Artist: Jose Feliciano
Title: If I Really Bug You
Source: A Bag Full Of Soul
Writer(s): Jose and Hilda Feliciano
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Guitarist/vocalist Jose Feliciano was born in Lares, Puerto Rico on September 10, 1945. His family relocated to Spanish Harlem in New York City when he was five and played his first gig at age 9 at the Teatro Puerto Rico in The Bronx. At 17 he quit school to become a professional performer, signing with RCA Victor in 1963 and releasing his first single the following year. In 1965 he released his first album, The Voice And Guitar Of Jose Feliciano, following it up with A Bag Full Of Soul in 1966. The album encompasses a variety of styles, including jazz, folk and soul. Feliciano's sense of humor comes through on his self-penned opening track, If I Really Bug You, which asks the musical question: why do you keep me around, then?
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Gotta Get Away
Source: CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Gordon/Adams
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
As was common with most 1966 LPs, the Blues Magoos debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, included a handful of cover songs, not all of which had been hits for other groups. One of the non-hits was Gotta Get Away, a fairly typical piece of garage rock that opens side two of the LP. The song was also selected as the B side for the group's second (and by far most successful) single, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet. As the usual practice was to bring in outside songwriters for a new band's early singles and let the band write their own B side, it is possible that Gotta Get Away may have been the intended A side of the single.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Goin' Home
Source: British import LP: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: Decca)
Year: 1966
Goin' Home was not originally meant to run over eleven minutes, but when the Rolling Stones recorded the track they decided to keep the tape rolling as the band kept on jamming after the intended two and a half minutes had passed. The result was one of the first extended-length studio recordings by a rock band and the first "jam" recorded expressly for an album. The regular lineup of Mick Jagger (vocals), Keith Richards (guitar), Billy Wyman (bass), Charlie Watts (drums) and Brian Jones (who plays harmonica on the tune) was augmented by Ian Stewart on piano and Jack Nitzsche on percussion. The track was included on both the US and UK versions of the Aftermath album, which was the first Stones LP to not include any cover songs as well as being the first Rolling Stones album to be recorded in true stereo.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: Somewhere They Can't Find Me
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds of Silence)
Writer: Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Simon and Garfunkel's success as a folk-rock duo was actually due to the unauthorized actions of producer John Simon, who, after working on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album, got Dylan's band to add new tracks to the song Sound of Silence. The song had been recorded as an acoustic number for the album Wednesday Morning 3AM, which had, by 1966, been deleted from the Columbia catalog. The new version of the song was sent out to select radio stations, and got such positive response that it was released as a single, eventually making the top 10. Meanwhile, Paul Simon, who had since moved to London and recorded an album called the Paul Simon Songbook, found himself returning to the US and reuniting with Art Garfunkel. Armed with an array of quality studio musicians they set about making their first electric album, Sounds of Silence. The song Somewhere They Can't Find Me was one of the new songs recorded for that album. The song shows a strong influence from British folk guitarist Bert Jansch, whom Simon greatly admired.
Artist: Cream
Title: The Coffee Song
Source: CD: Fresh Cream (bonus track originally released in Sweden on LP: Fresh Cream and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Smith/Colton
Label: Polydor
Year: 1966
Cream's debut single, Wrapping Paper, appeared in England in 1966. The record did not chart and was soon forgotten. Cream's next single, I Feel Free, was a huge hit in the UK and the band soon got to work on their first LP. The practice in the UK at the time was to not include any songs on an album that had previously been released as singles; Fresh Cream partially broke with this tradition by using I Feel Free's B side, N.S.U., as the opening track. When a US version of Fresh Cream was released in early 1967, I Feel Free was added to the lineup (replacing the original studio version of Spoonful). Neither side of the band's first single was included on the album...with one notable exception. The German pressing of Fresh Cream used the same track listing as the original UK version, but a Swedish version, manufactured in Germany, had two extra tracks: Wrapping Paper and another unreleased recording, The Coffee Song. Neither song was released anywhere else until the late 1980s, when the first US CD version of Fresh Cream included all the tracks from the various LP pressings of the album. For unknown reasons, subsequent releases of Fresh Cream have not included either Wrapping Paper or The Coffee Song (although the band members' oft expressed distaste for both songs may have something to do with it).
Artist: Second Hand
Title: A Fairy Tale (demo version)
Source: Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution
Writer(s): Elliott
Label: Grapefruit
Year: Recorded 1968, released 2013
Secon Hand was an iconoclastic band from East London that released two albums for Polydor, Reality and Death May Be Your Santa Claus in 1969. The group's most commercial track was probably A Fairy Tale, which opened side one of Reality. The version heard here is actually a demo of the tune recorded in 1968.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Please Don't Worry
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer: Farner/Brewer
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
Grand Funk Railroad bridged the gap from garage rock to heavy metal, almost single-handedly creating arena rock in the process. Their sound was as raw and unpolished as any garage band (at least at first) and the rock press universally detested them. Nonetheless, Mark Farner, Mel Schacher and Don Brewer struck a (power) chord with the concertgoing/record-buying public and was the first band to consistently play to sellout crowds at large-scale venues such as sports arenas. Grand Funk played loud; so loud, in fact, that it was impossible to hear anything but the band itself when they were playing (even your own screaming). Please Don't Worry, from Grand Funk Railroad's self-title second album (often referred to as the red album), is as typical an early Grand Funk song as you're going to find, with its driving power chords and screaming lead guitar solo and Mark Farner's distinctive barely-on-key vocals.
Artist: Chicago
Title: Questions 67 & 68
Source: CD: The Chicago Transit Authority
Writer(s): Robert Lamm
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Originally calling themselves The Big Thing, The Chicago Transit Authority moved to Los Angeles in 1968, changing their name in the process. After a year of touring the band headed to New York to record their first album in early 1969. The first single released from that album was Questions 67 & 68, which was released as a nearly five-minute long single in July. The song stalled out at the #71 spot, but two years later an edited version of the song made it to #24. By then the group had shortened its name to Chicago. The rest, as they say, is history.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Love Story
Source: CD: This Was (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968 (UK), 1969 (US)
Love Story was the last studio recording by the original Jethro Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornish. The song was released as a single following the band's debut LP, This Was. Shortly after it's release Abrahams left the group, citing differences with Anderson over the band's musical direction. The song spent eight weeks on the UK singles chart, reaching the #29 spot. In the U.S., Love Story was released in March 1969, with A Song for Jeffrey (an album track from This Was) on the B-side, but did not chart. Like most songs released as singles in the UK, Love Story did not appear on an album until several years later; in this case on the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past. It has most recently been included as a bonus track on the expanded CD version of This Was.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Bleak City Woman
Source: LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Epic
Year: 1967
Donovan is one of those rare artists whose early work actually sounds less dated than their later efforts. Although no one can say for sure why this is, I suspect it may have something to do with Donovan's trying to live up to what was expected of him, both from fans and members of the press, who, following the success of Sunshine Superman, tried to set the singer/songwriter up as some sort of hippy messiah, similar to Bob Dylan. Before long, Donovan found himself making trips to India with the Beatles and writing Aquarian anthems like Wear Your Love Like Heaven and Atlantis. Before succumbing to all this, however, he put out one fine album in the form of Mellow Yellow in early 1967. Like Sunshine Superman, Mellow Yellow is an adventurous album, mixing folk, psychedelic rock and old-time jazz in unique configurations. Even the arguably weakest track on the LP, Bleak City Woman, stands above 90% of what was being released at the time (and closer to 100% of what has come out this century).
Artist: Standells
Title: Dirty Water
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Cobb
Label: Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year: 1966
The Standells were not from Boston (they were a Los Angeles club band). Ed Cobb, who wrote and produced Dirty Water, was. The rest is history.
Artist: Them
Title: Gloria
Source: Mono LP: Them
Writer(s): Van Morrison
Label: Parrot
Year: 1965
Gloria was one of the first seven songs that Van Morrison's band, Them, recorded for the British Decca label on July 5, 1964. Morrison had been performing the song since he wrote it in 1963, often stretching out the performance to twenty minutes or longer. The band's producer, Dick Rowe, brought in session musicians on organ and drums for the recordings, as he considered the band members themselves "inexperienced". The song was released as the B side of Them's first single, Baby Please Don't Go, in November of 1964. The song was also released in the US in early 1965, but was soon banned in most parts of the country for its suggestive lyrics. Later that year a suburban Chicago band, the Shadows Of Knight, released their own version of Gloria. That version, with slight lyrical revisions, became a major hit.
Artist: Kinks
Title: You Really Got Me
Source: Mono LP: You Really Got Me
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1964
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: James Gang
Title: The Bomber
Source: LP: The Best Of The James Gang (originally released on LP: James Gang Rides Again)
Writer(s): Joe Walsh
Label: ABC
Year: 1970
The second James Gang album saw the addition of a new bass player, Dale Peters, who replaced founding member Tom Kriss. Unlike the group's debut LP, James Gang Rides Again consisted almost entirely of material written by the band members themselves. The only exceptions were adaptations of Ravel's Bolero and Vince Guaraldi's Cast Your Fate To The Wind that guitarist Joe Walsh incorporated into the instrumental section of The Bomber, which at seven minutes was the longest track on the album. The beginning and end of The Bomber consist of a piece called Closet Queen, which was composed by the entire band. Shortly after the album's rellease the Ravel estate initiated legal proceedings against the band for using Bolero without permission. In response the record was recalled and a new version with Bolero edited out of the track was released in its place. By the time the album The Best Of The James Gang came out (in 1973) the track had been restored to its original length (although the shorter time appears in the credits) and that is the version used on subsequent CD releases of James Gang Rides Again as well.
Artist: Humans
Title: Warning
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Bill Kuhns
Label: Audition
Year: 1966
Throughout the history of rock and roll there have been bands named after various species of fauna, such as crickets, beetles, hawks, and eagles. In seems inevitable, then, that someone would decide to name themselves after the dominant species on the planet. The Humans were formed in Albion, NY in 1964 by six members of the local high school marching band during summer break. In 1966 they went into Riposo Studios in Syracuse, NY to record their only single, a folk-rocker called Take A Taxi. The B side of that single was Warning, a song that has come to be considered a garage-rock classic. The record was released on the Audition label and was successful enough to get the band gigs in Miami and New York City, opening for such name acts as the Animals and the Hollies. Animals bassist Chas Chandler even invited the band members to go with him to the Cafe Wha in the summer of '66 to see a band called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames that featured a hot new guitarist that everyone was talking about. That guitarist was Jimi Hendrix, and Chandler was able to talk him into going back to London with him, an event of major significance for the future of rock music. Meanwhile, the Humans were struck by tragedy that September when lead vocalist Danny Long was killed in a car accident, and other band members began receiving draft notices. Finally, in November, the remaining members of the band decided to call it quits, and the Humans were history. Special thanks to Bill Vosteen for sending me a copy of that Humans single.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Love Is Only Sleeping
Source: LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s): Mann/Weil
Label: Colgems
Year: 1967
Among the various professional songwriters hired by Don Kirschner in 1966 to write songs for the Monkees were the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who had hit it big with a pair of songs for Paul Revere And The Raiders (Kicks and Hungry) earlier that year. But when the Monkees rebelled against Kirschner's control over their recorded output in early 1967 it looked as though the band was done with Mann/Weil compositions altogether. Later that year, however, the Monkees themselves, now firmly in control of their own musical direction, chose to record a new Mann/Weil tune, Love Is Only Sleeping, as their fourth single. At the same time, the group was working on their fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. A last-minute change of plans resulted in a different song, Daydream Believer, being released as a single instead, with a tune from the album, Goin' Down, as the B side. Goin' Down was then deleted from the album lineup and Love Is Only Sleeping included in its place. It was the closest that Michael Nesmith would ever come to being the lead vocalist on a Monkees hit single.
Artist: Who
Title: I Can See For Miles
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
I Can See For Miles continued a string of top 10 singles in the UK and was their biggest US hit ever. Pete Townshend, however, was disappointed with the song's performance on the UK charts. He said that the song was the ultimate Who song and as such it should have charted even higher than it did. It certainly was one of the heaviest songs of its time and there is some evidence that it prompted Paul McCartney to come up with Helter Skelter in an effort to take the heaviest song ever title back for the Beatles. What makes the story even more bizarre is that at the time McCartney reportedly had never actually heard I Can See For Miles and was going purely by what he read in a record review. The song is preceeded by a series of jingles produced for Radio London, a pirate radio station operating off the coast with offices in London. One of those (Roto Sound Strings) was actually performed by the Who. The others were made by the same Texas company (now known as TM) that supplied jingles to most US top 40 stations.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Rock And Roll Woman
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth). Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Neil Young, Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Stephen Stills. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock and Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 40 years after it was recorded.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Tomorrow Never Knows
Source: CD: Revolver
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
A few years ago I started to compile an (admittedly subjective) list of the top psychedelic songs ever recorded. Although I never finished ranking the songs, one of the top contenders for the number one spot was Tomorrow Never Knows. The song is one of the first to use studio techniques such as backwards masking and has been hailed as a studio masterpiece.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: Poem By The Sea/Paint It Black
Source: LP: Winds Of Change
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins/Jagger/Richards
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
One of the highlights of the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 was the onstage debut of Eric Burdon's new Animals, a group much more in tune with the psychedelic happenings of the summer of love than its working class predecessor. The showstopper for the band's set was an extended version of the Rolling Stone's classic Paint It, Black. That summer saw the release of the group's first full LP, Winds Of Change, which included a studio version of Paint It, Black preceded by a slow piece called Poem By The Sea.
Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title: Oh, Sweet Mary
Source: CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s): Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
The only song credited to the entire membership of Big Brother And The Holding Company on their Cheap Thrills album was Oh, Sweet Mary (although some copies credit Janis Joplin as sole writer). The tune bears a strong resemblance to Coo Coo, a non-album single the band had released on the Mainstream label before signing to Columbia. Oh, Sweet Mary, however, has new lyrics and a "dreamy" bridge section played at a slower tempo than the rest of the tune.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Have You Met My Pet Pig
Source: LP: Where's My Daddy
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Amos
Year: 1969
After being cut from the Reprise Records roster in 1968, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band found themselves recording one album for Jimmy Bowen's Amos label. Musically, the album is even more divorced from the mainstream than its predecessors, being a kind of concept album centered around a young homeless girl known as "Poor Patty". The story follows Patty's adventures in Los Angeles following the summer of love, and includes such strangely titled tunes as Have You Met My Pet Pig.
Artist: Savoy Brown
Title: Gypsy
Source: CD: Looking In
Writer(s): Kim Simmonds
Label: Deram (original label: Parrot)
Year: 1970
The opening track to the 1970 Savoy Brown album Looking In is a short instrumental by guitarist Kim Simmonds titled Gypsy. To me it sounds just like the album's closing track (which is the same length: one minute exactly).
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: That's It For The Other One/New Potato Caboose/Born Cross-Eyed
Source: LP: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s): Garcia/Kreutzmann/Lesh/McKernan/Weir/Constanten
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1968
After completing their first album in three days, the Grateful Dead decided to take their time with the 1968 follow-up release. The band began recording at American Studios in North Hollywood, but soon found themselves in New York, where they had their first experience with state-of-the-art eight track recording equipment. Naturally, the band wanted to explore the possibilities that were available with the new technology, which eventually led to producer Dave Hassinger resigning from the project in frustration (reportedly the last straw being Bob Weir's quest to capture the sound of "thick air"). With about a third of the album completed the band decided that the material needed to be road tested and scheduled a series of west coast appearances before heading back to San Francisco to continue work on the album at Coast Recorders. The band made recordings of these performances, interlacing them with the existing studio tracks and adding overdubs as needed. Among these overdubs were the contributions of Tom Constanten, who provided piano, prepared piano and electronic tape effects. As originally mixed, each album side was one continuous track, with no breaks between songs. Side one of Anthem Of The Sun consists of three compositions: That's It For The Other One, New Potato Caboose, and Born Cross-Eyed. In order to score more royalty points, however,That's It For The Other One was broken down into several subsections on the album cover. The album was completed later in 1968 and released by Warner Brothers Records, whose president, Joe Smith, called it "the most unreasonable project with which we have ever involved ourselves". Four years later, band members Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh decided to revist the project, remixing the entire album and reissuing it with the original catalog number. All subsequent releases of Album Of The Sun (LP, tape and CD) have used the 1972 remix with one exception: in 2014, Warner Brothers released a limited edition 180g vinyl pressing of the original 1968 mix. This week we present side one of that original mix. Enjoy!
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Plastic Fantastic Lover
Source: CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: RCA
Year: 1967
Jefferson Airplane scored their first top 10 hit with Somebody To Love, the second single released from the Surrealistic Pillow album. Almost immediately, forward-thinking FM stations began playing other tracks from the album. One of those favored album tracks, Plastic Fantastic Lover, ended up being the B side of the band's follow-up single, White Rabbit. When the Airplane reunited in 1989 and issued their two-disc retrospective, 2400 Fulton Street, they issued a special stereo pressing of the single on white vinyl as a way of promoting the collection.
Artist: E-Types
Title: Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Bonner/Gordon
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
The E-Types were from Salinas, California, which at the time was known among travelers along US 101 mostly for it's sulfiric smell. As many people from Salinas apparently went to nearby San Jose as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene in the latter town, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. Since the Standells were already known as a garage-rock band (although they were really a bar band), Cobb tried positioning the Watchband as a psychedelic band (they were really more of a garage band) and the E-Types as a pop-rock band (although they were probably the most psychedelic of the three), hooking them up with the same Bonner/Gordon songwriting team that would soon be receiving fat royalty checks from songs like Happy Together and She's My Girl, both hits for the Turtles. Put The Clock Back On The Wall was actually titled after a popular phase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space), generally due to the influence of certain mind-altering chemicals, it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer. The song was originally released in early 1967, shortly before Happy Together hit the charts.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1512 (starts 3/18/15)
Artist: Kinks
Title: I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
One of the most popular songs in the Kinks' catalog, I'm Not Like Everybody Else was originally written for another British band, the Animals. When that group decided not to record the tune, the Kinks did their own version of the song, issuing it as the B side of the 1966 hit Sunny Afternoon. Although written by Ray Davies, it was sung by his brother Dave, who usually handled the lead vocals on only the songs he himself composed. Initially not available on any LPs, the song has in recent years shown up on various collections and as a bonus track on CD reissues of both the Kink Kontroversy and Face To Face albums. Both Davies brothers continue to perform the song in their live appearances.
Artist: Third Bardo
Title: I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source: Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Evans/Pike
Label: Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year: 1967
The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Honky Tonk Women
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1969
After revitalizing their career with Jumpin' Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man in 1968, the Stones delivered the coup-de-grace with a true monster of a hit: the classic Honky Tonk Women. The song was the first single without Brian Jones, who had been found dead in his swimming pool shortly after being kicked out of the band. Jones's replacement, Mick Taylor (fresh from a stint with blues legend John Mayall), plays slide guitar on the track.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: Sky Pilot
Source: CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Rhino (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
After the original Animals lineup disbanded in late 1966, lead vocalist Eric Burdon quickly set out to form a "New Animals" group that would come to be called Eric Burdon and the Animals. Their biggest hit was 1968's Sky Pilot, a song that was so long it had to be split across two sides of a 45 RPM record. The uninterrupted version of the song was included on the group's second album, The Twain Shall Meet.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Share A Little Joke
Source: CD: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1968
Jeffeerson Airplane's fourth LP, Crown Of Creation, is generally considered to be the pinnacle of the group's psychedelic period. The album's songs deal with a variety of subjects, including politics, hippy sociology, and even a touch of science fiction. Founder Marty Balin, who had written much of the material on the band's first two albums, only contributed one solo effort to the album, the whimsical Share A Little Joke.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Shadows
Source: Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM promo single)
Writer(s): Gordon Phillips
Label: Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Released only to radio stations, Shadows may well be the last song issued by the original lineup of the Electric Prunes. The song was recorded for a film called The Name Of The Game Is To Kill (a movie I know absolutely nothing about), and was issued in between two singles written by David Axelrod for concept albums that came out under the Electric Prunes name in 1968. Stylistically, Shadows sounds far more like the group's earlier work than the Axelrod material.
Artist: Tea Company
Title: Flowers
Source: Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released on LP: Come And Have Some Tea With The Tea Company and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Carr/Lassando
Label: Arf! Arf!
Year: 1968
Nobody seems to know for sure, but the Tea Company apparently came from somewhere in the Northeastern US. What is known is that their only LP for Smash was reportedly about as psychedelic as you can get, using some of the stereo techniques developed by Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Kramer for the Axis: Bold As Love album. The single version of Flowers, unfortunately, is a heavily edited mono remix, which makes me even more curious to hear the actual LP. Anyone got a copy?
Artist: Flock
Title: Clown
Source: LP: The Flock
Writer: The Flock
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
The Flock's 1969 debut album featured liner notes by British blues guru John Mayall, who called them the best band in America. Despite this stellar recommendation, the Flock (one of two bands with horn sections from the city of Chicago making their recording debut on Columbia Records in 1969) was unable to attract a large audience and disbanded after only two LPs. Violinist Jerry Goodman would go on to be a founding member of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s. The band's unique take on what would come to be called jazz-rock fusion is in full evidence on the seven-and-a-half-minute long Clown, from their debut LP.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Think About It
Source: Mono UK import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Page
Label: Zonophone (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
The last Yardbirds single, Good Night Josephine, was slated for March of 1968, but ended up being released only in the US, where it barely cracked the top 100. More notable was the song's B side, Think About It, which shows a side of guitarist Jimmy Page that would soon come to be identified with one of the most influential bands of the 1970s, Led Zeppelin.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Blue Jay Way
Source: British import stereo 45 RPM EP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1967
One night in 1967, while staying at a rented house on Blue Jay Way in the Hollywood hills, Beatle George Harrison got a phone call. Some friends that he was waiting for had gotten lost in the fog and were trying to find their way to the house. Harrison gave them some directions and suggested they ask a police officer for help. To help keep himself awake while waiting for his friends to show up, Harrison wrote a song about the situation that eventually became his only musical contribution to the band's new project, a telefilm called Magical Mystery Tour.
Artist: Ballroom
Title: Love's Fatal Way
Source: CD: Present Tense (Sagittarius) (bonus track)
Writer(s): Boettcher/Naylor
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1966
In 1966, having successfully worked with the Association on their debut hit, Along Comes Mary (which he co-wrote), Our Productions staff producer Curt Boettcher started work on his own project, a studio group known as the Ballroom. While working on the Ballroom project, Boettcher reconnected with producer Peter Asher (whom he had met early in 1966), who was starting work on his own studio project, Sagittarius. Asher, a veteran producer and songwriter who had worked with Brian Wilson, Terry Melcher and others and had access to the top studio musicians in Los Angeles (collectively known as the Wrecking Crew), was impressed with Boettcher's talent and enthusiasm. For his part, Boettcher had idolized Asher for years, and the two soon began working together on the Sagittarius project, after Asher negotiated a buyout of Boettcher's contract with Our Productions by Asher's own employer, CBS. Only one single was ever issued by the Ballroom, with several of the remaining Ballroom tracks being reworked and/or included on the Sagittarius album, Present Tense. One Ballroom track that did not make the album was Love's Fatal Way, a ethereal pop number that is now available as a bonus track on the Present Tense CD.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: A Public Execution
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1965
It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousins down in Tyler. Mouse and the Traps, in fact, got quite a bit of airplay in that part of the state with a series of singles issued in the mid-60s. A Public Execution is unique among those singles in that the artist on the label was listed simply as Mouse.
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: Holy Mackerel
Title: Wildflowers
Source: CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released on LP: Holy Mackerel)
Writer(s): Robert Harvey
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
The Holy Mackerel was formed by Paul Williams, who had been encouraged to form his own band by producer Richard Perry, who had been impressed by a demo tape Williams had submitted of a song he wrote for Tiny Tim. Although ultimately known for his songwriting skills, it was Williams's voice that is the highlight of the band's self-titled LP that appeared on the Reprise label in late 1968, as can be heard on Wildflowers. Williams would go on to win an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe award for the song Evergreen that he wrote for Barbra Streisand in the 1970s. I still see him in my mind as the villain in the first Kiss made-for-TV movie.
Artist: Who
Title: Silas Stingy
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): John Entwistle
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
John Alec Entwistle did not write average songs. For example, his best known song, Boris The Spider, was about, well, a spider. Whiskey Man dealt with a drunk's imaginary friend. And then there was Silas Stingy, from The Who Sell Out. The song tells the story of a man who was so miserly he spent his entire fortune on protecting his money, thus ending up with nothing at all. One of my all-time favorite Who tracks.
Artist: Who
Title: Someone's Coming
Source: Mono LP: Magic Bus-The Who On Tour (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: 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: Who
Title: Armenia City In The Sky
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): John Keene
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
Pete Townshend has always been a prolific songwriter. John Entwistle, while not as prolific as Townshend, has nonetheless written a number of quality tunes. It is a bit surprising, then, that the opening track of The Who Sell Out did not come from the pens of either of the band's songwriters. Instead, Armenia City In The Sky was written by one of the band's roadies, John Keene. Although not a household name, Keene was the lead vocalist for Thunderclap Newman (named for the band's recording engineer), who had a huge hit in 1969 with Keene's Something In The Air, which was produced by Townshend.
Artist: Liberation News Service
Title: Mid-Winter's Afternoon
Source: Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Esko
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Esko)
Year: 1967
Liberation News Service was a Philadelphia band founded in 1965 by the Esko brothers, Ed and Jeff. Their first release was Mid-Winter's Afternoon, released on the band's own Esko label in 1967. Not long after its release the band added a new lead vocalist and changed their name to the Esko Affair, eventually getting a contract with Mercury Records and releasing singles in 1968 and 1969.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: For What It's Worth
Source: CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth. And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in January of 1967. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was becoming a breakout hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth, making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.
Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: Brown Shoes Don't Make It
Source: CD: Absolutely Free
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
Following up on their debut double-LP Freak Out, the Mothers came up with one of the first concept albums with Absolutely Free, which consisted of two "rock oratorios", each taking up one side of the album. Included in the M.O.I. American Pageant is Brown Shoes Don't Make It, which composer Frank Zappa described as a two-hour musical in condensed form (it runs slightly less than 7 minutes).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Little Miss Lover
Source: LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The second of two songs to use the wah-wah effect extensively on the album Axis: Bold As Love, Little Miss Lover is an example of Jimi Hendrix's funky side, a side not often heard on the three Jimi Hendrix Experience albums.
Artist: John Hammond
Title: Long Distance Call
Source: LP: So Many Roads
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1965
John Paul Hammond (sometimes known as John Hammond Jr.) was a key figure on the Greenwich Village music scene in the mid-1960s. The son of famed record producer and talent scout John Henry Hammond, the younger Hammond was and still is a dedicated afficiondo of Chicago blues, recording over 30 albums since making his vinyl debut on the Vanguard label in 1962. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame, however, was bringing together Michael Bloomfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm to back him up on his 1965 LP, So Many Roads. The album helped introduce a whole new generation to then-obscure blues classics such as Muddy Waters' Long Distance Call. Perhaps more importantly, the album got the attention of Bob Dylan, who hired Robertson, Hudson and Helm to join him on his next international tour, which in turn led to Dylan's Basement Tapes sessions and the formation of The Band.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Mr. Farmer
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: A Web Of Sound)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
With two tracks (Can't Seem To Make You Mine and Pushin' Too Hard) from their first album getting decent airplay on L.A. radio stations in 1966 the Seeds headed back to the studio to record a second LP, A Web Of Sound. The first single released from the album was Mr. Farmer, a song that once again did well locally. The only national hit for the Seeds came when Pushin' Too Hard was re-released in December of 1966, hitting its national peak the following spring.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Morning Dew
Source: CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s): Dobson/Rose
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
One of the most identifiable songs in the Grateful Dead repertoire, Morning Dew was the first song ever written by Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson, who came up with the song in 1961 the morning after having a long discussion with friends about what life might be like following a nuclear holocaust. She began performing the song that year, with the first recorded version appearing on her 1962 live album At Folk City. The song was not published, however, until 1964, when Fred Neil decided to record his own version of the song for his album Tear Down The Walls. The first time the song appeared on a major label was 1966, when Tim Rose recorded it for his self-titled Columbia Records debut album. Rose had secured permission to revise the song and take credit as a co-writer, but his version was virtually identical with the Fred Neil version of the song. Nonetheless, Rose's name has been included on all subsequent recordings (though Dobson gets 75% of the royalties), including the Grateful Dead version heard on their 1967 debut LP.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Boogie Music
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Living The Blues and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): L.T.Tatman III
Label: United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of Bay Area blues purists. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout their existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. An edited version of Boogie Music, also from Living the Blues, was issued as the B side of that single. This is a stereo mix of that version, featured on a United Artists anthology album released in 1969.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Superlungs (My Supergirl)
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Barabajabal)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year: 1969
Donovan originally recorded a song called Supergirl for his 1966 album Sunshine Superman album, but ultimately chose not to use the track. Over two years later he recorded an entirely new version of the song, retitling it Superlungs My Supergirl for the 1969 Barabajagal album.
Artist: Tales Of Justine
Title: Monday Morning
Source: Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): David Daltrey
Label: EMI (original label: His Master's Voice)
Year: 1967
Tales Of Justine started off in 1965 as the Court Jesters, an instrumental trio consisting of Paul Myerson on guitar, Chris Woodisse on bass, and Paul Hurford on drums. The lineup was completed with the addition of multi-instrumentalist David Daltrey, a cousin of the Who's Roger Daltrey, on lead vocals. Two years later the band signed with EMI, largely due to support from trainee producer Tim Rice and arranger Andrew Lloyd Webber, who helped the band with their debut single. Rice soon departed company with EMI and the band did not release any more records. Rice and Webber, however, went on to greater fame with their rock musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph And The AmazingTechnicolor Dreamcoat, the second of which starred Daltrey himself.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Discrepancy
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Discrepancy, one of Sean Bonniwell's most sophisticated recordings with his band the Music Machine, features two simultaneous vocal lines. The main one, sung by Bonniwell (in the left channel) as a single melody line, tells the story of a deteriorating relationship. In the opposite channel we hear a breathy multi-part vocal line that tells the same story from the perspective of the subconscious. The two come together lyrically from time to time to express key concepts such as the line "now I know I'm losing you", only to once again diverge onto their separate tracks. The bridge serves to further unite the two divergent lines with the repeating plea to "tell me what to do". Discrepancy is one of the few tracks recorded by the original Music Machine lineup that was never released on Original Sound Records, either as an LP track or on a 45 RPM single. Instead, the song was included on the LP Bonniwell Music Machine, released by Warner Brothers in 1967.
Artist: Sound System
Title: Take A Look At Yourself
Source: Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jenkins/McNeal
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Romat)
Year: 1967
Greenville, North Carolina, a small city in the heart of tobacco country, is not the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of garage rock. For one thing, there were very few AM stations playing rock and roll (most of the local stations played country exclusively) and FM was virtually non-existent in the area. For another, the rural nature of eastern Carolina meant that many young people, when they were not in school, were busy earning summer money working on farms, or at least in farm-related industries. Nonetheless, the Sound System managed to record Take A Look At Yourself, a classic slice of garage-punk, at Pitt Sound Studio in early 1967, releasing the song on the tiny Romat label. What happened after that is anyone's guess.
Title: I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
One of the most popular songs in the Kinks' catalog, I'm Not Like Everybody Else was originally written for another British band, the Animals. When that group decided not to record the tune, the Kinks did their own version of the song, issuing it as the B side of the 1966 hit Sunny Afternoon. Although written by Ray Davies, it was sung by his brother Dave, who usually handled the lead vocals on only the songs he himself composed. Initially not available on any LPs, the song has in recent years shown up on various collections and as a bonus track on CD reissues of both the Kink Kontroversy and Face To Face albums. Both Davies brothers continue to perform the song in their live appearances.
Artist: Third Bardo
Title: I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source: Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Evans/Pike
Label: Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year: 1967
The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Magic Carpet Ride
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s): Moreve/Kay
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 60s.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Honky Tonk Women
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1969
After revitalizing their career with Jumpin' Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man in 1968, the Stones delivered the coup-de-grace with a true monster of a hit: the classic Honky Tonk Women. The song was the first single without Brian Jones, who had been found dead in his swimming pool shortly after being kicked out of the band. Jones's replacement, Mick Taylor (fresh from a stint with blues legend John Mayall), plays slide guitar on the track.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: Sky Pilot
Source: CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: The Twain Shall Meet)
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Rhino (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1968
After the original Animals lineup disbanded in late 1966, lead vocalist Eric Burdon quickly set out to form a "New Animals" group that would come to be called Eric Burdon and the Animals. Their biggest hit was 1968's Sky Pilot, a song that was so long it had to be split across two sides of a 45 RPM record. The uninterrupted version of the song was included on the group's second album, The Twain Shall Meet.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Share A Little Joke
Source: CD: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: BMG/RCA
Year: 1968
Jeffeerson Airplane's fourth LP, Crown Of Creation, is generally considered to be the pinnacle of the group's psychedelic period. The album's songs deal with a variety of subjects, including politics, hippy sociology, and even a touch of science fiction. Founder Marty Balin, who had written much of the material on the band's first two albums, only contributed one solo effort to the album, the whimsical Share A Little Joke.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Shadows
Source: Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM promo single)
Writer(s): Gordon Phillips
Label: Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Released only to radio stations, Shadows may well be the last song issued by the original lineup of the Electric Prunes. The song was recorded for a film called The Name Of The Game Is To Kill (a movie I know absolutely nothing about), and was issued in between two singles written by David Axelrod for concept albums that came out under the Electric Prunes name in 1968. Stylistically, Shadows sounds far more like the group's earlier work than the Axelrod material.
Artist: Tea Company
Title: Flowers
Source: Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released on LP: Come And Have Some Tea With The Tea Company and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Carr/Lassando
Label: Arf! Arf!
Year: 1968
Nobody seems to know for sure, but the Tea Company apparently came from somewhere in the Northeastern US. What is known is that their only LP for Smash was reportedly about as psychedelic as you can get, using some of the stereo techniques developed by Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Kramer for the Axis: Bold As Love album. The single version of Flowers, unfortunately, is a heavily edited mono remix, which makes me even more curious to hear the actual LP. Anyone got a copy?
Artist: Flock
Title: Clown
Source: LP: The Flock
Writer: The Flock
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
The Flock's 1969 debut album featured liner notes by British blues guru John Mayall, who called them the best band in America. Despite this stellar recommendation, the Flock (one of two bands with horn sections from the city of Chicago making their recording debut on Columbia Records in 1969) was unable to attract a large audience and disbanded after only two LPs. Violinist Jerry Goodman would go on to be a founding member of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s. The band's unique take on what would come to be called jazz-rock fusion is in full evidence on the seven-and-a-half-minute long Clown, from their debut LP.
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Think About It
Source: Mono UK import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Relf/McCarty/Page
Label: Zonophone (original label: Epic)
Year: 1968
The last Yardbirds single, Good Night Josephine, was slated for March of 1968, but ended up being released only in the US, where it barely cracked the top 100. More notable was the song's B side, Think About It, which shows a side of guitarist Jimmy Page that would soon come to be identified with one of the most influential bands of the 1970s, Led Zeppelin.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Blue Jay Way
Source: British import stereo 45 RPM EP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1967
One night in 1967, while staying at a rented house on Blue Jay Way in the Hollywood hills, Beatle George Harrison got a phone call. Some friends that he was waiting for had gotten lost in the fog and were trying to find their way to the house. Harrison gave them some directions and suggested they ask a police officer for help. To help keep himself awake while waiting for his friends to show up, Harrison wrote a song about the situation that eventually became his only musical contribution to the band's new project, a telefilm called Magical Mystery Tour.
Artist: Ballroom
Title: Love's Fatal Way
Source: CD: Present Tense (Sagittarius) (bonus track)
Writer(s): Boettcher/Naylor
Label: Sundazed
Year: 1966
In 1966, having successfully worked with the Association on their debut hit, Along Comes Mary (which he co-wrote), Our Productions staff producer Curt Boettcher started work on his own project, a studio group known as the Ballroom. While working on the Ballroom project, Boettcher reconnected with producer Peter Asher (whom he had met early in 1966), who was starting work on his own studio project, Sagittarius. Asher, a veteran producer and songwriter who had worked with Brian Wilson, Terry Melcher and others and had access to the top studio musicians in Los Angeles (collectively known as the Wrecking Crew), was impressed with Boettcher's talent and enthusiasm. For his part, Boettcher had idolized Asher for years, and the two soon began working together on the Sagittarius project, after Asher negotiated a buyout of Boettcher's contract with Our Productions by Asher's own employer, CBS. Only one single was ever issued by the Ballroom, with several of the remaining Ballroom tracks being reworked and/or included on the Sagittarius album, Present Tense. One Ballroom track that did not make the album was Love's Fatal Way, a ethereal pop number that is now available as a bonus track on the Present Tense CD.
Artist: Mouse And The Traps
Title: A Public Execution
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Henderson/Weiss
Label: Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year: 1965
It's easy to imagine some kid somewhere in Texas inviting his friends over to hear the new Bob Dylan record, only to reveal afterwards that it wasn't Dylan at all, but this band he heard while visiting his cousins down in Tyler. Mouse and the Traps, in fact, got quite a bit of airplay in that part of the state with a series of singles issued in the mid-60s. A Public Execution is unique among those singles in that the artist on the label was listed simply as Mouse.
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: Holy Mackerel
Title: Wildflowers
Source: CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released on LP: Holy Mackerel)
Writer(s): Robert Harvey
Label: Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
The Holy Mackerel was formed by Paul Williams, who had been encouraged to form his own band by producer Richard Perry, who had been impressed by a demo tape Williams had submitted of a song he wrote for Tiny Tim. Although ultimately known for his songwriting skills, it was Williams's voice that is the highlight of the band's self-titled LP that appeared on the Reprise label in late 1968, as can be heard on Wildflowers. Williams would go on to win an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe award for the song Evergreen that he wrote for Barbra Streisand in the 1970s. I still see him in my mind as the villain in the first Kiss made-for-TV movie.
Artist: Who
Title: Silas Stingy
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): John Entwistle
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
John Alec Entwistle did not write average songs. For example, his best known song, Boris The Spider, was about, well, a spider. Whiskey Man dealt with a drunk's imaginary friend. And then there was Silas Stingy, from The Who Sell Out. The song tells the story of a man who was so miserly he spent his entire fortune on protecting his money, thus ending up with nothing at all. One of my all-time favorite Who tracks.
