, was in many senses a transition album, with the songwriting split about evenly between the two. One notable Hensley song from Salisbury is Simon The Bullet Freak, which opens side two of the original LP.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Truckin'
Source: CD: Skeletons From the Closet (originally released on LP: American Beauty)
Writer: Garcia/Weir/Hunter/Lesh
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
After two performance-oriented albums that mixed live and studio material and one double live LP, the Grateful Dead decided to shift their focus in the studio to their songwriting skills. The result was Workingman's Dead, the band's most commercially successful album up to that point. Five months later the followup album, American Beauty defined the Grateful Dead's sound for all but the most dedicated of concertgoers (the legendary Deadheads), thanks to songs like Truckin', which would be the band's most popular single until the mid-1980s.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Bluebird
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
When it comes right down to it Buffalo Springfield has one of the highest ratios of songs recorded to songs played on the radio of any band in history, especially if you only count the two albums worth of material that was released while the band was still active. This is probably because Buffalo Springfield had more raw songwriting talent than just about any two other bands. Although Neil Young was just starting to hit his stride as a songwriter, bandmate Stephen Stills was already at an early peak, as songs like Bluebird clearly demonstrate.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: For What It's Worth
Source: Carry On sampler (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atlantic/Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth. And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in January of 1967. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was becoming a breakout hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth, making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Rock And Roll Woman
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth). Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Neil Young, Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Stephen Stills. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock and Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 40 years after it was recorded.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Help Me Girl
Source: CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Eric Is Here)
Writer(s): English/Weiss
Label: Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1966
Consider the following paradox: Animals vocalist Eric Burdon made no secret of his disdain for the songs provided to the Animals by producer Mickey Most, which by and large came from professional songwriters based in New York's Brill Building. Nonetheless, when the original Animals split up, the first new song to come from Eric Burdon was not only a product of professional songwriters, it was even lighter in tone than the songs that he had complained about. Even stranger, Help Me Girl was fully orchestrated and, with the exception of drummer Barry Jenkins, was performed entirely by studio musicians.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Priority (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1966
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released in spring of 1966 as the closing track on side one of the first Seeds album. After being released to the L.A. market as a single the song did well enough to go national in early 1967, hitting its peak in February of that year.
Artist: Leaves
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.
Artist: Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come
Title: Gypsy Escape
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Galactic Zoo Dossier)
Writer(s): Denis Taylor
Label: Polydor
Year: 1971
Arthur Brown became a household name in 1968 with the release of one of the great albums of British psychedelic music, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and it's #1 hit single, Fire. To help promote the album the band set out on a US tour; by the time the tour was over the band had decided to break up. After a series of unsuccessful projects, Brown re-emerged in 1970 with a new band, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come. Unlike the Crazy World, which was one of the most purely psychedelic bands in British rock history, Kingdom Come was a pioneer of the new progressive rock movement and was one of the first bands to use synthesizers extensively. In fact, about the only thing the two bands had in common was Brown's distinctive vocals. Gypsy Escape, from the album Galactic Zoo Dossier, couldn't even make that claim, being an instrumental written by the band's light show guy, Denis Taylor (who was the only non-performing member of the band pictured on the album cover).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Spanish Castle Magic
Source: LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
When the second Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Axis: Bold As Love, came out it was hailed as a masterpiece of four-track engineering. Working closely with producer Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer, Hendrix used the recording studio itself as an instrument, making an art form out of the stereo mixing process. The unfortunate by-product of this is that most of the songs on the album could not be played live and still sound anything like the studio version. One notable exception is Spanish Castle Magic, which became a more or less permanent part of the band's performing repertoire.
Artist: Cream
Title: Deserted Cities Of The Heart
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer: Bruce/Brown
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
The most psychedelic of Cream's songs were penned by Jack Bruce and his songwriting partner Pete Brown. One of the best of these was chosen to close out the last studio side of the last Cream album released while the band was still in existence. Deserted Cities Of The Heart is a fitting epitaph to an unforgettable band.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.
Artist: Cream
Title: Sitting On Top Of The World
Source: LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): Chester Burnett
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
Throughout their existence British blues supergroup Cream recorded covers of blues classics. One of the best of these is Sitting On Top Of The World from the album Wheels Of Fire, which in its earliest form was written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon and recorded by the Mississippi Shieks in 1930. Cream's version uses the lyrics from the 1957 rewrite of the song by Chester Burnett, better know as Howlin' Wolf.
Artist: Mother Earth
Title: My Love Will Never Die
Source: LP: Living With The Animals
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: Mercury
Year: 1968
The first Mother Earth album, Living With The Animals, was more of a group effort than later albums by the band. There were several blues covers on the LP, including a solid rendition of Willie Dixon's My Love Will Never Die.
Artist: Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title: Yellow Brick Road
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Van Vliet/Bermann
Label: Buddah/Sundazed
Year: 1967
Following a pair of singles for Herb Alpert's A&M that garnered modest airplay on a handful of Los Angeles area radio stations, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band set out to record a set of heavily R&B flavored demos. The label, however, didn't like what they heard and soon dropped the band from their lineup. Undeterred, the group soon signed with Kama Sutra's brand new subsidiary label, Buddah. The resulting album, Safe As Milk, was the first LP to be released on the new label. Among the more experimental tracks on the album was Yellow Brick Road, a mono mix of which has recently been reissued as the B side of a single. Also of note is the presence of 20-year-old Ry Cooder on slide guitar.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: Lucifer Sam
Source: Mono CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s): Syd Barrett
Label: Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
Beyond a shadow of a doubt the original driving force behind Pink Floyd was the legendary Syd Barrett. Not only did he front the band during their rise to fame, he also wrote their first two singles, Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, as well as most of their first LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. In fact it could be argued that one of the songs on that album, Lucifer Sam, could have just as easily been issued as a single, as it is stylistically similar to the first two songs. Sadly, Barrett's mental health deteriorated quickly over the next year and his participation in the making of the band's next LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets, was minimal. He soon left the group altogether, never to return (although several of his former bandmates did participate in the making of his 1970 solo album, The Madcap Laughs).
Artist: Everpresent Fullness
Title: Darlin' You Can Count On Me
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Johnson/Hand
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1967
The Everpresent Fullness was a band that appeared alongside such notables as Buffalo Springfield, Love and the Turtles at various Los Angeles venues. It was through their association with the latter that they landed a contract with White Whale Records. However, creative problems between the band and the label led to financial backing being pulled by White Whal midway through the album. A single, Darlin' You Can Count On Me, was released in 1967, but the rest of the tracks remained in the vaults until 1970, when, in a reverse of the usual situation, White Whale released the LP under contractual obligation to the band.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Pledging My Love
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The B side of the first single from Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album was Pledging My Love, a blues tune that features Robbie Robertson (who had been touring with Dylan) on guitar. The song was one of three tracks recorded in four takes in Nashville on March 8th of 1966. The single version of the song heard here fades after only two minutes (the album version being considerably longer).
Artist: Electric Flag
Title: Inner Pocket
Source: The Trip (movie soundtrack)
Writer(s): Michael Bloomfield
Label: Sidewalk
Year: 1967
The Trip was a movie about a commercial writer's (played by a pre-Easy Rider Peter Fonda) first LSD trip. The script for the Roger Corman film was written by Jack Nicholson and features Dennis Hopper in a small part as well. The film also features footage of Gram Parsons and the International Submarine Band, but the soundtrack album itself was entirely done by the Electric Flag, with all tracks written by Michael Bloomfield. One of the longer cuts on side one is Inner Pocket, which runs nearly four minutes.
Artist: Sonics
Title: Strychnine
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Here Are The Sonics)
Writer: Gerry Roslie
Label: Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year: 1965
From 1965 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered one of the foundation stones 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: Trade Winds
Title: Mind Excursion
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Excursions)
Writer(s): Anders/Poncia
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Kama Sutra)
Year: 1966
The Trade Winds were a semi-studio band from New York that first scored in 1965 with the song New York Is A Lonely Town (When You're the Only Surfer Boy Around). A year later, they had their second and last hit, Mind Excursion, which holds up as one of the best examples of "flower power" pop ever recorded.
Artist: Turtles
Title: She's My Girl
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1967
A favorite among the Turtles' members themselves, She's My Girl is full of hidden studio tricks that are barely (if at all) audible on the final recording. Written by the same team as Happy Together, the song is a worthy follow up to that monster hit.
Artist: Balloon Farm
Title: A Question Of Temperature
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1967
Few, if any, bands managed to successfully cross bubble gum and punk like the Balloon Farm with A Question Of Temperature, originally released on the Laurie label in 1967. Band member Mike Appel went on to have greater success as Bruce Springsteen's first manager.
Artist: E-Types
Title: Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
The E-Types were originally from Salinas, California, which at the time was known for it's sulfiric smell by travelers along US 101. As many people from Salinas apparently went to "nearby" San Jose (about 60 miles to the north) as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watch Band. The Bonner/Gordon songwriting team were just a couple months away from getting huge royalty checks from the Turtles' Happy Together when Put The Clock Back On The Wall was released in early 1967. The song takes its title from a popular phrase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space) it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer.
Artist: The Light
Title: Back Up
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Anglin/Samson
Label: Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year: 1967
The San Bernadino/Riverside area of southern California is probably better known to racing fans than to music afficionados, yet the area did have its share of local bands filling up various venues in the area in the late 60s. Among those bands was the Light, who released one single, Back Up, on the A&M label in 1967.
Artist: Nightcrawlers
Title: The Little Black Egg
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Charles Conlon
Label: Rhino (original label: Kapp)
Year: 1967
The Nightcrawlers, from Daytona Beach, Florida, had a series of regional hits in the mid-60s. The only one to hit the national charts was The Little Black Egg, after Kapp Records (a division of MCA) bought the rights to the song and gave it widespread distribution.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1329 (starts 7/18/13)
Artist: Doors
Title: Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)
Source: Mono LP: The Doors
Writer(s): Weill/Brecht
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The oldest song in the Doors' 1967 repertoire, Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) started off as a fictional song, originally published in Bertolt Brecht's Hauspostille in 1927. It was set to music by Kurt Weill for his 1927 Mahogonny Songspeil and then used in the Weill/Brecht opera Aufsteig und Fall der Stadt Mahoganny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny) in 1930. It was first recorded by Weill's wife Lotte Lenye in 1930 to publicize the opera, despite the fact that Lenye was not a cast member. Unlike the music in the rest of the Opera the lyrics to Alabama Song have always been in English, making it a natural choice for an American band like the Doors to record. The song was one of the most popular in the Doors' repertoire and was included on The Best of the Doors anthology.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The Last Wall Of The Castle
Source: CD: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: BMG Heritage/RCA
Year: 1967
Following the massive success of the Surrealistic Pillow album with its two top 10 singles (Somebody To Love and White Rabbit) the members of Jefferson Airplane made a conscious choice to put artistic goals above commercial ones for their next LP, After Bathing At Baxter's. The result was an album that defines the term "acid rock" in more ways than one. One of the few songs on the album that does not cross-fade into or out of another song is this tune from Jorma Kaukonen, his first non-acoustic song to be recorded by the band.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Wind
Source: LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Bob Bruno
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Circus Maximus was formed out of the chance meeting of multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in Greenwich Village in 1967. From the start the band was moving in different directions, with Bruno incorporating jazz elements into the band while Walker favored country-rock. Eventually the two would go their separate ways, but for the short time the band was together they made some of the best, if not best-known, psychedelic music on the East Coast. The band's most popular track was Wind, a Bruno tune from their debut album. The song got a considerable amount of airplay on the new "underground" radio stations that were popping up across the country at the time.
