Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1641 (starts 10/12/16)

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Last Train To Clarksville
Source:    CD: The Monkees' Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Monkees)
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1966
    The song that introduced the world to the Monkees, Last Train To Clarksville, was actually a bit of an anomaly for the group. For one thing, most of the early Monkees recordings utilized the services of various Los Angeles based studio musicians known collectively as the Wrecking Crew. Last Train To Clarksville, however, was recorded by the Candy Store Prophets, a local band that included Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote and produced the song. The song was released as a single on August 16, 1966,  two months in advance of the first Monkees album, and hit the #1 spot on the charts in early November. Last Train To Clarksville was also included in seven episodes of the Monkees TV show, the most of any song.

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    Find The Hidden Door
Source:    British Import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released in UK on LP: Before The Dream Faded)
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Cherry Red)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1982
    One of London't most legendary psychedelic bands was actually from California. The story of the Misunderstood started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most West Coast bands of the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock and roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes, including the addition of lead vocalist Rick Brown. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, and Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were joined by a local guitarist, Tony Hill.  Ravencroft's brother Alan got the band a deal with Fontana Records, resulting in a single in late 1966, I Can Take You To The Sun, that took the British pop scene by storm. In addition to that single, the band recorded a handful of outstanding tracks that remained unreleased until the 1980s. Among those unreleased tracks was a masterpiece called Find The Hidden Door, written (as were most of the songs the band recorded in London) by Brown and Hill.  Problems with their work visas soon derailed the Misunderstood, and the band members soon found themselves being deported back to the US, and in one case, drafted into the US Army.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    What Am I Living For
Source:    Mono LP: Animalization
Writer:    Jay/Harris
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    Throughout their existence the original Animals were known for their love of American Blues and R&B music. In fact, hit singles aside, almost everything they recorded was a cover of an R&B hit. Among the covers on their 1966 LP Animalism (released in the US as Animalization) was What Am I Living For, originally recorded by the legendary Chuck Willis. The original version was released shortly after Willis's death from cancer in 1958, and is considered a classic. The Animals, thanks in large part to their obvious respect and admiration for the song, actually managed to improve on the original (as was often the case with their cover songs).

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    The Wind Blows Your Hair
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Saxon/Bigelow
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1967
    The Wind Blows Your Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released the whole concept of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news and the single went nowhere.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Bluebird
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    When it comes right down to it Buffalo Springfield has one of the highest ratios of songs recorded to songs played on the radio of any band in history, especially if you only count the two albums worth of material that was released while the band was still active. This is probably because Buffalo Springfield had more raw songwriting talent than just about any two other bands. Although Neil Young was just starting to hit his stride as a songwriter, bandmate Stephen Stills was already at an early peak, as songs like Bluebird clearly demonstrate.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    See Emily Play
Source:    Mono CD: Relics (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Following up on their first single, Arnold Layne, Pink Floyd found even greater chart success (at least in their native England) with See Emily Play. Released in June of 1967, the song went all the way to the #6 spot on the British charts. In the US the song failed to chart as a single, although it was included on the US version of Pink Floyd's debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. The "Emily" in question is reportedly the sculptor Emily Young, who in those days was nicknamed the "psychedelic schoolgirl" at London's legendary UFO club.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Prelude: Happiness/I'm So Glad
Source:    LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Evans/Lord/Paice/Blackmore/Simper/James
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    Deep Purple was originally the brainchild of vocalist Chris Curtis, whose idea was to have a band called Roundabout that utilized a rotating cast of musicians onstage, with only Curtis himself being up there for the entire gig. The first two musicians recruited were organist Jon Lord and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, both of whom came aboard in late 1967. Curtis soon lost interest in the project, and Lord and Blackmore decided to stay together and form what would become Deep Purple. After a few false starts the lineup stabilized with the addition of bassist Nicky Simper, drummer Ian Paice and vocalist Rod Evans. The group worked up a songlist and used their various connections to get a record deal with a new American record label, Tetragrammaton, which was partially owned by actor/comedian Bill Cosby. This in turn led to a deal to release the band's recordings in England on EMI's Parlophone label as well, although Tetragrammaton had first rights to all the band's material, including the classically-influenced Prelude: Happiness, which leads directly into a cover of the Skip James classic I'm So Glad. The band's first LP, Shades Of Deep Purple, was released in the US in July of 1968 and in the UK in September of the same year. The album was a major success in the US, where the single Hush made it into the top five. In the UK, however, it was panned by the rock press and failed to make the charts. This would prove to be the pattern the band would follow throughout its early years; it was only after Evans and Simper were replaced by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover that the band would find success in their native land. (Check out this week's edition of Rockin' in the Days of Confusion for a classic track from the revised Deep Purple lineup).

