It was 50 years ago today that 1964 was coming to an end. Although the psychedelic era was not yet under way, the foundations were all there, including folk, surf, blue-eyed soul and, most importantly, the British Invasion. This week we take a sampling of all these genres, starting with a short overview and a quick look at what a couple of veteran rockers were up to before visiting the folk scene for a set. Our second segment is all about the British, while the third takes us back to the USA. The final half hour is just good music from a remarkable year: 1964.
Artist: Kingsmen
Title: Louie Louie
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Richard Berry
Label: Rhino (original label: Wand)
Year: 1963
Although Paul Revere and the Raiders had recorded the song first, it's the Portland-based Kingsmen's version of Louie Louie that is remembered as the greatest party song of all time. With its basic three-chord structure and incomprehensible lyrics, the most popular song to ever come out of the Pacific Northwest was considered a must-learn song for garage bands nationwide. A huge hit in 1963, the song was still popular enough to make 1964's top 100 list as well.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: The Times They Are A-Changin'
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Times They Are A-Changin')
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1964
Bob Dylan's first release of 1964 could not have been more appropriate for a year in which popular music would be changed forever. The Times They Are A-Changin' hit the record racks in January of 1964. By the end of the year even Dylan himself would be starting to shift away from pure folk music toward what would come to be called folk-rock.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Want To Hold Your Hand
Source: CD: 1 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Capitol
Year: 1963
Originally released in the UK in November of 1963, the Beatles' I Want To Hold Your Hand was originally slated for a January 1964 release, but when a Washington DC disc jockey started playing an imported copy of the British single in early December Capitol Records decided to move up the release of the song to December 26th. By the middle of January the song was in the US top 50 and on February 1st it took over the #1 spot, staying there for seven weeks and touching off what would come to be known as the British Invasion. Unlike many later Beatles songs that, despite being credited to the songwriting team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney were actually written by one or the other of the pair, I Want To Hold Your Hand was a true collaboration worked out in the basement of the house McCartney was living in. The group performed the song on the Ed Sullivan TV show in mid-January, setting all-time records for viewership. The tune was included on the band's first album for Capitol, Meet The Beatles, which actually ended up outselling the single, the first time in US history that had happened. It was not long before other British bands started hitting the US charts and American kids began growing their hair out in imitation of the Beatles, many of them even going so far as to form their own British-influenced garage bands.
Artist: Chuck Berry
Title: You Never Can Tell
Source: CD: Chess Box (originally released on LP: St. Louis To Liverpool and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Chuck Berry
Label: MCA (original label: Chess)
Year: 1964
The Beatles made no secret of their admiration for the music of rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry, whose popularity in the US had faded while serving time for allegedly violating the Mann act by transporting a teenaged girl across state lines. Boosted by this endorsement, Berry made a bit of a comeback in 1964 with a series of top 20 singles, the last of which was You Never Can Tell, a song about the perseverance of young love. The song enjoyed a resurgence of popularity thirty years later when it was used by director Quentin Tarantino in the film Pulp Fiction.
Artist: Roy Orbison
Title: Oh, Pretty Woman
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s): Orbison/Dees
Label: Monument
Year: 1964
Although the vast majority of Roy Orbison's hits were love ballads such as It's Over and Blue Bayou, his best-known song is the classic rocker Oh, Pretty Woman. The song managed to work its way to the top of both US and British charts during the height of the British Invasion. Orbison, in fact, was even more successful in the UK than in his native US, scoring two number hits on the British charts in 1964, the only American artist to do so.
Artist: Henry Mancini
Title: The Pink Panther Theme
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Henry Mancini
Label: RCA
Year: 1964 (LP version released 1963)
In one sense, Henry Mancini was a bit of an anachronism, as a writer of heavily orchestrated, melodic pop songs in the Cole Porter tradition at a time when rock and roll was king. Despite this, Mancini was responsible for creating some of the best-known music of the time, including the oft-covered theme from the TV show Peter Gunn. His most enduring piece, however, has to be the Pink Panther Theme, from the movie (and later a series of theatrical cartoons) of the same name. Although the full stereo version of the song featured on the original 1963 soundtrack album is close to four minutes long, it was this 2 1/2 minute mono version that was heard on nearly every radio station in the world in 1964.
Artist: Peter, Paul And Mary
Title: Blowin' In The Wind
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1963
Just as knowing the chords for Van Morrison's Gloria was pretty much a prerequisite for being in a garage band, being able to play Bob Dylan's Blowing In The Wind was a must for anyone attempting to play folk music at a party in the mid-1960s. If there was more than one of you singing, you most likely used the Peter, Paul and Mary arrangement of the tune, with its three-part harmony. Their version was by far the most popular recording of the song, going all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts in the summer of '63. The recording remained popular well into the latter part of the decade.
Artist: Joan Baez
Title: There But For Fortune
Source: 45 RPM single (promo copy)
Writer(s): Phil Ochs
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1964
When I was a kid I used to occasionally pick up something called a grab bag. It was literally a sealed brown paper bag that sold for about 50 cents with anywhere from four to six 45 rpm records in it. Usually these were "cut-outs", unsold copies of records that hadn't sold as well as expected. Often they were five or six years old (albeit unplayed). Once in a while, though, there would be a real gem among them. My original copy of the Joan Baez recording of Phil Ochs's There But For Fortune was one such gem. I later found a promo copy while working at KUNM in Albuquerque, which is the one I use now, since my original is long since worn out. Not only was this record my first introduction to Joan Baez, it was also the first record I had ever seen on the Vanguard label and the first song written by Phil Ochs I had ever heard. Not bad for twelve and a half cents.
Artist: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: Bleeker Street
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Wednesday Morning, 3AM)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1964
One of the first of many "slice of life" songs from songwriter Paul Simon, Bleeker Street (a real street in New York's Greenwich Village) appeared on the first Simon And Garfunkel LP, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, in late 1964. The album did not initially sell well, and the duo actually split up shortly after it was deleted from the Columbia catalog. Following the success of an electrified remix of another song from the album, The Sound Of Silence, the pair reunited and Columbia reissued Wednesday Morning, 3AM in 1966.
Artist: Beatles
Title: A Hard Day's Night
Source: Mono CD: A Hard Day's Night (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original label: United Artists) (original single label: Capitol)
Year: 1964
The Beatles continued to set new records throughout 1964. One of the most remarkable was simultaneously occupying the top spots on both the US and UK album charts with an LP featuring the song that was currently occupying the top spots on the singles charts in both countries. The song (and album) that accomplished this feat was the title track of the Fab Four's first feature film, A Hard Day's Night, in July of 1964. Although United Artists had the rights to the soundtrack album, Capitol Records had the release rights to the individual songs, resulting on the same song being at the top of four charts on three different labels at the same time (both LP and single being on the Parlophone label in the UK).
Artist: Beatles
Title: She Loves You
Source: Mono CD: 1 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Capitol (original US label: Swan)
Year: 1963
Beatlemania hit its British peak in the fall of 1963, when She Loves You spent 18 weeks in the UK top 5, six of them in the # 1 spot. Such was the popularity of the band at that time that thousands of copies of the single had been pre-ordered before the song was even written, a number that grew to half a million by the time the record was released. She Loves You is the all-time best-selling Beatles single in the UK, and was the group's second consecutive # 1 hit in the US as well (knocking I Want To Hold Your Hand out of the top spot on March 21, 1964. The song, which was initially released in the US on the Swan label, was at first considered a flop, selling only about 1,000 copies when it first hit the American record racks in September of 1963. Eventually, though, the song became one of the five Beatles songs to occupy the top 5 spots on the US charts simultaneously in April of 1964 and ended up being the second-highest ranked song of the year, behind I Want To Hold Your Hand.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Can't Buy Me Love
Source: Mono CD: A Hard Day's Night (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original label: United Artists) (original single label: Capitol)
Year: 1964
In April of 1964 the Beatles set a record that has yet to be equaled: they owned the top five spots on the US charts. The song at the top of that heap of tunes was Can't Buy Me Love, which had been recorded just as Beatlemania was beginning to take hold in the US. Can't Buy Me Love was the third consecutive # 1 hit for the Beatles, an accomplishment that has never been repeated.
Artist: Manfred Mann
Title: Do Wah Diddy Diddy
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Barry/Greenwich
Label: Silver Spotlight
Year: 1964
Manfred Mann started off as the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers and were part of the same London British blues scene as the Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones. In 1964 they took a decidedly commercial turn with one of the silliest, yet memorable hits of the British invasion, Do Wah Diddy Diddy. The song was written by the husband and wife team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who operated out of New York's Brill building under the supervision of Don Kirschner. Do Wah Diddy Diddy, with lead vocals by Paul Jones, topped the charts for several weeks and ended up among the top 10 songs of the year.
Artist: Dave Clark Five
Title: Glad All Over
Source: Mono CD: 5 By Five (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Clark/Smith
Label: Hollywood (original label: Epic)
Year: 1964
The Dave Clark Five were originally formed as a way of raising money for Clark's football (soccer) team. Toward the end of 1963 they recorded their first big hit, Glad All Over, which went to the top of the British charts in January of 1964. Within a few months the song found its way onto the US charts as well, peaking at # 6 in April of 1964. What had started off as a one-band show was becoming a full-scale British Invasion of the US music industry.
Artist: Zombies
Title: She's Not There
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Rod Argent
Label: Priority (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1964
Most of the original British invasion bands were guitar-oriented, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. One notable exception was the Zombies, whose leader, Rod Argent, built the group around his electric piano. Their first single, She's Not There, was a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic and is ranked among the top British rock songs of all time.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Not Fade Away
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hardin/Petty
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1964
The Rolling Stones first top 5 hit in the UK was an updated version of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away. The Stones put a greater emphasis on the Bo Diddley beat than Holly did and ended up with their first charted single in the US as well, establishing the Rolling Stones as the Yang of the British Invasion to the Beatles' Ying. It was a role that fit the top band from the city they call "The Smoke" well.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Time Is On My Side
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Jerry Ragovoy
Label: London
Year: 1964
A while back I got word of the passing of songwriter Jerry Ragovoy, who died on July 13th 2013 at the age of 83. Ragovoy's writing career extended back to the 1940s and included classics by artists such as Kai Winding. In later years he wrote several tunes that were recorded by Janis Joplin, including Try (Just A Little Bit Harder), My Baby, Cry Baby and the classic Piece Of My Heart. He occassionally used a pseudonym as well, and it was as Norman Meade he published his best-known song: Time Is On My Side, an R&B hit for Irma Thomas that became one of the first US hits for the Rolling Stones.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Tell Me
Source: Singles Collection-The London Years
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco
Year: 1964
The first song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to be recorded by the Rolling Stones, Tell Me was only available as an LP cut in the UK. In the US it became a hit single, establishing the Stones as serious competition to the Beatles themselves. Jagger and Richards would continue to write songs together, eventually outlasting the John Lennon/Paul McCartney team by several decades (and still counting).
Artist: Hollies
Title: Here I Go Again
Source: LP: The Very Best Of The Hollies
Writer(s): Shuman/Westlake
Label: United Artists (original label: Imperial)
Year: 1964
Most US listeners first heard about the Hollies in 1966, when they took Bus Stop and Stop Stop Stop into the top 10. The group had actually been making hit records since 1963 in their native UK, where they were one of the most visible bands on TV dance programs. One of their earliest hits was 1964's Here I Go Again, a song that was co-written by Mort Shuman and Clive Westlake.
Artist: Trashmen
Title: Surfin' Bird
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Frazier/White/Harris/Wilson
Label: Eric (original label: Garrett)
Year: 1963
The Trashmen were a group from Minneapolis that came up with the idea of taking two Rivingtons hits from the 1950s, Papa Oom Mow Mow and Bird Is The Word, and combining them, speeding up the tempo to insane levels in the process. The result was a huge hit in 1963. I only have one question: why did I play this?
Artist: Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title: Banzai Washout
Source: CD: The Best Of Dick Dale And His Del-Tones (originally released on LP: Summer Surf)
Writer(s): Douglas
Label: Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1964
Instrumental surf music had already gone underground by 1964, eclipsed in popularity first by vocal surf groups like the Beach Boys and then by the British Invasion. Still, the talented Dick Dale, who had created the genre with his song Let's Go Trippin', was still warming up the beaches on the US west coast with tracks like Banzai Washout from his Summer Surf LP. Dale finally left the music business when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1966, but resurfaced in the 1980s in the film Back To The Beach and, thanks in part to filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, has finally gotten the recognition he deserves for his role as "King of the surf guitar" in recent years.
Artist: Ventures
Title: Walk-Don't Run, 1964
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Johnny Smith
Label: Silver Spotlight
Year: 1964
The first two Ventures songs to hit the top 10 were actually two different versions of the same song. The original 1960 version of Walk-Don't Run was the band's first charted hit, which was followed by a succession of moderately successful surf instrumentals. It wasn't until late 1964, however, that the band returned to the top 10 with this updated version of the same song made for the soundtrack of the Walk-Don't Run movie. The Ventures would return to the top 10 five years later with the Hawaii Five-Oh theme. Despite only having three top 10 singles, the Ventures are universally acknowledged to be the most prolific instrumental rock band in history, with over 200 albums to their credit.
Artist: Pyramids
Title: Penetration
Source: Mono CD: Surfin' Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): S. Leonard
Label: Rhino (original label: Best)
Year: 1964
The last instrumental surf record to hit the top 20 charts was a tune called Penetration from a Long Beach, California band called the Pyramids. Other than that, the group is notable for appearing in the 1964 film Bikini Beach wearing Beatle wigs, removing them during their performance to reveal shaved heads underneath. Well, I guess there are worse things to be remembered for.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: I Get Around
Source: Mono LP: Endless Summer (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Brian Wilson
Label: Capitol
Year: 1964
Although in its purest form surf music was instrumental in nature, there were several vocal groups that found success in the genre. First among these was the Beach Boys, who had begun their recording career in 1962 with the song Surfin'. Only one of the band members, however, (drummer Dennis Wilson) actually did any surfing, and it wasn't long before the Beach Boys came to embody the entire lifestyle of southern California youth. This lifestyle included cruising the streets in various cars, the coolest of which were the "hot rods", generally older models that had been heavily customized, both on the outside, with lots of chrome and fiery decals, and under the hood, with souped up engines with plenty of excess horsepower. It was this aspect of the SoCal experience that inspired the band's first # 1, I Get Around, which was on the radio from coast to coast in the summer of 1964, competing head-on with the British Invasion and coming up a winner.