Artist: Litter
Title: Action Woman
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Distortions)
Writer(s): Warren Hendrick
Label: Rhino (original labels: Scotty and Warick)
Year: 1967
The Litter was one of many bands to come under the guidance of Warren Kendrick, owner of the Minneapolis-based Warick Records (later Warwick). Their first album, Distortions, was comprised mostly of cover songs of mainly British groups, but did include a pair of songs written by Hendrick himself, including Action Woman, which was also released as the band's first single in January of 1967. The group made two more albums, including one for ABC's Probe label in 1969, before disbanding, reuniting in the late 90s for a pair of CDs on the Arf! Arf! label.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Green Destroys The Gold
Source: LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Beacon Street Union found itself handicapped by being signed to M-G-M and being promoted as part of the "boss-town sound." The problem was that there was no "boss-town sound", any more than there was a San Francisco sound or an L.A sound (there is a Long Island Sound, but that has nothing to do with music). In fact, the only legitimate "sound" of the time was the "Motown Sound", and that was confined to a single record company that achieved a consistent sound through the use of the same studio musicians on virtually every recording. What made the situation even more ironic for the Union was that by the time their first LP came out they had relocated to New York City anyway. If there is a New York sound, it has more to do with traffic than music.
Artist: Who
Title: The Kids Are Alright
Source: Mono CD: Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy (originally released on LP: My Generation)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
When the Who Sings My Generation album came out in the US in 1966, it featured several songs that had originally been issued as singles in the UK, including a song that would later be used as a title for the band's first concert film. The Kids Are Alright, one of the group's first charted hits in 1965, is probably the most Beatle-sounding of all Who songs.
Artist: Troggs
Title: I Want You
Source: Mono British import CD: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Pagel/Fletcher
Label: Spectrum (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1966
The Troggs are best known in the US for their 1966 hit Wild Thing, a song that is still recognizable to most Americans today. In reality, though, the Troggs were one of England's most successful and long-lived bands, charting several hit records and remaining active until the death of lead vocalist Reg Presley in 2013. Among their most popular songs in the UK was I Want You, which was released as the B side of With A Girl Like You, the follow up to Wild Thing and the Troggs' only #1 record in the UK. (Wild Thing stalled out at #2 in the UK, although it did top the US charts).
Artist: Butterfield Blues Band
Title: East-West
Source: CD: East-West
Writer: Bloomfield/Gravenites
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
Along with the Blues Project, the Butterfield Blues Band (and guitarist Michael Bloomfield in particular) are credited with starting the movement toward improvisation in rock music. Both are cited as influences on the new bands that were cropping up in San Francisco in late 1966m including Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead. The first Butterfield album did not have much in the way of improvisation, however, as Butterfield himself was a Chicago blues traditionalist who, like many of his idols, held the reins of the band tightly and did not tolerate deviation. By the time of the band's second LP, however, the group was becoming more of a democracy, especially after their successful live shows brought rave reviews for the musicianship of the individual members, especially Bloomfield (who in some polls was rated the number one guitarist in the country). Bloomfield used this new clout to push for more improvisation, and the result was the classic album East-West. The title track itself is a modal piece; that is, it (in jazz terms) stays on the One rather than following a traditional blues progression. Within that framework Bloomfield's solo uses scales found in eastern music (Indian in particular); hence the title of the piece: East-West. Another difference between East-West and the first Butterfield album was that second guitarist Elvin Bishop, who had played strictly rhythm guitar on the debut, got a chance to do some solo work of his own on East-West. Bishop would soon find himself the band's lead guitarist when Bloomfield left to form the Electric Flag in 1967.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Perhaps more than any other band, Country Joe and the Fish capture the essence of the San Francisco scene in the late 60s. Their first two releases were floppy inserts included in Joe McDonald's self-published Rag Baby underground newspaper. In 1967 the band was signed to Vanguard Records, a primarily folk-oriented prestige label that also had Joan Baez on its roster. Their first LP, Electric Music For the Mind and Body had such classic cuts as Section 43, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, and the political parody Superbird on it, as well as the mostly-instrumental tune The Masked Marauder. Not for the unenlightened.
Artist: Cream
Title: We're Going Wrong
Source: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
On Fresh Cream the slowest-paced tracks were bluesy numbers like Sleepy Time Time. For the group's second LP, bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce came up with We're Going Wrong, a song with a haunting melody supplemented by some of Eric Clapton's best guitar fills. Even Ginger Baker set aside his drumsticks in favor of mallets, giving the song an otherworldly feel.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Heaven And Hell
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1967
Throughout the mid-60s Australia's most popular band was the Easybeats, often called the Australian Beatles. Although their early material sounded like slightly dated British Invasion music (Australia had a reputation for cultural lag, and besides, half the members were British immigrants), by late 1966 guitarist Harry Vanda (one of the two Dutch immigrant members of the group) had learned enough English to be able to replace vocalist Stevie Wright as George Young's writing partner. The new team was much more adventurous in their compositions than the Wright/Young team had been, and were responsible for the band's first international hit, Friday On My Mind. By then the Easybeats had relocated to England, and continued to produce fine singles such as Heaven And Hell.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Fire
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Although never released as a single, Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Get Me To The World On Time
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for two more tracks to include on their debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Bookends Theme/Save The Life Of My Child/America
Source: LP: Bookends
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia/Sundazed
Year: 1967
An early example of a concept album (or at least half an album) was Simon And Garfunkel's fourth LP, Bookends. The side starts and ends with the Bookends theme. In between they go through a sort of life cycle of tracks, from Save The Life Of My Child (featuring a synthesizer opening programmed by Robert Moog himself), into America, a song that is very much in the sprit of Jack Kerouak's On The Road. One of these days I'll play the rest of the side, which takes us right into the age that many of us who bought the original LP are now approaching.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
The title track of the second Amboy Dukes album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind, is by far their best known recording, going all the way to the #16 spot on the top 40 in 1968. The song features the lead guitar work of Ted Nugent, who co-wrote the song with guitarist/vocalist Steve Farmer. Journey To The Center Of The Mind would be the last album to feature lead vocalist John Drake, who left the band for creative reasons shortly after the album's release.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Summertime
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Gershwin/Heyward
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Janis Joplin, on the 1968 Big Brother And The Holding Company album Cheap Thrills, sounds like she was born to sing Gershwin's Summertime. Maybe she was.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Who's Been Sleeping Here
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Between The Buttons, released in early 1967, shows the Rolling Stones beginning to experiment with a more psychedelic sound than on previous albums. Brian Jones, in particular, took up several new instruments, including the sitar, heard prominently on the track Who's Been Sleeping Here. The next LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request, would take the group even further into psychedelic territory, prompting a back to basics approach the following year.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
I seem to recall some TV show (Ed Sullivan, maybe?) making Mick Jagger change the words to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now. Nor can I imagine the band agreeing to it.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: You Still Believe In Me
Source: Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s): Wilson/Asher
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
Although they were one of the first self-contained US rock bands, by 1966 the Beach Boys were using studio musicians almost exclusively on their recordings. At the same time Brian Wilson, who by then was writing all the band's music, had retired from performing with the band onstage. These factors combined to give Wilson the freedom to create the album that is often considered his and the band's artistic peak, Pet Sounds. Much of the material on the album, such as You Still Believe In Me, was written with the help of lyricist Tony Asher. Like many of the songs on Pet Sounds, You Still Believe In Me includes unusual instrumentation such as a theramin and even a bicycle bell.
Artist: Love
Title: You I'll Be Following
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
When the Byrds decided to tour heavily to support their early hits Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn!, Arthur Lee's band Love was more than happy to fill the void left on the L.A. club scene. The group quickly established itself as the top band on the strip and caught the attention of Elektra Records, an album-oriented label that had previously specialized in blues and folk music but was looking to move into rock. Love was soon signed to a contract with Elektra and released their self-titled debut LP in 1966. That album featured songs that were primarily in a folk-rock vein, such as You I'll Be Following, although even then there were signs that bandleader Arthur Lee was capable of writing quality tunes that defied easy classification. Love would remain the top band on the strip for the next year and a half, releasing two more albums before the original group dissolved. To maintain their status as local heroes, Love chose to stay close to home. The lack of time spent promoting their records ultimately led to them being supplanted as the star group for Elektra by the Doors, a band that had been recommended to the label by Lee himself.
Artist: Downliners Sect
Title: Why Don't You Smile Now
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: The Rock Sect's In)
Writer(s): Philips/Vance/Reed/Cale
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia UK)
Year: 1966
The Downliners Sect was one of the more unusual British bands of the mid-sixties, with a penchant for choosing unconventional material to record. Their second LP, for instance, was made up of covers of songs originally recorded by US Country and Western artists. Their third LP, The Rock Sect's In, was (as the title implies) more of a straight rock album than their previous efforts. Still, they managed to find unique material to record, such as Why Don't You Smile Now, a song chosen from a stack of producers' demos from the US. Although nobody seems to know who Philips or Vance were, the Reed and Cale in the songwriting credits were none other than Lou and John, in a pre-Velvet Underground incarnation.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Special Disc Jockey Record (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was 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 arguably the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running demonstrates. 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: Charlatans
Title: Alabama Bound
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: trad., arr. The Charlatans
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1996
Despite being one of the most important bands on the San Francisco scene, the Charlatans did not have much luck in the recording studio. Their first sessions were aborted, the planned LP for Kama Sutra was shelved by the label itself, and the band was overruled in their choice of songs to be released on their first (and only) single issued from the Kama Sutra sessions. In 1967, however, they did manage to get some decent tracks recorded. Unfortunately, those tracks were not released until 1996, and then only in the UK. The centerpiece of the 1967 sessions was this six-and-a-half minute recording of a traditional tune that is considered by many to be the Charlatans' signature song: Alabama Bound.
Title: Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)
Source: Mono LP: The Doors
Writer(s): Weill/Brecht
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The oldest song in the Doors' 1967 repertoire, Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) started off as a fictional song, originally published in Bertolt Brecht's Hauspostille in 1927. It was set to music by Kurt Weill for his 1927 Mahogonny Songspeil and then used in the Weill/Brecht opera Aufsteig und Fall der Stadt Mahoganny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny) in 1930. It was first recorded by Weill's wife Lotte Lenye in 1930 to publicize the opera, despite the fact that Lenye was not a cast member. Unlike the music in the rest of the Opera the lyrics to Alabama Song have always been in English, making it a natural choice for an American band like the Doors to record. The song was one of the most popular in the Doors' repertoire and was included on The Best of the Doors anthology.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The Last Wall Of The Castle
Source: CD: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: BMG Heritage/RCA
Year: 1967
Following the massive success of the Surrealistic Pillow album with its two top 10 singles (Somebody To Love and White Rabbit) the members of Jefferson Airplane made a conscious choice to put artistic goals above commercial ones for their next LP, After Bathing At Baxter's. The result was an album that defines the term "acid rock" in more ways than one. One of the few songs on the album that does not cross-fade into or out of another song is this tune from Jorma Kaukonen, his first non-acoustic song to be recorded by the band.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Wind
Source: LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Bob Bruno
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Circus Maximus was formed out of the chance meeting of multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in Greenwich Village in 1967. From the start the band was moving in different directions, with Bruno incorporating jazz elements into the band while Walker favored country-rock. Eventually the two would go their separate ways, but for the short time the band was together they made some of the best, if not best-known, psychedelic music on the East Coast. The band's most popular track was Wind, a Bruno tune from their debut album. The song got a considerable amount of airplay on the new "underground" radio stations that were popping up across the country at the time.
