Rockin' in the Days of Confusion #1633 (starts 8/17/16)

You may have noticed there is no link to the PRX audio this time around. The reason is actually pretty simple. This show is also included as a third hour of this week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. This will be the case up through Labor Day weekend. From that point on the link will be back and the two will be treated as separate shows.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Wolf Run (Part 2)
Source:    British import CD: Just For Love
Writer(s):    Dino Valenti
Label:    BGO (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    Fans of Quicksilver Messenger Service's first three LPs were somewhat shocked when the band's fourth LP, Just For Love, was released in 1970. Gone were the improvisational jams that had become the band's trademark, replaced by a set of shorter tunes written by founding member Dino Valenti, who had been absent from the band's lineup literally from the day the group was formed (he was busted for Marijuana and spent the years 1968-69 in prison). Not all of these songs were bursting with commercial potential, however. Wolf Run, an experimental piece that resembles some of Pink Floyd's recordings from around the same time, was split into two parts and served as bookends for the entire album. The second part, which is actually the longer of the two, runs just barely over two minutes.

Artist:    Marshall Tucker Band
Title:    Heard It In A Love Song
Source:    LP: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Carolina Dreams)
Writer(s):    Toy Caldwell
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1977
    Country-rock was one of the new hybrid genres that rose to prominence in the 1970s. Building on foundations established by the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, bands like Pure Prarie League and Poco rose in popularity as the decade wore on. One of the most successful country-rock groups was the Marshall Tucker Band, who managed to place Heard It In A Love Song on the Top 40, Country and Adult Contemporary charts simultaneously in 1977.

Artist:    Starcastle
Title:    Forces
Source:    LP: Starcastle (promo copy)
Writer(s):    Tassler/Luttrell/Strater/Schildt/Stewart/Hagler
Label:    Epic
Year:    1976
    Formed in Champaign, Illinois in 1969, Starcastle was a fixture on the St. Louis music scene (including local radio stations) throughout the 1970s. They were hampered in their bid for national stardom, however, by a percieved similarity to the British band Yes. Lead vocalist Terry Luttrell in particular (who had been the original lead vocalist of REO Speedwagon) was criticized for trying to sound too much like Jon Anderson. I'll leave it to you to decide how much of this criticism is valid as you listen to Forces, from Starcastle's self-titled 1976 debut for the Epic label.

Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    Dancing Lady
Source:    Canadian import CD: Strange Universe
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    Just A Minute (original label: 20th Century)
Year:    1975
    When it comes to Canadian musicians, the first names that come to mind are Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot, with the Guess Who immediately following. Often overlooked, however, is Mahogany Rush, a band that features the talented singer/songwriter Frank Marino on lead guitar. Marino has been accused of trying to rip off Jimi Hendrix, but I see it more as channeling the master guitarist rather than stealing from him. And let's face it: very few people have been able to do it better than Marino, as can be heard on Dancing Lady, from the third Mahogany Rush album Strange Universe.

    Trivia time: even though our sister show Stuck in the Psychedelic Era (which has been in syndication for over six years now) regularly features tunes from 1970, including tracks from all six of the upcoming artists, none of the following songs have been played on that show. Yeah, it kinda surprised me too.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    déjà vu
Source:    LP: déjà vu
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    One of the biggest selling albums in the history of rock music, Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young's déjà vu was also one of the most difficult and time-consuming albums ever made. It is estimated that the album, which to date has sold over 8 million copies, took around 800 hours of studio time to record. Most of the tracks were recorded as solo tracks by their respective songwriters, with the other members making whatever contributions were called for. The album also features several guest musicians (including John Sebastian, who plays harmonica on the title track), as well as drummer Dallas Taylor and bassist Greg Reeves, whose names appear in slightly smaller font on the front cover of the album.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Think About The Times
Source:    CD: Watt
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:    1970
    The first Ten Years After I ever bought was Stonedhenge, which I picked up because a) I liked the cover, and b) it was the featured album of the month at the BX, costing a buck and a half instead of the usual $2.50. Not long after that my dad got transferred back to the States, and I somehow missed the release of the next TYA album, Cricklewood Green. A friend of mine had a copy, though, that we spent a lot of time listening to, so when I saw their next album, Watt, on the racks I immediately picked it up. I wore that copy out, and only later learned that the album had gotten mostly negative reviews from the rock press. I think that's when I started to suspect that most rock critics were self-righteous individuals with no talent of their own, because I thought Watt was a good album then and I still think it's a good album. Take a listen to Think About The Times and tell me I'm wrong.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Love Is The Answer
Source:    CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Blues Image was a band that started off in Tampa, Florida, as the house band for the legendary club Thee Image. They moved out to Los Angeles in 1969, where they developed a following that included several prominent musicians, including guitarist Jimi Hendrix. It was Hendrix that pointed out to the band that they did great arrangements on other people's material but that their own tunes were lacking a certain flair. The solution, it turned out, was to set their own compositions aside for a time, then revist them, treating them the same way they would someone else's songs. Apparently it worked, as can be heard on songs like Love Is The Answer, the powerful opening track for their second LP, Open.

Artist:    Stephen Stills
Title:    Cherokee/We Are Not Helpless
Source:    LP: Stephen Stills
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Following the released of déjà vu, the members of Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young each went to work on solo projects, with all four albums coming out later the same year. Of the four, Neil Young's After The Gold Rush is the only one considered a classic in its own right, but Stephen Stills' self-titled album comes pretty close. The final two tracks on the album, Cherokee and We Are Not Helpless, overlap enough that it's impossible to play one without including the other. According to Stills himself, We Are Not Helpless is not a response to Neil Young's Helpless (from déjà vu), despite the fact that many rock critics assumed that they knew more about it than the guy who actually wrote the song.

Artist:    Flock
Title:    Truth
Source:    LP: The Flock
Writer(s):    The Flock
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    The city of Chicago is known for spawning rock bands that include a horn section, but the Flock took it a step further by adding electric violin. Jerry Goodman had originally been a roadie for the group, but soon became the focus of the band's performances, combining virtuosity with a willingness to experiment with various electronic effect. Check out the use of a wah-wah pedal, for instance, on Truth, the closing track from the Flock's self-titled 1969 debut LP. After an interesting, but commercially unsuccesful second LP, Dinosaur Swamps, the band started work on a third album, but got derailed when Columbia Records honcho Clive Davis yanked Goodman from the lineup to join John McLaughlin's new project, the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    The Barbarian
Source:    CD: Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Writer(s):    Bartok, arr. Emerson/Lake/Palmer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1970
    Originally credited to the three band members, The Barbarian, from the first Emerson, Lake And Palmer album, is actually a rock arrangement of composer Bela Bartok's 1911 piano piece Allegro Barbaro. The band did not include Bartok's name, assuming that the record label people were handling it. Bartok's family then sued the band for copyright infringement, leading to the band adding the composer's name to the credits on reissues of the album. The recording itself in a way defines the band, as it was used as the opening track on their first LP.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1632 (starts 8/10/16)

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Mr. Soul
Source:    CD: Retrospective (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Executives at Atco Records originally considered Neil Young's voice "too weird" to be recorded. As a result many of Young's early tunes (including the band's debut single Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing), were sung by Richie Furay. By the time the band's second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released, the band had enough clout to make sure Young was allowed to sing his own songs. In fact, the album starts with a Young vocal on the classic Mr. Soul.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year:    1967
    Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Bass Strings
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    A lot of songs released in 1966 and 1967 got labeled as drug songs by influential people in the music industry. In many cases, those labels were inaccurate, at least according to the artists who recorded those songs. On the other hand, you have songs like Bass Strings by Country Joe and the Fish that really can't be about anything else.