Artist: Jan And Dean
Title: Dead Man's Curve
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Berry/Christian/Kornfeld/Wilson
Label: Silver Spotlight (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1964
As I talk about in a really long scholarly article elsewhere on the web site, one of the many contributing factors to the temporary democratization of the US popular music industry was the surf music craze of 1962 and '63, which morphed into the hot rod music craze of 1964 and '65. Although the style was created by instrumentalists such as Dick Dale and the Ventures, it was the vocal groups such as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean that found the greatest commercial success with it. One of the biggest hits was the eerily predictive Dead Man's Curve, about a car wreck along a particularly nasty stretch of Sunset Blvd. in the vicinity of Beverly Hills. About two years after this song topped the charts, Jan Berry was involved in a near-fatal collision just a few blocks from the infamous curve; an accident he never fully recovered from.
Artist: Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title: Louie Go Home
Source: Mono CD: The Legend Of Paul Revere (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Revere/Lindsay
Label: Columbia
Year: 1964
Paul Revere was an enterprising young man who had left high school to go to barber college, opening his own barber shop as well as a drive-in burger joint by the time he was old enough to vote. A talented pianist who idolized Jerry Lee Lewis, Revere joined a local rock 'n' roll band in the late 1950s. By 1960 the band had added vocalist/saxophonist Mark Lindsay and had changed its name to Paul Revere And The Raiders., releasing their first single, a boogie-woogie version of Chopsticks called Beatnik Sticks, on both the Apex and Gardenia labels. The song hit the top 40 charts and led to an appearance on American Bandstand, but before the group could build on its success, Revere received his draft notice and went into the US Army. In 1962 Revere and Lindsay reformed the Raiders in Portland, Oregon, going through a succession of guitarists, bassists and drummers before settling on a more or less permanent lineup by early 1963. In April they recorded a rock version of Louie Louie, which was released on the local Sande label before being picked up by Columbia for national distribution. At that time Columbia was the second largest record company in the world, but had never released a rock record and had no idea how to promote the single. Meanwhile the Kingsmen's version had become a major hit, and the Raiders version of Louie Louie, which had been released first, was largely forgotten by the record buying public. The band, however, remembered that their version of the song had been a huge regional hit and decided to record a follow-up single called Louie Go Home, to cash in on it in 1964. Around this same time Revere and Lindsay came up with the idea of the band wearing Revolutionary war costumes, which added a new dimension to the group's image and got the attention of Dick Clark, who helped them achieve success on a national level.
Artist: Sonics
Title: The Witch
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Gerald Roslie
Label: Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year: 1964
The #1 selling single in the history of the Pacific Northwest was this tune by one of the founding bands of the Seattle music scene. The Sonics were as raw as any punk rock band of the seventies, as The Witch proves beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Artist: Dino Valenti
Title: Let's Get Together
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer(s): Chet Powers (Dino Valenti)
Label: Rhino
Year: 1964
At first glance this version of Let's Get Together could be mistaken for a cover tune. In reality, though, Dino Valenti was one of several aliases used by the guy who was born Chester Powers. Perhaps this was brought on by his several encounters with the law, most of which led to jail time. By all accounts, Valenti was one of the more bombastic characters on the San Francisco scene. The song was first commercially recorded by Jefferson Airplane in 1966, but it wasn't until 1969, when the 1967 Youngbloods version was re-released with the title shortened to Get Together, that the song became a major hit.
Artist: Nashville Teens
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: John D. Loudermilk
Label: KTel (original label: London)
Year: 1964
The Nashville Teens were not teens. Nor were they from Nashville. In fact, they were one of the original British Invasion bands. Their version of John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road was a huge international hit in the summer of 1964. The lead guitar parts on the recording are the work of studio musician Jimmy Page.
Artist: Them
Title: Baby, Please Don't Go
Source: Mono 12" single (reissue)
Writer: Joe Williams
Label: A&M
Year: 1964
Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Led by Van Morrison, the band quickly got a reputation for being rude and obnoxious, particularly to members of the English press (although it was actually a fellow Irishman who labeled them as "boorish"). Their first single was what has come to be considered the definitive rock and roll version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the single was never issued in the US. Oddly enough, the song's B side ended up being the song most people associate with Them: the classic Gloria, which was released as Them's US debut single in 1965 but promptly found itself banned on most US radio stations due to suggestive lyrics. Them's recording of Baby, Please Don't Go gained renewed popularity in the 1980s when it was used in the film Good Morning Vietnam.
Artist: Animals
Title: House Of The Rising Sun
Source: Mono CD: The Best Of The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): trad., arr. Price
Label: Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1964
Sometimes, to use a baseball analogy, you hit a home run in your first time out fo the box. Such was the case with the Animals recording of the traditional folk song House Of The Rising Sun. The record, released in 1964, went to the top of the charts virtually all over the planet and the song itself has long since come to be identified specifically with the Animals, despite its 19th century (some say even earlier) origins. In fact, Bob Dylan, who recorded the song years before the Animals, removed the song from his own repertoire when he was accused of stealing it from the latter band. Dave Van Ronk, who taught the song to Dylan in the first place, has claimed that the Animals were actually using his arrangement of the song. Regardless, the fact remains that if you were going to play guitar in a rock and roll band in the mid-60s you had to know how to play the Animals version of House Of The Rising Sun. It helped if you had the stamina in your chord hand to still be playing it six verses later.
Artist: Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs
Title: Wooly Bully
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Domingo Samudio
Label: Rhino (original label: XL)
Year: 1964
Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs were pioneers of what has come to be called Tex-Mex, a style that can best described as straight ahead rock and roll seasoned with traditional Mexican forms such as salsa and ranchero. The Pharaohs were already a popular band in their native Texas when they recorded Wooly Bully for the regional XL label in 1964. The song proved so popular that it (and the band's contract) was bought outright by M-G-M Records, at the time one of the largest labels in the country. Wooly Bully was re-released nationally on M-G-M in 1965 and ended up among the top 10 records of the year.
Artist: Beau Brummels
Title: Laugh Laugh
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ron Elliott
Label: Rhino (original label: Autumn)
Year: 1964
It was difficult for an American band to get a hit record in 1964. Some, such as San Francisco's Beau Brummels, decided the best way was to beat the Brits at their own game. Laugh Laugh, their debut single, was released in December of that year. Ultimately, the decision to emulate British rock worked against the Brummels, as they were never considered part of the blossoming San Francisco music scene.
Artist: Byrds
Title: You Movin'
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: The Preflyte Sessions)
Writer(s): Gene Clark
Label: Rhino (original label: Sundazed)
Year: Recorded 1964, released 2001
Although the Byrds got their first hit with a Bob Dylan cover, Mr. Tambourine Man, they did have a quality songwriter right from the beginning in the person of guitarist Gene Clark. One of the earliest Clark songs to be recorded by the band was You Movin', which was included on a 1964 demo tape that remained unreleased until 2001.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Source: Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single and in US on LP: For Your Love)
Writer(s): Level/Love
Label: Raven (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1964
The history of Good Morning Little Schoolgirl is complicated by the fact that there were actually two entirely different songs using the same title. The first was an R&B hit for Sonny Boy Williamson, and is probably the better known of the two, thanks to being covered by such groups as Ten Years After and the Grateful Dead. The second song to use the title was written by Don Level and Bob Love, who performed as an R&B duo called Don & Bob. This version was covered by the Yardbirds in 1964 and released as the band's second single in the UK. Although it was not released as a single in the US it was included on the band's first US LP, For Your Love.
Artist: Kinks
Title: You Really Got Me
Source: Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: K-Tel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1964
The Kinks' You Really Got Me has been described as the first hard rock song and the track that invented heavy metal. You'll get no argument from me on either of those.
Artist: Danny Kalb
Title: I'm Troubled
Source: CD: The Blues Project Anthology (originally released on compilation LP: The Blues Project)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Polydor (original label: Elektra)
Year: 1964
In 1964 Elektra Records, then a folk and blues label, decided to put together an album showcasing the various white blues musicians making a living in New York's Greenwich Village. Among the participants was a young singer/guitarist named Danny Kalb, who contributed two songs to the album. One of those two was his cover of the Muddy Waters tune I'm Troubled. A few months later Bob Dylan released his Highway 61 Revisited album using electric instruments, inspiring Kalb to start an electric blues band of his own. At first the band did not have a name, but eventually they decided to appropriate the name of the album that Kalb's first recordings had appeared on: The Blues Project.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Feel Fine
Source: CD: 1 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Capitol
Year: 1964
The Beatles' final record (pun intended) of 1964 was I Feel Fine, the group's sixth single to hit the # 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 that year, a record that has never been equaled. It is also the first studio recording to open with deliberate feedback, a fact that John Lennon, who wrote the song, was quite proud of in later years.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Stuck with a hermit at Yuletide (starts 12/19/14)
Just about every weekly radio show does a Christmas special this time of year, and for several years now Stuck In the Psychedelic Era has been no exception. There is a problem, though, and that is the unavoidable fact that for the most part the artists featured on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era never had the opportunity (or inclination, for that matter) to record Christmas songs. There are exceptions, of course, and this week you'll hear some of those by Jethro Tull, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, and others. But, unless I wanted to spend over half the show on Beach Boys Christmas songs (and there are nearly enough of those for an entire show), I knew I would have to take an entirely different approach to selecting the songs. After a couple of years of experimenting around with various approaches I finally decided to just pick out the coolest holiday tracks I could find, regardless of genre or year they were recorded, and have been doing it that way ever since. As a result, on this year's show we'll be hearing tunes that span from 1948 through 1983. One unintended consequence of doing it this way is that nearly every track used on the show tonight is from a CD. So prepare to be Stuck with the Hermit at Yuletide without any scratchy records this year.
Artist: Mannheim Steamroller
Title: Hark! The Herald Trumpets Sing
Source: CD: A Fresh Aire Christmas
Year: 1988
I was looking for something that was both pompous and cool at the same time to start the show. Mannheim Steamroller seemed to fit the bill. Besides, Chip Davis wrote it to be an introduction, so I figured why not?
Artist: George Thorogood and the Destroyers
Song Title: Rock and Roll Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1983
George Thorogood has always said that his group was at heart a bar band. As a bar band is just a step away from being a garage band, this seemed like as good a place as any to get into the actual meat of the show.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
Source: CD single: Free As a Bird
Release Year: 1967/1997
Every year the Beatles would record a special Christmas message to go out to members of their fan club, and mail it out on what was then known as a floppy disc. This was not the same as a computer floppy disc, however. In fact, the medium the Beatles used eventually came to be known as a flexi-disc, just to keep things from getting any more confusing. Regardless of what you called it, the things tended to wear out after just a few plays and I doubt there are many playable copies of these discs left in the universe. Luckily for us, George Martin had the foresight to hang on to everything the Beatles ever recorded, including this tune, which was chopped up and used for the 1967 Christmas Greeting. When the Beatles Anthology was released in 1997, the piece was included on the Free As a Bird CD single, and we got to hear the song in its uninterrupted entirety for the first time.
Artist: John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Song Title: Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1971
Originally intended as an anti-Vietnam War song, John and Yoko's Happy Xmas (War Is Over) has long since acquired classic status and is now one of the most familiar songs of the season. It was first released in the US in December of 1971, but due to a problem with the publisher did not appear in the rest of the world until November of 1972.
Artist: Beach Boys
Song Title: Morning Christmas
Source: CD: Beach Boys Ultimate Christmas
Release Year: 1977
Dennis Wilson was not hanging around with the rest of the clan in 1977, but did want to make a contribution to their new Christmas album that year, so he sent in this recording. The album ended up not being released, but the track finally did see the light of day on the Ultimate Christmas collection issued four or five years ago.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Song Title: Silent Night/7 O'Clock News
Source: CD: Complete Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Release Year: 1966
Simon and Garfunkel's Silent Night/7 O'Clock News is unique for several reasons. The most obvious is that it uses two unrelated recordings to make an ironically chilling point. The first is a rendition of Franz Gruber's Silent Night, with vocals in the center channel and piano only coming from one speaker. As the song progresses a newscast in the other channel slowly gets louder. Eventually the song ends and there is only the news. What's also unusual is that this well-known Christmas carol is not featured on a Christmas album at all; instead it appears as the final track of the duo's 1966 LP Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Song Title: A Hazy Shade of Winter
Source: CD: Complete Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Release Year: 1966
I wish I could take credit for putting Simon And Garfunkel's Silent Night/7 O'Clock News and A Hazy Shade of Winter back to back. The truth is I don't know who came up with the idea; my best guess is someone from Westwood One radio, as I first heard it done on one of their syndicated programs. Still, it's not a bad idea, and I happened to have a copy of the Westwood One version of the paired tracks, so there it is.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song Title: Ring Out Solstice Bells
Source: LP: Songs From the Wod
Release Year: 1976
Until the late 1940s the predominate form of recorded music was the 78 RPM (revolutions per minute) record, which was either 10 or 12 inches in diameter and made of a brittle material called shellac. The 10 inch version was the standard for popular music, with a running time of about 3 to 4 minutes. RCA Victor developed a direct replacement for the 78 that was 7 inches in diameter and ran at 45 RPM. Meanwhile, RCA's top rival, Columbia Records, developed a slower long-playing record that used something called microgroove technology that allowed up to half an hour's worth of recorded material per side. Somewhere along the way somebody decided to try the microgroove approach to the 45 and the Extended Play (EP) record was born. In the US, EPs were somewhat popular in the 1950s, but pretty much died out by the time of the Beatles, except for specialized formats such as children's records and low-budget cover labels that would hire anonymous studio musicians to re-create popular hits. In the UK, on the other hand, the format remained viable up through the mid-70s. Jethro Tull took advantage of the EP format to release a Christmas record in December of 1976. Ring Out Solstice Bells was the featured song on the EP, and would not be released in the US until the following spring, when it was included on the album Songs From the Wood.