Artist: Litter
Title: Action Woman
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Distortions)
Writer(s): Warren Hendrick
Label: Rhino (original labels: Scotty and Warick)
Year: 1967
The Litter was one of many bands to come under the guidance of Warren Kendrick, owner of the Minneapolis-based Warick Records (later Warwick). Their first album, Distortions, was comprised mostly of cover songs of mainly British groups, but did include a pair of songs written by Hendrick himself, including Action Woman, which was also released as the band's first single in January of 1967. The group made two more albums, including one for ABC's Probe label in 1969, before disbanding, reuniting in the late 90s for a pair of CDs on the Arf! Arf! label.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Green Destroys The Gold
Source: LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Beacon Street Union found itself handicapped by being signed to M-G-M and being promoted as part of the "boss-town sound." The problem was that there was no "boss-town sound", any more than there was a San Francisco sound or an L.A sound (there is a Long Island Sound, but that has nothing to do with music). In fact, the only legitimate "sound" of the time was the "Motown Sound", and that was confined to a single record company that achieved a consistent sound through the use of the same studio musicians on virtually every recording. What made the situation even more ironic for the Union was that by the time their first LP came out they had relocated to New York City anyway. If there is a New York sound, it has more to do with traffic than music.
Artist: Who
Title: The Kids Are Alright
Source: Mono CD: Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy (originally released on LP: My Generation)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1965
When the Who Sings My Generation album came out in the US in 1966, it featured several songs that had originally been issued as singles in the UK, including a song that would later be used as a title for the band's first concert film. The Kids Are Alright, one of the group's first charted hits in 1965, is probably the most Beatle-sounding of all Who songs.
Artist: Troggs
Title: I Want You
Source: Mono British import CD: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Pagel/Fletcher
Label: Spectrum (original label: Fontana)
Year: 1966
The Troggs are best known in the US for their 1966 hit Wild Thing, a song that is still recognizable to most Americans today. In reality, though, the Troggs were one of England's most successful and long-lived bands, charting several hit records and remaining active until the death of lead vocalist Reg Presley in 2013. Among their most popular songs in the UK was I Want You, which was released as the B side of With A Girl Like You, the follow up to Wild Thing and the Troggs' only #1 record in the UK. (Wild Thing stalled out at #2 in the UK, although it did top the US charts).
Artist: Butterfield Blues Band
Title: East-West
Source: CD: East-West
Writer: Bloomfield/Gravenites
Label: Elektra
Year: 1966
Along with the Blues Project, the Butterfield Blues Band (and guitarist Michael Bloomfield in particular) are credited with starting the movement toward improvisation in rock music. Both are cited as influences on the new bands that were cropping up in San Francisco in late 1966m including Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead. The first Butterfield album did not have much in the way of improvisation, however, as Butterfield himself was a Chicago blues traditionalist who, like many of his idols, held the reins of the band tightly and did not tolerate deviation. By the time of the band's second LP, however, the group was becoming more of a democracy, especially after their successful live shows brought rave reviews for the musicianship of the individual members, especially Bloomfield (who in some polls was rated the number one guitarist in the country). Bloomfield used this new clout to push for more improvisation, and the result was the classic album East-West. The title track itself is a modal piece; that is, it (in jazz terms) stays on the One rather than following a traditional blues progression. Within that framework Bloomfield's solo uses scales found in eastern music (Indian in particular); hence the title of the piece: East-West. Another difference between East-West and the first Butterfield album was that second guitarist Elvin Bishop, who had played strictly rhythm guitar on the debut, got a chance to do some solo work of his own on East-West. Bishop would soon find himself the band's lead guitarist when Bloomfield left to form the Electric Flag in 1967.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s): Joe McDonald
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Perhaps more than any other band, Country Joe and the Fish capture the essence of the San Francisco scene in the late 60s. Their first two releases were floppy inserts included in Joe McDonald's self-published Rag Baby underground newspaper. In 1967 the band was signed to Vanguard Records, a primarily folk-oriented prestige label that also had Joan Baez on its roster. Their first LP, Electric Music For the Mind and Body had such classic cuts as Section 43, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, and the political parody Superbird on it, as well as the mostly-instrumental tune The Masked Marauder. Not for the unenlightened.
Artist: Cream
Title: We're Going Wrong
Source: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Jack Bruce
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
On Fresh Cream the slowest-paced tracks were bluesy numbers like Sleepy Time Time. For the group's second LP, bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce came up with We're Going Wrong, a song with a haunting melody supplemented by some of Eric Clapton's best guitar fills. Even Ginger Baker set aside his drumsticks in favor of mallets, giving the song an otherworldly feel.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Heaven And Hell
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1967
Throughout the mid-60s Australia's most popular band was the Easybeats, often called the Australian Beatles. Although their early material sounded like slightly dated British Invasion music (Australia had a reputation for cultural lag, and besides, half the members were British immigrants), by late 1966 guitarist Harry Vanda (one of the two Dutch immigrant members of the group) had learned enough English to be able to replace vocalist Stevie Wright as George Young's writing partner. The new team was much more adventurous in their compositions than the Wright/Young team had been, and were responsible for the band's first international hit, Friday On My Mind. By then the Easybeats had relocated to England, and continued to produce fine singles such as Heaven And Hell.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Fire
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Although never released as a single, Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Get Me To The World On Time
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for two more tracks to include on their debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Bookends Theme/Save The Life Of My Child/America
Source: LP: Bookends
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia/Sundazed
Year: 1967
An early example of a concept album (or at least half an album) was Simon And Garfunkel's fourth LP, Bookends. The side starts and ends with the Bookends theme. In between they go through a sort of life cycle of tracks, from Save The Life Of My Child (featuring a synthesizer opening programmed by Robert Moog himself), into America, a song that is very much in the sprit of Jack Kerouak's On The Road. One of these days I'll play the rest of the side, which takes us right into the age that many of us who bought the original LP are now approaching.
Artist: Amboy Dukes
Title: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source: CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind)
Writer(s): Nugent/Farmer
Label: Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year: 1968
The title track of the second Amboy Dukes album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind, is by far their best known recording, going all the way to the #16 spot on the top 40 in 1968. The song features the lead guitar work of Ted Nugent, who co-wrote the song with guitarist/vocalist Steve Farmer. Journey To The Center Of The Mind would be the last album to feature lead vocalist John Drake, who left the band for creative reasons shortly after the album's release.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Summertime
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Gershwin/Heyward
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Janis Joplin, on the 1968 Big Brother And The Holding Company album Cheap Thrills, sounds like she was born to sing Gershwin's Summertime. Maybe she was.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Who's Been Sleeping Here
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
Between The Buttons, released in early 1967, shows the Rolling Stones beginning to experiment with a more psychedelic sound than on previous albums. Brian Jones, in particular, took up several new instruments, including the sitar, heard prominently on the track Who's Been Sleeping Here. The next LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request, would take the group even further into psychedelic territory, prompting a back to basics approach the following year.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Let's Spend The Night Together
Source: LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
I seem to recall some TV show (Ed Sullivan, maybe?) making Mick Jagger change the words to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now. Nor can I imagine the band agreeing to it.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: You Still Believe In Me
Source: Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s): Wilson/Asher
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
Although they were one of the first self-contained US rock bands, by 1966 the Beach Boys were using studio musicians almost exclusively on their recordings. At the same time Brian Wilson, who by then was writing all the band's music, had retired from performing with the band onstage. These factors combined to give Wilson the freedom to create the album that is often considered his and the band's artistic peak, Pet Sounds. Much of the material on the album, such as You Still Believe In Me, was written with the help of lyricist Tony Asher. Like many of the songs on Pet Sounds, You Still Believe In Me includes unusual instrumentation such as a theramin and even a bicycle bell.
Artist: Love
Title: You I'll Be Following
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1966
When the Byrds decided to tour heavily to support their early hits Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn!, Arthur Lee's band Love was more than happy to fill the void left on the L.A. club scene. The group quickly established itself as the top band on the strip and caught the attention of Elektra Records, an album-oriented label that had previously specialized in blues and folk music but was looking to move into rock. Love was soon signed to a contract with Elektra and released their self-titled debut LP in 1966. That album featured songs that were primarily in a folk-rock vein, such as You I'll Be Following, although even then there were signs that bandleader Arthur Lee was capable of writing quality tunes that defied easy classification. Love would remain the top band on the strip for the next year and a half, releasing two more albums before the original group dissolved. To maintain their status as local heroes, Love chose to stay close to home. The lack of time spent promoting their records ultimately led to them being supplanted as the star group for Elektra by the Doors, a band that had been recommended to the label by Lee himself.
Artist: Downliners Sect
Title: Why Don't You Smile Now
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: The Rock Sect's In)
Writer(s): Philips/Vance/Reed/Cale
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia UK)
Year: 1966
The Downliners Sect was one of the more unusual British bands of the mid-sixties, with a penchant for choosing unconventional material to record. Their second LP, for instance, was made up of covers of songs originally recorded by US Country and Western artists. Their third LP, The Rock Sect's In, was (as the title implies) more of a straight rock album than their previous efforts. Still, they managed to find unique material to record, such as Why Don't You Smile Now, a song chosen from a stack of producers' demos from the US. Although nobody seems to know who Philips or Vance were, the Reed and Cale in the songwriting credits were none other than Lou and John, in a pre-Velvet Underground incarnation.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: LP: Special Disc Jockey Record (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was 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 arguably the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running demonstrates. 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: Charlatans
Title: Alabama Bound
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: trad., arr. The Charlatans
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1996
Despite being one of the most important bands on the San Francisco scene, the Charlatans did not have much luck in the recording studio. Their first sessions were aborted, the planned LP for Kama Sutra was shelved by the label itself, and the band was overruled in their choice of songs to be released on their first (and only) single issued from the Kama Sutra sessions. In 1967, however, they did manage to get some decent tracks recorded. Unfortunately, those tracks were not released until 1996, and then only in the UK. The centerpiece of the 1967 sessions was this six-and-a-half minute recording of a traditional tune that is considered by many to be the Charlatans' signature song: Alabama Bound.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1328 (starts 7/11/13)
Artist: Kinks
Title: Such A Shame
Source: Mono LP: Kinkdom (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
The B side of a 45 RPM record was usually thought of as filler material, but in reality often served another purpose entirely. Sometimes it was used to make an instrumental version of the hit side available for use in clubs or even as a kind of early kind of Karioke. As often as not it was a chance for bands who were given material by their producer to record for the A side to get their own compositions on record. Sometimes the B sides went on to become classics in their own right. Possibly the band with the highest percentage of this type of B side was the Kinks, who seemed to have a great song on the flip side of every record they released. One such B side is Such A Shame, released as the flip of A Well Respected Man in 1966. It doesn't get much better than this.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: I Want You
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Blonde On Blonde)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
I Want You, Bob Dylan's first single of 1966, was released in advance of his Blonde On Blonde album and was immediately picked by the rock press to be a hit. It was.
Artist: Gants
Title: I Wonder
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sid Herring
Label: BFD (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
The Gants hailed from Greenwood, Mississippi, and had a string of regional hits that led to their signing with Liberty Records in 1965. The group, however, was handicapped by having half the members still in high school and the other half in college (and unwilling to drop out due to their being of draftable age during the height of the Viet Nam war). The band's most successful single for the label was I Wonder, which, like all of the Gants' recordings, shows a strong Beatle influence.
Artist: Lamp Of Childhood
Title: No More Running Around
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mekler/Hendricks/Tani
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1967
I've often wondered how it was that a somewhat raunchy rock band like Steppenwolf ended up on the same pop-oriented record label (Dunhill) as the Mamas and the Papas, the Grass Roots and 3 Dog Night. It turns out the Dunhill connection was from the man who produced Steppenwolf, Gabriel Mekler. Mekler was a member of the Lamp Of Childhood, a group that also included Cass Elliot's husband James Hendricks. Although the Lamp had a solid pop sound, they never really caught on and by the time their third and most successful single, No More Running Around, was released, the members had already moved on to other things (like, for instance, producing Steppenwolf records, or in the case of drummer Billy Mundi, joining the Mothers Of Invention).