Artist:     Donovan
Title:     Sunshine Superman
Source:     CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released in edited form on 45 RPM vinyl and on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer:     Donovan Leitch
Label:     Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year:     1966
     Donovan's hugely successful Sunshine Superman is sometimes credited as being the tsunami that launched the wave of psychedelic music that washed over the shores of pop musicland in 1967. OK, I made that up, but the song really did change the direction of American pop as well as Donovan's own career. Originally released as a three and a quarter minute long single, the full unedited four and a half minute long stereo mix of the song heard here did not appear on vinyl until Donovan's 1969 Greatest Hits album.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Ain't It Hard
Source:    Mono CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tillison/Tillison
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes got their big break in 1966 when a real estate saleswoman heard them playing in a garage in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley and told her friend Dave Hassinger about them. Hassinger was a successful studio engineer (having just finished the Rolling Stones' Aftermath album) who was looking to become a record producer. The Prunes were his first clients, and Hassinger's production style is evident on their debut single. Ain't It Hard had already been recorded by the Gypsy Trips, and the Electric Prunes would move into more psychedelic territory with their next release, the iconic I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).

Artist:    Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title:    Eventually
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Spreading From The Ashes)
Writer(s):    Alan Brackett
Label:    Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2005
    The Peanut Butter Conspiracy (or PBC) was one of the more psychedelic of the local L.A. bands playing the various clubs along L.A.'s Sunset Strip during its golden years of 1965-68. As was the case with so many bands of that time and place, they never really got the opportunity to strut their stuff, although they did leave some decent tapes behind, such as Eventually, recorded in 1966 but not released until 2005.

Artist:     Blue Cheer
Title:     Out Of Focus
Source:     Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer:     Dickie Peterson
Label:     Philips
Year:     1968
     With the possible exception of the Grateful Dead (when they were using the Owsley-designed sound system), the loudest band to come out of San Francisco was Blue Cheer. The album Vincebus Eruptum, highlighted by the band's feedback-drenched version of Eddie Cochrane's Summertime Blues, is considered by some to be the first heavy metal album ever recorded. Out Of Focus, which opens side 2 of the LP, was issued as the B side of Summertime Blues and got some airplay on progressive FM radio.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    The Beauty Of Time Is That It's Snowing
Source:    UK Import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: Children Of The Future)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Zonophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    When the name Steve Miller comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is Fly Like An Eagle, or maybe The Joker or even Living In The USA. In the beginning, though, the Miller band was a bit more eclectic, performing original tunes (by both Miller and fellow band member Boz Scaggs) ranging in style from straight blues to pure psychedelia, such as The Beauty Of Time Is That It's Snowing from their debut LP, Children Of The Future. Although born in Milwaukee, Wisconson, Miller was raised in Texas, playing in several local bands before relocating to Chicago, where he took an interest in electric blues. After a short return to Texas, Miller moved to San Francisco in 1966, where he met Boz Scaggs and formed the Steve Miller Band. Like fellow San Francisco bands Quicksilver Messenger Service and Mother Earth, Miller's group provided songs for the soundtrack of the documentary film Revolution, but did not sign a contract with a major label until 1968. Oddly enough, their first LP, Children Of The Future, was recorded in England rather than in San Francisco.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Mother's Lament
Source:     CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer:     Trad. Arr. Cream
Label:     Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:     1967
     The shortest-ever Cream recording was an old English drinking song called Mother's Lament. Vocals on the song were led by drummer Ginger Baker, and the track was chosen to close out the Disraeli Gears album. By one of those odd coincidences of the music industry, the album was issued in Europe on the Polydor label (as were many cutting-edge bands of the time, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Procol Harum and the Who), which at the time did not issue records in the US. By the late 1980s, however, Polydor was well established in the US and all the Cream albums on Compact Disc were released under the Polydor imprint.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Those Were The Days
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Baker/Taylor
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Drummer Ginger Baker only contributed a handful of songs to the Cream repertoire, but each was, in its own way, quite memorable. Those Are The Days, with its sudden changes of time and key, presages the progressive rock that would flourish in the mid-1970s. As was often the case with Baker-penned songs, bassist Jack Bruce provides the vocals from this Wheels Of Fire track.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    World Of Pain
Source:    CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Collins/Pappalardi
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Whereas the first Cream LP was made up of mostly blues-oriented material, Disraeli Gears took a much more psychedelic turn, due in large part to the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. The Bruce/Brown team was not, however, the only source of material for the band. Both Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker made contributions, as did Cream's unofficial fourth member, producer (and keyboardist) Felix Pappalardi, who, along with his wife Janet Collins, provided World Of Pain.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

Artist:    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:    Canned Heat
Title:    Fried Hockey Boogie
Source:    LP: Boogie With Canned Heat
Writer(s):    Samuel L. Taylor
Label:    United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    The climax of every Canned Heat performance was the "boogie", a loose jam based on a repeating three-note riff that gave each band member a chance to strut their stuff as a soloist. The first of these to be released on a record was actually a studio recording. Fried Hockey Boogie was the final track on the band's second LP, appropriately titled Boogie With Canned Heat. The song was officially credited to bassist Larry Taylor.

Artist:    Sonny And Cher
Title:    The Beat Goes On
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Sonny Bono
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    When Carol Kaye (who played on over 10,000 recordings, mostly uncredited, as a member of the collection of L.A. studio musicians known now as the Wrecking Crew) was asked if there was any one song that she took personal credit for making into a hit, the bassist immediately cited The Beat Goes On, a Sonny And Cher song released in late 1966. The original arrangement (credited to Harold Battiste) included a walking bass line, but during the recording session Kaye reworked it into one of the most famous bass hooks in the history of popular music. The song went on to become one of Sonny And Cher's biggest hits, peaking at #6 in early 1967. As a matter of fact, the words "and the beat goes on" are inscribed on Sonny Bono's tombstone.

Artist:    Liquid Scene
Title:    Hey Moondog (See The God Of Odin Come)
Source:    CD: Revolutions
Writer(s):    Becki DiGregario
Label:    Ziglain
Year:    2015
    This week's Advanced Psych segment features a blast from the past, so to speak: Hey Moondog (See The God Of Odin Come) was played on our very first Advanced Psych segment back in April of 2015. The tune is from an album called Revolutions by Liquid Scene, a San Francisco area band led by Bodhi (aka Becki diGregorio), a multi-instrumentalist (check out the sitar work) who writes and sings lead vocals on all the band's material. My only question is: when's the next album going to come out?

Artist:    Mumphries
Title:    Woman Drivin' Me Crazy
Source:    CD: Thank You, Bonzo
Writer(s):    Stephen R Webb
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1989
    Sometimes a song can be personal, but not directly so. Such is the case with Woman Drivin' Me Crazy by the Albuquerque, NM band the Mumphries. Written and sung by guitarist Stephen R Webb, the song actually describes, in the first person, a situation being experienced at the time by bassist Quincy Adams. The woman in question was Clara Gardello, the bass player from another Albuquerque band, A Murder Of Crows. Sadly, neither Clara or Quincy are with us anymore, so all we can do is hope they get it together the next time around.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I'm Looking Through You
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    Although John Lennon is generally thought of as the Beatle who wore his heart on his sleeve, it was Paul McCartney who came up with the song I'm Looking Through You for the Rubber Soul album. The lyrics refer to Jane Asher, who McCartney had been dating for about five years when he wrote the song. They split up soon afterward.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Gimme Some Lovin'
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1966
    The movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becoming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear in major markets as well. Ironically, most of those stations are now playing 80s oldies.

Artist:    Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels
Title:    Too Many Fish In The Sea/Three Little Fishes
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Holland/Dowell
Label:    New Voice
Year:    1967
    Mitch Ryder (b. William Levise, Jr.) And The Detroit Wheels started off as Billy Lee And The Rivieras in the early 1960s, but decided to change their name when another group calling itself the Rivieras had a hit with a song called California Sun. They had their first hit in 1965 with Jenny Take A Ride, a song based loosely on the Little Richard hit Jenny Jenny. More hits followed, including the top 5 smash Devil With A Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly in 1966. The band's last hit was a pastiche of the Motown hit Too Many Fish In The Sea and the 1940s vintage Three Little Fishes, done up 50s rock and roll style. Not long after the record charted producer Bob Crewe convinced Ryder to quit the group and go solo, a career move that did not work out well for either Ryder or the band. (Crewe also convinced Frankie Valli to leave the 4 Seasons at around that same time, perhaps feeling that a solo artist would be easier to control than a group. Then again, maybe he was just being cheap.)