Artist: Who
Title: Someone's Coming
Source: Mono LP: Magic Bus-The Who On Tour (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: 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: Who
Title: Armenia City In The Sky
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s): John Keene
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
Pete Townshend has always been a prolific songwriter. John Entwistle, while not as prolific as Townshend, has nonetheless written a number of quality tunes. It is a bit surprising, then, that the opening track of The Who Sell Out did not come from the pens of either of the band's songwriters. Instead, Armenia City In The Sky was written by one of the band's roadies, John Keene. Although not a household name, Keene was the lead vocalist for Thunderclap Newman (named for the band's recording engineer), who had a huge hit in 1969 with Keene's Something In The Air, which was produced by Townshend.
Artist: Liberation News Service
Title: Mid-Winter's Afternoon
Source: Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ed Esko
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Esko)
Year: 1967
Liberation News Service was a Philadelphia band founded in 1965 by the Esko brothers, Ed and Jeff. Their first release was Mid-Winter's Afternoon, released on the band's own Esko label in 1967. Not long after its release the band added a new lead vocalist and changed their name to the Esko Affair, eventually getting a contract with Mercury Records and releasing singles in 1968 and 1969.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: For What It's Worth
Source: CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth. And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in January of 1967. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was becoming a breakout hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth, making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.
Artist: Mothers Of Invention
Title: Brown Shoes Don't Make It
Source: CD: Absolutely Free
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year: 1967
Following up on their debut double-LP Freak Out, the Mothers came up with one of the first concept albums with Absolutely Free, which consisted of two "rock oratorios", each taking up one side of the album. Included in the M.O.I. American Pageant is Brown Shoes Don't Make It, which composer Frank Zappa described as a two-hour musical in condensed form (it runs slightly less than 7 minutes).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Little Miss Lover
Source: LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The second of two songs to use the wah-wah effect extensively on the album Axis: Bold As Love, Little Miss Lover is an example of Jimi Hendrix's funky side, a side not often heard on the three Jimi Hendrix Experience albums.
Artist: John Hammond
Title: Long Distance Call
Source: LP: So Many Roads
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1965
John Paul Hammond (sometimes known as John Hammond Jr.) was a key figure on the Greenwich Village music scene in the mid-1960s. The son of famed record producer and talent scout John Henry Hammond, the younger Hammond was and still is a dedicated afficiondo of Chicago blues, recording over 30 albums since making his vinyl debut on the Vanguard label in 1962. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame, however, was bringing together Michael Bloomfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm to back him up on his 1965 LP, So Many Roads. The album helped introduce a whole new generation to then-obscure blues classics such as Muddy Waters' Long Distance Call. Perhaps more importantly, the album got the attention of Bob Dylan, who hired Robertson, Hudson and Helm to join him on his next international tour, which in turn led to Dylan's Basement Tapes sessions and the formation of The Band.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Mr. Farmer
Source: CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: A Web Of Sound)
Writer: Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino
Year: 1966
With two tracks (Can't Seem To Make You Mine and Pushin' Too Hard) from their first album getting decent airplay on L.A. radio stations in 1966 the Seeds headed back to the studio to record a second LP, A Web Of Sound. The first single released from the album was Mr. Farmer, a song that once again did well locally. The only national hit for the Seeds came when Pushin' Too Hard was re-released in December of 1966, hitting its national peak the following spring.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Morning Dew
Source: CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s): Dobson/Rose
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1967
One of the most identifiable songs in the Grateful Dead repertoire, Morning Dew was the first song ever written by Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson, who came up with the song in 1961 the morning after having a long discussion with friends about what life might be like following a nuclear holocaust. She began performing the song that year, with the first recorded version appearing on her 1962 live album At Folk City. The song was not published, however, until 1964, when Fred Neil decided to record his own version of the song for his album Tear Down The Walls. The first time the song appeared on a major label was 1966, when Tim Rose recorded it for his self-titled Columbia Records debut album. Rose had secured permission to revise the song and take credit as a co-writer, but his version was virtually identical with the Fred Neil version of the song. Nonetheless, Rose's name has been included on all subsequent recordings (though Dobson gets 75% of the royalties), including the Grateful Dead version heard on their 1967 debut LP.
Artist: Canned Heat
Title: Boogie Music
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Living The Blues and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): L.T.Tatman III
Label: United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1968
Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of Bay Area blues purists. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout their existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. An edited version of Boogie Music, also from Living the Blues, was issued as the B side of that single. This is a stereo mix of that version, featured on a United Artists anthology album released in 1969.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Superlungs (My Supergirl)
Source: CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Barabajabal)
Writer(s): Donovan Leitch
Label: Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year: 1969
Donovan originally recorded a song called Supergirl for his 1966 album Sunshine Superman album, but ultimately chose not to use the track. Over two years later he recorded an entirely new version of the song, retitling it Superlungs My Supergirl for the 1969 Barabajagal album.
Artist: Tales Of Justine
Title: Monday Morning
Source: Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): David Daltrey
Label: EMI (original label: His Master's Voice)
Year: 1967
Tales Of Justine started off in 1965 as the Court Jesters, an instrumental trio consisting of Paul Myerson on guitar, Chris Woodisse on bass, and Paul Hurford on drums. The lineup was completed with the addition of multi-instrumentalist David Daltrey, a cousin of the Who's Roger Daltrey, on lead vocals. Two years later the band signed with EMI, largely due to support from trainee producer Tim Rice and arranger Andrew Lloyd Webber, who helped the band with their debut single. Rice soon departed company with EMI and the band did not release any more records. Rice and Webber, however, went on to greater fame with their rock musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph And The AmazingTechnicolor Dreamcoat, the second of which starred Daltrey himself.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Discrepancy
Source: CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer: Sean Bonniwell
Label: Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
Discrepancy, one of Sean Bonniwell's most sophisticated recordings with his band the Music Machine, features two simultaneous vocal lines. The main one, sung by Bonniwell (in the left channel) as a single melody line, tells the story of a deteriorating relationship. In the opposite channel we hear a breathy multi-part vocal line that tells the same story from the perspective of the subconscious. The two come together lyrically from time to time to express key concepts such as the line "now I know I'm losing you", only to once again diverge onto their separate tracks. The bridge serves to further unite the two divergent lines with the repeating plea to "tell me what to do". Discrepancy is one of the few tracks recorded by the original Music Machine lineup that was never released on Original Sound Records, either as an LP track or on a 45 RPM single. Instead, the song was included on the LP Bonniwell Music Machine, released by Warner Brothers in 1967.
Artist: Sound System
Title: Take A Look At Yourself
Source: Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jenkins/McNeal
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Romat)
Year: 1967
Greenville, North Carolina, a small city in the heart of tobacco country, is not the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of garage rock. For one thing, there were very few AM stations playing rock and roll (most of the local stations played country exclusively) and FM was virtually non-existent in the area. For another, the rural nature of eastern Carolina meant that many young people, when they were not in school, were busy earning summer money working on farms, or at least in farm-related industries. Nonetheless, the Sound System managed to record Take A Look At Yourself, a classic slice of garage-punk, at Pitt Sound Studio in early 1967, releasing the song on the tiny Romat label. What happened after that is anyone's guess.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1511 (starts 3/11/15)
This week we start off with a special track from Wilmer And The Dukes, who are being inducted into the Rochester (NY) Music Hall Of Fame this April. The band, from Geneva, NY (where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era originates) was well-known across Western New York throughout the 60s and into the early 1970s. Congratulations, guys!
Artist: Wilmer And The Dukes
Title: Living In The USA
Source: CD: Wilmer And The Dukes
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Forevermore (original label: Aphrodisiac)
Year: 1969
Although they never hit it big nationally, Wilmer (Alexander) And The Dukes were one of the most consistently popular bands in Western New York and Pennsylvania, playing regularly from 1961 to 1974. The Geneva, NY-based group only recorded one self-titled album in 1968 for Buffalo's Aphrodisiac label, as well as a handful of singles, some of which found success as far away as Phoenix and Bakersfield, California. For the most part the band played cover songs in their own style, such as Steve Miller's Living In The USA, which in addition to opening their LP was released as a single. In April of 2015 the band was recognized for its achievements by being inducted into the Rochester (NY) Music Hall Of Fame.
Artist: Aphrodite's Child
Title: Magic Mirror
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in Europe as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Papathanassiou/Fiddy
Label: Polydor (original European label: Mercury) (released in UK on Polydor)
Year: 1969
Aphrodite's Child was formed in Greece in 1967, but left following a right-wing military coup that severely curtailed both political and artistic freedoms in that country. The band had been invited by Mercury Records to come to London and record, but were refused entry to the UK due to problems with their work permits and found themselves in Paris instead. Mercury's parent label, Philips, soon signed the band to a contract to record in France. Their first single for the label, Rain And Tears, was a top 10 single in several European countries and led to an equally popular album, End Of The World, that established Aphrodite's Child as one of the continent's most popular acts. That popularity did not extend to the UK, however, and subsequent records failed to make a dent on the British charts. One 1969 single was not even released in the UK by the band's regular label, Mercury, and was instead issued independently by the Polydor label. The B side of that single, Magic Mirror, shows a band just beginning to transition from their early psychedelic sound to the more experimental one that would characterize their best known work, a concept double LP based on the biblical book of Revelation called 666. The band's leader, Evangahlos Papathanassiou, would later shorten his name to Vangelis and become one of the world's top electronic music pioneers.
Artist: Santana
Title: Persuasion
Source: LP: Santana
Writer(s): Santana (band)
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
Santana was originally a free-form jam band, but, at the insistence of manager Bill Graham began to write more structured songs for their first studio LP. Released in 1969, the album received less than glowing reviews from the rock press, but following the band's successful appearance at Woodstock, the LP eventually peaked at # 4 on the Billboard album charts. One of the lesser known tracks on the album was Persuasion, an instrumental that reflects the group's jam band roots.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Wait
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1965
The oldest song on the Rubber Soul album, Wait was originally recorded for the Help album, but did not make the final cut. Six months later, when the band was putting the finishing touches on Rubber Soul, they realized they would not be able to come up with enough new material in time for a Christmas release, so they added some overdubs to Wait and included it on the new album. The song itself was a collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with the two sharing vocals throughout the tune.
Artist: Deepest Blue
Title: Pretty Little Thing
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Shackelford/Johnson
Label: Rhino (original label: Blue-Fin)
Year: 1966
Los Angeles, California has long been known for its urban sprawl, and in the mid-1960s it seemed like every one of its dozens of suburbs had at least one semi-professional garage band playing at various parties, bowling alleys, teen clubs and of course, high school gymnasiums. One such band was Deepest Blue, from Pomona, a suburb on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County best known for its race car track. Led by vocalist Earl Shackleford and guitarist Russell Johnson, the group performed locally as the Doves, but for reasons now forgotten recorded first under the name Egyptian Candy and then as Deepest Blue. Both records were released on labels that are considered obscure even by garage-rock standards, and by the end of the decade, the Doves/Egyptian Candy/Deepest Blue were naught but a footnote in L.A. music history.
Artist: Every Mother's Son
Title: Come On Down To My Boat
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Farrell/Goldstein
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
New York, for being the largest city in the world (at the time) had relatively few popular local bands. Perhaps this is because of the wealth of entertainment and cultural choices in the Big Apple. In fact, the only notable local music scene was in Greenwich Village, which was more into folk and blues than mainstream rock. There were a few rock bands formed in New York, though. One example was Every Mother's Son, one-hit wonders with Come On Down To My Boat in 1967.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: My Mirage
Source: LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s): Doug Ingle
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
One thing about Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida album is that almost nobody remembers any of the songs from the other side of the album. That's a bit of a shame, because there are a couple of really good tunes on there, such as My Mirage, a Doug Ingle composition that helped lay the groundwork for the progressive rock movement of the 1970s.
Artist: Great! Society
Title: Somebody To Love
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Conspicuous Only In Its Absence)
Writer(s): Darby Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1968
One of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era (and of the so-called San Francisco sound) is Somebody To Love, released by Jefferson Airplane in 1967 on their Surrealistic Pillow album. Somebody To Love was written by Darby Slick, guitarist for another San Francisco band, Great! Society. The Society had released the song, featuring Slick's sister-in-law Grace on lead vocals, as a single in early 1966 but was unable to get any local airplay for the record. In June the group played the Matrix, a club managed by Marty Balin, leader of Jefferson Airplane. The entire gig was recorded (probably by legendary Grateful Dead soundman Owsley Stanley, whose board recordings usually isolated the vocals in one channel and the instruments in the other to provide the band with a tape they could use to critique their own performance) and eventually released on an album called Conspicuous Only In Its Absence two years after Great! Society disbanded. Within a few weeks of this performance Grace Slick would leave the group to join Jefferson Airplane, taking the song with her. This whole set of circumstances can't help but raise the question of whether Balin was using the Society's gig at the Matrix as a kind of sideways audition for Slick.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
Source: LP: At Fillmore East
Writer(s): Dicky Betts
Label: Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year: 1971
One of the greatest instrumentals in rock history, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed was written by Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dicky Betts). The song got it's name from a headstone that Betts saw at the Rose Hill Cemetary in Macon, Georgia. That same cemetary is where band members Duane Allman and Berry Oakley were eventually buried. The version of the song heard on the 1971 album At Fillmore East was recorded live on March 13, 1971 and contains no edits or overdubs.