Artist: Third Bardo
Title: I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source: Mono CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Evans/Pike
Label: Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year: 1967
The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: D.C.B.A.-25
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25" part...it was early 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: She Has Funny Cars
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
She Has Funny Cars, the opening track of Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, was a reference to some unusual possessions belonging to new drummer Spencer Dryden's girlfriend. As was the case with many of the early Airplane tracks, the title has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song itself. The song was also released as the B side to the band's first top 10 single, Somebody To Love.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Sweet Young Thing
Source: Mono CD: The Inner Mystique (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Sundazed (original label: Uptown)
Year: 1966
There is actually very little on vinyl that captures the actual live sound of the Chocolate Watchband, as most of their recorded work was heavily influenced by producer Ed Cobb. One of the few recordings that does accurately represent the Watchband sound is this single released in December of 1966. Ironically, Sweet Young Thing was written by Cobb himself. Even stranger is the fact that the single was released on Tower's Uptown subsidiary, which specialized in R&B artists.
Artist: Barbarians
Title: Moulty
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Greenberg/Morris/Baer/Schwartz)
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1966
The Barbarians were originally formed in Cape Cod in 1963, and were known as much for their noncomformity as for their music. They were the first Boston area band to grow out their hair and wear leather sandals; To top it off their drummer, Vic "Moulty" Moulton, had lost his left hand in an accident when he was younger and wore a prosthetic hook. In 1966, after the band had moderate national success with a semi-novelty song called Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl, the band's producer, Doug Morris, talked Moulton into recording a faux-autobiographical song called Moulty, using New York studio musicians from a group called Levon and the Hawks (who had backed up such notables as Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan on tour and would, in a few years, become superstars in the own right after changing their name to The Band). Moulton, upon finding out that the recording had been released, was incensed, and went to the New York offices of Laurie Records, chasing the label's president around the office and breaking copies of the record over his head. Moulty was the last Barbarians record to appear on the Laurie label.
Artist: Youngbloods
Title: Get Together
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Youngbloods)
Writer(s): Dino Valenti
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
The Youngbloods, led by transplanted New Yorker Jesse Colin Young, were the second San Francisco band signed to industry leader RCA Victor Records. Their first album was released in 1967 but was overshadowed by the vinyl debuts of the Grateful Dead and Moby Grape, among others. In fact, the Youngbloods toiled in relative obscurity until 1969, when their own version of Dino Valenti's Let's Get Together (from the 1967 LP) was used in a TV ad promoting world peace. The song was subsequently released (with the title slightly shortened) as a single and ended up being the group's only hit record (as well as Valenti's most famous composition).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Gloria
Source: Dutch import LP: The Singles Album (originally released on 7" bonus record with LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix, Vol. 2)
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Polydor (original label: Reprise)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1979
It was a common practice among mid 60s garage bands to do their own version of Gloria, usually with a lot of ad-libbing by the lead vocalist. In 1968 Jimi Hendrix decided to do the same, taking the opportunity to good-naturedly rag on his bandmates for their exploits involving groupies. The recording of the performance sat on the shelf until 1979, when it was included on a 7" 33 1/3 RPM bonus record that came with original pressings of volume 2 of The Essential Jimi Hendrix. The track was later included on a European double LP that collected all Hendrix's single and EP tracks.
Artist: Audience
Title: Banquet
Source: British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Audience)
Writer(s): Werth/Williams
Label: Polydor
Year: 1969
By 1969 the British blues-rock craze was beginning to subside, and many of the musicians that had made up the core of the movement were moving off in different directions. Black Sabbath was going for a heavier sound, while Ian Anderson was finding ways of incorporating traditional English folk music into Jethro Tull's sound. The members of the Lloyd Alexander Blues Band, like their better known counterparts from the Yardbirds, took an interest in the new progressive rock sound pioneered by bands like Procol Harum, and in 1969 some of those members formed Audience. Led by lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Howard Werth and bassist/keyboardist Trevor Williams, Audience was unique in that they had no electric guitarist in the band, a direction that would be followed by Emerson, Lake and Palmer a couple of years later. The band also took a page from Traffic's book and included one member, Keith Gemmell, who played only wood instruments such as flute, clarinet and saxophone. The band, completed by drummer Tony Connor, made such an impression that Polydor records offered them a deal shortly after their first major gig. Banquet, from that 1969 debut LP, is a fairly representative example of what the band was all about.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Hey, Hey, What Can I Do
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1970
In their entire existence Led Zeppelin only released one non-album track. Hey, Hey, What Can I Do was originally released as the B side of the Immigrant Song in 1970, and was not available in any other form until 1990, when it was included in the first Led Zeppelin box set. It has since been made available as a bonus track on the Led Zeppelin III CD.
Artist: Bubble Puppy
Title: Hurry Sundown
Source: CD: A Gathering Of Promises
Writer(s): Prince/Cox
Label: Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1969
The Bubble Puppy came into existence in 1967, when two former members of the legendary Corpus Christie,Texas garage band the Bad Seeds, guitarist Rod Prince and keyboardist/bassist Roy Cox, relocated to San Antonio, recruiting guitarist Todd Potter and drummer Craig Root to form the new band. Success came quickly in the form of the band's very first gig, opening for the Who at the San Antonio Colosseum. After David Fore replaced Root in the band, the group relocated to Austin, where they got a steady gig at the Vulcan Gas Company. By 1968 the Bubble Puppy was traveling all over Texas for gigs, and late in the year got a contract with Houston-based International Artists, a label that had already gained notoriety by signing the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. After releasing a surprise top 40 hit, Hot Smoke And Sassafras in December of 1968, the band got to work on a full album, A Gathering Of Promises. International Artists failed to get the album, which was full of fine tunes like Hurry Sundown, out quickly enough to capitilize of the popularity of Hot Smoke And Sassafras, and further hurt the band's chance of success by refusing to grant licensing rights on the single to Apple Records for European release. By 1970 the band and the label had parted company, with the Bubble Puppy relocating to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala/Esposito/Thielhelm
Label: Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1966
The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Rugs Of Wood And Flowers
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kaylan/Nichols
Label: White Whale
Year: 1967
The Turtles were best known for their big hit records like Happy Together and She'd Rather Be With Me. The band had a weird side, however, that usually showed up on their B sides and an occasional album track. One example is Rugs Of Wood And Flowers, which appeared as the B side of You Know What I Mean in 1967. The song features vocalist Howard Kaylan using a semi-operatic style that he would revive for his legendary performances with the Mothers at the Fillmore East in 1971.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)
Source: CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1968
The last 16 months (more or less) I lived in Germany my family was given use of a basement room in the apartment building we lived in on Ramstein Air force Base. Such rooms were known as "maid's rooms," and ours became my bedroom, giving me a degree of privacy and freedom unknown to most 16-year-olds. I had one of those record players that would shut itself off when it got to the end of the record and I would always put an album on, turn off the light and let the music lull me into dreamland. My favorite album at that time was Procol Harum's Shine On Brightly, and I would usually put on side two of the LP, which opens with Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone). At the time I didn't realize that the song title was a reference to the British record label Procol Harum recorded for, Regal Zonophone, since my copy was released in Germany on the Polydor label. I still have that copy, although it is far too thrashed to play over the radio.
Artist: Mandrake Paddle Steamer
Title: Strange Walking Man
Source: Mono British import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Briley/Engle
Label: Zonophone (original label: Columbia UK)
Year: 1969
Mandrake Paddle Steamer was the brainchild of art school students Martin Briley and Brian Engle, who, with producer Robert Finnis, were among the first to take advantage of EMI's new 8-track recording equipment at their Abbey Road studios. The result was Strange Walking Man, a single released in 1969. The track includes a coda created by Finnis by splicing a tape of studio musicians playing a cover version of an Incredible String Band tune, Maybe Someday.
Artist: Os Mutantes
Title: Bat Macumba
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets 2-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: Mutantes)
Writer(s): Gil/Veloso
Label: Rhino (original label: Polydor Brazil)
Year: 1968
Tropicalia was a movement of Brazilian modernists that opposed the oppressive traditionalist policies of that country's right-wing military government. The movement included writers, actors, visual artists and composers of popular music such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Among the younger participants were the members of Os Mutantes, a popular band that released five albums between 1968 and 1973. The group infused bossa nova and Carnival rhythms with electric (and electronic) instrumentation to create a sound that was at once psychedelic and purely Brazilian. Bat Macumba, from their first album, Mutantes was written for the band by Veloso and Gil.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ron Isley
Label: LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Title: Death Row
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Bob Seger
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
I like to play Bob Seger's Death Row, written from the perspective of a convicted murderer waiting to be executed, 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 rare single at a radio station I used to work for. Even better, the station had no desire to keep the record, as the A side, the equally intense anti-war song 2+2=, never charted.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Jigsaw Puzzle
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
By 1968 a rift had formed between Brian Jones and the rest of the Rolling Stones. On this track from the Beggar's Banquet album, Jones's only contribution is some soaring mellotron work toward the end of the song. Not long after the track was recorded, Jones was fired from the band.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was 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 arguably 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. Still, they may never have moved in that direction at all if it weren't for the Blues Project.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The LP version of the Vanilla Fudge's cover of the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On ran something like 6-7 minutes. For single release the song was cut down considerably, clocking in at around three minutes. It was also available only in mono, which is how Rhino chose to present it when they released thier first Nuggets series (not to be confused with Lenny Kaye's original collection from 1972) in the early 1980s.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
There were actually three slow versions of Hey Joe released in 1966. The first was a summer single by folk singer Tim Rose, who reportedly brainstormed the idea of slowing down the popular garage-rock tune with his friend Sean Bonniwell, leader of the Music Machine. Although Rose's version was the first released, it did not appear on an LP until 1967. The first stereo version of the song was on the Music Machine's first LP, released in the fall. In December a third slow version of Hey Joe was released, but only in the UK and Europe. That version was by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Like Rose's single, the Hendrix version of Hey Joe was originally released only in a mono version, which was remixed in stereo by engineers at Reprise Records for inclusion on the US version of the debut Hendrix LP in 1967. Like the Rose version, the Music Machine arrangement of Hey Joe focuses squarely on the vocals, with the instrumental track serving purely to set the mood for the piece.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: The Seeds
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The Seeds' Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.
Artist: Leathercoated Minds
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released on LP: Trip Down The Sunset Strip)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1967
Roger and Terrye Tillison released their first single, Ain't It Hard, as the Gypsy Trips in 1965. Although the song wasn't a hit, it was covered by the Electric Prunes as their first single the following year. In 1967 the Tillisons teamed up with producer J.J. Cale for an album called Trip Down The Sunset Strip on the Viva label, credited to Leathercoated Minds. It was, as far as is known, the beginning of a long recording career for Cale, who had even greater success as the songwriter as such rock classics as After Midnight and Cocaine, both recorded by Eric Clapton. Roger Tillison released a solo LP in 1970 with producer Jesse Ed Davis. Oddly enough, most of the tracks on Trip Down The Sunset Strip were somewhat bizarre covers of garage rock classics like Count Five's Psychotic Reaction, despite both Tillison and Cale being talented songwriters.
Title: Such A Shame
Source: Mono LP: Kinkdom (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
The B side of a 45 RPM record was usually thought of as filler material, but in reality often served another purpose entirely. Sometimes it was used to make an instrumental version of the hit side available for use in clubs or even as a kind of early kind of Karioke. As often as not it was a chance for bands who were given material by their producer to record for the A side to get their own compositions on record. Sometimes the B sides went on to become classics in their own right. Possibly the band with the highest percentage of this type of B side was the Kinks, who seemed to have a great song on the flip side of every record they released. One such B side is Such A Shame, released as the flip of A Well Respected Man in 1966. It doesn't get much better than this.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: I Want You
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Blonde On Blonde)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
I Want You, Bob Dylan's first single of 1966, was released in advance of his Blonde On Blonde album and was immediately picked by the rock press to be a hit. It was.