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    In Held Twas I
Source:    LP: Shine On Brightly
Writer:    Brooker/Fisher/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1968
    Although the idea of grouping songs together as "suites" was first tried by Jefferson Airplane on their 1967 album After Bathing At Baxter's, Procol Harum's 17-minute long In Held Twas I, from their 1968 album Shine On Brightly, is usually cited as the first progressive rock suite. The title comes from the first word of each section of the piece that contains vocals (several sections are purely instrumental). The work contains some of the best early work from guitarist Robin Trower, who would leave the group a few years later for a solo career. Shine On Brightly was the last Procol Harum album to include organist Matthew Fisher, who came up with the famous opening riff for the group's first hit, A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    An Untitled Protest
Source:    LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released on LP: Together)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the Summer Of Love, with its emphasis on peace, love and mind-expanding substances, was only a memory in the San Francisco area. In its place a new cynicism was beginning to take hold, brought on by a combination of increased racial tensions and elevated anxiety over the ongoing war in Vietnam nationally and an influx of harder, less beneficial drugs into the Bay Area itself. The music of local bands such as Country Joe And The Fish was becoming more cynical as well, as An Untitled Protest from the band's third LP, Together, illustrates.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Dr. Livingstone, I Presume
Source:    CD: In Search Of The Lost Chord
Writer(s):    Ray Thomas
Label:    Deram
Year:    1968
    The Moody Blues may have been In Search Of The Lost Chord, but when they got to Africa they had to say they had run into Dr. Livingstone, I Presume. (Well, I tried).

Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Mony Mony
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    James/Gentry/Cordell/Bloom
Label:    Priority (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1968
    Sometime around 1964, a kid named Tommy James took his band, the Shondells, into a recording studio to record a simple song called Hanky Panky. The song was released on the Roulette label and went absolutely nowhere. Two years later a Pittsburgh DJ, looking for something different to make his show stand out from the crowd, decided to dig out a copy of the record and play it as a sort of on-air audition. The audience loved it, and the DJ soon contacted James, inviting him and the Shondells to make a personal appearance. Unfortunately by this time there were no Shondells, so James hastily put together a new band to promote the record. It wasn't long before the word spread and Hanky Panky was a national hit. James and his new Shondells then commenced to pretty much single-handedly keep Roulette Records afloat for the next three or four years with songs like their 1968 jukebox favorite Mony Mony, one of many top 10 singles for the band.

Artist:    Napoleon XIV
Title:    They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Ha!
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Napoleon XIV
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1966
    The less said about this, the better.

Artist:    Big Stars Theory
Title:    Think Piece
Source:    10" 45 RPM Extended Play: El Paraguas
Writer(s):    Red Stars Theory
Label:    Deluxe
Year:    1995
    Red Stars Theory was formed in Seattle, Washington in early 1995 by James Bertram (guitar/vocals) Tonie Palmasani (guitar/vocals), Jeremiah Green (drums/percussion/vocals) and Jason Talley (bass guitar/vocals). By the end of the year they had released a self-titled EP (sometimes known as El Paraguas), a single and an album. The band has only recorded sporadically since then, due to all of the members also being involved in other projects. I personally find Think Piece, the last track on the original EP, to be the most interesting tune on the record.