Artist: Paul McCartney
Title: Mama Miss America
Source: LP: McCartney
Writer(s): Paul McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1970
Paul McCartney began working on his first solo album before the Beatles officially broke up. In fact, it was the release of that album that led him to publicly announce the dissolution of the band on April 10, 1970. In September, 1969, John Lennon had privately informed the rest of the group that he was leaving the Beatles, and McCartney responded by making a series of home recordings on which he played all the instruments himself. Among those recordings was an ad-libbed recording he called Mama Miss America, which was actually made up of two separate recordings spliced together. The album, released in April of 1970, was savaged by the rock press. Nonetheless, McCartney spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard LP charts that year.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title: Mannish Boy
Source: CD: Blues
Writer(s): Morganfield/London/McDaniel
Label: Legacy
Year: 1969
Muddy Waters reportedly wrote and recorded Mannish Boy in response to Bo Diddley's I'm A Man. The Waters tune was so similar to Diddley's that Bo was given co-writing credit (as Elias McDaniel) on Muddy's record. In 1969 Jimi Hendrix did his own version of the later tune, with Buddy Miles and drums and Billy Cox on bass. The recording was eventually released on the 2010 compilation CD Blues.
Artist: Doors
Title: Five To One
Source: CD: Waiting For The Sun
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1968
Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released as a single in 1965 (under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard), but did not make an immediate impression. The following year the tune started getting some local airplay on Los Angeles area stations. This in turn led to the band recording their first album, The Seeds, which was released in spring of 1966. A second Seeds LP, A Web Of Sound, hit L.A. record stores in the fall of the same year. Meanwhile, Pushin' Too Hard started to get national airplay, hitting its peak position on the Billboard charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Space Odyssey
Source: CD: The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer(s): McGuinn/Hippard
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
Roger McGuinn has never made a secret for his love of science fiction. It comes as no surprise, then, that his lyrics for Space Odyssey were inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Sentinel. Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick would later do a film version of the Sentinel entitled (wait for it) 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Eight Miles High
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s): Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
By all rights, the Byrds' Eight Miles High should have been a huge hit. Unfortunately, Bill Drake, the most influential man in the history of Top 40 radio, got it into his head that this was a drug song, despite the band's insistence that it was about a transatlantic plane trip. The band's version actually makes sense, as Gene Clark had just quit the group due to his fear of flying (he is listed as a co-writer of the song), and the subject was probably a hot topic of discussion among the remaining members.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Goin' Back
Source: CD: The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
In 1967 David Crosby was vehemently opposed to including the Gerry Goffin/Carole King song Goin' Back on the next Byrds album. His reasoning was that the group had plenty of good songwriters and did not need to record outside material, especially a song that had already been a hit in the UK for Dusty Springfield the previous year. The situation was made worse by the fact that one of the songs Crosby wanted to include on the album, Triad, was detested by the band's other two songwriters, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman. In the long run, Crosby was fired and Goin' Back was included on the group's next LP, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Meanwhile, Triad got recorded by Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds' version of the song sat on the shelf for many years before finally being included on a CD box set.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Cheryl's Going Home
Source: LP: Projections
Writer: Bob Lind
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
It's kind of odd to hear a cover of a Bob Lind B side on an album by a band known for its progressive approach to the blues, but that's exactly what Cheryl's Going Home is. The Blues Project did a pretty nice job with it, too.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Steve's Song
Source: Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s): Steve Katz
Label: Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1966
The members of the Blues Project came from a variety of backgrounds, including jazz, rock, classical and of course, blues. Guitarist Steve Katz had the strongest connection to the Greenwich Village folk scene and was the lead vocalist on the Project's recording of Donovan's Catch The Wind on their first LP. For their second album Katz wrote his own song, entitled simply Steve's Song. The tune starts with a very old-English style repeated motif that gets increasing complicated as it repeats itself before segueing into a more conventional mode with Katz on the lead vocal. Katz would write and sing simlarly-styled tunes, such as Sometimes In Winter, as a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: The Flute Thing
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
The Blues Project was one of the most influential bands in rock history, yet to this day remains one of the most obscure. Perhaps the first of the "underground" rock bands, the Project made their name by playing small colleges across the country (including Hobart College, where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is produced). The Flute Thing, from the group's first studio LP, Projections, features bassist Andy Kuhlberg on flute, with rhythm guitarist Steve Katz taking over the bass playing, joining lead guitarist Danny Kalb and keyboardist Al Kooper for a tune that owes more to jazz artists like Roland Kirk than to anything top 40 rock had to offer at the time.
Artist: Wailers
Title: I Don't Want To Follow You
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Morill/Gardner
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1967
The Wailers could well be the most important band you think is another band entirely. Formed in Seattle in the late 1950s, they were the first rock band in history to form their own record label (Etiquette) and are usually thought of as the founders of the entire Seattle music scene as well. By the mid 60s the band had established itself up and down the entire West Coast, including San Francisco, where they often shared the bill with bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. In 1967 they made a trip to L.A. to record a pair of sides for Snuff Garrett's Viva label, toning down their trademark feedback and distortion drenched sound considerably. The B side of that single, I Don't Want To Follow You, appears on the album Ain't It Hard, a collection of tracks originally released by Viva. And, no, Bob Marley was never of member of these Wailers.
Artist: Boston Tea Party
Title: My Daze
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Travis/Rich/Mike
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Vogue International)
Year: 1967
Despite the implications of their name, the Boston Tea Party was actually from Burbank, California. The group cut three singles and one album before disbanding. The best of those singles was My Daze, released on the Vogue International label in 1967.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Comin' Back To Me
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
When Marty Balin arrived at the studio with this brand new song, only Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Jack Cassidy and Jerry Garcia were on hand to play on the subsequent recording. Balin, Kantner, Garcia and Cassidy all play guitar, while Slick provides the airy recorder track.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a tune originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work by Michael Monarch.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. He declined.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Sometimes I Think About
Source: CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala/Theilhelm/Esposito
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
Although it sounds like it could have been a remake of an old blues tune, Sometimes I Think About is actually a Blues Magoos original. The song, from their debut Psychedelic Lollipop album, is slow and moody, yet actually rocks out pretty hard, a pattern that would become somewhat of a hard rock cliche in the 1970s (think Grand Funk Railroad's Heartbreaker).
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Heart Full Of Soul
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
Heart Full Of Soul, the Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who was then a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and would later be a founding member of 10cc.
Artist: Wilmer And The Dukes
Title: Living In The USA
Source: CD: Wilmer And The Dukes
Writer(s): Steve Miller
Label: Forevermore (original label: Aphrodisiac)
Year: 1969
Although they never hit it big nationally, Wilmer (Alexander) And The Dukes were one of the most consistently popular bands in Western New York and Pennsylvania, playing regularly from 1961 to 1974. The Geneva, NY-based group only recorded one self-titled album in 1968 for Buffalo's Aphrodisiac label, as well as a handful of singles, some of which found success as far away as Phoenix and Bakersfield, California. For the most part the band played cover songs in their own style, such as Steve Miller's Living In The USA, which in addition to opening their LP was released as a single. In April of 2015 the band was recognized for its achievements by being inducted into the Rochester (NY) Music Hall Of Fame.
Artist: Aphrodite's Child
Title: Magic Mirror
Source: CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in Europe as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Papathanassiou/Fiddy
Label: Polydor (original European label: Mercury) (released in UK on Polydor)
Year: 1969
Aphrodite's Child was formed in Greece in 1967, but left following a right-wing military coup that severely curtailed both political and artistic freedoms in that country. The band had been invited by Mercury Records to come to London and record, but were refused entry to the UK due to problems with their work permits and found themselves in Paris instead. Mercury's parent label, Philips, soon signed the band to a contract to record in France. Their first single for the label, Rain And Tears, was a top 10 single in several European countries and led to an equally popular album, End Of The World, that established Aphrodite's Child as one of the continent's most popular acts. That popularity did not extend to the UK, however, and subsequent records failed to make a dent on the British charts. One 1969 single was not even released in the UK by the band's regular label, Mercury, and was instead issued independently by the Polydor label. The B side of that single, Magic Mirror, shows a band just beginning to transition from their early psychedelic sound to the more experimental one that would characterize their best known work, a concept double LP based on the biblical book of Revelation called 666. The band's leader, Evangahlos Papathanassiou, would later shorten his name to Vangelis and become one of the world's top electronic music pioneers.
Artist: Santana
Title: Persuasion
Source: LP: Santana
Writer(s): Santana (band)
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
Santana was originally a free-form jam band, but, at the insistence of manager Bill Graham began to write more structured songs for their first studio LP. Released in 1969, the album received less than glowing reviews from the rock press, but following the band's successful appearance at Woodstock, the LP eventually peaked at # 4 on the Billboard album charts. One of the lesser known tracks on the album was Persuasion, an instrumental that reflects the group's jam band roots.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Wait
Source: CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1965
The oldest song on the Rubber Soul album, Wait was originally recorded for the Help album, but did not make the final cut. Six months later, when the band was putting the finishing touches on Rubber Soul, they realized they would not be able to come up with enough new material in time for a Christmas release, so they added some overdubs to Wait and included it on the new album. The song itself was a collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with the two sharing vocals throughout the tune.
Artist: Deepest Blue
Title: Pretty Little Thing
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Shackelford/Johnson
Label: Rhino (original label: Blue-Fin)
Year: 1966
Los Angeles, California has long been known for its urban sprawl, and in the mid-1960s it seemed like every one of its dozens of suburbs had at least one semi-professional garage band playing at various parties, bowling alleys, teen clubs and of course, high school gymnasiums. One such band was Deepest Blue, from Pomona, a suburb on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County best known for its race car track. Led by vocalist Earl Shackleford and guitarist Russell Johnson, the group performed locally as the Doves, but for reasons now forgotten recorded first under the name Egyptian Candy and then as Deepest Blue. Both records were released on labels that are considered obscure even by garage-rock standards, and by the end of the decade, the Doves/Egyptian Candy/Deepest Blue were naught but a footnote in L.A. music history.
Artist: Every Mother's Son
Title: Come On Down To My Boat
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Farrell/Goldstein
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
New York, for being the largest city in the world (at the time) had relatively few popular local bands. Perhaps this is because of the wealth of entertainment and cultural choices in the Big Apple. In fact, the only notable local music scene was in Greenwich Village, which was more into folk and blues than mainstream rock. There were a few rock bands formed in New York, though. One example was Every Mother's Son, one-hit wonders with Come On Down To My Boat in 1967.
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Title: My Mirage
Source: LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s): Doug Ingle
Label: Atco
Year: 1968
One thing about Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida album is that almost nobody remembers any of the songs from the other side of the album. That's a bit of a shame, because there are a couple of really good tunes on there, such as My Mirage, a Doug Ingle composition that helped lay the groundwork for the progressive rock movement of the 1970s.
Artist: Great! Society
Title: Somebody To Love
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Conspicuous Only In Its Absence)
Writer(s): Darby Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: Recorded 1966, released 1968
One of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era (and of the so-called San Francisco sound) is Somebody To Love, released by Jefferson Airplane in 1967 on their Surrealistic Pillow album. Somebody To Love was written by Darby Slick, guitarist for another San Francisco band, Great! Society. The Society had released the song, featuring Slick's sister-in-law Grace on lead vocals, as a single in early 1966 but was unable to get any local airplay for the record. In June the group played the Matrix, a club managed by Marty Balin, leader of Jefferson Airplane. The entire gig was recorded (probably by legendary Grateful Dead soundman Owsley Stanley, whose board recordings usually isolated the vocals in one channel and the instruments in the other to provide the band with a tape they could use to critique their own performance) and eventually released on an album called Conspicuous Only In Its Absence two years after Great! Society disbanded. Within a few weeks of this performance Grace Slick would leave the group to join Jefferson Airplane, taking the song with her. This whole set of circumstances can't help but raise the question of whether Balin was using the Society's gig at the Matrix as a kind of sideways audition for Slick.
Artist: Allman Brothers Band
Title: In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
Source: LP: At Fillmore East
Writer(s): Dicky Betts
Label: Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year: 1971
One of the greatest instrumentals in rock history, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed was written by Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dicky Betts). The song got it's name from a headstone that Betts saw at the Rose Hill Cemetary in Macon, Georgia. That same cemetary is where band members Duane Allman and Berry Oakley were eventually buried. The version of the song heard on the 1971 album At Fillmore East was recorded live on March 13, 1971 and contains no edits or overdubs.