Artist: Gants
Title: I Wonder
Source: Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sid Herring
Label: BFD (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
The Gants hailed from Greenwood, Mississippi, and had a string of regional hits that led to their signing with Liberty Records in 1965. The group, however, was handicapped by having half the members still in high school and the other half in college (and unwilling to drop out due to their being of draftable age during the height of the Viet Nam war). The band's most successful single for the label was I Wonder, which, like all of the Gants' recordings, shows a strong Beatle influence.
Artist: Lamp Of Childhood
Title: No More Running Around
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mekler/Hendricks/Tani
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1967
I've often wondered how it was that a somewhat raunchy rock band like Steppenwolf ended up on the same pop-oriented record label (Dunhill) as the Mamas and the Papas, the Grass Roots and 3 Dog Night. It turns out the Dunhill connection was from the man who produced Steppenwolf, Gabriel Mekler. Mekler was a member of the Lamp Of Childhood, a group that also included Cass Elliot's husband James Hendricks. Although the Lamp had a solid pop sound, they never really caught on and by the time their third and most successful single, No More Running Around, was released, the members had already moved on to other things (like, for instance, producing Steppenwolf records, or in the case of drummer Billy Mundi, joining the Mothers Of Invention).
Artist: Third Bardo
Title: I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source: Mono CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Evans/Pike
Label: Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year: 1967
The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: D.C.B.A.-25
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Paul Kantner
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25" part...it was early 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: She Has Funny Cars
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kaukonen/Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
She Has Funny Cars, the opening track of Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, was a reference to some unusual possessions belonging to new drummer Spencer Dryden's girlfriend. As was the case with many of the early Airplane tracks, the title has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song itself. The song was also released as the B side to the band's first top 10 single, Somebody To Love.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Sweet Young Thing
Source: Mono CD: The Inner Mystique (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Sundazed (original label: Uptown)
Year: 1966
There is actually very little on vinyl that captures the actual live sound of the Chocolate Watchband, as most of their recorded work was heavily influenced by producer Ed Cobb. One of the few recordings that does accurately represent the Watchband sound is this single released in December of 1966. Ironically, Sweet Young Thing was written by Cobb himself. Even stranger is the fact that the single was released on Tower's Uptown subsidiary, which specialized in R&B artists.
Artist: Barbarians
Title: Moulty
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Greenberg/Morris/Baer/Schwartz)
Label: Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year: 1966
The Barbarians were originally formed in Cape Cod in 1963, and were known as much for their noncomformity as for their music. They were the first Boston area band to grow out their hair and wear leather sandals; To top it off their drummer, Vic "Moulty" Moulton, had lost his left hand in an accident when he was younger and wore a prosthetic hook. In 1966, after the band had moderate national success with a semi-novelty song called Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl, the band's producer, Doug Morris, talked Moulton into recording a faux-autobiographical song called Moulty, using New York studio musicians from a group called Levon and the Hawks (who had backed up such notables as Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan on tour and would, in a few years, become superstars in the own right after changing their name to The Band). Moulton, upon finding out that the recording had been released, was incensed, and went to the New York offices of Laurie Records, chasing the label's president around the office and breaking copies of the record over his head. Moulty was the last Barbarians record to appear on the Laurie label.
Artist: Youngbloods
Title: Get Together
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Youngbloods)
Writer(s): Dino Valenti
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
The Youngbloods, led by transplanted New Yorker Jesse Colin Young, were the second San Francisco band signed to industry leader RCA Victor Records. Their first album was released in 1967 but was overshadowed by the vinyl debuts of the Grateful Dead and Moby Grape, among others. In fact, the Youngbloods toiled in relative obscurity until 1969, when their own version of Dino Valenti's Let's Get Together (from the 1967 LP) was used in a TV ad promoting world peace. The song was subsequently released (with the title slightly shortened) as a single and ended up being the group's only hit record (as well as Valenti's most famous composition).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Gloria
Source: Dutch import LP: The Singles Album (originally released on 7" bonus record with LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix, Vol. 2)
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Polydor (original label: Reprise)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1979
It was a common practice among mid 60s garage bands to do their own version of Gloria, usually with a lot of ad-libbing by the lead vocalist. In 1968 Jimi Hendrix decided to do the same, taking the opportunity to good-naturedly rag on his bandmates for their exploits involving groupies. The recording of the performance sat on the shelf until 1979, when it was included on a 7" 33 1/3 RPM bonus record that came with original pressings of volume 2 of The Essential Jimi Hendrix. The track was later included on a European double LP that collected all Hendrix's single and EP tracks.
Artist: Audience
Title: Banquet
Source: British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Audience)
Writer(s): Werth/Williams
Label: Polydor
Year: 1969
By 1969 the British blues-rock craze was beginning to subside, and many of the musicians that had made up the core of the movement were moving off in different directions. Black Sabbath was going for a heavier sound, while Ian Anderson was finding ways of incorporating traditional English folk music into Jethro Tull's sound. The members of the Lloyd Alexander Blues Band, like their better known counterparts from the Yardbirds, took an interest in the new progressive rock sound pioneered by bands like Procol Harum, and in 1969 some of those members formed Audience. Led by lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Howard Werth and bassist/keyboardist Trevor Williams, Audience was unique in that they had no electric guitarist in the band, a direction that would be followed by Emerson, Lake and Palmer a couple of years later. The band also took a page from Traffic's book and included one member, Keith Gemmell, who played only wood instruments such as flute, clarinet and saxophone. The band, completed by drummer Tony Connor, made such an impression that Polydor records offered them a deal shortly after their first major gig. Banquet, from that 1969 debut LP, is a fairly representative example of what the band was all about.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Hey, Hey, What Can I Do
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1970
In their entire existence Led Zeppelin only released one non-album track. Hey, Hey, What Can I Do was originally released as the B side of the Immigrant Song in 1970, and was not available in any other form until 1990, when it was included in the first Led Zeppelin box set. It has since been made available as a bonus track on the Led Zeppelin III CD.
Artist: Bubble Puppy
Title: Hurry Sundown
Source: CD: A Gathering Of Promises
Writer(s): Prince/Cox
Label: Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1969
The Bubble Puppy came into existence in 1967, when two former members of the legendary Corpus Christie,Texas garage band the Bad Seeds, guitarist Rod Prince and keyboardist/bassist Roy Cox, relocated to San Antonio, recruiting guitarist Todd Potter and drummer Craig Root to form the new band. Success came quickly in the form of the band's very first gig, opening for the Who at the San Antonio Colosseum. After David Fore replaced Root in the band, the group relocated to Austin, where they got a steady gig at the Vulcan Gas Company. By 1968 the Bubble Puppy was traveling all over Texas for gigs, and late in the year got a contract with Houston-based International Artists, a label that had already gained notoriety by signing the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. After releasing a surprise top 40 hit, Hot Smoke And Sassafras in December of 1968, the band got to work on a full album, A Gathering Of Promises. International Artists failed to get the album, which was full of fine tunes like Hurry Sundown, out quickly enough to capitilize of the popularity of Hot Smoke And Sassafras, and further hurt the band's chance of success by refusing to grant licensing rights on the single to Apple Records for European release. By 1970 the band and the label had parted company, with the Bubble Puppy relocating to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala/Esposito/Thielhelm
Label: Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1966
The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.
Artist: Turtles
Title: Rugs Of Wood And Flowers
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Kaylan/Nichols
Label: White Whale
Year: 1967
The Turtles were best known for their big hit records like Happy Together and She'd Rather Be With Me. The band had a weird side, however, that usually showed up on their B sides and an occasional album track. One example is Rugs Of Wood And Flowers, which appeared as the B side of You Know What I Mean in 1967. The song features vocalist Howard Kaylan using a semi-operatic style that he would revive for his legendary performances with the Mothers at the Fillmore East in 1971.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)
Source: CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1968
The last 16 months (more or less) I lived in Germany my family was given use of a basement room in the apartment building we lived in on Ramstein Air force Base. Such rooms were known as "maid's rooms," and ours became my bedroom, giving me a degree of privacy and freedom unknown to most 16-year-olds. I had one of those record players that would shut itself off when it got to the end of the record and I would always put an album on, turn off the light and let the music lull me into dreamland. My favorite album at that time was Procol Harum's Shine On Brightly, and I would usually put on side two of the LP, which opens with Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone). At the time I didn't realize that the song title was a reference to the British record label Procol Harum recorded for, Regal Zonophone, since my copy was released in Germany on the Polydor label. I still have that copy, although it is far too thrashed to play over the radio.
Artist: Mandrake Paddle Steamer
Title: Strange Walking Man
Source: Mono British import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Briley/Engle
Label: Zonophone (original label: Columbia UK)
Year: 1969
Mandrake Paddle Steamer was the brainchild of art school students Martin Briley and Brian Engle, who, with producer Robert Finnis, were among the first to take advantage of EMI's new 8-track recording equipment at their Abbey Road studios. The result was Strange Walking Man, a single released in 1969. The track includes a coda created by Finnis by splicing a tape of studio musicians playing a cover version of an Incredible String Band tune, Maybe Someday.
Artist: Os Mutantes
Title: Bat Macumba
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets 2-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: Mutantes)
Writer(s): Gil/Veloso
Label: Rhino (original label: Polydor Brazil)
Year: 1968
Tropicalia was a movement of Brazilian modernists that opposed the oppressive traditionalist policies of that country's right-wing military government. The movement included writers, actors, visual artists and composers of popular music such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Among the younger participants were the members of Os Mutantes, a popular band that released five albums between 1968 and 1973. The group infused bossa nova and Carnival rhythms with electric (and electronic) instrumentation to create a sound that was at once psychedelic and purely Brazilian. Bat Macumba, from their first album, Mutantes was written for the band by Veloso and Gil.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ron Isley
Label: LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.
Artist: Bob Seger System
Title: Death Row
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Bob Seger
Label: Capitol
Year: 1968
I like to play Bob Seger's Death Row, written from the perspective of a convicted murderer waiting to be executed, 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 rare single at a radio station I used to work for. Even better, the station had no desire to keep the record, as the A side, the equally intense anti-war song 2+2=, never charted.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Jigsaw Puzzle
Source: LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
By 1968 a rift had formed between Brian Jones and the rest of the Rolling Stones. On this track from the Beggar's Banquet album, Jones's only contribution is some soaring mellotron work toward the end of the song. Not long after the track was recorded, Jones was fired from the band.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was 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 arguably 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. Still, they may never have moved in that direction at all if it weren't for the Blues Project.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
The LP version of the Vanilla Fudge's cover of the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On ran something like 6-7 minutes. For single release the song was cut down considerably, clocking in at around three minutes. It was also available only in mono, which is how Rhino chose to present it when they released thier first Nuggets series (not to be confused with Lenny Kaye's original collection from 1972) in the early 1980s.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s): Billy Roberts
Label: Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year: 1966
There were actually three slow versions of Hey Joe released in 1966. The first was a summer single by folk singer Tim Rose, who reportedly brainstormed the idea of slowing down the popular garage-rock tune with his friend Sean Bonniwell, leader of the Music Machine. Although Rose's version was the first released, it did not appear on an LP until 1967. The first stereo version of the song was on the Music Machine's first LP, released in the fall. In December a third slow version of Hey Joe was released, but only in the UK and Europe. That version was by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Like Rose's single, the Hendrix version of Hey Joe was originally released only in a mono version, which was remixed in stereo by engineers at Reprise Records for inclusion on the US version of the debut Hendrix LP in 1967. Like the Rose version, the Music Machine arrangement of Hey Joe focuses squarely on the vocals, with the instrumental track serving purely to set the mood for the piece.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: The Seeds
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: GNP Crescendo
Year: 1966
The Seeds' Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is
Source: CD: Da Capo
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.