Artist:    Liquid Scene
Title:    Leave Me Here
Source:    CD: Revolutions
Writer(s):    Becki diGregorio
Label:    Ziglain
Year:    2014
    The first track ever to get a third listen on our Advanced Psych segment is Leave Me Here, from the 2014 Liquid Scene album Revolutions. Yes, it's that good.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Under My Thumb
Source:    CD: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    With the exception of certain Beatle tracks, pretty much every popular song from the beginning of recorded music through the year 1966 had been released as a single either on 45 or 78 RPM records (and for a while in the 1950s, on both). With Under My Thumb, from the Aftermath album, the Rolling Stones proved that someone besides the fab four could record a classic that was available only as a 33 1/3 RPM LP track. In a sense, then, Aftermath can be considered the very foundation of album rock, as more and groups put their most creative energy into making albums rather than singles in the ensuing years. Thanks, Stones.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Ruby Tuesday
Source:    CD: Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Bakco (original 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:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Lady Jane
Source:     British import LP: Aftermath (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     Abkco (original label: London)
Year:     1966
     One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated separately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Mean Woman Blues
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Underground Gold (originally released in UK on LP: Autumn '66)
Writer(s):    Claude Demetrius
Label:    Liberty (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1966
    It was common for British rock bands to include cover versions of early rock 'n' roll and blues songs, along with more contempory R&B numbers on their LPs in the 1960s. As the decade wore on the groups began to rely more on their own material, although there were still many exceptions. One of these exceptions was the Spencer Davis Group, who only included a handful of originals on albums like Autumn '66. Among the many cover songs on that album was a remake of the 1957 Elvis Presley hit Mean Woman Blues, which had originally appeared on the soundtrack of the film Loving You. The Spencer Davis Group version of the song relies heavily on the vocal talents of a then 16-year-old Steve Winwood, who also played keyboards on the track.

Artist:    Cyrkle
Title:    Money To Burn
Source:    LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s):    Don Dannemann
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    By late 1966 surf music was pretty much gone from the top 40 charts. The Beach Boys, however, had managed to adapt to changing audience tastes without abandoning the distinctive vocal harmonies that had made them stand out from their early 60s contemporaries. In fact, several other bands had sprung up with similar vocal styles. One of the most successful of these (at least in the short term) was the Cyrkle. Led by vocalist/guitarist Don Dannemann, the group hit the scene with two consecutive top 10 singles, both of which were included on the band's debut LP, Red Rubber Ball. Although manager Brian Epstein had the group recording mostly songs from outside sources, there were a handful of Cyrkle originals on the album, including Danneman's Money To Burn, which was also issued as the B side to the band's third single.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Somewhere They Can't Find Me
Source:    LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The first Simon And Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning 3AM, was a fairly traditional type of folk LP. The album was originally released in late 1964, but due to lackluster sales was soon deleted from the Columbia catalog. In 1965 Paul Simon relocated to London, releasing a solo LP called the Paul Simon Songbook there. Before leaving the country, however, he and Art Garfunkel recorded two new songs in a more upbeat style that remained unreleased until 1966, when the duo reunited for a new album, Sounds of Silence. One of those two new songs was Somewhere They Can't Find Me. The song was, lyrically, a reworking of the title track of Wednesday Morning 3AM, but with entirely new music inspired by a Bert Jansch tune called Anji. As a tribute Simon included his own recording of Anji on the album immediately following Somewhere They Can't Find Me.

Artist:    Al Kooper
Title:    I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes
Source:    CD: Blues Project Anthology (originally released on LP: What's Shakin')
Writer(s):    Blind Willie Johnson
Label:    Polydor (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    In early 1966 Elektra Records, then a New York based folk and blues label, decided to put together an album called What's Shakin'. The LP featured some of the top talent appearing in and around the city's Greenwich Village area, including the Lovin' Spoonful and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. In addition to already recorded material, the album included a handful of tracks recorded specifically for the collection, including one by Al Kooper of the Blues Project, who brought along drummer Roy Blumenfeld and bassist Andy Kuhlberg for the session. The song Kooper chose to record was I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes, an old Blind Willie Johnson tune that was already in the Blues Project's repertoire but had not yet been recorded by the band. While the Blues Project version of the song recorded later that year for the Projections album is a classic piece of guitar-based blues-rock, the earlier version for What's Shakin' is built around Kooper's piano playing and has more of a Ramsey Lewis feel to it.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label:    Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1965
    San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small (at the time) city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities were then, as now, considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page).