Artist: Ed "Cookie" Byrnes
Song Title: Yulesville
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1959
The ABC TV network was a perennial also-ran that was just starting to find a winning formula in the late 50s with shows targeted toward a younger audience. The most popular of these was 77 Sunset Strip, starring Ed "Cookie" Byrnes. He and co-star Connie Stevens, staying in character, cut a hit novelty record called "Cookie, Cookie," which played on Cookie's propensity for combing his hair. Byrnes, again in character, followed it up with this hip retelling of the classic poem Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Artist: Bobby "Boris" Pickett
Song Title: Monster's Holiday
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1962
Bobby Picket scored big with his Halloween hit Monster Mash in 1962, and quickly followed it up with this sequel set around the Christmas holidays. Legendary producer Gary Paxton was responsible for both recordings making it onto vinyl and on the air.
Artist: Johnny Preston
Song Title: (I Want a) Rock and Roll Guitar
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1960
Johnny Preston recorded his signature song in 1960, the classic Running Bear, penned by J.P. Richardson, the Big Bopper. The pair teamed up again to create a brand new Christmas song, (I Want a) Rock and Roll Guitar, later the same year. Interesting enough, by the middle of the decade a guitar was exactly what many kids were indeed asking for. I should know; I got my first guitar (and amp) as a Christmas present after badgering my parents mercilessly for months. I think between the two they might have run about $100, which made it the most expensive Christmas I ever had.
Artist: Foghat
Song Title: All I Want For Christmas Is You
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1981
Foghat was formed when all the members of Savoy Brown except leader Kim Simmonds decided to form their own band in the early 70s. After a moderately successful run, founding member "Lonesome" Dave Peverett was all set to call it quits in 1981, but not until after he wrote and recorded All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Artist: Kinks
Song Title: Father Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1977
There are not many socially-conscious Christmas songs, especially slightly twisted ones like the Kinks' classic Father Christmas from 1977. I guess by then getting a guitar was kind of passe anyway.
Artist: Charles Brown
Song Title: Please Come Home For Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits (1955-Present)
Release Year: 1961
By now just about everyone is familiar with the Eagles version of Please Come Home For Christmas. Not everyone, however, knows the song was written by blues great Charles Brown. Even fewer have actually heard Brown's 1961 original, which is a shame, as it blows the Eagles version clean out of the water.
Artist: James Brown
Song Title: Santa Claus, Santa Claus
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1968
Few people would ever accuse James Brown of being a blues artist, but this recording of Santa Claus, Santa Claus (sometimes called just Santa Claus) from 1968 shows what it would have sounded like if he was.
Artist: Clarence Carter
Song Title: Back Door Santa
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1969
Clarence Carter is an icon of the beach music (for you non-Carolinians, beach music has nothing to do with surf music) crowd. For everyone else, he is a moderately successful soul artist known mostly for his mid-70s hit Slip Away. Regardless of where you might know him from, his Back Door Santa will surprise you with its down and funky energy.
Artist: Jimmy McCracklin
Song Title: Christmas Time
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1961 (?)
Jimmy McCracklin recorded one of the catchiest, yet underplayed, tunes of the 50s when he did The Walk. Christmas Time, from a few years later, actually sounds like beach music. Go figure.
Artist: Chuck Berry
Song Title: Run Rudolph Run
Source: CD: Chuck Berry Chess Box
Release Year: 1958
Chuck Berry established a reputation in the 60s for reworking his old songs from the 50s, giving them new lyrics and sometimes new guitar rifts. Probably the best-known example of this was No Particular Place To Go, which is a reworked version of School Day. His first reworking of a previously-recorded song was 1958's Run Rudoph Run, which was virtually identical to Little Queenie, released earlier the same year. To me it sounds like he actually used the Little Queenie instrumental tracks rather than to re-record the song. This kind of cost-cutting measure would be consistent with his later practice of using pick-up bands rather than incurring the travel expenses of having his own band on the road.
Artist: Jack Scott
Song Title: There's Trouble Brewin'
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1963
Canadian born Jack Scott was one of the great rockabilly performers of the late 50s, scoring several top 10 hits, including My True Love and Burning Bridges. This 1963 recording of There's Trouble Brewin' shows him at the peak of his vocal powers.
Artist: Cheech and Chong
Song Title: Santa Claus and His Old Lady
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1971
I heard Cheech And Chong's Santa Claus and His Old Lady on the radio the year it was released and managed to find a copy of the 45 only to have it disappear on me a few years later. Luckily, the folks at Rhino somehow knew of my dilemma and included it on their Rock and Roll Christmas CD (sure they did). Incidentally, the B side of that old 45 was Dave's Not Here from Cheech and Chong's first album.
Artist: Ray Stevens
Song Title: Santa Claus Is Watching You
Source: CD: New Gold on CD (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1962
I've mentioned something called the Grab Bag before. Basically, it was a sealed paper bag (sometimes with a clear plastic front) containing four 45 RPM records, generally "cut-outs" that were no longer in print. The one my family bought for Christmas of 1964 had a Sing Along With Mitch Christmas EP in the front. By far the oddest record in the bag was Santa Claus Is Watching You by Ray Stevens, although I seem to remember that version being slightly different than the one heard here. One thing that both versions had in common was the presence of Clyde the Camel from Stevens's first hit Ahab the Arab.
Artist: Spike Jones and His City Slickers
Song Title: All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1935-1954
Release Year: 1948
Spike Jones and His City Slickers were a highly talented bunch who made music out of sound effects, toy instruments, and whatever else it occurred to them to use. Their forte was the novelty record, and no one did it better. All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) was written by Middleton, NY schoolteacher Donald Yetter Gardner, who was inspired to write the song when he asked his second grade class what they wanted for Christmas and was struck by how many of them were lisping due to missing front teeth.
Artist: Chipmunks
Song Title: The Chipmunk Song
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present
Release Year: 1958
In 1958 pop-jazz composer/bandleader Ross Bagdasarian decided to play around with a variable-speed tape recorder and came up with the novelty hit Witch Doctor. He followed it up by using multiple tape machines to create a trio of sped up voices that he called the Chipmunks, and released this smash hit in time for the Christmas season. The success of The Chipmunk Song led to a Saturday morning cartoon series and a series of albums for the Liberty label. His son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. has revived the concept in recent years, although not with the same level of success.
Artist: Beach Boys
Song Title: Little Saint Nick (stereo single version)
Source: CD: Beach Boys Ultimate Christmas
Release Year: 1963
When the Beach Boys first recorded Little Saint Nick they were the hottest surf music band in the country. A year later Beatlemania had set in, and a new version of Little Saint Nick was recorded for the Beach Boys Christmas Album. The new version put a greater emphasis on the vocals, and much of the original instrumentation was deleted from the arrangement. That is the version that usually gets heard on commercial radio every year. In the mid-70s, Carl Wilson, who by then had stepped into the leader's role formerly held by older brother Brian, pulled out the original 1963 tapes and created a new stereo mix of the song. The instruments have greater prominence in this version and include the distinctive sound of sleighbells that were completely exorcised from the 1964 version.
Artist: Ventures
Song Title: Sleigh Ride
Source: CD: The Ventures Christmas Album
Release Year: 1965
The Ventures are by far the most successful instrumental rock group in history, with over 100 albums released over several decades. One of the most successful of these was their 1965 Christmas album, which featured this surfinated version of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride, a piece usually associated with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Artist: Sonics
Song Title: Santa Claus
Source: CD: Cool Yule (originally released on LP:
Release Year: 1966
The Pacific Northwest was home to several bands that can only be described as proto-punk (think Louie Louie). One of the top bands on the scene up there was the Sonics, who recorded raw hard-driving songs with titles like Psycho, the Witch and Strychnine. Santa Claus is very much in the same vein, making it the punkiest Christmas song of the sixties, if not all time.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song Title: Christmas Song
Source: CD: This Was (bonus track originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
I wanted to play one set made up entirely of songs from the psychedelic era performed by artists that I feature on the show on a fairly regular basis. One of these artists is the band Jethro Tull, led by flautist/acoustic guitarist/vocalist Ian Anderson. His somewhat cynical Christmas Song, originally released in the UK in 1968, did not appear in the US until the 1973 anthology album Living In the Past.
Artist: Canned Heat
Song Title: Christmas Blues
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1968
Although Steve Miller originally hailed from Chicago, it was Canned Head that emerged as the San Francisco Bay area's electric blues band of choice. With Robert "Big Bear" Hite fronting the band on blues harp and vocals, they recorded their Christmas Blues in time for the 1968 Yule season.
Artist: Chuck Berry
Song Title: Merry Christmas, Baby
Source: CD: Chuck Berry Chess Box
Release Year: 1958
Chuck Berry did not record too many cover tunes, as he was a prolific songwriter himself. However, for the B side to Run Rudolph Run, he cut this tasty version of Charles Brown's "other" Christmas song, Merry Christmas, Baby.
Artist: Solomon Burke
Song Title: Presents For Christmas
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1966
Solomon Burke was a staple artist for the Atlantic label at a time when Atlantic itself was being overshadowed by the Stax/Volt labels that it distributed. Nonetheless, Burke had several R&B hits throughout the sixties and was highly respected by his fellow artists. Presents For Christmas captures Burke at his peak in 1966.
Artist: Eartha Kitt
Song Title: Santa Baby
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1935-1954
Release Year: 1953
Eartha Kitt has one of the most unique voices in the history of jazz, and put it to good use on the original 1953 version of Santa Baby, a tune that has unfortunately in recent years become associated with Madonna. Kitt continued to perform with nearly as much energy as she had in the 50s right up to her death on Christmas Day, 2008.
Artist: Rufus Thomas
Song Title: I'll Be Your Santa Baby
Source: CD: New Gold on CD (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: unknown
Rufus Thomas had a long and storied career, first with his "dog" hits in the early 60s (Walking the Dog being the most famous) and then later as a member of the Stax/Volt stable of artists. I'll Be Your Santa Baby, recorded for Stax, was released sometimes in the late 60s around the same time that his daughter Carla was making a name for herself with hits like B-A-B-Y and (with Otis Redding) Tramp.
Artist: Cadillacs
Song Title: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Source: CD: New Gold on CD (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1956
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been recorded by a lot of different artists over the years, but this version by the Cadillacs stands out for its pure sense of fun. Doo-wop was at the peak of its popularity in 1956 and the Cadillacs, led by Earl "Speedoo" Carroll, were among the best of the bunch.
Artist: Drifters
Song Title: White Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits (1955-Present)
Release Year: 1955
The Drifters were a kind of early R&B doowop supergroup made up of ex-members of other R&B groups such as Billy Ward's Dominoes. The most distinctive voice of the original Drifters was high tenor Clyde McPhatter (for whom Ray Stevens's famous camel was named), which is heard prominently on their version of Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Over the years the group's lineup changed many times and led to several former members forming competing groups, all using the Drifters name. Over time, members of these offshoots would in turn form their own Drifters, despite having virtually no connection to the original group. This is why it sometimes seems that half the doowop singers in the world claim to be former members of the Drifters.
Artist: Marquees
Song Title: Christmas In the Congo
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1958
You have to hear this one to believe it. 'Nuff said.
Artist: King Curtis
Song Title: The Christmas Song
Source: 45 RPM vinyl
Release Year: 1966
King Curtis was one of the most in-demand saxophone players of the first wave of rock and roll. His best known work was on the song Yakety Yak by the Coasters in 1958. In the sixties he became the music director for the Atlantic Records group, appearing on a variety of recordings by artists such as Solomon Burke and occassionally released material on the Atco label under his own name. Tragically, his life was cut short when he was the victim of a stabbing when he attempted to stop junkies from shooting up on his front steps in New York.
So there it is: the Hermit's own take on Yuletime. I hope you enjoy the show. Next week we take a look back at the songs and artists that got the most airtime on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era this past year.
Artist: Mannheim Steamroller
Title: Hark! The Herald Trumpets Sing
Source: CD: A Fresh Aire Christmas
Year: 1988
I was looking for something that was both pompous and cool at the same time to start the show. Mannheim Steamroller seemed to fit the bill. Besides, Chip Davis wrote it to be an introduction, so I figured why not?
Artist: George Thorogood and the Destroyers
Song Title: Rock and Roll Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1983
George Thorogood has always said that his group was at heart a bar band. As a bar band is just a step away from being a garage band, this seemed like as good a place as any to get into the actual meat of the show.
Artist: Beatles
Song Title: Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
Source: CD single: Free As a Bird
Release Year: 1967/1997
Every year the Beatles would record a special Christmas message to go out to members of their fan club, and mail it out on what was then known as a floppy disc. This was not the same as a computer floppy disc, however. In fact, the medium the Beatles used eventually came to be known as a flexi-disc, just to keep things from getting any more confusing. Regardless of what you called it, the things tended to wear out after just a few plays and I doubt there are many playable copies of these discs left in the universe. Luckily for us, George Martin had the foresight to hang on to everything the Beatles ever recorded, including this tune, which was chopped up and used for the 1967 Christmas Greeting. When the Beatles Anthology was released in 1997, the piece was included on the Free As a Bird CD single, and we got to hear the song in its uninterrupted entirety for the first time.
Artist: John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Song Title: Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1971
Originally intended as an anti-Vietnam War song, John and Yoko's Happy Xmas (War Is Over) has long since acquired classic status and is now one of the most familiar songs of the season. It was first released in the US in December of 1971, but due to a problem with the publisher did not appear in the rest of the world until November of 1972.