Artist: Leathercoated Minds
Title: Psychotic Reaction
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released on LP: Trip Down The Sunset Strip)
Writer(s): Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1967
Roger and Terrye Tillison released their first single, Ain't It Hard, as the Gypsy Trips in 1965. Although the song wasn't a hit, it was covered by the Electric Prunes as their first single the following year. In 1967 the Tillisons teamed up with producer J.J. Cale for an album called Trip Down The Sunset Strip on the Viva label, credited to Leathercoated Minds. It was, as far as is known, the beginning of a long recording career for Cale, who had even greater success as the songwriter as such rock classics as After Midnight and Cocaine, both recorded by Eric Clapton. Roger Tillison released a solo LP in 1970 with producer Jesse Ed Davis. Oddly enough, most of the tracks on Trip Down The Sunset Strip were somewhat bizarre covers of garage rock classics like Count Five's Psychotic Reaction, despite both Tillison and Cale being talented songwriters.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1327 (starts 7/4/13)
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact 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: Traffic
Title: Smiling Phases
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
The standard practice in the UK during the 60s was to not include songs that had been released as singles on LPs. This left several songs, such as the 1967 B side Smiling Phases, only available on 45 RPM vinyl until the group's first greatest hits anthology was released. In the US the song was more widely circulated, having been included on the American version of Traffic's debut LP (originally issued as Heaven Is In Your Mind but soon retitled Mr. Fantasy). Smiling Phases has since come to be recognized as one of Traffic's most iconic tunes, and has been covered by such bands as Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Here's Where You Belong
Source: CD: Part One
Writer(s): P.F. Sloan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
If Here's Where You Belong sounds like it might have been a Turtles song, there's good reason for it. Many of the early Turtles hits were written by L.A. songwriter P.F. Sloan, who also wrote Barry McGuire's Eve Of Destruction and, with partner Steve Barri, was the driving force behind the Grass Roots in the early 1970s. A chance meeting between Sloan and the members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band at a taping for the Ed Sullivan show led to the band recording Here's Where You Belong for their first major label album, Part One, released in early 1967. It was, as it turned out, the band's most commercial sounding release, although, oddly enough, it was never issued as a single.
Artist: Kinks
Title: I Need You
Source: Mono LP: Kinkdom
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
After a series of hard-rocking hits in 1964 such as You Really Got Me, the Kinks mellowed out a bit with songs like Set Me Free the following year. Lurking on the other side of the single, though, was a song that showed that the band still knew how to rock out: I Need You. The song was also included on the 1965 LP Kinks Kinkdom, and went on to become something of a garage rock standard.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Rumors
Title: Hold Me Now
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Turner/Prinsky
Label: Rhino (original label: Gemcor)
Year: 1965
The Rumors are in some ways the prototypical west coast garage-rock band. Formed sometime around 1963, the band slowly built up a following that eventually led to them cutting a record for Gemcor, a small local label owned by Gary Paxton, producer of such novelty records as Alley Oop and Monster Mash. The song they chose was a crowd favorite that they retitled Hold Me Now (the original title having a considerably less radio-friendly verb). As it turned out, the record's only airplay was as the song that got interrupted by "Officer Big Mac" announcing a "McDonald's Alert" in a local radio commercial (ironically before the title of the song even came up in the lyrics). Thus we have a case of not 15 minutes, but merely 15 seconds, of fame.
Artist: Lowell George And The Factory
Title: Candy Cane Madness
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Lightning-Rod Man)
Writer(s): George/Klein
Label: Rhino (original label: Bizarre/Straight)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1993
Toward the end of 1966 a band called the Factory appeared on the L.A. club scene. They managed to book studio time, but were never able to find a label willing to release the tracks they recorded. Band member Lowell George would later go on to produce other artists such as the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) for Frank Zappa's Bizarre Productions and finally become famous as the founder of the band Little Feat. Eventually the old Factory tracks were issued on a CD on the Bizarre/Straight label originally founded by Zappa.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source: LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
The top album of 1967 was the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was also the first US Beatle album to have a song lineup that was identical to the original UK LP. As such, it was also the first Beatle album released in the US to not include any songs that were also released as singles. Nonetheless, several tracks from the LP found their way onto the playlists of both top 40 AM and "underground" FM stations from coast to coast. Among the most popular of these tracks was John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which shows up on just about everyone's list of classic psychedelic tunes.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: One Rainy Wish
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
In the summer of 1967 my dad (who was a Sergeant in the Air Force), got transferred to Lindsay Air Station in Weisbaden, Germany. The housing situation there being what it was, it was several weeks before the rest of us could join him, and during that time he went out and bought an Akai X-355 reel to reel tape recorder that a fellow GI had picked up in Japan. The Akai had small speakers built into it, but the best way to listen to it was through headphones. It would be another year before he would pick up a turntable, so I started buying pre-recorded reel to reel tapes. Two of the first three tapes I bought were Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love, both by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. As I was forced to share a bedroom with my little brother I made it a habit to sleep on the couch instead, usually with the headphones on listening to Axis: Bold As Love. I was blown away by the stereo effects on the album, which I attributed (somewhat correctly) to Hendrix, although I would find out years later that much of the credit belongs to engineer Eddie Kramer as well. One Rainy Wish, for example, starts off with all the instruments in the center channel (essentially a mono mix). After a few seconds of slow spacy intro the song gets into gear with vocals isolated all the way over to the left, with a guitar overdub on the opposite side to balance it out. As the song continues, things move back and forth from side to side, fading in and out at the same time. It was a hell of a way to drift off to sleep every night.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less)
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
For a follow-up to the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger chose another Annette Tucker song (co-written by Jill Jones) called Get Me To The World On Time. This was probably the best choice from the album tracks available, but Hassinger may have made a mistake by choosing Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less) as the B side. That song, written by the same Tucker/Mantz team that wrote I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) could quite possibly been a hit single in its own right if it had been issued as an A side. I guess we'll never know for sure.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Cream Puff War
Source: CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s): Jerry Garcia
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
The first Grateful Dead album was recorded in a matter of days, and was mostly made up of cover tunes that the band was currently performing. The two exceptions were The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), which was credited to the entire band, and Cream Puff War, a song written by guitarist Jerry Garcia. The two tracks were paired up on the band's first single as well. Cream Puff War, as recorded, ran nearly three and a half minutes, but was edited down to 2:28 at the insistence of the corporate shirts at Warner Brothers Records.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Work Me Lord
Source: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s): Nick Gravenites
Label: Rhino
Year: 1969
After leaving Big Brother and the Holding Company in late 1968 Janis Joplin formed a new outfit, the Kozmic Blues Band, to back her up, both in concert and on her first solo LP, I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although there was indisputedly a greater amount of raw talent in the new band, they lacked synergy with Joplin's style and ultimately failed to provide a proper vehicle for her talents. This became quite evident when she and the new band performed a set that failed to excite the crowd at Woodstock. The closest they came was with a performance of Work Me Lord, a song written specifically for Joplin by Nick Gravenites of the Electric Flag (another band that failed to live up to its potential).
Artist: Donovan/Jeff Beck Group
Title: Goo Goo Barabajabal (Love Is Hot)
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Barabajagal)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year: 1969
Donovan Leitch enlisted the Jeff Beck Group as collaborators for Goo Goo Barabajabal (Love Is Hot), a track from his 1969 Barabajal album. Sometimes the song itself is erroreously referred to as Barabajabal, making for a bit of confusion.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunny South Kensington
Source: Mono British import CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch followed up his 1966 hit single Sunshine Superman with an album of the same name. He then repeated himself with the song and album Mellow Yellow. Although there were no other singles released from either album, the song Sunny South Kensington, which was done in much the same style as Superman, was a highlight of the Mellow Yellow album. Due to a contractual dispute in the UK between Donovan and Pye Records, neither LP was issued in its original form in Britain.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Bert's Blues
Source: Mono CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
In 1966 Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch got into a contractual dispute with his record label, Pye Records UK. Up to that point his records had appeared in the US on the independent Hickory label. Now, however, he was about to make his US major label debut (on Epic), and the dispute with Pye led to his newest album, Sunshine Superman, being released only in North America. Like Bob Dylan, Donovan was beginning to expand beyond his folk roots, but in addition to the usual rock instruments (guitar, bass, drums, organ) Donovan used older acoustic instruments such as strings and harpsichord as well as experimenting with modern jazz arrangements and instrumentation. Somehow he managed to combine all of these elements in one track, Bert's Blues. Surprisingly, it worked.
Artist: Focus
Title: Focus II
Source: Moving Waves
Writer(s): Thijs van Leer
Label: Sire
Year: 1971
The second Focus album, released in 1971, was originally called Focus II. It got favorable critical reviews, but poor distribution in the US until it was reissued under the title Moving Waves in early 1973 on a different label. At that time the opening track of the LP, Hocus Pocus, was released as a single and ended up going into the top 10, which in turn helped album sales immensely. Because of the name change, the album has the distinction of having not one, but two title tracks: the song Moving Waves is a one of the few vocal tracks on the album, while Focus II is probably the best representation of the band's total sound, incorporating elements of jazz, rock and classical music.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Walk Away Renee
Source: LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s): Brown/Calilli/Sansune
Label: Smash/Sundazed
Year: 1966
The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee is one of the most covered songs in rock history, starting with a version by the Four Tops less than two years after the original recording had graced the top 5. The Left Banke version kicked off what was thought at the time to be the latest trend: baroque rock. The trend died an early death when the band members themselves made some tactical errors resulting in radio stations being hesitant to play their records.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: A Song For All Seasons
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer(s): Spencer Dryden
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1969
When it comes to Jefferson Airplane rarities, there is nothing more rare than a Spencer Dryden composition. In fact, to my knowledge, A Song For All Seasons is the only one that he is given sole credit for. The song itself is a bit of a novelty, sounding like it would be more at home on a Rolling Stones (Let It Bleed era) album than an Airplane one, which is even odder when one considers Dryden's jazz background.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The Farm
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer(s): Kantner/Blackman
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1969
Although Jefferson Airplane was never known as a country-rock band, they did record a few tracks that could be considered early examples of the genre, especially on their later albums. Among the first of these tracks was The Farm, a Paul Kantner piece from the Volunteers album. Although the album itself is generally known for it's strident antiwar (and pro-anarchic) stance, The Farm leans more toward the album's secondary themes of community and ecology.
Artist: 1910 Fruitgum Co.
Title: (Poor Old) Mr. Jensen
Source: LP: Simon Says
Writer(s): Taxin/Katz/Kasenatz
Label: Buddah
Year: 1968
The 1910 Fruitgum Company is a difficult band to write about. For one thing, they were among the most successful of the so-called bubble gum bands to appear on the Buddah label in 1968, yet got virtually no respect from the music community, despite the fact that, according to drummer Floyd Marcus, the band members themselves were responsible for all the vocal and instrumental tracks on their debut LP, Simon Says. This is probably because the Fruitgum Company was seen as purveyors of frivolous fluff at a time when rock was obsessed with taking itself Seriously. Nonetheless, there are tracks on the album with at least some redeeming qualities, such as (Poor Old) Mr. Jensen, which closes out the LP.
Artist: Bubble Puppy
Title: Hot Smoke And Sassafras
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: A Gathering Or Promises)
Writer(s): Prince/Cox/Potter/Fore
Label: Priority (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1969
Bubble Puppy was a band from San Antonio, Texas that relocated to nearby Austin and signed a contract with International Artists, a label already known as the home of legendary Texas psychedelic bands 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. The group hit the national top 20 with Hot Smoke and Sassafras, a song that was originally intended to be a B side, in 1969. Not long after the release of their first LP, A Gathering Or Promises, the band relocated to California and changed their name to Demian, at least in part to disassociate themselves with the then-popular "bubble gum" style (but also because of problems with International Artists).