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Oh, Sweet Mary
Source:    LP: 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 the original label credits Janis Joplin as sole writer and the album cover itself gives only Joplin and Peter Albin credit). 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:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Long Hot Summer Night
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Electric Ladyland)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    When Chas Chandler first discovered Jimi Hendrix playing at a club in New York's Greenwich Village in 1966, he knew that he had found one seriously talented guitarist. Within two years Hendrix would prove to be an outstanding songwriter, vocalist and producer as well. This was fortunate for Hendrix, as Chandler would part company with Hendrix during the making of the Electric Ladyland album, leaving Hendrix as sole producer. Chandler's main issue was the slow pace Hendrix maintained in the studio, often reworking songs while the tape was rolling, recording multiple takes until he got exactly what he wanted. Adding to the general level of chaos was Hendrix's propensity for inviting just about anyone he felt like to join him in the studio. Among all these extra people were some of the best musicians around, including keyboardist Al Kooper, whose work can be heard on Long Hot Summer Night.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    The first track on the original release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was moved to the middle of side 2. For some reason Reprise Records misspelled the title as Foxey Lady, and continued to do so on posthumous compilations such as The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Fire
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Although never released as a single, Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener.

Artist:     Human Beinz
Title:     Nobody But Me
Source:     Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Ron, Rudy and O'Kelley Isley
Label:     LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year:     1968
    The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol Records misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.

Artist:     Monkees
Title:     The Door Into Summer
Source:     LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer:     Douglas/Martin
Label:     Colgems
Year:     1967
     After playing nearly all the instrumental tracks on their third album themselves, the Monkees came to the painful conclusion that they would not be able to repeat the effort and still have time to tape a weekly TV show. As a result, the fourth Monkees LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD., used studio musicians extensively, albeit under the creative supervision of the Monkees themselves. The group also had the final say over what songs ended up on the album, including this tune by Bill Martin, a friend of band leader Michael Nesmith. For reasons that are too complicated to get into here (and probably wouldn't make much sense anyway), co-credit was given to the band's producer, Chip Douglas.

Artist:    Who
Title:    I Can't Reach You
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Decca
Year:    1967
    One day during my freshman year of high school my friend Bill invited a bunch of us over to his place to listen to the new console stereo his family had bought recently. Like most console stereos, this one had a wooden top that could be lifted up to operate the turntable and radio, then closed to make it look more like a piece of furniture. When we arrived there was already music playing on the stereo, and Bill soon had us convinced that this new stereo was somehow picking up the British pirate radio station Radio London. This was pretty amazing since we were in Weisbaden, Germany, several hundred miles from England or its coastal waters that Radio London broadcast from. Even more amazing was the fact that the broadcast itself seemed to be in stereo, and Radio London was an AM station. Yet there it was, coming in more clearly than the much closer Radio Luxembourg, the powerhouse station that we listened to every evening, when they broadcast in a British top 40 format. Although a couple of us were a bit suspicious about what was going on, even we skeptics were convinced when we heard jingles, stingers, and even commercials for stuff like the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course interspersed with songs we had never heard, such as I Can't Reach You, that were every bit as good as any song being played on Radio Luxembourg. Well, as it turned out, we were indeed being hoaxed by Bill and his older brother, who had put on his brand new copy of The Who Sell Out when he saw us approaching the apartment building they lived in. I eventually picked up a copy of the album for myself, and still consider it one of the best Who albums ever made.

Artist:    Boots
Title:    But You'll Never Do It Babe
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in West Berlin as 45 RPM single and on LP: Here Are The Boots)
Writer(s):    Smith/Fox
Label:    Rhino (original label: Telefunken)
Year:    1965
    Formed in Berlin in 1965, the Boots were one of the more adventurous bands operating on the European mainland. While most bands in Germany tended to emulate the Beatles, the Boots took a more underground approach, growing their hair out just a bit longer than their contemporaries and appealing to a more Bohemian type of crowd. Lead guitarist Jurg "Jockel" Schulte-Eckle was known for doing strange things to his guitar onstage using screwdrivers, beer bottles and the like to create previously unheard of sounds. The band's first single, But You'll Never Do It Babe, was originally recorded by a British band, Cops 'n' Robbers, but the Boots took the song to its greatest heights.

Artist:     Johnny Rivers
Title:     Secret Agent Man
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     Sloan/Barri
Label:     Imperial
Year:     1966
     The sixties were a decade of fads and trends in the US, many of them imported from England. One of the most popular was the spy craze. Inspired by cold war politics and the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, TV producers began cranking out shows like I-Spy and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. One of the earliest of these shows was a British production called Danger Man, aired in the US under the name Secret Agent. The show starred Patrick McGoohan as a (surprise) secret agent for a fictional version of MI6, the British intelligence agency, and enjoyed a successful run on both sides of the Atlantic. After a few seasons McGoohan got tired of doing the show and Danger Man/Secret Agent was cancelled. Before that happened, however, Johnny Rivers scored a huge hit with the theme song written by Steve Barri and PF Sloan especially for the US airings of the show. McGoohan would make another series called the Prisoner about a former secret agent that had been "retired" to a closed village in order to protect the secret knowledge he had accumulated over the years. Although it was never explicitly stated, it was assumed that his character (who had indeed been given a number and had his name taken away) was the same one he had played in the earlier show.

Artist:     Grass Roots
Title:     Let's Live For Today
Source:     CD: Battle of the Bands (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Julian/Mogull/Shapiro
Label:     Era (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1967
     Let's Live For Today, a 1967 hit by the Grass Roots, started off as a 1966 song called Piangi Con Mi by the Italian band the Rokes.The Rokes themselves were originally from Manchester, England, but had relocated to Italy in 1963. Piangi Con Mi was their biggest hit to date, and it the band decided to re-record the tune in English for release in Britain (ironic, considering that the band originally specialized in translating popular US and UK hits into the Italian language). The original translation didn't sit right with the band's UK label, so a guy from the record company came up with new lyrics and the title Let's Live For Today. The song still didn't do much on the charts, but did get the attention of former Brill building songwriter Jeff Barri, whose current project was writing and producing a studio band known as the Grass Roots. The song became such a big hit that the Grass Roots became a real perfoming band and had several hits over the next couple of years.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1632 (official first episode, starts 8/10/16)

Artist:    John Lennon
Title:    God
Source:    CD: Lennon (box set) (originally released on LP: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band)
Writer(s):    John Lennon
Label:    Capitol (original label: Apple)
Year:    1970
    John Lennon wanted the world to know that he was completely done with the Beatles once the group had officially disbanded in 1970. Being John Lennon, he felt that his best way of expressing himself was through his music, and the song God, from his first solo LP, did exactly that. After a bit of personal philosophy ("God is a concept by which we measure our pain"), he goes into a litany of things he no longer believes in, including such diverse things as the Kennedys, Buddha, Elvis, and finally, the Beatles. He then renounces his role as a rock star/god with the words "I was the Walrus, but now I'm John" and concludes the track with the line "The dream is over". It struck me as an appropriate way to begin the first episode of a show that focuses on the post-Beatle era in rock music.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Speed Kills
Source:    CD: Stonedhenge
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1969
    Although they were generally considered part of the British blues scene of the late 1960s, Ten Years After owed as much to late 50s rock and roll artists such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard as to the traditional blues figures such as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. As such, many of their songs had a touch of rockabilly that was absent from most of their contemporaries. A strong example of this rockabilly streak can be found in Speed Kills, the closing track of their 1969 Stonedhenge album.