Artist: Beach Boys
Song Title: Morning Christmas
Source: CD: Beach Boys Ultimate Christmas
Release Year: 1977
Dennis Wilson was not hanging around with the rest of the clan in 1977, but did want to make a contribution to their new Christmas album that year, so he sent in this recording. The album ended up not being released, but the track finally did see the light of day on the Ultimate Christmas collection issued four or five years ago.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Song Title: Silent Night/7 O'Clock News
Source: CD: Complete Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Release Year: 1966
Simon and Garfunkel's Silent Night/7 O'Clock News is unique for several reasons. The most obvious is that it uses two unrelated recordings to make an ironically chilling point. The first is a rendition of Franz Gruber's Silent Night, with vocals in the center channel and piano only coming from one speaker. As the song progresses a newscast in the other channel slowly gets louder. Eventually the song ends and there is only the news. What's also unusual is that this well-known Christmas carol is not featured on a Christmas album at all; instead it appears as the final track of the duo's 1966 LP Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Song Title: A Hazy Shade of Winter
Source: CD: Complete Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Release Year: 1966
I wish I could take credit for putting Simon And Garfunkel's Silent Night/7 O'Clock News and A Hazy Shade of Winter back to back. The truth is I don't know who came up with the idea; my best guess is someone from Westwood One radio, as I first heard it done on one of their syndicated programs. Still, it's not a bad idea, and I happened to have a copy of the Westwood One version of the paired tracks, so there it is.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song Title: Ring Out Solstice Bells
Source: LP: Songs From the Wod
Release Year: 1976
Until the late 1940s the predominate form of recorded music was the 78 RPM (revolutions per minute) record, which was either 10 or 12 inches in diameter and made of a brittle material called shellac. The 10 inch version was the standard for popular music, with a running time of about 3 to 4 minutes. RCA Victor developed a direct replacement for the 78 that was 7 inches in diameter and ran at 45 RPM. Meanwhile, RCA's top rival, Columbia Records, developed a slower long-playing record that used something called microgroove technology that allowed up to half an hour's worth of recorded material per side. Somewhere along the way somebody decided to try the microgroove approach to the 45 and the Extended Play (EP) record was born. In the US, EPs were somewhat popular in the 1950s, but pretty much died out by the time of the Beatles, except for specialized formats such as children's records and low-budget cover labels that would hire anonymous studio musicians to re-create popular hits. In the UK, on the other hand, the format remained viable up through the mid-70s. Jethro Tull took advantage of the EP format to release a Christmas record in December of 1976. Ring Out Solstice Bells was the featured song on the EP, and would not be released in the US until the following spring, when it was included on the album Songs From the Wood.
Artist: Ed "Cookie" Byrnes
Song Title: Yulesville
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1959
The ABC TV network was a perennial also-ran that was just starting to find a winning formula in the late 50s with shows targeted toward a younger audience. The most popular of these was 77 Sunset Strip, starring Ed "Cookie" Byrnes. He and co-star Connie Stevens, staying in character, cut a hit novelty record called "Cookie, Cookie," which played on Cookie's propensity for combing his hair. Byrnes, again in character, followed it up with this hip retelling of the classic poem Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Artist: Bobby "Boris" Pickett
Song Title: Monster's Holiday
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1962
Bobby Picket scored big with his Halloween hit Monster Mash in 1962, and quickly followed it up with this sequel set around the Christmas holidays. Legendary producer Gary Paxton was responsible for both recordings making it onto vinyl and on the air.
Artist: Johnny Preston
Song Title: (I Want a) Rock and Roll Guitar
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1960
Johnny Preston recorded his signature song in 1960, the classic Running Bear, penned by J.P. Richardson, the Big Bopper. The pair teamed up again to create a brand new Christmas song, (I Want a) Rock and Roll Guitar, later the same year. Interesting enough, by the middle of the decade a guitar was exactly what many kids were indeed asking for. I should know; I got my first guitar (and amp) as a Christmas present after badgering my parents mercilessly for months. I think between the two they might have run about $100, which made it the most expensive Christmas I ever had.
Artist: Foghat
Song Title: All I Want For Christmas Is You
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1981
Foghat was formed when all the members of Savoy Brown except leader Kim Simmonds decided to form their own band in the early 70s. After a moderately successful run, founding member "Lonesome" Dave Peverett was all set to call it quits in 1981, but not until after he wrote and recorded All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Artist: Kinks
Song Title: Father Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1977
There are not many socially-conscious Christmas songs, especially slightly twisted ones like the Kinks' classic Father Christmas from 1977. I guess by then getting a guitar was kind of passe anyway.
Artist: Charles Brown
Song Title: Please Come Home For Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits (1955-Present)
Release Year: 1961
By now just about everyone is familiar with the Eagles version of Please Come Home For Christmas. Not everyone, however, knows the song was written by blues great Charles Brown. Even fewer have actually heard Brown's 1961 original, which is a shame, as it blows the Eagles version clean out of the water.
Artist: James Brown
Song Title: Santa Claus, Santa Claus
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1968
Few people would ever accuse James Brown of being a blues artist, but this recording of Santa Claus, Santa Claus (sometimes called just Santa Claus) from 1968 shows what it would have sounded like if he was.
Artist: Clarence Carter
Song Title: Back Door Santa
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1969
Clarence Carter is an icon of the beach music (for you non-Carolinians, beach music has nothing to do with surf music) crowd. For everyone else, he is a moderately successful soul artist known mostly for his mid-70s hit Slip Away. Regardless of where you might know him from, his Back Door Santa will surprise you with its down and funky energy.
Artist: Jimmy McCracklin
Song Title: Christmas Time
Source: CD: New Gold on CD
Release Year: 1961 (?)
Jimmy McCracklin recorded one of the catchiest, yet underplayed, tunes of the 50s when he did The Walk. Christmas Time, from a few years later, actually sounds like beach music. Go figure.
Artist: Chuck Berry
Song Title: Run Rudolph Run
Source: CD: Chuck Berry Chess Box
Release Year: 1958
Chuck Berry established a reputation in the 60s for reworking his old songs from the 50s, giving them new lyrics and sometimes new guitar rifts. Probably the best-known example of this was No Particular Place To Go, which is a reworked version of School Day. His first reworking of a previously-recorded song was 1958's Run Rudoph Run, which was virtually identical to Little Queenie, released earlier the same year. To me it sounds like he actually used the Little Queenie instrumental tracks rather than to re-record the song. This kind of cost-cutting measure would be consistent with his later practice of using pick-up bands rather than incurring the travel expenses of having his own band on the road.
Artist: Jack Scott
Song Title: There's Trouble Brewin'
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1963
Canadian born Jack Scott was one of the great rockabilly performers of the late 50s, scoring several top 10 hits, including My True Love and Burning Bridges. This 1963 recording of There's Trouble Brewin' shows him at the peak of his vocal powers.
Artist: Cheech and Chong
Song Title: Santa Claus and His Old Lady
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1971
I heard Cheech And Chong's Santa Claus and His Old Lady on the radio the year it was released and managed to find a copy of the 45 only to have it disappear on me a few years later. Luckily, the folks at Rhino somehow knew of my dilemma and included it on their Rock and Roll Christmas CD (sure they did). Incidentally, the B side of that old 45 was Dave's Not Here from Cheech and Chong's first album.
Artist: Ray Stevens
Song Title: Santa Claus Is Watching You
Source: CD: New Gold on CD (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1962
I've mentioned something called the Grab Bag before. Basically, it was a sealed paper bag (sometimes with a clear plastic front) containing four 45 RPM records, generally "cut-outs" that were no longer in print. The one my family bought for Christmas of 1964 had a Sing Along With Mitch Christmas EP in the front. By far the oddest record in the bag was Santa Claus Is Watching You by Ray Stevens, although I seem to remember that version being slightly different than the one heard here. One thing that both versions had in common was the presence of Clyde the Camel from Stevens's first hit Ahab the Arab.
Artist: Spike Jones and His City Slickers
Song Title: All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1935-1954
Release Year: 1948
Spike Jones and His City Slickers were a highly talented bunch who made music out of sound effects, toy instruments, and whatever else it occurred to them to use. Their forte was the novelty record, and no one did it better. All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) was written by Middleton, NY schoolteacher Donald Yetter Gardner, who was inspired to write the song when he asked his second grade class what they wanted for Christmas and was struck by how many of them were lisping due to missing front teeth.
Artist: Chipmunks
Song Title: The Chipmunk Song
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present
Release Year: 1958
In 1958 pop-jazz composer/bandleader Ross Bagdasarian decided to play around with a variable-speed tape recorder and came up with the novelty hit Witch Doctor. He followed it up by using multiple tape machines to create a trio of sped up voices that he called the Chipmunks, and released this smash hit in time for the Christmas season. The success of The Chipmunk Song led to a Saturday morning cartoon series and a series of albums for the Liberty label. His son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. has revived the concept in recent years, although not with the same level of success.
Artist: Beach Boys
Song Title: Little Saint Nick (stereo single version)
Source: CD: Beach Boys Ultimate Christmas
Release Year: 1963
When the Beach Boys first recorded Little Saint Nick they were the hottest surf music band in the country. A year later Beatlemania had set in, and a new version of Little Saint Nick was recorded for the Beach Boys Christmas Album. The new version put a greater emphasis on the vocals, and much of the original instrumentation was deleted from the arrangement. That is the version that usually gets heard on commercial radio every year. In the mid-70s, Carl Wilson, who by then had stepped into the leader's role formerly held by older brother Brian, pulled out the original 1963 tapes and created a new stereo mix of the song. The instruments have greater prominence in this version and include the distinctive sound of sleighbells that were completely exorcised from the 1964 version.
Artist: Ventures
Song Title: Sleigh Ride
Source: CD: The Ventures Christmas Album
Release Year: 1965
The Ventures are by far the most successful instrumental rock group in history, with over 100 albums released over several decades. One of the most successful of these was their 1965 Christmas album, which featured this surfinated version of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride, a piece usually associated with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Artist: Sonics
Song Title: Santa Claus
Source: CD: Cool Yule (originally released on LP:
Release Year: 1966
The Pacific Northwest was home to several bands that can only be described as proto-punk (think Louie Louie). One of the top bands on the scene up there was the Sonics, who recorded raw hard-driving songs with titles like Psycho, the Witch and Strychnine. Santa Claus is very much in the same vein, making it the punkiest Christmas song of the sixties, if not all time.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Song Title: Christmas Song
Source: CD: This Was (bonus track originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
I wanted to play one set made up entirely of songs from the psychedelic era performed by artists that I feature on the show on a fairly regular basis. One of these artists is the band Jethro Tull, led by flautist/acoustic guitarist/vocalist Ian Anderson. His somewhat cynical Christmas Song, originally released in the UK in 1968, did not appear in the US until the 1973 anthology album Living In the Past.
Artist: Canned Heat
Song Title: Christmas Blues
Source: CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas
Release Year: 1968
Although Steve Miller originally hailed from Chicago, it was Canned Head that emerged as the San Francisco Bay area's electric blues band of choice. With Robert "Big Bear" Hite fronting the band on blues harp and vocals, they recorded their Christmas Blues in time for the 1968 Yule season.
Artist: Chuck Berry
Song Title: Merry Christmas, Baby
Source: CD: Chuck Berry Chess Box
Release Year: 1958
Chuck Berry did not record too many cover tunes, as he was a prolific songwriter himself. However, for the B side to Run Rudolph Run, he cut this tasty version of Charles Brown's "other" Christmas song, Merry Christmas, Baby.
Artist: Solomon Burke
Song Title: Presents For Christmas
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1966
Solomon Burke was a staple artist for the Atlantic label at a time when Atlantic itself was being overshadowed by the Stax/Volt labels that it distributed. Nonetheless, Burke had several R&B hits throughout the sixties and was highly respected by his fellow artists. Presents For Christmas captures Burke at his peak in 1966.
Artist: Eartha Kitt
Song Title: Santa Baby
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1935-1954
Release Year: 1953
Eartha Kitt has one of the most unique voices in the history of jazz, and put it to good use on the original 1953 version of Santa Baby, a tune that has unfortunately in recent years become associated with Madonna. Kitt continued to perform with nearly as much energy as she had in the 50s right up to her death on Christmas Day, 2008.
Artist: Rufus Thomas
Song Title: I'll Be Your Santa Baby
Source: CD: New Gold on CD (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: unknown
Rufus Thomas had a long and storied career, first with his "dog" hits in the early 60s (Walking the Dog being the most famous) and then later as a member of the Stax/Volt stable of artists. I'll Be Your Santa Baby, recorded for Stax, was released sometimes in the late 60s around the same time that his daughter Carla was making a name for herself with hits like B-A-B-Y and (with Otis Redding) Tramp.
Artist: Cadillacs
Song Title: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Source: CD: New Gold on CD (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1956
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been recorded by a lot of different artists over the years, but this version by the Cadillacs stands out for its pure sense of fun. Doo-wop was at the peak of its popularity in 1956 and the Cadillacs, led by Earl "Speedoo" Carroll, were among the best of the bunch.
Artist: Drifters
Song Title: White Christmas
Source: CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits (1955-Present)
Release Year: 1955
The Drifters were a kind of early R&B doowop supergroup made up of ex-members of other R&B groups such as Billy Ward's Dominoes. The most distinctive voice of the original Drifters was high tenor Clyde McPhatter (for whom Ray Stevens's famous camel was named), which is heard prominently on their version of Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Over the years the group's lineup changed many times and led to several former members forming competing groups, all using the Drifters name. Over time, members of these offshoots would in turn form their own Drifters, despite having virtually no connection to the original group. This is why it sometimes seems that half the doowop singers in the world claim to be former members of the Drifters.
Artist: Marquees
Song Title: Christmas In the Congo
Source: CD: Cool Yule
Release Year: 1958
You have to hear this one to believe it. 'Nuff said.