Artist: Paul McCartney
Title: Mama Miss America
Source: LP: McCartney
Writer(s): Paul McCartney
Label: Apple
Year: 1970
Paul McCartney began working on his first solo album before the Beatles officially broke up. In fact, it was the release of that album that led him to publicly announce the dissolution of the band on April 10, 1970. In September, 1969, John Lennon had privately informed the rest of the group that he was leaving the Beatles, and McCartney responded by making a series of home recordings on which he played all the instruments himself. Among those recordings was an ad-libbed recording he called Mama Miss America, which was actually made up of two separate recordings spliced together. The album, released in April of 1970, was savaged by the rock press. Nonetheless, McCartney spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard LP charts that year.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title: Mannish Boy
Source: CD: Blues
Writer(s): Morganfield/London/McDaniel
Label: Legacy
Year: 1969
Muddy Waters reportedly wrote and recorded Mannish Boy in response to Bo Diddley's I'm A Man. The Waters tune was so similar to Diddley's that Bo was given co-writing credit (as Elias McDaniel) on Muddy's record. In 1969 Jimi Hendrix did his own version of the later tune, with Buddy Miles and drums and Billy Cox on bass. The recording was eventually released on the 2010 compilation CD Blues.
Artist: Doors
Title: Five To One
Source: CD: Waiting For The Sun
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1968
Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: The Seeds and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard was originally released as a single in 1965 (under the title You're Pushin' Too Hard), but did not make an immediate impression. The following year the tune started getting some local airplay on Los Angeles area stations. This in turn led to the band recording their first album, The Seeds, which was released in spring of 1966. A second Seeds LP, A Web Of Sound, hit L.A. record stores in the fall of the same year. Meanwhile, Pushin' Too Hard started to get national airplay, hitting its peak position on the Billboard charts in February of 1967.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Space Odyssey
Source: CD: The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer(s): McGuinn/Hippard
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
Roger McGuinn has never made a secret for his love of science fiction. It comes as no surprise, then, that his lyrics for Space Odyssey were inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Sentinel. Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick would later do a film version of the Sentinel entitled (wait for it) 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Eight Miles High
Source: CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s): Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label: BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
By all rights, the Byrds' Eight Miles High should have been a huge hit. Unfortunately, Bill Drake, the most influential man in the history of Top 40 radio, got it into his head that this was a drug song, despite the band's insistence that it was about a transatlantic plane trip. The band's version actually makes sense, as Gene Clark had just quit the group due to his fear of flying (he is listed as a co-writer of the song), and the subject was probably a hot topic of discussion among the remaining members.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Goin' Back
Source: CD: The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
In 1967 David Crosby was vehemently opposed to including the Gerry Goffin/Carole King song Goin' Back on the next Byrds album. His reasoning was that the group had plenty of good songwriters and did not need to record outside material, especially a song that had already been a hit in the UK for Dusty Springfield the previous year. The situation was made worse by the fact that one of the songs Crosby wanted to include on the album, Triad, was detested by the band's other two songwriters, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman. In the long run, Crosby was fired and Goin' Back was included on the group's next LP, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Meanwhile, Triad got recorded by Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds' version of the song sat on the shelf for many years before finally being included on a CD box set.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Cheryl's Going Home
Source: LP: Projections
Writer: Bob Lind
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
It's kind of odd to hear a cover of a Bob Lind B side on an album by a band known for its progressive approach to the blues, but that's exactly what Cheryl's Going Home is. The Blues Project did a pretty nice job with it, too.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Steve's Song
Source: Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s): Steve Katz
Label: Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1966
The members of the Blues Project came from a variety of backgrounds, including jazz, rock, classical and of course, blues. Guitarist Steve Katz had the strongest connection to the Greenwich Village folk scene and was the lead vocalist on the Project's recording of Donovan's Catch The Wind on their first LP. For their second album Katz wrote his own song, entitled simply Steve's Song. The tune starts with a very old-English style repeated motif that gets increasing complicated as it repeats itself before segueing into a more conventional mode with Katz on the lead vocal. Katz would write and sing simlarly-styled tunes, such as Sometimes In Winter, as a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: The Flute Thing
Source: LP: Projections
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Verve Forecast
Year: 1966
The Blues Project was one of the most influential bands in rock history, yet to this day remains one of the most obscure. Perhaps the first of the "underground" rock bands, the Project made their name by playing small colleges across the country (including Hobart College, where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is produced). The Flute Thing, from the group's first studio LP, Projections, features bassist Andy Kuhlberg on flute, with rhythm guitarist Steve Katz taking over the bass playing, joining lead guitarist Danny Kalb and keyboardist Al Kooper for a tune that owes more to jazz artists like Roland Kirk than to anything top 40 rock had to offer at the time.
Artist: Wailers
Title: I Don't Want To Follow You
Source: Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Morill/Gardner
Label: Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year: 1967
The Wailers could well be the most important band you think is another band entirely. Formed in Seattle in the late 1950s, they were the first rock band in history to form their own record label (Etiquette) and are usually thought of as the founders of the entire Seattle music scene as well. By the mid 60s the band had established itself up and down the entire West Coast, including San Francisco, where they often shared the bill with bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. In 1967 they made a trip to L.A. to record a pair of sides for Snuff Garrett's Viva label, toning down their trademark feedback and distortion drenched sound considerably. The B side of that single, I Don't Want To Follow You, appears on the album Ain't It Hard, a collection of tracks originally released by Viva. And, no, Bob Marley was never of member of these Wailers.
Artist: Boston Tea Party
Title: My Daze
Source: Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Travis/Rich/Mike
Label: Arf! Arf! (original label: Vogue International)
Year: 1967
Despite the implications of their name, the Boston Tea Party was actually from Burbank, California. The group cut three singles and one album before disbanding. The best of those singles was My Daze, released on the Vogue International label in 1967.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Comin' Back To Me
Source: Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Marty Balin
Label: Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1967
When Marty Balin arrived at the studio with this brand new song, only Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Jack Cassidy and Jerry Garcia were on hand to play on the subsequent recording. Balin, Kantner, Garcia and Cassidy all play guitar, while Slick provides the airy recorder track.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man
Source: CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s): Willie Dixon
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a tune originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work by Michael Monarch.
Artist: Music Machine
Title: Double Yellow Line
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s): Sean Bonniwell
Label: Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year: 1967
One of the Original Sound singles that also appeared on the Warner Brothers LP Bonniwell Music Machine, Double Yellow Line features lyrics that were literally written by Bonniwell on the way to the recording studio. In fact, his inability to stay in his lane while driving with one hand and writing with the other resulted in a traffic ticket. The ever resourceful Bonniwell wrote the rest of the lyrics on the back of the ticket and even invited the officer in to watch the recording session. He declined.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Sometimes I Think About
Source: CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala/Theilhelm/Esposito
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
Although it sounds like it could have been a remake of an old blues tune, Sometimes I Think About is actually a Blues Magoos original. The song, from their debut Psychedelic Lollipop album, is slow and moody, yet actually rocks out pretty hard, a pattern that would become somewhat of a hard rock cliche in the 1970s (think Grand Funk Railroad's Heartbreaker).
Artist: Yardbirds
Title: Heart Full Of Soul
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Graham Gouldman
Label: Epic
Year: 1965
Heart Full Of Soul, the Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who was then a member of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and would later be a founding member of 10cc.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1510 (starts 3/4/15)
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Black Currant Jam
Source: LP: Grape Jam
Writer(s): Kooper/Miller/Stevenson/Mosely
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Moby Grape's second album, Wow, came with something extra: an entire second LP at no additional price. This second LP was a collection of impromptu jam sessions, a couple of which featured guest musicians. One of those tracks was Black Currant Jam, which features Al Kooper on piano, joining regular band members Jerry Miller (guitar), Don Stevenson (drums) and Bob Mosely (bass). The album, released in early 1968, garnered mixed reviews from the rock press, but inspired Kooper to produce a jam album of his own, the enormously successful Super Session, later the same year.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Indifference
Source: Mono LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Skip Spence only wrote two of the songs on Moby Grape's debut LP, but they were among the best tracks on the album. The first, Omaha, was the band's only charted single, while the second, Indifference, was, at over four minutes, the longest track on the album, and was chosen to close out side two of the LP. An edited version of the song was also issued as a B side of another single, but did not chart.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Never
Source: LP: Grape Jam
Writer(s): Bob Mosley
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
For their second album, Moby Grape decided to do something different. In addition to the LP Wow, there was a second disc called Grape Jam included at no extra charge. For the most part Grape Jam is exactly what you'd expect: a collection of after-hours jam sessions with guest guitarist/keyboardist Michael Bloomfield. The opening track of Grape Jam, however, is actually a composition by Bob Mosley. The song features Mosley on bass and vocals, Jerry Miller and Skip Spence and guitars and Don Stevenson on drums, all of whom were actual members of Moby Grape.
Artist: Leaves
Title: Words
Source: CD: Hey Joe
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: One Way (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
In 1965 the songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart recorded a demo of their song Words, in the hopes of either finding a band to record the tune or a getting a record contract for themselves. The following year a local Los Angeles band, the Leaves, included the song on their debut LP for the Mira label. For about a year the Leaves' recording was considered the definitive version of Words until the Monkees took the song into the top 40 as the B side of Pleasant Valley Sunday in the summer of '67.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Hello, Goodbye
Source: LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
Year: 1967
1967 was unquestionably a good year for the Beatles. Their first release was a double A sided single, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, both sides of which were major hits. They followed that up with the #1 album of the year, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and another hit single, All You Need Is Love. To finish out the year they released yet another major hit single, Hello Goodbye. The only downside to the year was the cool reception that was afforded their December telefilm, Magical Mystery Tour, although the songs themselves were well-received when released in the UK as a double-EP set (complete with full color booklet containing stills from the film, as well as lyric sheets). As EPs were not considered a viable format in the US, Capitol Records put together an LP that included all six tracks from the telefilm on one side of the album and the five single sides (Hello Goodbye had used I Am The Walrus from Magical Mystery Tour as a B side) on the other. That album has since become the official version of Magical Mystery Tour, although the EP continued to be available in the UK for several years following its initial release.
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: God Bless The Child
Source: LP: Cauldron
Writer(s): Billie Holiday
Label: Limelight
Year: 1968
When Fifty Foot Hose released their first album, nobody really knew what to make of it. Although the group had the normal rock band elements (guitar, bass, drums), it had something extra, thanks to a guy named Cork Marcheschi. Marcheschi was as much an inventor as he was a musician, and supplied the band with all sorts of electronic effects, as can be heard on an otherwise straightforward rendition of the Billie Holiday classic God Bless The Child. The vocals were supplied by Nancy Blossom, who was soon to become quite visible in the San Francisco Bay area playing the female lead in the West Coast production of the musical Hair.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Tired Of Waiting For You
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1965
After a series of hard-rocking hits such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks surprised everyone with the highly melodic Tired Of Waiting For You in 1965. As it turns out the song was just one of many steps in the continually maturing songwriting of Ray Davies.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: The Behemoth
Source: Mono CD: Dark Sides (originally released on LP: Back Door Men and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Pye
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
When it comes to garage punk bands of the sixties there are two that are generally considered to be at the top of the heap. Unlike the Standells, who started off as a bar band and only embraced the punk ethic when they hooked up with writer/producer Ed Cobb, the Shadows of Knight were the real deal. Coming from the Chicago suburbs, they literally got their start practicing in the garage, slowly graduating to parties and high school dances, getting banned from at least one high school campus in the process (something having to do with a student getting knocked up, rumor has it). The Shadows (as they were originally known) cited the British blues bands as their main influence, with a dose of Chicago blues thrown in for good measure. The Behemoth, a track from their second album, Back Door Men, was chosen for a 1967 B side as well.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Once upon a time record producer Kim Fowley hired the Yardbirds to play a private Hollywood party. The Harris brothers, a pair of local art school students who had sent their homemade tapes to Fowley were impressed by the band's musical abilities. Bob Markley, an almost-30-year-old hipster with a law degree and an inheritance was impressed with the band's ability to attract teenage girls. Fowley introduced the Harris brothers to Markley, who expressed a willingness to finance them in return for letting him be their new lead vocalist, and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was formed. Before it was all over the group had recorded five or six albums for at least three labels, churning out an eclectic mix of psychedelic tunes such as Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday, which appeared on the second album for Reprise Records (their third LP overall), appropriately titled Volume II.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Christmas Camel
Source: Mono British import CD: Procol Harum (US album title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale)
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
In 1966 Gary Brooker, former member of British cover band the Paramounts, formed a songwriting partnership with lyricist Keith Reid. By spring of 1967 the two had at least an album's worth of songs written but no band to play them. They solved the dilemma by placing an ad in Melody Maker and soon formed a group called the Pinewoods. Their very first record was A Whiter Shade Of Pale, which soon became the number one song on the British charts (after the Pinewoods changed their name to Procol Harum). The problem was that the group didn't know any other songs, a problem that was solved by firing the drummer and guitarist and replacing them with two of Brooker's former bandmates, B.J. Wilson and Robin Trower. This second version of the group soon recorded an LP, which included several strong tracks such as A Christmas Camel, making its Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut this week.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Effigy
Source: LP: Willie And The Poor Boys
Writer: John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1969
Creedence Clearwater Revival, unlike most of their contemporaries, specialized in short, compact songs that usually went right to the top of the charts...almost. Actually, CCR holds the record for most #2 songs without ever hitting the top spot, but that just means they tried harder. Here, though, we have an exception: a Creedence album track that runs well over six minutes. Effigy was the final track on one of the band's most popular LPs: Willie And The Poor Boys.