Artist:    Del-Vetts
Title:    Last Time Around
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dennis Dahlquist
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The Del-Vetts were from Chicago's affluent North Shore. Their gimmick was to show up at a high school dance by driving their matching corvettes onto the gymnasium dance floor. Musically, like most garage/punk bands, they were heavily influenced by the British invasion bands. Unlike most garage/punk bands, who favored the Rolling Stones, the Del-Vetts were more into the Jeff Beck incarnation of the Yardbirds. The 'Vetts had a few regional hits from 1965-67, the biggest being this single issued on the Dunwich label, home of fellow Chicago suburbanites the Shadows of Knight. In retrospect, Last Time Around may well be the very first metal death rock song ever recorded.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: Electric Comic Book and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Gilbert/Scala/Esposito/Thielhelm
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1966
    The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably (of course the fact that they were on Mercury Records, one of the "big six" labels of the time, didn't hurt). 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:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    After an unsuccessful debut single (Wrapping Paper), Cream scored a bona-fide hit in the UK with their follow-up, I Feel Free. As was the case with nearly every British single at the time, the song was not included on Fresh Cream, the band's debut LP. In the US, however, singles were commonly given a prominent place on albums, and the US version of Fresh Cream actually opens with I Feel Free. To my knowledge the song, being basically a studio creation, was never performed live.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice
Source:    Simulated stereo Dutch import LP: The Singles (originally released in Europe and the UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1967
    The fourth single released in Europe and the UK by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was 1967's Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, which appeared in stereo the following year on the album Electric Ladyland. The B side of that single was a strange bit of psychedelia called The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice, which is also known in some circles as STP With LSD. The piece features Hendrix on guitar and vocals, with background sounds provided by a cast of at least dozens. Hendrix's vocals are spoken rather than sung, and resemble nothing more than a cosmic travelogue with Hendrix himself as the tour guide. Unfortunately the only US release of the track is a remix in which the vocal track is almost totally buried under everything else. I did manage to find a copy of the track on a Dutch import album called The Singles that was released in the early 1970s that uses an electronically rechanneled stereo version of the original mono mix that was first issued on the UK/EU version of the Smash Hits album in 1968. It's a fun listen.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1641 (starts 10/12/16)

Artist:     Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     Sin's A Good Man's Brother
Source:     CD: Closer To Home
Writer:     Mark Farner
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1970
     Flint, Michigan, in the mid-1960s was home to a popular local band called Terry Knight and the Pack. In 1969 pack guitarist Mark Farner and drummer Don Brewer hooked up with Mel Schacher (the former bassist of ? and the Mysterians) to form Grand Funk Railroad, with Terry Knight himself managing and producing the new band. With a raw, garage-like sound played at record high volume, Grand Funk immediately earned the condemnation of virtually every rock critic in existence. Undeterred by bad reviews, the band took their act to the road, foregoing the older venues such as bars, ballrooms and concert halls, instead booking entire sports arenas for their concerts. In the process they almost single-handedly created a business model that continues to be the industry standard. Grand Funk Railroad consistently sold out all of their performances for the next two years, earning no less than three gold records in 1970 alone.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Gimme Shelter
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Starline (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1971
    It takes cojones to record a cover version of one of the  Rolling Stones' most popular (and critically acclaimed) songs. It takes even more to do it just two years after the Stones version came out. But then, we are talking about Grand Funk Railroad, who have to be considered one of the most ballsy bands in rock history. The single version of Grand Funk's version of Gimme Shelter runs almost two minutes shorter than the version heard on the Survival album, and if you listen closely you can hear a particularly sloppy edit in the middle of Mark Farner's last guitar solo toward the end of the song.

Artist:    Hot Tuna
Title:    Half/Time Saturation
Source:    LP: Yellow Fever
Writer(s):    Kaukonen/Casady/Steeler
Label:    Grunt
Year:    1975
    Originally formed in 1969 as an offshoot of Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna started off as a mainly acoustic band doing mostly blues standards, and had performed as an opening act for the Airplane itself in 1970. In the early 1970s, with the Airplane winding down, Hot Tuna emerged as a fully electric band independent of the Airplane. In 1974 the band, which at that point consisted of guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady and drummer Bob Steeler, decided that it would be "just fun to be loud" for a while, recording three albums in 1975-76 as a power trio. The second of these three was Yellow Fever. As can be heard on the track Half/Time Saturation, they certainly succeeded.

Artist:    Aerosmith
Title:    Walking The Dog
Source:    CD: Aerosmith
Writer(s):    Rufus Thomas
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    The last track on Aerosmith's eponymous debut LP is a cover of Rufus Thomas's biggest hit, Walking The Dog. Probably not coincidentally, the song was also covered by Aerosmith's idols, the Rolling Stones, on their debut album.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Must Be Love
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bolin/Cook
Label:    Atco
Year:    1974
    One thing you have to say for the James Gang: they did not give up easily. After losing their star, guitarist/vocalist Joe Walsh, in 1971, the remaining two members of the band, drummer Jim Fox and bassist Dale Peters, could have just called it quits. Instead, they recruited vocalist Roy Kenner and guitarist Dominic Troiano for a pair of albums that really didn't make much of an impression, either critically or commercially. After Troiano left in early 1974 they lost their contract with ABC Records, but once again, the James Gang refused to surrender. Instead they found guitarist Tommy Bolin (formerly of Zephyr) and landed a contract with the Atco label. The first James Gang album with Bolin, was considered their strongest effort since Walsh's departure, thanks to tracks like Must Be Love. The song, co-written by Bolin, was also issued as a single in 1974. Bolin would go on to even greater fame, both as a solo artist and as a member of Deep Purple (temporarily replacing Richie Blackmore) before succumbing to a drug overdose in his late 20s.