Artist: King Curtis
Song Title: The Christmas Song
Source: 45 RPM vinyl
Release Year: 1966
King Curtis was one of the most in-demand saxophone players of the first wave of rock and roll. His best known work was on the song Yakety Yak by the Coasters in 1958. In the sixties he became the music director for the Atlantic Records group, appearing on a variety of recordings by artists such as Solomon Burke and occassionally released material on the Atco label under his own name. Tragically, his life was cut short when he was the victim of a stabbing when he attempted to stop junkies from shooting up on his front steps in New York.
So there it is: the Hermit's own take on Yuletime. I hope you enjoy the show. Next week we take a look back at the songs and artists that got the most airtime on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era this past year.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1450 (starts 12/10/14)
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Somebody To Love
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer: Darby Slick
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
Over 40 years after the fact, it's hard to imagine just how big an impact Somebody To Love had on the garage band scene. Whereas before Somebody To Love came out you could just dismiss hard-to-cover songs as being "lame" anyway, here was a tune that was undeniably cool, and yet virtually impossible for anyone but the Airplane to play well (and even they were unable to get it to sound quite the same when they performed it live). Although garage bands would continue to exist (and still do), the days when a group of kids from the suburbs could form a band, play a handful of parties, maybe win a battle of the bands and write and record a hit record with virtually no prior experience were gone forever.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Can You See Me
Source: Mono LP: Are You Experienced (UK version) (original US release: LP: Smash Hits)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1967 (US 1969)
Before releasing the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, in the US, Reprise Records decided to make some changes to the track lineup, adding three songs that had been released as non-album singles in the UK. To make room for these, three songs were cut from the original UK version of the LP. The most popular of these three tracks was Can You See Me, a song that was included in the band's set at their US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. Despite the audience's positive response to the song, the band apparently dropped Can You See Me from their live set shortly after Monterey. The song was originally slated to be released as the B side of The Wind Cries Mary, but instead was used as an album track.
Artist: Who
Title: Someone's Coming
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): John Entwhistle
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1968
Some songs just get no respect. First released in 1967 in the UK as the B side of I Can See For Miles, John Alec Entwistle's Someone's Coming got left off the US release entirely. It wasn't until the release of the Magic Bus single (and subsequent LP) in 1968 that the tune appeared on US vinyl, and then, once again as a B side. The Magic Bus album, however, was never issued on CD in the US, although it has been available as a Canadian import for several years. Finally, in 1995 the song found a home on a US CD as a bonus track on The Who Sell Out.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Have You Seen Her Face
Source: Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): Chris Hillman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Perhaps the greatest surprise on the fourth Byrds album, Younger Than Yesterday, was the emergence of bassist Chris Hillman as a quality songwriter, already on a par with David Crosby and the recently-departed Gene Clark, and even exceeding Roger McGuinn as a solo writer (most of McGuinn's songs being collaborations). One of the many strong Hillman tracks on Younger Than Yesterday was Have You Seen Her Face, which eventually became the third single from the album.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Oops I Can Dance
Source: CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Jerry Jeff Walker
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Right from the start, the band Circus Maximus was being pulled in two musical directions by its co-founders, Bob Bruno and Jerry Jeff Walker. Although it was Bruno's song Wind that got the most airplay in 1967, it was Walker who went on to have a successful career as a singer/songwriter with songs like Mr. Bojangles. One of Walker's earliest songs was Oops I Can Dance from the first Circus Maximus album.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: LP: 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: Leaves
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: 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, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, 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: 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: 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 '66, is a scathing criticism of the abuse of prescription drugs by the parents of the Stones' fans. Perhaps more than any other song of the time, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
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: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: For Emily, Whenever I Might Find Her
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1966
Art Garfunkel's vocals were in the spotlight on For Emily, Whenever I Might Find Her, a track from the duo's third LP, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme. Other than the vocals, the only other instrument heard on the track is Paul Simon's guitar. Garfunkel has called the piece, which is still in his solo repertoire, "one of the most challenging" to perform, due to its somewhat free-form structure. A live version of the song was released as a single in 1972, making it to the # 53 spot on the charts.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Positively 4th Street
Source: 45 RPM promo single
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Recorded during the same 1965 sessions that produced the classic Highway 61 Revisited album, Positively 4th Street was deliberately held back for release as a single later that year. It would not appear on an LP until the first Dylan Greatest Hits album.
Artist: ? And The Mysterians
Title: 96 Tears
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): The Mysterians
Label: Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year: 1966
Although his birth certificate gives the name Rudy Martinez, the leader of the Mysterians had his name legally changed to "?" several years ago. He asserts that he is actually from the planet Mars and has lived among dinosaurs in a past life. Sometimes I feel like I'm living among dinosaurs in this life, so I guess I can relate a little. The band's only major hit, 96 Tears, has the distinction of being the last top 10 single on the Cameo label before Cameo-Parkway went bankrupt.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)).
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation.
Artist: Asylum Choir
Title: Indian Style
Source: Look Inside The Asylum Choir
Writer(s): Russell/Benno
Label: Rev-Ola
Year: 1968
Leon Russell and Marc Benno were both well-established on the Los Angeles studio scene when they decided to record an album called Look Inside The Asylum Choir in 1968, using several of their fellow studio musicians. Sporting a cover depicting a roll of toilet paper against a background of tiles with the likenesses of Russell and Benno, the album was a curious mix of psychedelia and novelty, with Indian Style (which was also released as a single) being a good example of the latter. Look Inside The Asylum Choir was not an immediate success, but was reissued with a new cover following Russell's emergence as a star in his own right in the early 1970s.
Artist: Thunderclap Newman
Title: Something In The Air
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Keen
Label: Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year: 1969
Thunderclap Newman was actually the creation of the Who's Pete Townshend, who assembled a bunch of studio musicians to work with drummer (and former Who roadie) John "Speedy" Keen. Keen had written Armenia City In The Sky, the opening track on The Who Sell Out, and Townshend set up the studio project to return the favor. Joining Keen were 15-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (who would eventually join Paul McCartney's Wings before dying of a heroin overdose in 1979), studio engineer Andy "Thunderclap" Newman (who had worked with Pink Floyd, among others) on piano, and Townshend himself on bass. Following the success of Something In The Air, the group recorded an album, but sales were disappointing and the group soon disbanded.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Animal Zoo
Source: CD: Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer: Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic
Year: 1970
The last album by the original lineup of Spirit was Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, released in 1970. The album was originally going to be produced by Neil Young, but due to other commitments Young had to bow out, recommending David Briggs, who had already produced Young's first album with Crazy Horse, as a replacement. The first song to be released as a single was Animal Zoo, but the tune barely cracked the top 100 charts. The album itself did better on progressive FM stations and has since come to be regarded as a classic. Shortly after the release of Twelve Dreams, Jay Ferguson and Mark Andes left Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Light Bulb Blues
Source: CD: Gloria (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Cream
Title: Mother's Lament
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Trad., arr. Cream
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The shortest-ever Cream recording was Mother's Lament, an old English drinking song that was tacked onto the end of the Disraeli Gears album. Other than the slightly off-key vocals (led by drummer Ginger Baker), the only instrument heard on the track is a piano (probably played by producer Felix Pappalardi).
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Bears
Source: British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Roger Perkins
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
Possibly the most obscure song in the Quicksilver Messenger Service catalog, Bears appeared as the B side to Dino Valenti's Stand By Me (no relation to the Ben E. King song) in late 1968. To my knowledge, this novelty song was never included on any of the band's albums.
Artist: Doors
Title: People Are Strange
Source: LP: Strange Days (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first single from the second Doors album was People Are Strange. The song quickly dispelled any notion that the Doors might be one-hit wonders and helped establish the band as an international act as opposed to just another band from L.A. The album itself, Strange Days, was a turning point for Elektra Records as well, as it shifted the label's promotional efforts away from their original rock band, Love, to the Doors, who ironically had been recommended to the label by Love's leader, Arthur Lee.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Magical Mystery Tour
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
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 sequencing than the telefilm, all three open the same way, with the film's title song.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Wild Honey Pie/The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill/While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Source: British import LP: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney/Harrison
Label: Apple
Year: 1968
By early 1968 the Beatles were beginning to show signs that they would not be together as a band much longer. The group had just experienced their first commercial & critical failure, the Magical Mystery Tour telefilm (although the soundtrack did quite well). Additionally, each member (except maybe Ringo) was starting to move off in his own direction as a songwriter. Nonetheless they went ahead with plans to form Apple, a company designed to market not only their music, but other products as well. The first album released on the new label was titled simply The Beatles and had a plain white cover, resulting in it soon becoming known as the White Album. It was the Beatles' first double-LP set, and the only one to feature all-new material. The music covered a wide variety of styles, some of which are even now hard to describe. As an example we have Paul McCartney's Wild Honey Pie, which segues into John Lennon's The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill. I defy anyone to define exactly what genre these two tracks are representative of. George Harrison had already written several songs that had appeared on various Beatle albums (and an occasional B side) through 1968, but his first acknowledged classic was While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which immediately follows Bungalow Bill on the album. The recording features Harrison's close friend, guitarist Eric Clapton, who at that time was enjoying superstar status as a member of Cream.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Am The Walrus
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
I once ranked over 5000 recordings from the 1920s through the 1990s based on how many times I could listen to each track without getting sick of hearing it. My original intention was to continue the project until I had ranked every recording in my collection, but after about ten years of near-continuous listening to 90-minute cassette tapes that I would update weekly I finally decided that I needed a break, and never went back to it. As a result, many of my favorite recordings (especially album tracks) never got ranked. Of those that did, every song on the top 10 was from the years 1966-69, with the top five all being from 1967. Although I never returned to the project itself, the results I did get convinced me that I was indeed stuck in the psychedelic era, and within five years I had created a radio show inspired by the project. Not surprisingly, the number one recording on my list was I Am The Walrus, a track from the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour that is often considered the apex of British psychedelia.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: (Ballad Of The) Hip Death Goddess
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer(s): Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
Ultimate Spinach was the brainchild of Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. Although the group had no hit singles, some tracks, such as (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess received a significant amount of airplay on progressive "underground" FM stations. The recording has in more recent years been used by movie producers looking to invoke a late 60s atmosphere.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Voyage Of The Trieste
Source: CD: The Inner Mystique
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
The Chocolate Watchband underwent a series of personnel changes starting in the late spring of 1967. By the end of that year the band no longer existed. This, apparently, was not considered a relevant fact by the people at Green Grass Productions, as they went ahead and released a new Chocolate Watchband album, The Inner Mystique, on the Tower label in February of 1968. Like the first Watchband album, The Inner Mystique had several tracks that were actually performed by studio musicians. In fact, the entire first side of the 8-song LP consisted of tracks put together by engineer Richie Podolor, and had nothing to do with the band itself. The first of these tracks, Voyage Of The Trieste, was written by the band's producer, Ed Cobb, who had also written the band's first official single, Sweet Young Thing, as well as several hits for the Standells, who were also signed to Green Grass. Somehow, the Chocolate Watchband managed to reform in time to record a third album, One Step Beyond, the following year, but that's a story for another week.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Murder In My Heart For The Judge
Source: LP: Great Grape (originally released on LP: Wow)
Writer(s): Don Stevenson
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Moby Grape was one of those bands that probably should have been more successful than they were, but were thrown off-track by a series of bad decisions by their own support personnel. First, Columbia damaged their reputation by simultaneously releasing five singles from their debut LP in 1967, leading to accusations that the band was nothing but hype. Then their producer, David Rubinson, decided to add horns and strings to many of the tracks on their second album, Wow, alienating much of the band's core audience in the process. Still, Wow did have its share of fine tunes, including drummer Don Stevenson's Murder In My Heart For The Judge, probably the most popular song on the album. The song proved popular enough to warrant cover versions by such diverse talents as Lee Michaels, Chrissy Hynde and Three Dog Night.
Artist: Del Shannon
Title: I Think I Love You
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover)
Writer(s): Del Shannon
Label: Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Del Shannon? The guy who did Runaway back in '62? Yep. Also the same Del Shannon who Tom Petty has acknowledged as his number one inspiration and who was on the verge of being asked to replace the late Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys when he himself became the late Del Shannon. Unlike many of his early 60s contemporaries such as Bobby Vee or Fabian, Shannon was able to keep up with the times, as this piece of pure psychedelia (penned by Shannon himself) from the album The Further Adventures of Charles Westover demonstrates.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.
Artist: The Light
Title: Back Up
Source: Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Anglin/Samson
Label: Arf! Arf! (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: October Country
Title: My Girlfriend Is A Witch
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Michael Lloyd
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
By 1968 the L.A. under-age club scene was winding down, and several now out of work bands were making last (and sometimes only) attempts at garnering hits in the studio. One such band was October Country, whose first release had gotten a fair amount of local airplay, but who had become bogged down trying to come up with lyrics for a follow-up single. Enter Michael Lloyd, recently split from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and looking to become a record producer. Lloyd not only produced and wrote the lyrics for My Girlfriend Is A Witch, he also ended up playing drums on the record as well.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Flight Of The Phoenix
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1972
After five successful albums produced by Terry Knight, the members of Grand Funk Railroad decided to go it alone for their 1972 album Phoenix. The album was the first to include Craig Frost, who would eventually become a full member of the band, on keyboards, as can be heard on the LP's opening track, the instrumental Flight Of The Phoenix. Famed fiddler Doug Kershaw also appeared on the album.