Artist:    Buddy Miles
Title:    Dreams
Source:    CD: Them Changes
Writer(s):    Greg Allman
Label:    Miracle/Mercury
Year:    1970
    Drummer Buddy Miles started his career playing in his father's jazz band, but by the mid-1960s he was paying his dues as a member of various backup bands for R&B vocalists such as Wilson Pickett. In late 1966 Michael Bloomfield, who had just left the Butterfield Blues Band, asked Miles to join him in a new band that he was tentatively calling the American Music Band. The band made its debut the following year as the Electric Flag. After the demise of the Electric Flag Miles formed his own band, the Buddy Miles Express, recording two albums and making a guess appearance on the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Electric Ladyland. In 1969 Miles teamed up with Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox to form Band Of Gypsys, releasing a live album in early 1970. Later that year, after it became clear that Band Of Gypsys was a one-shot affair, Miles, with the help of the Electric Flag horn section, released his most successful solo album, Them Changes. Among the several tunes from the album to get progressive FM airplay was an extensively rearranged version of Greg Allman's Dreams, which had been previously recorded by the Allman Brothers Band.

Artist:    Rory Gallagher
Title:    Can't Believe It's True
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Rory Gallagher)
Writer(s):    Rory Gallagher
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1971
    In addition to his obvious prowess on guitar, Rory Gallagher was an accomplished saxophonist, although he largely abandoned the instrument in the mid-1970s. This can be heard on Can't Believe It's True, the final and longest track on Gallagher's first solo album, recorded in 1971. Accompanying Gallagher on the album were drummer Wilgar Campbell and bass guitarist Gerry McAvoy. Gallagher had set up practice sessions with Campbell and McAvoy, as well as former Jimi Hendrix Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding following the breakup of his original band, Taste, but ultimately decided to form a power trio with the two Belfast natives for his solo debut.

Artist:    Edgar Winter Group
Title:    Free Ride
Source:    LP: They Only Come Out At Night
Writer(s):    Dan Hartman
Label:    Epic
Year:    1972
    Some songs released in the 1960s and 1970s were mixed differently for single release than their LP counterparts. This may have been because, until around 1978 or so, most top 40 stations operated on the AM band, which had different audio dynamics than FM radio. For instance, Free Ride, from the Edgar Winter Band's LP They Only Come Out At Night, had a significantly brighter guitar track, added harmonics, a fuzz bass added to the bridge, and other enhancements on the 45 RPM single that were not present on the original LP version of the song. The tune, written by bassist Dan Hartman, ended up being one of the band's biggest hits, so they must have been on to something.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression
Source:    CD: Brain Salad Surgery
Writer(s):    Emerson/Lake/Sinfield
Label:    Rhino (original label: Manticore)
Year:    1973
    When Emerson, Lake And Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery was released on vinyl the fifth track on side one, Karn Evil 9: First Impression, was faded out at the end of side one of the album and faded back in at the beginning of side two. I always thought this was unnecessary, as they could have just as easily moved one or two of the earlier tracks on side one to the end of the album and put the entire thirteen-minute long First Impression on one side of the album and the other two Impressions on side two (especially since there is a break in the audio between the 1st and 2nd Impressions already). The result of this strange bit of mastering is that most classic rock stations only play the last four and a half minutes of Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, despite the fact that CD versions of the album have restored the recording to one continuous piece. Since the band obviously intended 1st Impression to be heard in its entirety, that's how it is being presented here. I actually gave some thought to included 2nd and 3rd Impression as well, but decided that, since there is dead space between the tracks on both LP and CD versions, I would treat them as separate pieces. Don't be surprised to hear 2nd or 3rd Impression as standlones sometime in the future.

Artist:    George Harrison
Title:    This Song
Source:    LP: Thirty-Three & 1/3
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Dark Horse
Year:    1976
    Once upon a time, someone noticed similarities in the melody and chord structure of two songs: He's So Fine, a hit for the Chiffons, an early 60s girl group, and George Harrison's 1970 hit My Sweet Lord. The publishers of He's So Fine then proceded to sue Harrison for copyright infringement, presenting such a convincing case that Harrison himself "started to believe that maybe they did own those notes". After losing the case Harrison wrote This Song, which takes a tongue-in-cheek view of the entire matter. To promote the song Harrison released a video that was shown on NBC's Saturday Night Live. This Song was the first single released from Harrison's 1976 LP Thirty-Three & 1/3 (the title being a double entendre referring to the standard LP speed of 33 1/3 RPM and Harrison's age at the time the record was made).

Artist:    Todd Rundgren's Utopia
Title:    Another Life
Source:    LP: Another Live
Writer(s):    Rundgren/Schuckett
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1975
    Todd Rundgren first appeared on the national music scene as the leader of the Philadelphia-based Nazz in the late 60s. His first major success was as a solo artist in 1973, when Hello It's Me (a remake of an early Nazz tune), became a major hit. Around that same time Rundgren established himself as a record producer with Grand Funk Railroad's We're An American Band album. He sooned formed a new band, Utopia, which released its first album in 1974. The following year, using the name Todd Rundgren's Utopia, the group released Another Live, which featured three all-new tunes in addition to live versions of earlier songs. The first, and IMO best, of the new tunes was Another Life, which in a sense could be considered the title track of the album.

Artist:    Journey
Title:    Mystery Mountain
Source:    LP: Journey
Writer(s):    Rolie/Tickner/Valory
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1975
    Journey was one of the most successful American bands of the early 1980s, but on their 1975 debut album, the group had an entirely different style than the slick commercial sound they would later become famous for. In fact, the self-titled album sounds more like a Santana album than anything else, thanks in large part to the contributions of keyboardist/vocalist Gregg Rolie and guitarist Neal Schon. The album's final track, Mystery Mountain, is a good example of the kind of band Journey was in their earliest incarnation.

Artist:    Jade Warrior
Title:    Waves Part 1 (excerpt)
Source:    LP: Waves
Writer(s):    Field/Duhig
Label:    Island
Year:    1975
    Jade Warrior was a British progressive/experimental rock band that released several albums throughout the 1970s. The fifth Jade Warrior, Waves, is actually one long piece that covers both sides of the album. Much of Waves is quite relaxing to listen to, as this excerpt taken from side one of the album shows. Jade Warrior is often cited as an influence on the "New Age" music of the 1980s and beyond.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion: Special Edition (aired 8/5/16)

Last night (Friday, Aug. 5) KZRJ-LP, aka gulchradio.com aired a special two-hour preview edition of a brand new show called Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, which will begin its official life as a one-hour weekly show next week. As is the case with Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, weekly playlists will be posted on The Hermit Rambles, along with an embedded audio player from the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). For a list of stations airing Rockin' in the Days of Confusion check out hermitradio.com over the next few days and look for a new button dedicated to the new show. I'm not sure exactly when ithe button will appear, but it will be soon, so keep looking for it. Meanwhile, for those of you who were able to tune in last night's edition of Rockin' in the Days of Confusion (#001), here is a complete playlist of what you heard:


Artist:    John Lennon
Title:    #9 Dream
Source:    CD: Lennon (box set) (originally released on LP: Walls And Bridges)
Writer(s):    John Lennon
Label:    Capitol (original label: Apple)
Year:    1974
    #9 Dream has the distinction of being John Lennon's last original composition to be released as a single before his five year hiatus from recording (from 1975-80), as well as his last song to hit the top 10 during his lifetime. The tune, from the Walls And Bridges album, is one of the most lavishly produced recordings in the Lennon catalog, featuring string arrangements written by Lennon himself. The song peaked at (coincidentally) the #9 spot on the Billboard charts in the US.