Artist: Pentangle
Title: A Maid That's Deep In Love
Source: British import CD: Cruel Sister
Writer(s): Trad., arr. Pentangle
Label: Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
By 1970 Pentangle had established itself as one of the world's most successful bands, with their own unique fusion of British folk, jazz and folk-rock. Most groups would have continued in the same vein that got them where they were, but such was the quality and integrity of the band's members that they instead chose to go with a far more traditional approach to their fourth album, Cruel Sister. The album opens with a ballad, A Maid That's Deep In Love, that showcases vocalist Jacqui McShee while showing a musical depth rarely heard in popular music at the time.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Shake
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded At The Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer(s): Sam Cooke
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the most electrifying performances at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival was given by Otis Redding, ably supported by Booker T. and the MGs with the Bar-Kays horn section. Redding's set was scheduled to close out the second night of the festival (Saturday), and due to delays caused by persistent rain, his performance was cut short. The opening song of Redding's set was an energetic version of Sam Cooke's Shake, an ironic choice considering that Redding, at the beginning of his recording career two years earlier, hold told friends that his primary goal was to fill the gap left by his idol, Cooke, who had been shot in his hotel room in late 1964. Redding's appearance at Monterey is generally considered a turning point in a career that, if it had not been cut short by a fatal plane crash less than a year later, could well have surpassed that of his idol (some say it did anyway).
Artist: Santana
Title: Mother's Daughter
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer: Gregg Rolie
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Carlos Santana once said that his original lineup was the best of the many bands named Santana. With talented songwriters such as keyboardist Gregg Rolie in the band, it's hard to argue with that assessment. Rolie, of course, would go on to co-found Journey.
Artist: Billy Preston
Title: That's The Way God Planned It
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Billy Preston
Label: Apple
Year: 1969
Billy Preston became instantly famous as the guy who played keyboards on the 1969 Beatles single Get Back/Don't Let Me Down. At that time he also recorded That's The Way God Planned It and released the song as a single on the Beatles-owned Apple label. The song was not an instant success, however. In fact, it was not until 1972, when Preston had a monster hit with Outa-Space on the A&M label, that Apple re-released the earlier single, which became Preston's biggest non-instrumental hit.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Blue Avenue
Source: LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
One of Boston's most popular bands, the Beacon Street Union, had already migrated to New York City by the time their first album, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union (produced by the legendary Tom Wilson), made its debut in February of 1968. The band itself was made up of Boston University dropouts John Lincoln Wright (lead vocals), Paul Tartachny (guitar, vocals), Robert Rhodes (keyboards, brass), Richard Weisberg (drums), and Wayne Ulaky (bass). Ulaky wrote what was probably the band's best-known song, Blue Avenue. The tune was particular popular in the UK, where it was heard on the Top Gear program. The Beacon Street Union, however, fell victim to hype; in this case the ill-advised attempt on the part of M-G-M records to market several disparate bands as being part of the "boss-town sound". After a second LP, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens (produced by future Partridge Family impressario Wes Farrell) failed to equal the somewhat limited success of their debut LP, the Beacon Street Union decided to call it quits.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Streetmasse
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Kantner/Dryden/Blackman/Thompson/Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
After Bathing At Baxter's is generally considered the most pyschedelic of all the Jefferson Airplane albums. For one thing, the members were reportedly all on LSD through most of the creative process and were involved in the entire package, right down to the decision to divide the album up into five suites and press the vinyl in such a way that the spaces normally found between songs were only present between the suites themselves, making it almost impossible to set the needle down at the beginning of the second or third song of a suite (there is a slight overlap between most of the songs as well). The first suite on After Bathing At Baxter's is called Streetmasse. It consists of three compositions: Paul Kantner's The Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel; A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly (a free-form jazz piece led by drummer Spencer Dryden); and the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin composition Young Girl Sunday Blues.
Artist: We The People
Title: You Burn Me Up And Down
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Thomas Talton
Label: Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year: 1966
We The People was kind of a regional supergroup in the Orlando, Florida area, as it was made up of musicians from various local garage bands. The departure of lead guitarist Wayne Proctor in early 1967 and the band's other main songwriter Tommy Talton a year later led to the group's demise, despite having landed a contract with RCA Victor, at the time the world's largest record label. Before splitting up, however, they recorded a handful of garage-rock classics such as You Burn Me Up And Down, which was released as a B side in 1966.
Artist: Front Line
Title: Got Love
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Lanigan/Philipet
Label: Rhino (original label: York)
Year: 1965
The Front Line was a band from San Rafael, California whose story in many ways was typical of their time. Marin County, being a fairly upscale place, had its share of clubs catering to the sons and daughters of its affluent residents. Of course, these teens wanted to hear live performances of their favorite top 40 tunes and bands like the Front Line made a decent enough living catering to their preferences. Like most bands of the time, the Front Line had one song that was of their own creation, albeit one that was somewhat derivative of the kinds of tunes they usually performed (not to mention unusually short in duration) so as not to scare off their audience. That song was Got Love, which was released on the York label in 1965.
Artist: Cream
Title: Strange Brew
Source: Mono Russian import: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Collins/Pappalardi
Label: Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood Movie of the same name.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Capaldi/Winwood/Wood
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's the title track of Traffic's Mr. Fantasy album.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: San Franciscan Nights
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Big Beat (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
In late 1966, after losing several original members over a period of about a year, the original Animals disbanded. Eric Burdon, after releasing one single as a solo artist (but using the Animals name), decided to form a "new" Animals. After releasing a moderately successful single, When I Was Young, the new band appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. While in the area, the band fell in love with the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, during what came to be called the Summer Of Love. The first single to be released from their debut album, Winds Of Change, was a tribute to the city by the bay called San Franciscan Nights. Because of the topicality of the song's subject matter, San Franciscan Nights was not released in the UK as a single. Instead, the song Good Times (which was the US B side of the record), became the new group's biggest UK hit to date (and one of the Animals' biggest UK hits overall). Eventually San Franciscan Nights was released as a single in the UK as well (with a different B side) and ended up doing quite well.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Out Of Time
Source: LP: More Hot Rocks (Big Hits And Fazed Cookies) (originally released on LP: Flowers)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
The history of the Rolling Stones' Out Of Time is actually somewhat convoluted. Originally released only in the UK as a five and a half minute track on the Aftermath LP (the US version of the album having a different song lineup), the tune was soon covered by British singer Chris Farlowe, whose Mick Jagger-produced single went to the top of the UK charts in July of 1966. A shorter alternative mix of the Stones version was then released on the Flowers album, a US-only compilation of singles, B sides and unreleased tracks compiled by London Records. This version was re-released in 1972 on the More Hot Rocks (Big Hits And Fazed Cookies) album. Finally, in 1975 a third version of the song, using the backing tracks from the Farlowe version and Mick Jagger's vocals, appeared on an album called Metamorphosis, which was a compilation of unreleased tracks that were owned by record mogul Allen Klein.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Caroline No
Source: Mono CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s): Wilson/Asher
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
According to lyricist Peter Asher, Caroline No was written because Brian Wilson was "saddened to see how sweet little girls turned out to be kind of bitchy, hardened adults". Though the song was originally part of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, it ended up being the only single ever released by Capitol credited to Brian Wilson as a solo artist.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Bangles
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer: Tucker/Mantz
Label: Collector's Choice (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Producer Dave Hassinger gave the Electric Prunes a lot of songs to record by the songwriting team of Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, especially on their first LP, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night). This was probably to be expected, given the success of the Tucker/Mantz title track as a single. Bangles is notable for it's rather abrupt time changes and fuzz guitar opening.
Artist: United States Of America
Title: You Can Never Come Down
Source: CD: The United States Of America
Writer(s): Joseph Byrd
Label: Sundazed/Sony
Year: 1968
Joseph Byrd and Dorothy Moskowitz were, in Byrd's own words "tiny fish in the pond of avant-garde New York", learning what they could from John Cage while trying to find their own voices. The two of them relocated in 1963, when Byrd took a teaching assistanceship at UCLA. By 1965 they had established themselves as pioneers of experimental music on the West Coast. Moscowitz returned to the Big Apple in 1966, but returned to L.A. the following year to become the lead vocalist in Byrd's new rock band, The United States Of America. Byrd, however, was not really a rock musician, and after one self-titled LP had a falling out with the rest of the group's membership, including Moskowitz. Before leaving, however, Byrd wrote and produced one last track with the band he founded, a tune called You Can Never Come Down, recorded on May 9, 1968. It remained unreleased until Sundazed made it available as a bonus track on the 2004 reissue of the United States Of America album on CD.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Valleys Of Neptune
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1970, released 2010
Even before the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1969, Hendrix was starting to work with other musicians, including keyboardist Steve Winwood and wind player Chris Wood from Traffic, bassist Jack Casidy from Jefferson Airplane and Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles among others. Still, he kept showing a tendency to return to the power trio configuration, first with Band of Gypsys, with Miles and bassist Billy Cox and, in 1970, a new trio that was sometimes referred to as the "new" Jimi Hendrix Experience. This trio, featuring Cox along with original Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, recorded extensively in the months leading up to Hendrix's death, leaving behind hours of tapes in various stages of completion. Among those recordings was a piece called Valleys Of Neptune that was finally released, both as a single and as the title track of a new CD, in 2010.
Title: Black Currant Jam
Source: LP: Grape Jam
Writer(s): Kooper/Miller/Stevenson/Mosely
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Moby Grape's second album, Wow, came with something extra: an entire second LP at no additional price. This second LP was a collection of impromptu jam sessions, a couple of which featured guest musicians. One of those tracks was Black Currant Jam, which features Al Kooper on piano, joining regular band members Jerry Miller (guitar), Don Stevenson (drums) and Bob Mosely (bass). The album, released in early 1968, garnered mixed reviews from the rock press, but inspired Kooper to produce a jam album of his own, the enormously successful Super Session, later the same year.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Indifference
Source: Mono LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Skip Spence
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Skip Spence only wrote two of the songs on Moby Grape's debut LP, but they were among the best tracks on the album. The first, Omaha, was the band's only charted single, while the second, Indifference, was, at over four minutes, the longest track on the album, and was chosen to close out side two of the LP. An edited version of the song was also issued as a B side of another single, but did not chart.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Never
Source: LP: Grape Jam
Writer(s): Bob Mosley
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
For their second album, Moby Grape decided to do something different. In addition to the LP Wow, there was a second disc called Grape Jam included at no extra charge. For the most part Grape Jam is exactly what you'd expect: a collection of after-hours jam sessions with guest guitarist/keyboardist Michael Bloomfield. The opening track of Grape Jam, however, is actually a composition by Bob Mosley. The song features Mosley on bass and vocals, Jerry Miller and Skip Spence and guitars and Don Stevenson on drums, all of whom were actual members of Moby Grape.
Artist: Leaves
Title: Words
Source: CD: Hey Joe
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: One Way (original label: Mira)
Year: 1966
In 1965 the songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart recorded a demo of their song Words, in the hopes of either finding a band to record the tune or a getting a record contract for themselves. The following year a local Los Angeles band, the Leaves, included the song on their debut LP for the Mira label. For about a year the Leaves' recording was considered the definitive version of Words until the Monkees took the song into the top 40 as the B side of Pleasant Valley Sunday in the summer of '67.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Hello, Goodbye
Source: LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Capitol
Year: 1967
1967 was unquestionably a good year for the Beatles. Their first release was a double A sided single, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, both sides of which were major hits. They followed that up with the #1 album of the year, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and another hit single, All You Need Is Love. To finish out the year they released yet another major hit single, Hello Goodbye. The only downside to the year was the cool reception that was afforded their December telefilm, Magical Mystery Tour, although the songs themselves were well-received when released in the UK as a double-EP set (complete with full color booklet containing stills from the film, as well as lyric sheets). As EPs were not considered a viable format in the US, Capitol Records put together an LP that included all six tracks from the telefilm on one side of the album and the five single sides (Hello Goodbye had used I Am The Walrus from Magical Mystery Tour as a B side) on the other. That album has since become the official version of Magical Mystery Tour, although the EP continued to be available in the UK for several years following its initial release.