Title: Somebody To Love
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer: Darby Slick
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
Over 40 years after the fact, it's hard to imagine just how big an impact Somebody To Love had on the garage band scene. Whereas before Somebody To Love came out you could just dismiss hard-to-cover songs as being "lame" anyway, here was a tune that was undeniably cool, and yet virtually impossible for anyone but the Airplane to play well (and even they were unable to get it to sound quite the same when they performed it live). Although garage bands would continue to exist (and still do), the days when a group of kids from the suburbs could form a band, play a handful of parties, maybe win a battle of the bands and write and record a hit record with virtually no prior experience were gone forever.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Can You See Me
Source: Mono LP: Are You Experienced (UK version) (original US release: LP: Smash Hits)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1967 (US 1969)
Before releasing the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, in the US, Reprise Records decided to make some changes to the track lineup, adding three songs that had been released as non-album singles in the UK. To make room for these, three songs were cut from the original UK version of the LP. The most popular of these three tracks was Can You See Me, a song that was included in the band's set at their US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. Despite the audience's positive response to the song, the band apparently dropped Can You See Me from their live set shortly after Monterey. The song was originally slated to be released as the B side of The Wind Cries Mary, but instead was used as an album track.
Artist: Who
Title: Someone's Coming
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): John Entwhistle
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1968
Some songs just get no respect. First released in 1967 in the UK as the B side of I Can See For Miles, John Alec Entwistle's Someone's Coming got left off the US release entirely. It wasn't until the release of the Magic Bus single (and subsequent LP) in 1968 that the tune appeared on US vinyl, and then, once again as a B side. The Magic Bus album, however, was never issued on CD in the US, although it has been available as a Canadian import for several years. Finally, in 1995 the song found a home on a US CD as a bonus track on The Who Sell Out.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Have You Seen Her Face
Source: Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s): Chris Hillman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Perhaps the greatest surprise on the fourth Byrds album, Younger Than Yesterday, was the emergence of bassist Chris Hillman as a quality songwriter, already on a par with David Crosby and the recently-departed Gene Clark, and even exceeding Roger McGuinn as a solo writer (most of McGuinn's songs being collaborations). One of the many strong Hillman tracks on Younger Than Yesterday was Have You Seen Her Face, which eventually became the third single from the album.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Oops I Can Dance
Source: CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Jerry Jeff Walker
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Right from the start, the band Circus Maximus was being pulled in two musical directions by its co-founders, Bob Bruno and Jerry Jeff Walker. Although it was Bruno's song Wind that got the most airplay in 1967, it was Walker who went on to have a successful career as a singer/songwriter with songs like Mr. Bojangles. One of Walker's earliest songs was Oops I Can Dance from the first Circus Maximus album.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
Title: The Masked Marauder
Source: LP: 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: Leaves
Title: Hey Joe
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: 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, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, 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: 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: 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 '66, is a scathing criticism of the abuse of prescription drugs by the parents of the Stones' fans. Perhaps more than any other song of the time, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.
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: Simon And Garfunkel
Title: For Emily, Whenever I Might Find Her
Source: LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Sundazed/Columbia
Year: 1966
Art Garfunkel's vocals were in the spotlight on For Emily, Whenever I Might Find Her, a track from the duo's third LP, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme. Other than the vocals, the only other instrument heard on the track is Paul Simon's guitar. Garfunkel has called the piece, which is still in his solo repertoire, "one of the most challenging" to perform, due to its somewhat free-form structure. A live version of the song was released as a single in 1972, making it to the # 53 spot on the charts.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Positively 4th Street
Source: 45 RPM promo single
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
Recorded during the same 1965 sessions that produced the classic Highway 61 Revisited album, Positively 4th Street was deliberately held back for release as a single later that year. It would not appear on an LP until the first Dylan Greatest Hits album.
Artist: ? And The Mysterians
Title: 96 Tears
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): The Mysterians
Label: Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year: 1966
Although his birth certificate gives the name Rudy Martinez, the leader of the Mysterians had his name legally changed to "?" several years ago. He asserts that he is actually from the planet Mars and has lived among dinosaurs in a past life. Sometimes I feel like I'm living among dinosaurs in this life, so I guess I can relate a little. The band's only major hit, 96 Tears, has the distinction of being the last top 10 single on the Cameo label before Cameo-Parkway went bankrupt.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source: CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)).
Writer(s): Tucker/Mantz
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation.
Artist: Asylum Choir
Title: Indian Style
Source: Look Inside The Asylum Choir
Writer(s): Russell/Benno
Label: Rev-Ola
Year: 1968
Leon Russell and Marc Benno were both well-established on the Los Angeles studio scene when they decided to record an album called Look Inside The Asylum Choir in 1968, using several of their fellow studio musicians. Sporting a cover depicting a roll of toilet paper against a background of tiles with the likenesses of Russell and Benno, the album was a curious mix of psychedelia and novelty, with Indian Style (which was also released as a single) being a good example of the latter. Look Inside The Asylum Choir was not an immediate success, but was reissued with a new cover following Russell's emergence as a star in his own right in the early 1970s.
Artist: Thunderclap Newman
Title: Something In The Air
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): John Keen
Label: Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year: 1969
Thunderclap Newman was actually the creation of the Who's Pete Townshend, who assembled a bunch of studio musicians to work with drummer (and former Who roadie) John "Speedy" Keen. Keen had written Armenia City In The Sky, the opening track on The Who Sell Out, and Townshend set up the studio project to return the favor. Joining Keen were 15-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (who would eventually join Paul McCartney's Wings before dying of a heroin overdose in 1979), studio engineer Andy "Thunderclap" Newman (who had worked with Pink Floyd, among others) on piano, and Townshend himself on bass. Following the success of Something In The Air, the group recorded an album, but sales were disappointing and the group soon disbanded.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Animal Zoo
Source: CD: Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer: Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic
Year: 1970
The last album by the original lineup of Spirit was Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, released in 1970. The album was originally going to be produced by Neil Young, but due to other commitments Young had to bow out, recommending David Briggs, who had already produced Young's first album with Crazy Horse, as a replacement. The first song to be released as a single was Animal Zoo, but the tune barely cracked the top 100 charts. The album itself did better on progressive FM stations and has since come to be regarded as a classic. Shortly after the release of Twelve Dreams, Jay Ferguson and Mark Andes left Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: Light Bulb Blues
Source: CD: Gloria (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Kelley/Sohns/McGeorge
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
Following the national success of their cover of Van Morrison's Gloria, Chicago's Shadows Of Knight returned to the studio to cut a cover of a Bo Diddley tune, Oh Yeah. For the B side of that record the band was allowed to record one of their own compositions. Light Bulb Blues captures the essence of the Shadows' style: hard-driving garage/punk that follows a traditional 12-bar blues progression. The result is a track that sounds a bit like a twisted variation on Muddy Waters's classic Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Cream
Title: Mother's Lament
Source: LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Trad., arr. Cream
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The shortest-ever Cream recording was Mother's Lament, an old English drinking song that was tacked onto the end of the Disraeli Gears album. Other than the slightly off-key vocals (led by drummer Ginger Baker), the only instrument heard on the track is a piano (probably played by producer Felix Pappalardi).
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Bears
Source: British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Roger Perkins
Label: Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
Possibly the most obscure song in the Quicksilver Messenger Service catalog, Bears appeared as the B side to Dino Valenti's Stand By Me (no relation to the Ben E. King song) in late 1968. To my knowledge, this novelty song was never included on any of the band's albums.
Artist: Doors
Title: People Are Strange
Source: LP: Strange Days (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The first single from the second Doors album was People Are Strange. The song quickly dispelled any notion that the Doors might be one-hit wonders and helped establish the band as an international act as opposed to just another band from L.A. The album itself, Strange Days, was a turning point for Elektra Records as well, as it shifted the label's promotional efforts away from their original rock band, Love, to the Doors, who ironically had been recommended to the label by Love's leader, Arthur Lee.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Magical Mystery Tour
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
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 sequencing than the telefilm, all three open the same way, with the film's title song.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Wild Honey Pie/The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill/While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Source: British import LP: The Beatles
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney/Harrison
Label: Apple
Year: 1968
By early 1968 the Beatles were beginning to show signs that they would not be together as a band much longer. The group had just experienced their first commercial & critical failure, the Magical Mystery Tour telefilm (although the soundtrack did quite well). Additionally, each member (except maybe Ringo) was starting to move off in his own direction as a songwriter. Nonetheless they went ahead with plans to form Apple, a company designed to market not only their music, but other products as well. The first album released on the new label was titled simply The Beatles and had a plain white cover, resulting in it soon becoming known as the White Album. It was the Beatles' first double-LP set, and the only one to feature all-new material. The music covered a wide variety of styles, some of which are even now hard to describe. As an example we have Paul McCartney's Wild Honey Pie, which segues into John Lennon's The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill. I defy anyone to define exactly what genre these two tracks are representative of. George Harrison had already written several songs that had appeared on various Beatle albums (and an occasional B side) through 1968, but his first acknowledged classic was While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which immediately follows Bungalow Bill on the album. The recording features Harrison's close friend, guitarist Eric Clapton, who at that time was enjoying superstar status as a member of Cream.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I Am The Walrus
Source: CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Apple/Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
I once ranked over 5000 recordings from the 1920s through the 1990s based on how many times I could listen to each track without getting sick of hearing it. My original intention was to continue the project until I had ranked every recording in my collection, but after about ten years of near-continuous listening to 90-minute cassette tapes that I would update weekly I finally decided that I needed a break, and never went back to it. As a result, many of my favorite recordings (especially album tracks) never got ranked. Of those that did, every song on the top 10 was from the years 1966-69, with the top five all being from 1967. Although I never returned to the project itself, the results I did get convinced me that I was indeed stuck in the psychedelic era, and within five years I had created a radio show inspired by the project. Not surprisingly, the number one recording on my list was I Am The Walrus, a track from the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour that is often considered the apex of British psychedelia.
Artist: Ultimate Spinach
Title: (Ballad Of The) Hip Death Goddess
Source: LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer(s): Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
Ultimate Spinach was the brainchild of Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. Although the group had no hit singles, some tracks, such as (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess received a significant amount of airplay on progressive "underground" FM stations. The recording has in more recent years been used by movie producers looking to invoke a late 60s atmosphere.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Voyage Of The Trieste
Source: CD: The Inner Mystique
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
The Chocolate Watchband underwent a series of personnel changes starting in the late spring of 1967. By the end of that year the band no longer existed. This, apparently, was not considered a relevant fact by the people at Green Grass Productions, as they went ahead and released a new Chocolate Watchband album, The Inner Mystique, on the Tower label in February of 1968. Like the first Watchband album, The Inner Mystique had several tracks that were actually performed by studio musicians. In fact, the entire first side of the 8-song LP consisted of tracks put together by engineer Richie Podolor, and had nothing to do with the band itself. The first of these tracks, Voyage Of The Trieste, was written by the band's producer, Ed Cobb, who had also written the band's first official single, Sweet Young Thing, as well as several hits for the Standells, who were also signed to Green Grass. Somehow, the Chocolate Watchband managed to reform in time to record a third album, One Step Beyond, the following year, but that's a story for another week.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Murder In My Heart For The Judge
Source: LP: Great Grape (originally released on LP: Wow)
Writer(s): Don Stevenson
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Moby Grape was one of those bands that probably should have been more successful than they were, but were thrown off-track by a series of bad decisions by their own support personnel. First, Columbia damaged their reputation by simultaneously releasing five singles from their debut LP in 1967, leading to accusations that the band was nothing but hype. Then their producer, David Rubinson, decided to add horns and strings to many of the tracks on their second album, Wow, alienating much of the band's core audience in the process. Still, Wow did have its share of fine tunes, including drummer Don Stevenson's Murder In My Heart For The Judge, probably the most popular song on the album. The song proved popular enough to warrant cover versions by such diverse talents as Lee Michaels, Chrissy Hynde and Three Dog Night.
Artist: Del Shannon
Title: I Think I Love You
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover)
Writer(s): Del Shannon
Label: Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Del Shannon? The guy who did Runaway back in '62? Yep. Also the same Del Shannon who Tom Petty has acknowledged as his number one inspiration and who was on the verge of being asked to replace the late Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys when he himself became the late Del Shannon. Unlike many of his early 60s contemporaries such as Bobby Vee or Fabian, Shannon was able to keep up with the times, as this piece of pure psychedelia (penned by Shannon himself) from the album The Further Adventures of Charles Westover demonstrates.
Artist: Standells
Title: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.
Artist: The Light
Title: Back Up
Source: Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Anglin/Samson
Label: Arf! Arf! (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: October Country
Title: My Girlfriend Is A Witch
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Michael Lloyd
Label: Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
By 1968 the L.A. under-age club scene was winding down, and several now out of work bands were making last (and sometimes only) attempts at garnering hits in the studio. One such band was October Country, whose first release had gotten a fair amount of local airplay, but who had become bogged down trying to come up with lyrics for a follow-up single. Enter Michael Lloyd, recently split from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and looking to become a record producer. Lloyd not only produced and wrote the lyrics for My Girlfriend Is A Witch, he also ended up playing drums on the record as well.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Flight Of The Phoenix
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1972
After five successful albums produced by Terry Knight, the members of Grand Funk Railroad decided to go it alone for their 1972 album Phoenix. The album was the first to include Craig Frost, who would eventually become a full member of the band, on keyboards, as can be heard on the LP's opening track, the instrumental Flight Of The Phoenix. Famed fiddler Doug Kershaw also appeared on the album.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1449 (starts 12/3/14)
Artist: Majority
Title: One Third
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Barry Graham
Label: Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year: 1966
Originally known as Barry Graham and the Mustangs, the Majority moved south from Hull to London after signing with the British Decca label in 1965. A highly adaptable group, the Majority recorded a total of eight singles for Decca without achieving any chart success. Among the best of these tracks was One Third, a song from July of 1966 that was sadly relegated to being a B side. The group did manage to pick up a following on the European continent, and after their contract with Decca expired in 1968 the band packed their bags and moved overseas. After a moderately successful run in Europe using the name Majority One, the group disbanded in the mid-1970s.