Artist:    John Lennon
Title:    John Sinclair
Source:    CD: Lennon (box set) (originally released on LP: Some Time In New York City)
Writer(s):    John Lennon
Label:    Capitol (original label: Apple)
Year:    1972
    Generally considered the weakest of John Lennon's solo albums, 1972's Some Time In New York City nonetheless had at least one standout track: John Sinclair, a song inspired by the arrest of the leftist writer for possession of two joints.

Artist:    John Lennon
Title:    Bless You
Source:    CD: Lennon (box set) (originally released on LP: Walls And Bridges)
Writer(s):    John Lennon
Label:    Capitol (original label: Apple)
Year:    1974
    In June of 1973, as John Lennon was getting started on his third LP, Mind Games, his wife Yoko Ono decided that the two of them should separate. This led to Lennon relocating from New York to California and getting into a relationship with Ono's personal assistant May Pang. This relationship (reportedly instigated by Yoko herself) lasted eighteen months, a period that Lennon would later refer to as his "lost weekend". During this time Lennon began hanging out (i.e. getting drunk) with fellow songwriter Harry Nilsson and making his first attempt at recording an album of cover songs with producer Phil Spector. For obvious reasons (see above) those sessions didn't work out, and Lennon returned to New York the following year. In July of 1974 Lennon began working on what would be his last album of original material for nearly five years: Walls And Bridges. The album yielded two top 10 singles (including his only #1 solo hit during his lifetime, Whatever Gets You Through The Night), as well as several noteworthy album tracks. One of the most overlooked tracks on the LP is Bless You, a tune that Lennon himself described as "best piece of work on the album". 

Artist:    Bo Hansson
Title:    Awakening
Source:    LP: Magician's Hat
Writer(s):    Bo Hansson
Label:    Charisma
Year:    1972
    Swedish multi-instrumentalist/composer Bo Hansson released his first solo instrumental progressive rock album, Music Inspired By Lord Of The Rings, in 1970, after having read a copy of the Tolkien trilogy given to him by his girlfriend. The album, originally released in Sweden, was successful enough to be picked up for international distribution on the Charisma label in 1972. At around the same time, Hansson began work on his follow-up LP, Magician's Hat. This second effort was released in Sweden in late 1972 and once again picked up by Charisma for international release. Although not as successful as its predecessor, Magician's Hat is still quite listenable, especially on shorter tracks such as Awakening.

Artist:    Gentle Giant
Title:    Dog's Life
Source:    CD: Octopus
Writer(s):    Minnear/Shulman/Shulman/Shulman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    Although not a major commercial success, Gentle Giant's fourth album, Octopus, is generally considered to be the beginning of the band's peak period, and according to band member Ray Shulman, their best album overall. One of my favorite tracks on the album is Dog's Life, which is a somewhat whimsical look at a day in the life of man's best friend.

Artist:    Curtis Mayfield
Title:    Underground
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: Roots)
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Curtom
Year:    1971
    One of the most influential and respected artists of the 20th century, Curtis Mayfield first came to fame as a member of the Impressions, taking over as group leader with the departure of Jerry Butler in the early 1960s. The vocalist/guitarist was responsible for writing most of the group's best known tunes, such as Keep On Pushin' and the classic People Get Ready. In the 1970s Mayfield left the Impressions to embark on a successful solo career. His second LP, Roots, was a major success, hitting the #6 spot on the R&B album charts. One of the tracks from that album, a somewhat surreal piece called Underground, was chosen to be the B side of one of his biggest hits, Freddy's Dead, from the soundtrack of the film Superfly.

Artist:    Marvin Gaye
Title:    Trouble Man
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Marvin Gaye
Label:    Tamla
Year:    1972
    Marvin Gaye played drums and piano, as well as providing all of the vocals, for the song Trouble Man. Released in November of 1972, the song was featured in a film of the same name. Gaye himself called it one of the most honest recordings he ever made. Gaye continued to perform the song for the rest of his life. Trouble Man was also the title of Marvin Gaye's biography.

Artist:    Frank Zappa/Mothers Of Invention
Title:    Inca Roads
Source:    LP: One Size Fits All
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Discreet
Year:    1975
    Frank Zappa was known for his musically challenging and difficult to play pieces, which transcended labels such as rock, jazz or even classical, combining elements of all three in ways that were innovative and unexpected. A good example of all of this is the track Inca Roads from the 1975 album One Size Fits All, which is catalogued as Zappa's 20th official release. The piece, which runs over eight and a half minutes, uses nearly a dozen (maybe more) time signatures, as well as advanced studio techniques such as Xenochrony (the practice of grafting one performance onto an entirely different recording). Personnel on the recording include:
Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals
George Duke – keyboards, synthesizer, lead vocals
Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, tenor saxophone, vocals
Chester Thompson – drums
Tom Fowler – bass
Ruth Underwood – vibes, marimba, percussion

Artist:    Robin Trower
Title:    Little Bit Of Sympathy
Source:    CD: Bridge Of Sighs
Writer(s):    Robin Trower
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1974
    Released in 1974, Bridge Of Sighs was the second solo LP by former Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower. The album was Trower's commercial breakthrough, staying on the Billboard album charts for 31 weeks, peaking at #7. In addition to Trower, the album features James Dewar on lead vocals and bass, along with Reg Isidore on drums. The album was a staple of mid-1970s progressive rock radio, with several tunes, including album closer Little Bit Of Sympathy, becoming concert favorites.

Artist:    Aerosmith
Title:    Mama Kin
Source:    CD: Aerosmith
Writer(s):    Steven Tyler
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    Trivia question: What was the first Aerosmith single? If you answered Dream On, you were close, but missed it by one. Mama Kin was actually Aerosmith's debut release, and was a staple of the band's concerts for decades. The song itself is fairly simple, with a basic guitar riff supported by a strong rhythm backbeat and, of course, Steven Tyler's vocals. Mama Kin appeared as the opening track of side two of Aerosmith's self-titled debut LP.

Artist:        J. Geils Band
Title:        Whammer Jammer
Source:    45 RPM single B side (from the LP: The Morning After)
Writer(s):    Juke Joint Jimmie
Label:     Atlantic
Year:        1971
       First they were a Boston bar band called Snoopy and the Sopwith Camel. Then they became the J. Geils Blues Band. Finally they dropped the blues from the name and became famous. Whammer Jammer, a track from their second LP, The Morning After, shows why the "blues" part was there in the first place. Whammer Jammer showcases Magic Dick Salwitz on lead harmonica on a piece that flat out kicks.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    L.A. Woman
Source:    LP: L.A. Woman
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971
    Ray Manzarek became justifiably famous as the keyboard player for the Doors. Before joining up with Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger and John Densmore, however, Manzarek was already making a name for himself as an up-and-coming student filmmaker at UCLA. Although he didn't have much of a need to pursue a career in films once the Doors hit it big, he did end up producing and directing an outstanding video for the title track of the 1971 album L.A. Woman years after the band had split up. I only mention this because, really, what else can I say about a song that you've probably heard a million times or so?

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Politician
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Although the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown are best known for providing Cream with its more psychedelic songs such as White Room and Swlabr, they did occasionally come up with bluesier numbers such as Politician from the Wheels Of Fire album. The song quickly became a staple of Cream's live performances.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dancing With Mr. D.
Source:    LP: Goat's Head Soup
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Rolling Stones
Year:    1973
    Depending on whose point of view you choose to agree with, Goat's Head Soup marked either the end of the Rolling Stones' golden age or the beginning of their mid-70s decline into rock star decadence. With a track like Dancing With Mr. D. starting off the album, I'd have to go with the former view.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    The Devil Is Singing Our Song
Source:    LP: Bang
Writer(s):    Bolin/Tesar
Label:    Atco
Year:    1973
    The James Gang, following the departure of guitarist/vocalist Joe Walsh, could have just called it quits right then and there. Instead, however, bassist Dale Peters and drummer Jim Fox chose to instead add two new members, Canadians Roy Kenner (vocals) and Dominic Troiano (guitar), and carry on in the same vein as they had been. After a pair of albums that failed to catch on, however, Troiano accepted an offer to replace Randy Bachman in the Guess Who. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the James Gang, however, as the addition of former Zephyr guitarist Tommy Bolin revitalized the band for a time. Bolin had a hand in writing much of the material on the band's next LP, James Gang Bang, including The Devil Is Singing Our Song. With a strong signature riff and a gritty guitar solo, the song has a feel to it that presages Bolin's later solo work on his albums Private Eyes and Teaser.