Artist: Gypsy
Title: Dead And Gone
Source: LP: Gypsy
Writer(s): Enrico Rosenbaum
Label: Metromedia
Year: 1970
Originally formed as the Underbeats in 1962, Gypsy had its greatest success after changing their name and moving to L.A. in 1969. They became the house band at the legendary Whisky-A-Go-Go for about eight months, starting in September of 1969, and during that time signed with Metromedia Records, a company owned by what would eventually become the Fox Television Network. The band made their recording debut with a double LP that included the single Gypsy Queen. Most of the band's material was written by guitarist/vocalist Enrico Rosenbaum, including the longest track on the album, Dead And Gone. After one more LP for Metromedia, the band started going through a series of personnel changes, eventually (after Rosenbaum's departure) changing their name to the James Walsh Gypsy Band (Walsh being the keyboardist of the group). Drummer Bill Lordan, after a short stint with Sly and the Family Stone, joined up with Robin Trower, an association that lasted many years.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: The Nile Song
Source: British import simulated stereo LP: Soundtrack From The Film More
Writer(s): Roger Waters
Label: Columbia (UK)
Year: 1969
After the replacement of Syd Barrett by his childhood friend David Gilmore midway through the making of the second Pink Floyd album, the new lineup got to work on a new project: a soundtrack for a film by Luxembourg director Barbet Schroeder called More. The soundtrack album contains more acoustic numbers than any other Pink Floyd LP, but is better known for a pair of tunes that are among the hardest rocking tracks the band ever recorded. One of those, the Nile Song, was released as a single, but only in France, Japan and New Zealand. The Roger Waters tune is probably as close to heavy metal that Pink Floyd ever got.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: King Of The Jungle
Source: LP: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer(s): Wright/Tarachney/Weisberg
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Beacon Street Union's second album was quite a bit different from their first one, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Whereas Eyes consisted of all-original material, Clown included a pair of cover tunes (Blue Suede Shoes and a 17-minute version of Baby, Please Don't Go), an orchestral piece (The Clown's Overture), and this bit of strangeness called King Of The Jungle. All this leads me to believe that the band itself gave up on the project halfway through, leaving producer Wes Farrell (he of Partridge Family fame) to scrounge through the outtakes and rejected tracks to fill out the album. Just my opinion, of course.
Artist: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nagle/Cuff
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.
Artist: Byrds
Title: John Riley (instrumental version 1)
Source: CD: Fifth Dimension (bonus track)
Writer(s): Gibson/Neff
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
While working on the song John Riley for their Fifth Dimension album, the Byrds decided to play around a bit between takes. Using the same basic chord structure, they changed the tempo and beat for this instrumental recording of the traditional English folk ballad.
Artist: John Coltrane
Title: Blue Train-Part II
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): John Coltrane
Label: Silver Spotlight
Year: 1957
Since I'm playing a track from way before the psychedelic era (possibly before the word "psychedelic" even existed and certainly before it came into common use), I thought it would be appropriate to talk briefly about the early history of this show. First off, it was not originally called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era; in fact, it was not specifically about the psychedelic era at all. The show made its debut in the summer of 2000 as a 90 minute weekly Adult Album Alternative music show called That Show You Hear On Thursday Night on WEOS in Geneva, NY. I had been working fairly steadily in commercial radio for a number of years and during that time had acquired hundreds of records and CDs, many of which were promo copies of songs sent out to, but not used, by radio stations I had worked at. Some of them were actually quite good, but not appropriate for the format of the station that they were given to; these, mixed with classic rock tracks and oldies from my collection, were to be the foundation of the new show. Not long after the show made its debut WEOS began carrying local City Council meetings once a month on Wednesday nights. This was an issue for Nobody, the creator/host of the annual Homelessness Radio Telethon (Radiothon?), who at the time also had a weekly talk show on WEOS on Wednesday nights and did not want to be pre-empted on a regular basis. The solution was for the two of us to trade nights, as his show had been on the air long enough to build up a following, especially among listeners in nearby Ithaca. By then I had already decided to change the name of the show to Stuck in the 20th Century, as I had made a conscious decision not to include any current releases on the playlist. One thing I did almost every week in those days was to play a track featuring jazz great John Coltrane, either fronting his own group or working with Miles Davis. I would always start the set with the words "It's Coltrane time." Not much of a catchphrase, I know, but there are still some people out there that remember it. So for those of you who have been along for the ride since Y2K...it's Coltrane Time, as we feature the mono mix of part two of the title track of Coltrane's 1957 Blue Train album.
And now for you completists out there we have the rest of the story: The show continued to be called Stuck in the 20th Century throughout 2001. That year New Year's Eve happened to fall on a Wednesday night, and I decided to do something special to celebrate. I had always had fond memories of another New Year's Eve show that I had heard just a few days after becoming a volunteer at KUNM in Albuquerque, NM in late 1975. It was my first gig at a noncommercial station, and, after hearing the set of songs I had put together for an on-air audition the program director instructed me to spend a week listening to the station to get an idea of where it was at musically. Thus I happened to be tuned in on New Year's Eve for a special locally-produced "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" show that featured bands like the Yardbirds, Electric Prunes, Blues Magoos, Standells, Kinks, Chocolate Watchband, Shadows of Knight, Amboy Dukes...essentially everything that was on Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets double album with a little British rock thrown in. Remembering how much I enjoyed hearing that show I decided to do something similar, and for that week only, changed the name of the show to Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. After 90 minutes I realized that there were tons of songs I had wanted to play but didn't get to for lack of time, so I decided to continue the idea the following week, and then came up with some other excuse to extend it yet another week. By then it became obvious even to me that this was the show I wanted to do, so I made it permanent. Eventually Stuck in the Psychedelic Era moved to Saturday nights, expanding to two hours in the process. On Memorial Day weekend 2010 Stuck in the Psychedelic Era began its run as a syndicated show, and has been slowly taking over the world ever since. Speaking of the world, I finally found a copy of the now out-of-print Nuggets 2 box set, with 108 tracks from the same time period as the first box set, but from bands operating outside the US. The best part is that all but two of these are tracks I didn't have access to before (and from what I've had the chance to sample so far they're all good stuff), so you can expect to hear a lot of "new" songs added to the mix in the near future.
And now a word from a Canadian artist:
Title: Cinnamon Girl
Source: LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used an amped-up version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.
Title: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Writer: McElroy/Bennett
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1967
It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact 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: Traffic
Title: Smiling Phases
Source: CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
The standard practice in the UK during the 60s was to not include songs that had been released as singles on LPs. This left several songs, such as the 1967 B side Smiling Phases, only available on 45 RPM vinyl until the group's first greatest hits anthology was released. In the US the song was more widely circulated, having been included on the American version of Traffic's debut LP (originally issued as Heaven Is In Your Mind but soon retitled Mr. Fantasy). Smiling Phases has since come to be recognized as one of Traffic's most iconic tunes, and has been covered by such bands as Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Here's Where You Belong
Source: CD: Part One
Writer(s): P.F. Sloan
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
If Here's Where You Belong sounds like it might have been a Turtles song, there's good reason for it. Many of the early Turtles hits were written by L.A. songwriter P.F. Sloan, who also wrote Barry McGuire's Eve Of Destruction and, with partner Steve Barri, was the driving force behind the Grass Roots in the early 1970s. A chance meeting between Sloan and the members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band at a taping for the Ed Sullivan show led to the band recording Here's Where You Belong for their first major label album, Part One, released in early 1967. It was, as it turned out, the band's most commercial sounding release, although, oddly enough, it was never issued as a single.
Artist: Kinks
Title: I Need You
Source: Mono LP: Kinkdom
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1965
After a series of hard-rocking hits in 1964 such as You Really Got Me, the Kinks mellowed out a bit with songs like Set Me Free the following year. Lurking on the other side of the single, though, was a song that showed that the band still knew how to rock out: I Need You. The song was also included on the 1965 LP Kinks Kinkdom, and went on to become something of a garage rock standard.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Mother's Little Helper
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1966
By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
Artist: Rumors
Title: Hold Me Now
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Turner/Prinsky
Label: Rhino (original label: Gemcor)
Year: 1965
The Rumors are in some ways the prototypical west coast garage-rock band. Formed sometime around 1963, the band slowly built up a following that eventually led to them cutting a record for Gemcor, a small local label owned by Gary Paxton, producer of such novelty records as Alley Oop and Monster Mash. The song they chose was a crowd favorite that they retitled Hold Me Now (the original title having a considerably less radio-friendly verb). As it turned out, the record's only airplay was as the song that got interrupted by "Officer Big Mac" announcing a "McDonald's Alert" in a local radio commercial (ironically before the title of the song even came up in the lyrics). Thus we have a case of not 15 minutes, but merely 15 seconds, of fame.
Artist: Lowell George And The Factory
Title: Candy Cane Madness
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Lightning-Rod Man)
Writer(s): George/Klein
Label: Rhino (original label: Bizarre/Straight)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1993
Toward the end of 1966 a band called the Factory appeared on the L.A. club scene. They managed to book studio time, but were never able to find a label willing to release the tracks they recorded. Band member Lowell George would later go on to produce other artists such as the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) for Frank Zappa's Bizarre Productions and finally become famous as the founder of the band Little Feat. Eventually the old Factory tracks were issued on a CD on the Bizarre/Straight label originally founded by Zappa.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source: LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
The top album of 1967 was the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was also the first US Beatle album to have a song lineup that was identical to the original UK LP. As such, it was also the first Beatle album released in the US to not include any songs that were also released as singles. Nonetheless, several tracks from the LP found their way onto the playlists of both top 40 AM and "underground" FM stations from coast to coast. Among the most popular of these tracks was John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which shows up on just about everyone's list of classic psychedelic tunes.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: One Rainy Wish
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
In the summer of 1967 my dad (who was a Sergeant in the Air Force), got transferred to Lindsay Air Station in Weisbaden, Germany. The housing situation there being what it was, it was several weeks before the rest of us could join him, and during that time he went out and bought an Akai X-355 reel to reel tape recorder that a fellow GI had picked up in Japan. The Akai had small speakers built into it, but the best way to listen to it was through headphones. It would be another year before he would pick up a turntable, so I started buying pre-recorded reel to reel tapes. Two of the first three tapes I bought were Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love, both by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. As I was forced to share a bedroom with my little brother I made it a habit to sleep on the couch instead, usually with the headphones on listening to Axis: Bold As Love. I was blown away by the stereo effects on the album, which I attributed (somewhat correctly) to Hendrix, although I would find out years later that much of the credit belongs to engineer Eddie Kramer as well. One Rainy Wish, for example, starts off with all the instruments in the center channel (essentially a mono mix). After a few seconds of slow spacy intro the song gets into gear with vocals isolated all the way over to the left, with a guitar overdub on the opposite side to balance it out. As the song continues, things move back and forth from side to side, fading in and out at the same time. It was a hell of a way to drift off to sleep every night.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less)
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
For a follow-up to the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger chose another Annette Tucker song (co-written by Jill Jones) called Get Me To The World On Time. This was probably the best choice from the album tracks available, but Hassinger may have made a mistake by choosing Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less) as the B side. That song, written by the same Tucker/Mantz team that wrote I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) could quite possibly been a hit single in its own right if it had been issued as an A side. I guess we'll never know for sure.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Cream Puff War
Source: CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s): Jerry Garcia
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
The first Grateful Dead album was recorded in a matter of days, and was mostly made up of cover tunes that the band was currently performing. The two exceptions were The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), which was credited to the entire band, and Cream Puff War, a song written by guitarist Jerry Garcia. The two tracks were paired up on the band's first single as well. Cream Puff War, as recorded, ran nearly three and a half minutes, but was edited down to 2:28 at the insistence of the corporate shirts at Warner Brothers Records.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: Work Me Lord
Source: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s): Nick Gravenites
Label: Rhino
Year: 1969
After leaving Big Brother and the Holding Company in late 1968 Janis Joplin formed a new outfit, the Kozmic Blues Band, to back her up, both in concert and on her first solo LP, I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although there was indisputedly a greater amount of raw talent in the new band, they lacked synergy with Joplin's style and ultimately failed to provide a proper vehicle for her talents. This became quite evident when she and the new band performed a set that failed to excite the crowd at Woodstock. The closest they came was with a performance of Work Me Lord, a song written specifically for Joplin by Nick Gravenites of the Electric Flag (another band that failed to live up to its potential).