Artist: Sonny And Cher
Title: Love Don't Come
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Sonny Bono
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Sonny Bono's talents as a songwriter are often overlooked, mostly because all of Sonny Bono's talents were overshadowed by his wife Cher (who is one of the entertainment legends of the 20th century, after all). Nonetheless the fact remains that Bono was the guy who wrote the songs that made Sonny And Cher the most popular singing duo in the nation in the late 1960s and early 70s. Even an obscure B side like 1967's Love Don't Come demonstrates his ability to craft a song with unexpected key and tempo changes that keep the listener's attention right through to the end of the track.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle was the official leader on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Hey Mr. President
Source: Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Adams/Barkan
Label: Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
Although to most of us "Electric Prunes" was the name of a band, to people in the music industry it was actually the name of a commodity. This commodity was originally owned by engineer Dave Hassinger, who produced the band's first two albums for Reprise. After the second LP failed to produce a hit single Hassinger worked out a deal with composer David Axelrod to record something called Mass In F Minor and release it as the third Prunes LP. It soon became apparent, however, that the band members were ill-suited to perform Axelrod's music, and Hassinger brought in members of another band entirely, the Collectors, to record most of the album's instrumental tracks. Although Mass In F Minor was even less commercial than the two previous albums, Hassinger chose to continue working with Axelrod on a fourth Electric Prunes album, Release Of An Oath, using an entirely new group of musicians. By this time the ownership of the band's name had passed to Axelrod's manager, Lenny Poncher, who was responsible for the next single to be released under the Electric Prunes name, 1969's Hey Mr. President. This new lineup (which included former West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band guitarist Ron Morgan) stayed in place until the group officially disbanded, recording one album of mostly-original material in 1969.
Artist: Who
Title: The Seeker
Source: CD: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1970
The Who's first post-Tommy single was a song called The Seeker, which Pete Townshend claims to have written while drunk out of his mind at 3AM in a Florida swamp. The band first recorded the song in Townshend's home studio, then again at IBC studios, where they ended up producing the record themselves when their regular producer, Kit Lambert, broke his jaw getting a tooth pulled.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: 3rd Stone From The Sun
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
One of the great rock instrumentals, 3rd Stone From The Sun (from the Jimi Hendrix Experience album Are You Experienced?) is one of the first tracks to use a recording technique known as backwards masking (where the tape is deliberately put on the machine backwards and new material is added to the reversed recording). In this particular case the masked material (Hendrix speaking) was added at a faster speed than the original recording, with a lot of reverb added, creating an almost otherworldly effect when played forward at normal speed.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Omaha
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.
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: 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: Spencer Davis Group
Title: I'm A Man
Source: Mono LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Miller
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer. The group itself continued on for several years, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes. As for Steve Winwood, he quickly faded off into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Except as the leader of Traffic. And a member of Blind Faith. And Traffic again. And some critically-acclaimed collaborations in the early 1980s with Asian musicians. Oh yeah, and a few major solo hits in the late 80s. Other than that, nothing.
Artist: Love Sculpture
Title: Wang Dang Doodle
Source: British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1968
During my first year of college I moved into a house shared by five other people (not all of which were students) near the University of New Mexico. Shortly after moving in I bought an old Philips reel-to-reel machine and began taping various albums from my roommates' collections. Not long after that I discovered a gold mine in the basement. A former resident of the house had left a box of reel-to-reel tapes, some of which were only vaguely labeled, if at all. One of the tapes was labeled simply "Love Sculpture". It turned out that some of the songs on that tape were actually from the Blues Project's Projections album, but others, such as this rather tasty version of Koko Taylor's Wang Dang Doodle, were indeed by a band called Love Sculpture. I was not aware at the time, however, that the song was from an album called Blues Helping, or that Love Sculpture's lead guitarist and vocalist was none other than Dave Edmunds, who I had only known as the guy who did the remake of I Hear You Knockin' in the early 1970s.
Artist: Doors
Title: Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): Weill/Brecht
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
1967 was a breakthrough year for Elektra Records, which had only signed its first full-fledged rock band (Love) the previous year. Between Love's second and third albums and the first two Doors LPs, Elektra had by the end of the year established itself as a player. Although never released as a single, Alabama Song managed to make it onto the Best of the Doors album and has been a classic rock staple for years.
Artist: Doors
Title: Variety Is The Spice Of Life
Source: LP: Other Voices
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1971
Three months after the death of Jim Morrison the remaining three members of the Doors released Other Voices. The band had started work on the song while Morrison was in France, and ended up using keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger on lead vocals. Although all the songs were officially credited to the entire band, some tunes, such as Variety Is The Spice Of Life, were the work of individual members (in this case Krieger, who also sang lead vocals on the track).
Artist: Doors
Title: End Of The Night
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors first big break came when they opened for Love at L.A.'s most famous club, the Whisky-A-Go-Go, and became friends with the members of the more established popular local band. Love was already recording for Elektra Records, and enthusiastically recommended that the label sign the Doors as well. Elektra did, and the Doors went on to become one of the most successful and influential bands in rock history. Although not as well-known as Light My Fire or The End, the dark and moody End Of The Night is a classic early Doors tune, from the opening bent chords from guitarist Robby Krieger to the spooky keyboard work of Ray Manzarek and of course Jim Morrison's distinctive vocals.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Me Down
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Talk Me Down was, according to composer Sean Bonniwell, quite possibly the first punk rock song ever conceived. The tune was one of four songs recorded on a demo at Original Sound when the Music Machine still called itself the Ragamuffins. This recording was cut in 1967 by the band's original lineup, but not released until Warner Brothers released an album called Bonniwell Music Machine later that year. By the time of the album's release, all the members of the original band except Bonniwell had moved on to other things, and a new lineup was featured on several tracks on the album.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Yellow Submarine
Source: CD: Revolver
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
Ringo's greatest hit.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Savoy Truffle
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year: 1968
George Harrison's skills as a songwriter continued to develop in 1968. The double-LP The Beatles (aka the White Album) contained four Harrison compositions, including Savoy Truffle, a tongue-in-cheek song about Harrison's friend Eric Clapton's fondness for chocolate. John Lennon did not participate in the recording of Savoy Truffle. The keyboards were probably played by Chris Thomas, who, in addition to playing on all four Harrison songs on the album, served as de facto producer when George Martin decided to take a vacation in the middle of the album's recording sessions.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I'm Only Sleeping
Source: CD: Revolver (originally released on LP: Yesterday...And Today)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
US record buyers were able to hear I'm Only Sleeping several weeks before their British counterparts thanks to Capitol Records including the song on the US-only Yesterday...And Today LP. There was a catch, however. Producer George Martin had not yet made a stereo mix of the song, and Capitol used their "Duophonic" system to create a fake stereo mix for the album. That mix continued to be used on subsequent pressings of the LP (and various tape formats), even after a stereo mix was created and included on the UK version of the Revolver album. It wasn't until EMI released the entire run of UK albums on CD in both the US and UK markets that American record buyers had access to the true stereo version of the song heard here.
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: Rolling Stones
Title: Citadel
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
One of the most underrated songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Citadel is the second track on Their Satanic Majesties Request, an album often dismissed as being an ill-fated attempt to keep up with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. As the song is preceeded on the album by the overture-like Sing This All Together with no break between the two, Citadel was almost impossible to play as a separate track from the original vinyl. It's a little easier to play from the CD, but due to sloppiness on the part of whoever mastered the 80s Abkco discs, the start of the song does not quite match up with the start of the CD track. Maybe one of these days I'll get a copy of the remastered version that came out more recently and see if they did a better job with it. In the meantime sit back and enjoy this hard-rockin' piece of psychedelia.
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: Blues Magoos
Title: I Wanna Be There
Source: CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s): Theilhelm/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Like many bands of the psychedelic era, the Blues Magoos had a relationship with their producers that was uneasy at the best of times, and downright hostile at worst. The basic idea was actually a sound one: the band would make the music while Longhair Productions (Art Polhemus and Bob Wylde) would handle the marketing of the band. In 1966 this meant the Psychedelic Lollipop album, electric suits and an appearance on a Bob Hope special. In 1967 it meant the Electric Comic Book album with an insert offering all sorts of psychedelic items such as a lava lamp called the "psych de-lite". Things started to fray a bit, though, when the producers paired up the two strongest tracks from Electric Comic Book as a single, resulting in radio airplay being split between the two and neither becoming a huge hit. The situation got even worse when Polhemus and Wylde came up with the idea for a Blues Magoos Christmas album. The band withdrew and hired a mobile unit to come to their house to record tracks for their next LP. At that point there were several existing songs that had been released as singles but not yet included on an album. Probably the best of those was I Wanna Be There, which had been released in July of 1967. The tune, along with three other Longhair-produced tracks and the newer self-produced material, was included on the original band's last LP, Basic Blues Magoos, which was released in May of 1968.
Artist: Serpent Power
Title: Up And Down
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Serpent Power)
Writer: David Meltzer
Label: Rhino (original label: Vanguard)
Year: 1967
David Meltzer was a beat poet who by the late 60s had already spent several years in the San Francisco Bay area, recording a spoken word album in 1959. For reasons having something to do with yoga, Meltzer and his wife Tina decided to form a band in 1967, calling it the Serpent Power. The group cut one LP for Vanguard. Up and Down is one of the shorter tracks from that album.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Wild Mountain Thyme
Source: LP: Fifth Dimension
Writer(s): Francis McPeake
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The third Byrds album, Fifth Dimension, is notable for being the group's first LP to not include any songs written by Bob Dylan. They did, however, record a cover of cover song that Dylan had recorded. Although Dylan's version was attributed to "traditional" and the Byrds' version followed suit, giving arrangement credit to the band, Wild Mountain Thyme was actually written in 1957 by Francis McPeake, a member of a well-known musical family in Belfast, Ireland. McPeake's song, in turn, was based on an earlier work, The Braes of Balquhither, written around 1800 by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill.
Artist: Byrds
Title: He Was A Friend Of Mine
Source: CD: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer(s): Traditional, arr. McGuinn
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
He Was A Friend Of Mine is a traditional folk song that Roger McGuinn wrote new lyrics for the night John F. Kennedy was assassinated. After the Byrds recorded McGuinn's arrangement for their second album in 1965 the song became a staple of the group's live performances. In 1967 David Crosby prefaced the band's performance of the song with an introduction that questioned the Warren Report's contention that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, which did not go over well with other members of the band (particularly McGuinn), and is generally considered to be a contributing factor to Crosby's being fired by McGuinn and bassist Chris Hillman later that year.
Artist: Byrds
Title: 5D
Source: LP: Fifth Dimension
Writer(s): Roger McGuinn
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The second single from the Byrds' third LP, Fifth Dimension, suffered from the same problem as its predecessor. Both 5D and Eight Miles High were branded as drug songs by people who had no clue as to what the songs were really about, which had the effect of discouraging the more conservative radio programmers from playing the songs. In the case of 5D, the song was, according to songwriter Roger McGuinn, an attempt to explain Einstein's theory of relativity in layman's terms. In a 1966 interview McGuinn had this to say about the song: "It's sort of weird but...what I'm talking about is the whole universe, the fifth dimension, which is height, width, depth, time and something else. But there definitely are more dimensions than five. It's infinite. The fifth dimension is the threshold of scientific knowledge." Despite McGuinn's attempts to explain the song, many people insisted on believing it was about an LSD trip, and the single died quickly after being released in late 1966.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Big Beat (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
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: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds of Silence)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK, and were deleted at Simon's request.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Salesman
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Craig Smith
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The first song on the Monkees' fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. was also the most controversial. Michael Nesmith, as a side project, had been producing songs for a group led by Craig Vincent Smith called the Penny Arkade. One song in particular, Salesman, impressed Nesmith so much that he decided to produce a Monkees version of the song as well. The track was then used in a Monkees TV episode called The Devil And Peter Tork. NBC-TV at first refused to air the episode, claiming that the line "Salesman with your secret goods that you push while you talk" was a veiled drug reference (although producer Bert Schnieder was convinced the real reason was the liberal use of the word "hell" in the show's script).
Artist: Tommy James And The Shondells
Title: Mony Mony
Source: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): James/Gentry/Cordell/Bloom
Label: Priority (original label: Roulette)
Year: 1968
Sometime around 1964, a kid named Tommy James took his band, the Shondells, into a recording studio to record a simple song called Hanky Panky. The song was released on the Roulette label and went absolutely nowhere. Two years later a Pittsburgh DJ, looking for something different to make his show stand out from the crowd, decided to dig out a copy of the record and play it as a sort of on-air audition. The audience loved it, and the DJ soon contacted James, inviting him and the Shondells to make a personal appearance. Unfortunately by this time there were no Shondells, so James hastily put together a new band to promote the record. It wasn't long before the word spread and Hanky Panky was a national hit. James and his new Shondells then commenced to pretty much single-handedly keep Roulette Records afloat for the next three or four years with songs like their 1968 jukebox favorite Mony Mony, one of many top 10 singles for the band.
Artist: Mad River
Title: Wind Chimes
Source: LP: Mad River
Writer(s): Mad River
Year: 1968
Label: Sundazed/EMI (original label: Capitol)
When Mad River's debut LP was released, the San Francisco rock press hailed it as "taking rock music as far as it could go." Indeed, songs like Wind Chimes certainly pushed the envelope in 1968, when bubble gum was king of top 40 radio and progressive FM stations were still in the process of finding an audience. One thing that helped was the band members' friendship with avant-garde poet Richard Brautigan, who pulled whatever strings he could to get attention for his favorite local band. Still, the time was not yet right for such a band as Mad River, who had quietly faded away by the early 1970s.
Title: One Third
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Barry Graham
Label: Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year: 1966
Originally known as Barry Graham and the Mustangs, the Majority moved south from Hull to London after signing with the British Decca label in 1965. A highly adaptable group, the Majority recorded a total of eight singles for Decca without achieving any chart success. Among the best of these tracks was One Third, a song from July of 1966 that was sadly relegated to being a B side. The group did manage to pick up a following on the European continent, and after their contract with Decca expired in 1968 the band packed their bags and moved overseas. After a moderately successful run in Europe using the name Majority One, the group disbanded in the mid-1970s.