Artist:    Styx   
Title:    You Need Love
Source:    LP: Styx II
Writer(s):    Dennis DeYoung
Label:    Wooden Nickel
Year:    1973
    The Chicago-based Styx can trace its roots all the way back to the early 1960s, but their classic 1970s lineup didn't come together until guitarist James Young joined the band, then known as TW4, in 1970. In 1972 the band signed with the local Wooden Nickel label, changing their name to Styx in the process. The group recorded four albums for the label from 1972 to 1974, but were unable to break nationally until a power balled called Lady, from their second album, began to get airplay, first on Chicago's WLS, and then nationally. The song eventually peaked in the top 10, prompting the group to leave Wooden Nickel for the much larger A&M label, in late 1974. Meanwhile, Wooden Nickel released the opening track of Styx II, You Need Love, as a followup single to Lady in early 1975.

Artist:    Stealer's Wheel
Title:    Stuck In The Middle With You
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo promo copy)
Writer(s):    Egan/Rafferty
Label:    A&M
Year:    1973
    Stealer's Wheel was formed in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland by former schoolmates Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty in 1972. By the time their first album was released, however, Rafferty had already left the group for a solo career. The single Stuck In The Middle With You was such as success, however, that Rafferty was persuaded to rejoin the group. They were never able to duplicate the success of that first single, however, and by 1975 Stealer's Wheel had ceased to exist. Rafferty would have a huge hit in 1978 with the song Baker Street.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Sail On, Sailor
Source:    CD: Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys (originally released on LP: Holland)
Writer(s):    Wilson/Kennedy/Almer/Rieley/Parks
Label:    Capitol (original label: Brother/Reprise)
Year:    1973
    By late 1972 the Beach Boys had all but abandoned their surf roots, with their name itself being the main link with the past. At the same time they were starting to regain favor with the rock press, which had been highly critical of the band's early 1970s material. For their 19th studio album they sent an entire recording studio to the Netherlands from Californian and reconstructed it there in the village of Baambrugge. The album was submitted to Reprise Records in October of 1972, but was rejected by the label for lacking a potential hit single. Lyricist Van Dyke Parks, who had been working with Brian Wilson since the aborted Smile project of 1966-67, hastily conferred with executives at Warner Brothers Records (owners of Reprise), and came up with a plan. He and Wilson had recently completed a demo of a song called Sail On, Sailor, which he then played for the label. The shirts liked the tune, and convinced the band to record the song in the studio as a replacement for what the label saw as the weakest track on the original version of Holland, a song called We Got Love. By the time the track was completed, several other people, including the band's manager, had claimed co-writing credits on the song, and Sail On, Sailor was added to Holland. The album was released and Sail On, Sailor became the most successful Beach Boys single of the decade. Surprisingly, the song did even better on progressive rock radio, becoming a staple of the format.

Artist:     Led Zeppelin
Title:     Your Time Is Gonna Come/Black Mountain Side/Communication Breakdown
Source:     LP: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s):    Page/Jones/Bonham
Year:     1969
    One of the great ironies of Led Zeppelin is that half the members of a band that was revered for its live performances were in fact in-demand studio musicians long before they started performing live. Your Time Is Gonna Come and Black Mountain Side, from the debut Zeppelin album was written by those two members, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The two songs run together on the album, and are immediately followed by the B side of the band's first single, Communication Breakdown. I'm pretty sure that back when the album first came out, some unknown DJ was unable to stop the turntable fast enough to cut off Communication Breakdown and ended up just letting the two and a half minute track play on through. Somebody liked the way it sounded and the three have been played as a continuous set ever since. Who am I to argue with tradition?

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Four Sticks
Source:    Led Zeppelin IV
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    One of the most difficult songs to record in the Led Zeppelin catalog, Four Sticks, from the fourth Zeppelin album, did not have a name until John Bonham's final drum track was recorded. He reportedly was having such a hard time with the song that he ended up using four drumsticks, rather than the usual two (don't ask me how he held the extra pair) and beat on his drums as hard as he could, recording what he considered the perfect take in the process.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s):    Trad. Arr. Page
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1968
    It is the nature of folk music that a song often gets credited to one writer when in fact it is the work of another. This is due to the fact that folk singers tend to share their material liberally with other folk singers, who often make significant changes to the work before passing it along to others. Such is the case with Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You, which was originally conceived by EC-Berkeley student Anne Johannsen in the late 1950s and performed live on KPFA radio in 1960. Another performer on the same show, Janet Smith, developed the song further and performed it at Oberlin College, where it was heard by audience member Joan Baez. Baez asked Smith for a tape of her songs and began performing the song herself.  Baez used it as the opening track on her album, Joan Baez In Concert, Part One, but it was credited as "traditional", presumably because Baez herself had no knowledge of who had actually written the song. Baez eventually discovered the true origins of the tune, and later pressings gave credit to Anne Bredon, who had divorced her first husband, Lee Johannsen and married Glen Bredon since writing the song. Jimmy Page had an early pressing of the Baez album, so when he reworked the song for inclusion on the first Led Zeppelin album, he went with "traditional, arranged Page" as the writer. Robert Plant, who worked with Page on the arrangement, was not originally given credits for contractual reasons, although later editions of the album give credit to Page, Plant and Bredon.

Artist:    T2
Title:    Careful Sam
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution
Writer(s):    Peter Dunton
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2013
    T2, consisting of drummer Peter Dunton, bassist Bernie Jinks and guitarist Keith Cross, released only one album, It'll All Work Out In Boomland, in 1970. The album did not get much support from their label (British Decca) and plans for a second LP were scrapped before any new material got beyond the demo stage. One of those demo tapes, however, finally surfaced on a CD set called Love, Poetry And Revolution on the Grapefruit label in 2013. Written by Dunton, the track has some outstanding guitar work from Cross.

Artist:    Mountain
Title:    Don't Look Around
Source:    CD: The Best Of Mountain (originally released on LP: Nantucket Sleighride)
Writer(s):    West/Palmer/Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    Windfall/Columbia
Year:    1971
    One of Mountain's most popular tracks was Nantucket Sleighride, released on an album of the same name in 1971. The opening track of that album, Don't Look Around, is a power rocker that was considered good enough in its own right to make the band's greatest hits collection.