Artist: Fifty Foot Hose
Title: God Bless The Child
Source: LP: Cauldron
Writer(s): Billie Holiday
Label: Limelight
Year: 1968
When Fifty Foot Hose released their first album, nobody really knew what to make of it. Although the group had the normal rock band elements (guitar, bass, drums), it had something extra, thanks to a guy named Cork Marcheschi. Marcheschi was as much an inventor as he was a musician, and supplied the band with all sorts of electronic effects, as can be heard on an otherwise straightforward rendition of the Billie Holiday classic God Bless The Child. The vocals were supplied by Nancy Blossom, who was soon to become quite visible in the San Francisco Bay area playing the female lead in the West Coast production of the musical Hair.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Tired Of Waiting For You
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1965
After a series of hard-rocking hits such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks surprised everyone with the highly melodic Tired Of Waiting For You in 1965. As it turns out the song was just one of many steps in the continually maturing songwriting of Ray Davies.
Artist: Shadows of Knight
Title: The Behemoth
Source: Mono CD: Dark Sides (originally released on LP: Back Door Men and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Pye
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
When it comes to garage punk bands of the sixties there are two that are generally considered to be at the top of the heap. Unlike the Standells, who started off as a bar band and only embraced the punk ethic when they hooked up with writer/producer Ed Cobb, the Shadows of Knight were the real deal. Coming from the Chicago suburbs, they literally got their start practicing in the garage, slowly graduating to parties and high school dances, getting banned from at least one high school campus in the process (something having to do with a student getting knocked up, rumor has it). The Shadows (as they were originally known) cited the British blues bands as their main influence, with a dose of Chicago blues thrown in for good measure. The Behemoth, a track from their second album, Back Door Men, was chosen for a 1967 B side as well.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Once upon a time record producer Kim Fowley hired the Yardbirds to play a private Hollywood party. The Harris brothers, a pair of local art school students who had sent their homemade tapes to Fowley were impressed by the band's musical abilities. Bob Markley, an almost-30-year-old hipster with a law degree and an inheritance was impressed with the band's ability to attract teenage girls. Fowley introduced the Harris brothers to Markley, who expressed a willingness to finance them in return for letting him be their new lead vocalist, and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was formed. Before it was all over the group had recorded five or six albums for at least three labels, churning out an eclectic mix of psychedelic tunes such as Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday, which appeared on the second album for Reprise Records (their third LP overall), appropriately titled Volume II.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: A Christmas Camel
Source: Mono British import CD: Procol Harum (US album title: A Whiter Shade Of Pale)
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: Salvo (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
In 1966 Gary Brooker, former member of British cover band the Paramounts, formed a songwriting partnership with lyricist Keith Reid. By spring of 1967 the two had at least an album's worth of songs written but no band to play them. They solved the dilemma by placing an ad in Melody Maker and soon formed a group called the Pinewoods. Their very first record was A Whiter Shade Of Pale, which soon became the number one song on the British charts (after the Pinewoods changed their name to Procol Harum). The problem was that the group didn't know any other songs, a problem that was solved by firing the drummer and guitarist and replacing them with two of Brooker's former bandmates, B.J. Wilson and Robin Trower. This second version of the group soon recorded an LP, which included several strong tracks such as A Christmas Camel, making its Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut this week.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Effigy
Source: LP: Willie And The Poor Boys
Writer: John Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1969
Creedence Clearwater Revival, unlike most of their contemporaries, specialized in short, compact songs that usually went right to the top of the charts...almost. Actually, CCR holds the record for most #2 songs without ever hitting the top spot, but that just means they tried harder. Here, though, we have an exception: a Creedence album track that runs well over six minutes. Effigy was the final track on one of the band's most popular LPs: Willie And The Poor Boys.
Artist: Pentangle
Title: A Maid That's Deep In Love
Source: British import CD: Cruel Sister
Writer(s): Trad., arr. Pentangle
Label: Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1970
By 1970 Pentangle had established itself as one of the world's most successful bands, with their own unique fusion of British folk, jazz and folk-rock. Most groups would have continued in the same vein that got them where they were, but such was the quality and integrity of the band's members that they instead chose to go with a far more traditional approach to their fourth album, Cruel Sister. The album opens with a ballad, A Maid That's Deep In Love, that showcases vocalist Jacqui McShee while showing a musical depth rarely heard in popular music at the time.
Artist: Otis Redding
Title: Shake
Source: LP: Historic Performances Recorded At The Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer(s): Sam Cooke
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
One of the most electrifying performances at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival was given by Otis Redding, ably supported by Booker T. and the MGs with the Bar-Kays horn section. Redding's set was scheduled to close out the second night of the festival (Saturday), and due to delays caused by persistent rain, his performance was cut short. The opening song of Redding's set was an energetic version of Sam Cooke's Shake, an ironic choice considering that Redding, at the beginning of his recording career two years earlier, hold told friends that his primary goal was to fill the gap left by his idol, Cooke, who had been shot in his hotel room in late 1964. Redding's appearance at Monterey is generally considered a turning point in a career that, if it had not been cut short by a fatal plane crash less than a year later, could well have surpassed that of his idol (some say it did anyway).
Artist: Santana
Title: Mother's Daughter
Source: CD: Abraxas
Writer: Gregg Rolie
Label: Columbia
Year: 1970
Carlos Santana once said that his original lineup was the best of the many bands named Santana. With talented songwriters such as keyboardist Gregg Rolie in the band, it's hard to argue with that assessment. Rolie, of course, would go on to co-found Journey.
Artist: Billy Preston
Title: That's The Way God Planned It
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Billy Preston
Label: Apple
Year: 1969
Billy Preston became instantly famous as the guy who played keyboards on the 1969 Beatles single Get Back/Don't Let Me Down. At that time he also recorded That's The Way God Planned It and released the song as a single on the Beatles-owned Apple label. The song was not an instant success, however. In fact, it was not until 1972, when Preston had a monster hit with Outa-Space on the A&M label, that Apple re-released the earlier single, which became Preston's biggest non-instrumental hit.
Artist: Beacon Street Union
Title: Blue Avenue
Source: LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s): Wayne Ulaky
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1968
One of Boston's most popular bands, the Beacon Street Union, had already migrated to New York City by the time their first album, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union (produced by the legendary Tom Wilson), made its debut in February of 1968. The band itself was made up of Boston University dropouts John Lincoln Wright (lead vocals), Paul Tartachny (guitar, vocals), Robert Rhodes (keyboards, brass), Richard Weisberg (drums), and Wayne Ulaky (bass). Ulaky wrote what was probably the band's best-known song, Blue Avenue. The tune was particular popular in the UK, where it was heard on the Top Gear program. The Beacon Street Union, however, fell victim to hype; in this case the ill-advised attempt on the part of M-G-M records to market several disparate bands as being part of the "boss-town sound". After a second LP, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens (produced by future Partridge Family impressario Wes Farrell) failed to equal the somewhat limited success of their debut LP, the Beacon Street Union decided to call it quits.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Streetmasse
Source: LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s): Kantner/Dryden/Blackman/Thompson/Balin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1967
After Bathing At Baxter's is generally considered the most pyschedelic of all the Jefferson Airplane albums. For one thing, the members were reportedly all on LSD through most of the creative process and were involved in the entire package, right down to the decision to divide the album up into five suites and press the vinyl in such a way that the spaces normally found between songs were only present between the suites themselves, making it almost impossible to set the needle down at the beginning of the second or third song of a suite (there is a slight overlap between most of the songs as well). The first suite on After Bathing At Baxter's is called Streetmasse. It consists of three compositions: Paul Kantner's The Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel; A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly (a free-form jazz piece led by drummer Spencer Dryden); and the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin composition Young Girl Sunday Blues.
Artist: We The People
Title: You Burn Me Up And Down
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Thomas Talton
Label: Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year: 1966
We The People was kind of a regional supergroup in the Orlando, Florida area, as it was made up of musicians from various local garage bands. The departure of lead guitarist Wayne Proctor in early 1967 and the band's other main songwriter Tommy Talton a year later led to the group's demise, despite having landed a contract with RCA Victor, at the time the world's largest record label. Before splitting up, however, they recorded a handful of garage-rock classics such as You Burn Me Up And Down, which was released as a B side in 1966.
Artist: Front Line
Title: Got Love
Source: Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Lanigan/Philipet
Label: Rhino (original label: York)
Year: 1965
The Front Line was a band from San Rafael, California whose story in many ways was typical of their time. Marin County, being a fairly upscale place, had its share of clubs catering to the sons and daughters of its affluent residents. Of course, these teens wanted to hear live performances of their favorite top 40 tunes and bands like the Front Line made a decent enough living catering to their preferences. Like most bands of the time, the Front Line had one song that was of their own creation, albeit one that was somewhat derivative of the kinds of tunes they usually performed (not to mention unusually short in duration) so as not to scare off their audience. That song was Got Love, which was released on the York label in 1965.
Artist: Cream
Title: Strange Brew
Source: Mono Russian import: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s): Clapton/Collins/Pappalardi
Label: Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood Movie of the same name.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Capaldi/Winwood/Wood
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's the title track of Traffic's Mr. Fantasy album.
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: San Franciscan Nights
Source: British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: Big Beat (original label: M-G-M)
Year: 1967
In late 1966, after losing several original members over a period of about a year, the original Animals disbanded. Eric Burdon, after releasing one single as a solo artist (but using the Animals name), decided to form a "new" Animals. After releasing a moderately successful single, When I Was Young, the new band appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. While in the area, the band fell in love with the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, during what came to be called the Summer Of Love. The first single to be released from their debut album, Winds Of Change, was a tribute to the city by the bay called San Franciscan Nights. Because of the topicality of the song's subject matter, San Franciscan Nights was not released in the UK as a single. Instead, the song Good Times (which was the US B side of the record), became the new group's biggest UK hit to date (and one of the Animals' biggest UK hits overall). Eventually San Franciscan Nights was released as a single in the UK as well (with a different B side) and ended up doing quite well.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Out Of Time
Source: LP: More Hot Rocks (Big Hits And Fazed Cookies) (originally released on LP: Flowers)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
The history of the Rolling Stones' Out Of Time is actually somewhat convoluted. Originally released only in the UK as a five and a half minute track on the Aftermath LP (the US version of the album having a different song lineup), the tune was soon covered by British singer Chris Farlowe, whose Mick Jagger-produced single went to the top of the UK charts in July of 1966. A shorter alternative mix of the Stones version was then released on the Flowers album, a US-only compilation of singles, B sides and unreleased tracks compiled by London Records. This version was re-released in 1972 on the More Hot Rocks (Big Hits And Fazed Cookies) album. Finally, in 1975 a third version of the song, using the backing tracks from the Farlowe version and Mick Jagger's vocals, appeared on an album called Metamorphosis, which was a compilation of unreleased tracks that were owned by record mogul Allen Klein.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Caroline No
Source: Mono CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s): Wilson/Asher
Label: Capitol
Year: 1966
According to lyricist Peter Asher, Caroline No was written because Brian Wilson was "saddened to see how sweet little girls turned out to be kind of bitchy, hardened adults". Though the song was originally part of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, it ended up being the only single ever released by Capitol credited to Brian Wilson as a solo artist.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Bangles
Source: CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Writer: Tucker/Mantz
Label: Collector's Choice (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
Producer Dave Hassinger gave the Electric Prunes a lot of songs to record by the songwriting team of Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, especially on their first LP, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night). This was probably to be expected, given the success of the Tucker/Mantz title track as a single. Bangles is notable for it's rather abrupt time changes and fuzz guitar opening.
Artist: United States Of America
Title: You Can Never Come Down
Source: CD: The United States Of America
Writer(s): Joseph Byrd
Label: Sundazed/Sony
Year: 1968
Joseph Byrd and Dorothy Moskowitz were, in Byrd's own words "tiny fish in the pond of avant-garde New York", learning what they could from John Cage while trying to find their own voices. The two of them relocated in 1963, when Byrd took a teaching assistanceship at UCLA. By 1965 they had established themselves as pioneers of experimental music on the West Coast. Moscowitz returned to the Big Apple in 1966, but returned to L.A. the following year to become the lead vocalist in Byrd's new rock band, The United States Of America. Byrd, however, was not really a rock musician, and after one self-titled LP had a falling out with the rest of the group's membership, including Moskowitz. Before leaving, however, Byrd wrote and produced one last track with the band he founded, a tune called You Can Never Come Down, recorded on May 9, 1968. It remained unreleased until Sundazed made it available as a bonus track on the 2004 reissue of the United States Of America album on CD.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: Valleys Of Neptune
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Legacy
Year: Recorded 1970, released 2010
Even before the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1969, Hendrix was starting to work with other musicians, including keyboardist Steve Winwood and wind player Chris Wood from Traffic, bassist Jack Casidy from Jefferson Airplane and Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles among others. Still, he kept showing a tendency to return to the power trio configuration, first with Band of Gypsys, with Miles and bassist Billy Cox and, in 1970, a new trio that was sometimes referred to as the "new" Jimi Hendrix Experience. This trio, featuring Cox along with original Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, recorded extensively in the months leading up to Hendrix's death, leaving behind hours of tapes in various stages of completion. Among those recordings was a piece called Valleys Of Neptune that was finally released, both as a single and as the title track of a new CD, in 2010.
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