Artist: Donovan/Jeff Beck Group
Title: Goo Goo Barabajabal (Love Is Hot)
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Barabajagal)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year: 1969
Donovan Leitch enlisted the Jeff Beck Group as collaborators for Goo Goo Barabajabal (Love Is Hot), a track from his 1969 Barabajal album. Sometimes the song itself is erroreously referred to as Barabajabal, making for a bit of confusion.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Sunny South Kensington
Source: Mono British import CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original label: Epic)
Year: 1967
Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch followed up his 1966 hit single Sunshine Superman with an album of the same name. He then repeated himself with the song and album Mellow Yellow. Although there were no other singles released from either album, the song Sunny South Kensington, which was done in much the same style as Superman, was a highlight of the Mellow Yellow album. Due to a contractual dispute in the UK between Donovan and Pye Records, neither LP was issued in its original form in Britain.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Bert's Blues
Source: Mono CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony (original label: Epic)
Year: 1966
In 1966 Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch got into a contractual dispute with his record label, Pye Records UK. Up to that point his records had appeared in the US on the independent Hickory label. Now, however, he was about to make his US major label debut (on Epic), and the dispute with Pye led to his newest album, Sunshine Superman, being released only in North America. Like Bob Dylan, Donovan was beginning to expand beyond his folk roots, but in addition to the usual rock instruments (guitar, bass, drums, organ) Donovan used older acoustic instruments such as strings and harpsichord as well as experimenting with modern jazz arrangements and instrumentation. Somehow he managed to combine all of these elements in one track, Bert's Blues. Surprisingly, it worked.
Artist: Focus
Title: Focus II
Source: Moving Waves
Writer(s): Thijs van Leer
Label: Sire
Year: 1971
The second Focus album, released in 1971, was originally called Focus II. It got favorable critical reviews, but poor distribution in the US until it was reissued under the title Moving Waves in early 1973 on a different label. At that time the opening track of the LP, Hocus Pocus, was released as a single and ended up going into the top 10, which in turn helped album sales immensely. Because of the name change, the album has the distinction of having not one, but two title tracks: the song Moving Waves is a one of the few vocal tracks on the album, while Focus II is probably the best representation of the band's total sound, incorporating elements of jazz, rock and classical music.
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Walk Away Renee
Source: LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s): Brown/Calilli/Sansune
Label: Smash/Sundazed
Year: 1966
The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee is one of the most covered songs in rock history, starting with a version by the Four Tops less than two years after the original recording had graced the top 5. The Left Banke version kicked off what was thought at the time to be the latest trend: baroque rock. The trend died an early death when the band members themselves made some tactical errors resulting in radio stations being hesitant to play their records.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: A Song For All Seasons
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer(s): Spencer Dryden
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1969
When it comes to Jefferson Airplane rarities, there is nothing more rare than a Spencer Dryden composition. In fact, to my knowledge, A Song For All Seasons is the only one that he is given sole credit for. The song itself is a bit of a novelty, sounding like it would be more at home on a Rolling Stones (Let It Bleed era) album than an Airplane one, which is even odder when one considers Dryden's jazz background.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: White Rabbit
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: The Farm
Source: CD: Volunteers
Writer(s): Kantner/Blackman
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1969
Although Jefferson Airplane was never known as a country-rock band, they did record a few tracks that could be considered early examples of the genre, especially on their later albums. Among the first of these tracks was The Farm, a Paul Kantner piece from the Volunteers album. Although the album itself is generally known for it's strident antiwar (and pro-anarchic) stance, The Farm leans more toward the album's secondary themes of community and ecology.
Artist: 1910 Fruitgum Co.
Title: (Poor Old) Mr. Jensen
Source: LP: Simon Says
Writer(s): Taxin/Katz/Kasenatz
Label: Buddah
Year: 1968
The 1910 Fruitgum Company is a difficult band to write about. For one thing, they were among the most successful of the so-called bubble gum bands to appear on the Buddah label in 1968, yet got virtually no respect from the music community, despite the fact that, according to drummer Floyd Marcus, the band members themselves were responsible for all the vocal and instrumental tracks on their debut LP, Simon Says. This is probably because the Fruitgum Company was seen as purveyors of frivolous fluff at a time when rock was obsessed with taking itself Seriously. Nonetheless, there are tracks on the album with at least some redeeming qualities, such as (Poor Old) Mr. Jensen, which closes out the LP.
Artist: Bubble Puppy
Title: Hot Smoke And Sassafras
Source: CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: A Gathering Or Promises)
Writer(s): Prince/Cox/Potter/Fore
Label: Priority (original label: International Artists)
Year: 1969
Bubble Puppy was a band from San Antonio, Texas that relocated to nearby Austin and signed a contract with International Artists, a label already known as the home of legendary Texas psychedelic bands 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. The group hit the national top 20 with Hot Smoke and Sassafras, a song that was originally intended to be a B side, in 1969. Not long after the release of their first LP, A Gathering Or Promises, the band relocated to California and changed their name to Demian, at least in part to disassociate themselves with the then-popular "bubble gum" style (but also because of problems with International Artists).
Artist: Gypsy
Title: Dead And Gone
Source: LP: Gypsy
Writer(s): Enrico Rosenbaum
Label: Metromedia
Year: 1970
Originally formed as the Underbeats in 1962, Gypsy had its greatest success after changing their name and moving to L.A. in 1969. They became the house band at the legendary Whisky-A-Go-Go for about eight months, starting in September of 1969, and during that time signed with Metromedia Records, a company owned by what would eventually become the Fox Television Network. The band made their recording debut with a double LP that included the single Gypsy Queen. Most of the band's material was written by guitarist/vocalist Enrico Rosenbaum, including the longest track on the album, Dead And Gone. After one more LP for Metromedia, the band started going through a series of personnel changes, eventually (after Rosenbaum's departure) changing their name to the James Walsh Gypsy Band (Walsh being the keyboardist of the group). Drummer Bill Lordan, after a short stint with Sly and the Family Stone, joined up with Robin Trower, an association that lasted many years.
Artist: Pink Floyd
Title: The Nile Song
Source: British import simulated stereo LP: Soundtrack From The Film More
Writer(s): Roger Waters
Label: Columbia (UK)
Year: 1969
After the replacement of Syd Barrett by his childhood friend David Gilmore midway through the making of the second Pink Floyd album, the new lineup got to work on a new project: a soundtrack for a film by Luxembourg director Barbet Schroeder called More. The soundtrack album contains more acoustic numbers than any other Pink Floyd LP, but is better known for a pair of tunes that are among the hardest rocking tracks the band ever recorded. One of those, the Nile Song, was released as a single, but only in France, Japan and New Zealand. The Roger Waters tune is probably as close to heavy metal that Pink Floyd ever got.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: King Of The Jungle
Source: LP: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer(s): Wright/Tarachney/Weisberg
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
The Beacon Street Union's second album was quite a bit different from their first one, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Whereas Eyes consisted of all-original material, Clown included a pair of cover tunes (Blue Suede Shoes and a 17-minute version of Baby, Please Don't Go), an orchestral piece (The Clown's Overture), and this bit of strangeness called King Of The Jungle. All this leads me to believe that the band itself gave up on the project halfway through, leaving producer Wes Farrell (he of Partridge Family fame) to scrounge through the outtakes and rejected tracks to fill out the album. Just my opinion, of course.
Artist: Mystery Trend
Title: Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Nagle/Cuff
Label: Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.
Artist: Byrds
Title: John Riley (instrumental version 1)
Source: CD: Fifth Dimension (bonus track)
Writer(s): Gibson/Neff
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1966
While working on the song John Riley for their Fifth Dimension album, the Byrds decided to play around a bit between takes. Using the same basic chord structure, they changed the tempo and beat for this instrumental recording of the traditional English folk ballad.
Artist: John Coltrane
Title: Blue Train-Part II
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): John Coltrane
Label: Silver Spotlight
Year: 1957
Since I'm playing a track from way before the psychedelic era (possibly before the word "psychedelic" even existed and certainly before it came into common use), I thought it would be appropriate to talk briefly about the early history of this show. First off, it was not originally called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era; in fact, it was not specifically about the psychedelic era at all. The show made its debut in the summer of 2000 as a 90 minute weekly Adult Album Alternative music show called That Show You Hear On Thursday Night on WEOS in Geneva, NY. I had been working fairly steadily in commercial radio for a number of years and during that time had acquired hundreds of records and CDs, many of which were promo copies of songs sent out to, but not used, by radio stations I had worked at. Some of them were actually quite good, but not appropriate for the format of the station that they were given to; these, mixed with classic rock tracks and oldies from my collection, were to be the foundation of the new show. Not long after the show made its debut WEOS began carrying local City Council meetings once a month on Wednesday nights. This was an issue for Nobody, the creator/host of the annual Homelessness Radio Telethon (Radiothon?), who at the time also had a weekly talk show on WEOS on Wednesday nights and did not want to be pre-empted on a regular basis. The solution was for the two of us to trade nights, as his show had been on the air long enough to build up a following, especially among listeners in nearby Ithaca. By then I had already decided to change the name of the show to Stuck in the 20th Century, as I had made a conscious decision not to include any current releases on the playlist. One thing I did almost every week in those days was to play a track featuring jazz great John Coltrane, either fronting his own group or working with Miles Davis. I would always start the set with the words "It's Coltrane time." Not much of a catchphrase, I know, but there are still some people out there that remember it. So for those of you who have been along for the ride since Y2K...it's Coltrane Time, as we feature the mono mix of part two of the title track of Coltrane's 1957 Blue Train album.
And now for you completists out there we have the rest of the story: The show continued to be called Stuck in the 20th Century throughout 2001. That year New Year's Eve happened to fall on a Wednesday night, and I decided to do something special to celebrate. I had always had fond memories of another New Year's Eve show that I had heard just a few days after becoming a volunteer at KUNM in Albuquerque, NM in late 1975. It was my first gig at a noncommercial station, and, after hearing the set of songs I had put together for an on-air audition the program director instructed me to spend a week listening to the station to get an idea of where it was at musically. Thus I happened to be tuned in on New Year's Eve for a special locally-produced "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" show that featured bands like the Yardbirds, Electric Prunes, Blues Magoos, Standells, Kinks, Chocolate Watchband, Shadows of Knight, Amboy Dukes...essentially everything that was on Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets double album with a little British rock thrown in. Remembering how much I enjoyed hearing that show I decided to do something similar, and for that week only, changed the name of the show to Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. After 90 minutes I realized that there were tons of songs I had wanted to play but didn't get to for lack of time, so I decided to continue the idea the following week, and then came up with some other excuse to extend it yet another week. By then it became obvious even to me that this was the show I wanted to do, so I made it permanent. Eventually Stuck in the Psychedelic Era moved to Saturday nights, expanding to two hours in the process. On Memorial Day weekend 2010 Stuck in the Psychedelic Era began its run as a syndicated show, and has been slowly taking over the world ever since. Speaking of the world, I finally found a copy of the now out-of-print Nuggets 2 box set, with 108 tracks from the same time period as the first box set, but from bands operating outside the US. The best part is that all but two of these are tracks I didn't have access to before (and from what I've had the chance to sample so far they're all good stuff), so you can expect to hear a lot of "new" songs added to the mix in the near future.
And now a word from a Canadian artist:
Title: Cinnamon Girl
Source: LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used an amped-up version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.
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