As always, I'd appreciate any feedback and/or questions you might have, so feel free to contact me.

the hermit

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1631 (starts 8/3/16)

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let Me In
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    Marty Balin deserves recognition for his outstanding abilities as a leader. Most people don't even realize he was the founder of Jefferson Airplane, yet it was Balin who brought together the diverse talents of what would become San Francisco's most successful band of the 60s and managed to keep the band together through more than its share of controversies. One indication of his leadership abilities is that he encouraged Paul Kantner to sing lead on Let Me In, a song that the two of them had written together for the band's debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, despite the fact that Balin himself had no other onstage role than to sing lead vocals.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Richard Cory
Source:    LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    My ultra-cool 9th-grade English teacher brought in a copy of Simon And Garfunkel's Sounds Of Silence album one day. As a class, we deconstructed the lyrics of two of the songs on that album: A Most Peculiar Man and Richard Cory. Both songs deal with suicide, but under vastly different circumstances. Whereas A Most Peculiar Man is about a lonely man who lives an isolated existence as an anonymous resident of a boarding house, Richard Cory deals with a character who is a pillar of society, known and envied by many. Too bad most high school English classes weren't that interesting.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Steve's Song
Source:    Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s):    Steve Katz
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Verve Folkways)
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 similarly-styled tunes, such as Sometimes In Winter, as a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I've Got A Way Of My Own
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    L. Ransford
Label:    Sundazed/Reprise
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2016
    Not all of the songs the Electric Prunes recorded during sessions for their debut LP, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), ended up being included on the album itself. Among the unused tracks was a cover of a Hollies B side called I've Got A Way Of My Own. The song was actually one of the first tunes that the band recorded, while they were still, in the words of vocalist James Lowe, "searching for a sound and style we could capture on a record." Following the sessions the band decided that harmonies were better left to other groups, and I've Got A Way Of My Own remained unreleased until the 21st century.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Boom Boom
Source:    CD: Gloria
Writer(s):    John Lee Hooker
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    A good portion of the first Shadows Of Knight LP, Gloria, was made up of covers of 50s Chicago blues songs originally issued on the Chess label. Unlike the Animals and the Rolling Stones, whose debut efforts included many of the same covers, including John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom, the Shadows had the advantage of actually being from (suburban) Chicago, giving them a bit more intimate perspective than their British counterparts. The results speak for themselves.

Artist:        Yardbirds
Title:        Shapes Of Things
Source:       Simulated stereo LP: Great Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:        Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label:        Epic
Year:        1966
        Unlike earlier Yardbirds hits, 1966's Shapes Of Things was written by members of the band. The song, featuring one of guitarist Jeff Beck's most distinctive solos, just barely missed the top 10 in the US, although it was a top 5 single in the UK.

Artist:    ? And The Mysterians
Title:    I Can't Get Enough Of You Baby
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:    Randle/Linzer
Label:    Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year:    1967
    ? And The Mysterians' 1966 hit 96 Tears was the last song on the legendary Cameo label to hit the top 10 before the label went bankrupt in 1967 (and was bought by Allan Klein, who still reissues old Cameo-Parkway recordings on his Abkco label). Shortly before that bankruptcy was declared, however, the group released Can't Get Enough Of You Baby, which stalled out in the lower reaches of the charts. The song itself, however, finally achieved massive popularity at the end of the century, when a new version of the tune by Smash Mouth went to the top of the charts.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Pictures Of Lily
Source:    Mono CD: Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    Pictures of Lily was the first single released by the Who in 1967. It hit the #4 spot on the British charts, but only made it to #51 in the US. This was nothing new for the Who, as several of their early singles, including Substitute, I Can't Explain and even My Generation hit the British top 10 without getting any US airplay (or chart action) at all.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Wear Your Love Like Heaven
Source:    LP: A Gift From A Flower To A Garden
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic
Year:    1967
    Following the release of his Mellow Yellow album in early 1967 Donovan decided to take a break from the studio, only recording a pair of singles over the next few months. Finally, in October, the Scottish singer/songwriter began work on his next album, a double LP to be called A Gift From A Flower To A Garden. The first disc was a collection of electric pop songs subtitled Wear Your Love Like Heaven, while the second, For Little Ones, featured more acoustic material and was oriented to a younger audience. As a way of hedging their bets, Epic Records also issued the project as a pair of separate albums. The lead single from the album was the title track from the first disc, which also opens the entire album. The song did fairly well on the charts, peaking at #23 in the US, and is considered a highlight of Donovan's psychedelic period.

Artist:     Music Machine
Title:     Talk Me Down
Source:     CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer:     Sean Bonniwell
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:     1967
     Talk Me Down was, according to composer Sean Bonniwell, quite possibly the first punk rock song ever conceived. The tune was one of four songs recorded on a demo at Original Sound when the Music Machine still called itself the Ragamuffins. This recording was cut in 1967 by the band's original lineup, but not released until Warner Brothers released an album called Bonniwell Music Machine later that year. By the time of the album's release, all the members of the original band except Bonniwell had moved on to other things, and a new lineup was featured on several tracks on the album.

Artist:    Velvet Underground
Title:    Head Held High
Source:    LP: Loaded
Writer(s):    Lou Reed
Label:    Cotillion
Year:    1970
    The fourth Velvet Underground album, Loaded, saw many changes for the band. The band had just switched record labels to Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary, and had been told by the people at Atlantic to produce an album "loaded with hits". The band did its best to oblige the label, although primary songwriter Lou Reed would later claim that many of the songs on the album had been edited and resequenced without his permission. In fact, Loaded was the final VU album to feature co-founder and primary songwriter Lou Reed, who left the band before the LP was released. It was also the first album recorded without the participation of drummer Maureen Tucker, who was pregnant at the time. Bassist Doug Yule took a greater part in the album's production and singing lead on four songs. Yule also played lead guitar on several tracks, including Head Held High, which opens side two of the album.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Bad Moon Rising
Source:    CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer:    John Fogerty
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1969
    It's a mystery to me why the Woodstock movie completely ignores the presence of Creedence Clearwater Revival, especially considering that they were at their commercial peak at the time of the performance and still riding high on the charts when the movie itself came out. The only reason I can think of was that the owner of Fantasy Records, being a control freak who basically owned the rights to all things Creedence, was probably unwilling to grant permission for the band to appear in the movie, or on either of the soundtrack albums released in the early 1970s. Among the songs that CCR performed at Woodstock was Bad Moon Rising, one of a series of consecutive # 2 hits for the band. The recording of the performance was finally released in 2009 as part of a commemorative box set called Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm.

Artist:        Randy Newman
Title:        Last Night I Had A Dream
Source:      Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:        Randy Newman
Label:        Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:        1968
        Randy Newman has, over the course of the past fifty-plus years, established himself as a Great American Writer of Songs. His work includes dozens of hit singles (over half of which were performed by other artists), nearly two dozen movie scores and eleven albums as a solo artist. Newman has won five Grammys, as well as two Oscars and Three Emmys. Last Night I Had A Dream was Newman's second single for the Reprise label  (his third overall), coming out the same year as his first LP, which did not include the song.

Artist:     Otis Redding
Title:     Try A Little Tenderness
Source:     LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer:     Woods/Campbell/Connelly
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
            One of the most electrifying performances at the legendary Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 happened on Saturday night during a rainstorm. Otis Redding (backed by Booker T. and the MGs, with Wayne Jackson on trumpet and Andrew Love on sax) was scheduled for the closing slot, but due to technical problems earlier in the day found himself with only enough time for five songs before the festival had to shut down for the night. At the end of his closing song, Try A Little Tenderness, Redding can be heard saying "I've got to go now. I don't want to go" as the festival's organizers, mindful of the terms of their permit, were rushing him off the stage.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Ruby Tuesday
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    One of the most durable songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Ruby Tuesday was originally intended to be the B side of their 1967 single Let's Spend The Night Together. Many stations, however, balked at the subject matter of the A side and began playing Ruby Tuesday instead, which is somewhat ironic considering speculations as to the subject matter of the song (usually considered to be about a groupie of the band's acquaintance, although Mick Jagger has said it was about Keith Richards' ex-girlfriend).

Artist:    Love
Title:    Alone Again Or
Source:    CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    House For Everyone
Source:    CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind (aka Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s):    Dave Mason
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    Although Traffic is now known mostly as a Steve Winwood band, many of their earliest songs were the creation of guitarist Dave Mason, whose songs tended to be a bit more psychedelic than Winwood's. One example is House For Everyone from the band's 1967 debut LP, which creatively uses tape edits to simulate a music box being wound up with short snippets of song sneaking through between turns of the key at the beginning of the track.