Artist: Sonny And Cher
Title: Love Don't Come
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Sonny Bono
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Sonny Bono's talents as a songwriter are often overlooked, mostly because all of Sonny Bono's talents were overshadowed by his wife Cher (who is one of the entertainment legends of the 20th century, after all). Nonetheless the fact remains that Bono was the guy who wrote the songs that made Sonny And Cher the most popular singing duo in the nation in the late 1960s and early 70s. Even an obscure B side like 1967's Love Don't Come demonstrates his ability to craft a song with unexpected key and tempo changes that keep the listener's attention right through to the end of the track.
Artist: First Edition
Title: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mickey Newbury
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle was the official leader on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Hey Mr. President
Source: Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Adams/Barkan
Label: Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1969
Although to most of us "Electric Prunes" was the name of a band, to people in the music industry it was actually the name of a commodity. This commodity was originally owned by engineer Dave Hassinger, who produced the band's first two albums for Reprise. After the second LP failed to produce a hit single Hassinger worked out a deal with composer David Axelrod to record something called Mass In F Minor and release it as the third Prunes LP. It soon became apparent, however, that the band members were ill-suited to perform Axelrod's music, and Hassinger brought in members of another band entirely, the Collectors, to record most of the album's instrumental tracks. Although Mass In F Minor was even less commercial than the two previous albums, Hassinger chose to continue working with Axelrod on a fourth Electric Prunes album, Release Of An Oath, using an entirely new group of musicians. By this time the ownership of the band's name had passed to Axelrod's manager, Lenny Poncher, who was responsible for the next single to be released under the Electric Prunes name, 1969's Hey Mr. President. This new lineup (which included former West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band guitarist Ron Morgan) stayed in place until the group officially disbanded, recording one album of mostly-original material in 1969.
Artist: Who
Title: The Seeker
Source: CD: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1970
The Who's first post-Tommy single was a song called The Seeker, which Pete Townshend claims to have written while drunk out of his mind at 3AM in a Florida swamp. The band first recorded the song in Townshend's home studio, then again at IBC studios, where they ended up producing the record themselves when their regular producer, Kit Lambert, broke his jaw getting a tooth pulled.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: 3rd Stone From The Sun
Source: LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
One of the great rock instrumentals, 3rd Stone From The Sun (from the Jimi Hendrix Experience album Are You Experienced?) is one of the first tracks to use a recording technique known as backwards masking (where the tape is deliberately put on the machine backwards and new material is added to the reversed recording). In this particular case the masked material (Hendrix speaking) was added at a faster speed than the original recording, with a lot of reverb added, creating an almost otherworldly effect when played forward at normal speed.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Omaha
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.
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: 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: Spencer Davis Group
Title: I'm A Man
Source: Mono LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Miller
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer. The group itself continued on for several years, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes. As for Steve Winwood, he quickly faded off into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Except as the leader of Traffic. And a member of Blind Faith. And Traffic again. And some critically-acclaimed collaborations in the early 1980s with Asian musicians. Oh yeah, and a few major solo hits in the late 80s. Other than that, nothing.
Artist: Love Sculpture
Title: Wang Dang Doodle
Source: British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year: 1968
During my first year of college I moved into a house shared by five other people (not all of which were students) near the University of New Mexico. Shortly after moving in I bought an old Philips reel-to-reel machine and began taping various albums from my roommates' collections. Not long after that I discovered a gold mine in the basement. A former resident of the house had left a box of reel-to-reel tapes, some of which were only vaguely labeled, if at all. One of the tapes was labeled simply "Love Sculpture". It turned out that some of the songs on that tape were actually from the Blues Project's Projections album, but others, such as this rather tasty version of Koko Taylor's Wang Dang Doodle, were indeed by a band called Love Sculpture. I was not aware at the time, however, that the song was from an album called Blues Helping, or that Love Sculpture's lead guitarist and vocalist was none other than Dave Edmunds, who I had only known as the guy who did the remake of I Hear You Knockin' in the early 1970s.
Artist: Doors
Title: Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): Weill/Brecht
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
1967 was a breakthrough year for Elektra Records, which had only signed its first full-fledged rock band (Love) the previous year. Between Love's second and third albums and the first two Doors LPs, Elektra had by the end of the year established itself as a player. Although never released as a single, Alabama Song managed to make it onto the Best of the Doors album and has been a classic rock staple for years.
Artist: Doors
Title: Variety Is The Spice Of Life
Source: LP: Other Voices
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1971
Three months after the death of Jim Morrison the remaining three members of the Doors released Other Voices. The band had started work on the song while Morrison was in France, and ended up using keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger on lead vocals. Although all the songs were officially credited to the entire band, some tunes, such as Variety Is The Spice Of Life, were the work of individual members (in this case Krieger, who also sang lead vocals on the track).
Artist: Doors
Title: End Of The Night
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
The Doors first big break came when they opened for Love at L.A.'s most famous club, the Whisky-A-Go-Go, and became friends with the members of the more established popular local band. Love was already recording for Elektra Records, and enthusiastically recommended that the label sign the Doors as well. Elektra did, and the Doors went on to become one of the most successful and influential bands in rock history. Although not as well-known as Light My Fire or The End, the dark and moody End Of The Night is a classic early Doors tune, from the opening bent chords from guitarist Robby Krieger to the spooky keyboard work of Ray Manzarek and of course Jim Morrison's distinctive vocals.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Talk Me Down
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Talk Me Down was, according to composer Sean Bonniwell, quite possibly the first punk rock song ever conceived. The tune was one of four songs recorded on a demo at Original Sound when the Music Machine still called itself the Ragamuffins. This recording was cut in 1967 by the band's original lineup, but not released until Warner Brothers released an album called Bonniwell Music Machine later that year. By the time of the album's release, all the members of the original band except Bonniwell had moved on to other things, and a new lineup was featured on several tracks on the album.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Yellow Submarine
Source: CD: Revolver
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
Ringo's greatest hit.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Savoy Truffle
Source: CD: The Beatles
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year: 1968
George Harrison's skills as a songwriter continued to develop in 1968. The double-LP The Beatles (aka the White Album) contained four Harrison compositions, including Savoy Truffle, a tongue-in-cheek song about Harrison's friend Eric Clapton's fondness for chocolate. John Lennon did not participate in the recording of Savoy Truffle. The keyboards were probably played by Chris Thomas, who, in addition to playing on all four Harrison songs on the album, served as de facto producer when George Martin decided to take a vacation in the middle of the album's recording sessions.
Artist: Beatles
Title: I'm Only Sleeping
Source: CD: Revolver (originally released on LP: Yesterday...And Today)
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
US record buyers were able to hear I'm Only Sleeping several weeks before their British counterparts thanks to Capitol Records including the song on the US-only Yesterday...And Today LP. There was a catch, however. Producer George Martin had not yet made a stereo mix of the song, and Capitol used their "Duophonic" system to create a fake stereo mix for the album. That mix continued to be used on subsequent pressings of the LP (and various tape formats), even after a stereo mix was created and included on the UK version of the Revolver album. It wasn't until EMI released the entire run of UK albums on CD in both the US and UK markets that American record buyers had access to the true stereo version of the song heard here.
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: Rolling Stones
Title: Citadel
Source: LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
One of the most underrated songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Citadel is the second track on Their Satanic Majesties Request, an album often dismissed as being an ill-fated attempt to keep up with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. As the song is preceeded on the album by the overture-like Sing This All Together with no break between the two, Citadel was almost impossible to play as a separate track from the original vinyl. It's a little easier to play from the CD, but due to sloppiness on the part of whoever mastered the 80s Abkco discs, the start of the song does not quite match up with the start of the CD track. Maybe one of these days I'll get a copy of the remastered version that came out more recently and see if they did a better job with it. In the meantime sit back and enjoy this hard-rockin' piece of psychedelia.
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: Blues Magoos
Title: I Wanna Be There
Source: CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s): Theilhelm/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Like many bands of the psychedelic era, the Blues Magoos had a relationship with their producers that was uneasy at the best of times, and downright hostile at worst. The basic idea was actually a sound one: the band would make the music while Longhair Productions (Art Polhemus and Bob Wylde) would handle the marketing of the band. In 1966 this meant the Psychedelic Lollipop album, electric suits and an appearance on a Bob Hope special. In 1967 it meant the Electric Comic Book album with an insert offering all sorts of psychedelic items such as a lava lamp called the "psych de-lite". Things started to fray a bit, though, when the producers paired up the two strongest tracks from Electric Comic Book as a single, resulting in radio airplay being split between the two and neither becoming a huge hit. The situation got even worse when Polhemus and Wylde came up with the idea for a Blues Magoos Christmas album. The band withdrew and hired a mobile unit to come to their house to record tracks for their next LP. At that point there were several existing songs that had been released as singles but not yet included on an album. Probably the best of those was I Wanna Be There, which had been released in July of 1967. The tune, along with three other Longhair-produced tracks and the newer self-produced material, was included on the original band's last LP, Basic Blues Magoos, which was released in May of 1968.
Artist: Serpent Power
Title: Up And Down
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Serpent Power)
Writer: David Meltzer
Label: Rhino (original label: Vanguard)
Year: 1967
David Meltzer was a beat poet who by the late 60s had already spent several years in the San Francisco Bay area, recording a spoken word album in 1959. For reasons having something to do with yoga, Meltzer and his wife Tina decided to form a band in 1967, calling it the Serpent Power. The group cut one LP for Vanguard. Up and Down is one of the shorter tracks from that album.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Wild Mountain Thyme
Source: LP: Fifth Dimension
Writer(s): Francis McPeake
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The third Byrds album, Fifth Dimension, is notable for being the group's first LP to not include any songs written by Bob Dylan. They did, however, record a cover of cover song that Dylan had recorded. Although Dylan's version was attributed to "traditional" and the Byrds' version followed suit, giving arrangement credit to the band, Wild Mountain Thyme was actually written in 1957 by Francis McPeake, a member of a well-known musical family in Belfast, Ireland. McPeake's song, in turn, was based on an earlier work, The Braes of Balquhither, written around 1800 by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill.
Artist: Byrds
Title: He Was A Friend Of Mine
Source: CD: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer(s): Traditional, arr. McGuinn
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1965
He Was A Friend Of Mine is a traditional folk song that Roger McGuinn wrote new lyrics for the night John F. Kennedy was assassinated. After the Byrds recorded McGuinn's arrangement for their second album in 1965 the song became a staple of the group's live performances. In 1967 David Crosby prefaced the band's performance of the song with an introduction that questioned the Warren Report's contention that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, which did not go over well with other members of the band (particularly McGuinn), and is generally considered to be a contributing factor to Crosby's being fired by McGuinn and bassist Chris Hillman later that year.
Artist: Byrds
Title: 5D
Source: LP: Fifth Dimension
Writer(s): Roger McGuinn
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The second single from the Byrds' third LP, Fifth Dimension, suffered from the same problem as its predecessor. Both 5D and Eight Miles High were branded as drug songs by people who had no clue as to what the songs were really about, which had the effect of discouraging the more conservative radio programmers from playing the songs. In the case of 5D, the song was, according to songwriter Roger McGuinn, an attempt to explain Einstein's theory of relativity in layman's terms. In a 1966 interview McGuinn had this to say about the song: "It's sort of weird but...what I'm talking about is the whole universe, the fifth dimension, which is height, width, depth, time and something else. But there definitely are more dimensions than five. It's infinite. The fifth dimension is the threshold of scientific knowledge." Despite McGuinn's attempts to explain the song, many people insisted on believing it was about an LSD trip, and the single died quickly after being released in late 1966.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Big Beat (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
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: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: I Am A Rock
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds of Silence)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK, and were deleted at Simon's request.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Salesman
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Craig Smith
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
The first song on the Monkees' fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. was also the most controversial. Michael Nesmith, as a side project, had been producing songs for a group led by Craig Vincent Smith called the Penny Arkade. One song in particular, Salesman, impressed Nesmith so much that he decided to produce a Monkees version of the song as well. The track was then used in a Monkees TV episode called The Devil And Peter Tork. NBC-TV at first refused to air the episode, claiming that the line "Salesman with your secret goods that you push while you talk" was a veiled drug reference (although producer Bert Schnieder was convinced the real reason was the liberal use of the word "hell" in the show's script).
Artist: Tommy James And The Shondells
Title: Mony Mony
Source: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): James/Gentry/Cordell/Bloom
Label: Priority (original label: Roulette)
Year: 1968
Sometime around 1964, a kid named Tommy James took his band, the Shondells, into a recording studio to record a simple song called Hanky Panky. The song was released on the Roulette label and went absolutely nowhere. Two years later a Pittsburgh DJ, looking for something different to make his show stand out from the crowd, decided to dig out a copy of the record and play it as a sort of on-air audition. The audience loved it, and the DJ soon contacted James, inviting him and the Shondells to make a personal appearance. Unfortunately by this time there were no Shondells, so James hastily put together a new band to promote the record. It wasn't long before the word spread and Hanky Panky was a national hit. James and his new Shondells then commenced to pretty much single-handedly keep Roulette Records afloat for the next three or four years with songs like their 1968 jukebox favorite Mony Mony, one of many top 10 singles for the band.
Artist: Mad River
Title: Wind Chimes
Source: LP: Mad River
Writer(s): Mad River
Year: 1968
Label: Sundazed/EMI (original label: Capitol)
When Mad River's debut LP was released, the San Francisco rock press hailed it as "taking rock music as far as it could go." Indeed, songs like Wind Chimes certainly pushed the envelope in 1968, when bubble gum was king of top 40 radio and progressive FM stations were still in the process of finding an audience. One thing that helped was the band members' friendship with avant-garde poet Richard Brautigan, who pulled whatever strings he could to get attention for his favorite local band. Still, the time was not yet right for such a band as Mad River, who had quietly faded away by the early 1970s.
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