Artist:    Cat Stevens
Title:    Matthew And Son
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Cat Stevens (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Matthew And Son)
Writer:    Cat Stevens
Label:    A&M (original label: Deram)
Year:    1967
    Although best known as one of the top singer-songwriters of the early to mid-1970s, Cat Stevens actually began recording in 1967, and charted several hits in the UK before achieving international fame. One of the earliest was the title track to his first LP, Matthew And Son. Although the song was released in the US on the Deram label, it failed to chart.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Burning of the Midnight Lamp
Source:    LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    For the first few months of their existence as a band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience were an entirely British phenomena, despite being led by an American guitarist/vocalist. By mid-1967 the group had released three singles that made the UK charts, as well as an album that was only kept out of the # 1 spot by something called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The band's next project was Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, the most complex piece of production yet attempted by the band, and their first using state of the art eight-track recording equipment. The song had two notable firsts: it was the first song to feature Hendrix playing a keyboard instrument (a harpsichord) in addition to his usual guitar, and it was his first recording to use the new "wah-wah" effect. Burning of the Midnight Lamp was not released as a single in the US however, and Hendrix revisited the master tapes the following year, creating a new stereo mix for his album Electric Ladyland.

Artist:    Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title:    Yellow Brick Road
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Van Vliet/Bermann
Label:    Buddah/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    Following a pair of singles for Herb Alpert's A&M that garnered modest airplay on a handful of Los Angeles area radio stations, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band set out to record a set of heavily R&B flavored demos. The label, however, didn't like what they heard and soon dropped the band from their lineup. Undeterred, the group soon signed with Kama Sutra's brand new subsidiary label, Buddah. The resulting album, Safe As Milk, was the first LP to be released on the new label. Among the more experimental tracks on the album was Yellow Brick Road, a mono mix of which has recently been reissued as the B side of a single. Also of note is the presence of 20-year-old Ry Cooder on slide guitar.

Artist:    George Harrison
Title:    Dream Scene
Source:    CD: Wonderwall Music
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    Here's one for trivia buffs: What was the first LP released on the Apple label? If you answered The Beatles (White Album) you'd be close, but not quite on the money. The actual first Apple album was something called Wonderwall Music from a film called (what else?) Wonderwall. The album itself was quite avant garde, with virtually no commercial potential. One of the most notable tracks on the album is Dream Scene, an audio collage that predates John Lennon's Revolution 9 by several months.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Season Of The Witch
Source:    LP: Super Session
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1968
            In 1968 Al Kooper, formerly of the Blues Project, formed a new group he called Blood, Sweat and Tears. Then, after recording one album with the new group, he promptly quit the band. He then booked studio time and called in his friend Michael Bloomfield (who had just left own his new band the Electric Flag) for a recorded jam session. Due to his chronic insomnia and inclination to use heroin to deal with said insomnia, Bloomfield was unable to record an entire album's worth of material, and Kooper called in another friend, Stephen Stills (who had recently left the Buffalo Springfield) to complete the project. The result was the Super Session album, which surprisingly (considering that it was the first album of its kind), made the top 10 album chart. One of the most popular tracks on Super Session was an extended version of Donovan's "Season of the Witch", featuring Stills using a wah-wah pedal (a relatively new invention at the time). Kooper initially felt that the basic tracks needed some sweetening, so he brought in a horn section to record additional overdubs.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Turtle Blues
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Janis Joplin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Sometimes I do play favorites. Turtle Blues, from the Big Brother And The Holding Company album Cheap Thrills, is certainly one of them. Besides vocalist Janis Joplin, who wrote the tune, the only other band member heard on the track is guitarist Peter Albin. Legendary producer John Simon provides the piano playing.

Artist:    Strangeloves
Title:    I Want Candy
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Feldman/Goldstein/Gottehrer/Berns
Label:    Rhino (original label: Bang)
Year:    1966
    In the wake of the British Invasion, some American artists tried to sound as British as possible, often deliberately letting radio listeners think that they themselves might be a British band. A trio of New York songwriters, Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer, took such deceptions to a whole new level. Rather than try to pass themselves off as a British band, the three invented an elaborate backstory that saw them as sons of an Australian sheepherder who had invented a new shearing process and had used the profits from the venture to form a band called the Strangeloves, who were about to become the Next Big Thing. Although the story never really caught on, the group managed to record two of the all-time great party songs, I Want Candy and Night Time, as well as producing a single called Hang On Sloopy for a band they discovered on the road called the McCoys (although the instrumental tracks were actually from the Strangeloves' own first LP). According to press releases the pounding drum beat on I Want Candy was made by Masai drums that the band members had found while on safari in Africa, which just goes to show you can find just about anything in the New York City area if you know where to look.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Sky Saxon
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1965
    One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. airwaves was the Seeds' debut single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine, released in 1965. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album the following year. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, predating the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    So Long
Source:    Mono LP: Kinda Kinks
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    The second Kinks album, Kinda Kinks, was made over a period of two weeks immediately following the band's Asian tour. As such, many of the tracks sound a bit rough, as if they needed some finishing touches that the band didn't have time to add. It wasn't a matter of content; in fact Ray Davies himself said he thought the album had better songs than their first effort (So Long, for example). Davies has also said, however, that the entire album was "just far too rushed" and that "a bit more care should have been taken with it."

Artist:    Them
Title:    Just A Little Bit
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Backtrackin' (originally released in UK on LP: The Angry Young Them)
Writer(s):    Thornton/Washington/Bass/Brown
Label:    London (original label: Decca)
Year:    1965
    Like many mid-60s albums, the debut effort from Belfast's Them had a slightly different track lineup on either side of the Atlantic, with a few of the songs from the British version left off the American album. One of the songs from The Angry Young Them that was left of its US counterpart (titled simply Them) was a remake of a 1959 Roscoe Gordon tune called Just A Little Bit. The song finally appeared in the US on an album called Backtrackin' in 1974. By then, however, LPs were being pressed only in stereo, whereas the original recordings used were all mixed monoraully. Rather than use the mono mixes, London Records chose to create "fake stereo" mixes of the songs on the LP. Although there are no production credits given on the album cover or label, I suspect Allan Klein was somehow involved in putting this album together.

Artist:    Harbinger Complex
Title:    I Think I'm Down
Source:    Mono British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year:    1966
    Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. Freemont, California's Harbinger Complex is a good example. The group was one of many that were signed by Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records and its various subsidiaries such as Time and Brent. The band had already released one single on the independent Amber label and were recording at Golden State Recorders in San Francisco when they were discovered by Shad, who signed them to Brent. The band's first single for the label was the British-influenced I Think I'm Down, which came out in 1966 and was included on Mainstream's 1967 showcase album With Love-A Pot Of Flowers.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Omaha
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Skip Spence
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Roll With It
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Children Of The Future)
Writer:    Steve Miller
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Right from the beginning, the Steve Miller band stood out stylistically from other San Francisco area bands. This was in part because Miller was only recently arrived from Chicago, which had a music tradition of its own. But a lot of the credit has to go to Miller himself, who had the sense to give his bandmates (such as his college buddy Boz Scaggs) the freedom to provide songs for the band in addition to his own material. One example of the latter is Roll With It from the group's 1968 debut LP, Children Of The Future.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Outside Was Night
Source:    LP: Blues Image
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    There are striking similarities between the Hour Glass of Los Angeles and Blues Image, originally from Tampa, Florida, but operating out of L.A by 1969. Both were club bands that visiting musicians would go out of their way to catch when they were in town, often sticking around for a bit of after hours jamming. Both bands featured guitarists from the Southeastern US (Duane Allman and Mike Pinera) who would go on to greater fame with other bands. And both bands, for whatever reasons, were never able to generate the same kind of excitement in the studio that they did when they played live. Unlike the Hour Glass, however, Blues Image managed to at least play the same style of music in the studio as they did in their club sets; Outside Was Night, from their debut LP, is a good example.

Artist:     First Edition
Title:     Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Mickey Newbury
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     Kenny Rogers has, on more than one occassion, tried to put as much distance between himself and the 1968 First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) as possible. I feel it's my duty to remind everyone that he was the lead vocalist on the recording, and that this song was the one that launched his career. So there.

Artist:    Mystery Trend
Title:    Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nagle/Cuff
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.