Artist:    Five Man Electrical Band
Title:    Signs
Source:    Simulated stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Les Emerson
Label:    Lionel
Year:    1971
    Everybody has at least one song they have fond memories of hearing on the radio while riding around in a friend's car on a hot summer evening. Signs, from Canada's Five Man Electrical Band, is one of mine.

Artist:    Peter Frampton
Title:    Penny For Your Thoughts/(I'll Give You) Money
Source:    LP: Frampton Comes Alive
Writer(s):    Peter Frampton
Label:    A&M
Year:    1976
    Most artists establish themselves with a series of studio recordings (generally including a hit single or two) before releasing a live album featuring performances of their most popular songs. Peter Frampton would have done that as well, except for the fact that his four studio albums preceding Frampton Comes Alive were all commercial flops. To be honest, before 1976 most people had never even heard of Peter Frampton, let alone any of his music. Yet, despite all this, Frampton Comes Alive is one of the most successful live albums ever recorded; in fact, it was the best selling album of 1976 and was among the top 20 sellers of 1977 as well. The album produced three hit singles, one of which, Do You Feel Like I Do, ran over seven minutes in length in edited form (the album version was more than 14 minutes long).The B side of that single was a short acoustic instrumental piece called Penny For Your Thoughts, which on the album segues directly into the hard-rocking (I'll Give You) Money.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    Almost Cut My Hair
Source:    LP: déjà vu
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Almost Cut My Hair could have been the longest track on the Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young album déjà vu. As originally recorded it ran about 10 minutes in length. However, it was decided to fade the cut out starting at around the four-minute mark, leaving Neil Young's Country Girl (which was actually a suite of song fragments) as the longest track on the LP. Nonetheless, even at its shorter-than-recorded released length, David Crosby's counter-cultural anthem stands out as one of the band's most memorable recordings, and is arguably the single track that best incorporates Neil Young's unique lead guitar style into a group that is known mostly for its vocal harmonies.

Artist:    Stevie Wonder
Title:    Living For The City
Source:    LP: Innervisions
Writer(s):    Stevie Wonder
Label:    Tamla
Year:    1973
    As good as the single version of Living For The City (which was a huge hit in 1973) was, it pales in comparison to the original LP version of the Stevie Wonder classic. The longer version incorporates a bit of audio theater depicting a man boarding a bus bound for New York City. On his arrival he is handed a package by a street hustler with instructions to deliver it to someone nearby. The man is immediately arrested and given a long prison sentence for drug trafficking. The track, taken as a whole, paints a bleak picture of Afro-American life in the 1970s.

\Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    Move Over
Source:    CD: Pearl
Writer(s):    Janis Joplin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    1970 had been a good year for Janis Joplin. She had disbanded the disappointing Kozmik Blues Band and was nearing completion of a new album (Pearl) with a new group (the Full Tilt Boogie Band) and a new producer (Paul Rothchild), who was entirely supportive of her musical abilities. Unlike previous bands, Joplin's new group spent considerable time in the studio working on material for the album, often developing the arrangements with the tape machines running, much like Jimi Hendrix was known to do. The resulting album was musically far tighter than her previous efforts, with a mixture of cover songs and original material such as the opening track, Move Over, written by Joplin herself. Sadly, Joplin's problems ran deeper than just musical issues and she did not live to see her final album completed.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Child In Time
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    One of the most powerful antiwar songs ever recorded, Child In Time appeared on the LP Deep Purple In Rock. The album is generally considered to be the beginning of the band's "classic" period and features the lineup of Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Ian Gillan (vocals), Roger Glover (bass), Jon Lord (keyboards) and Ian Paice (drums). The song itself (which runs over ten minutes in length) was a mainstay of early 70s rock radio stations, but is rarely heard on modern classic rock stations.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1640 (starts 10/5/16)

Artist:    Mothers Of Invention
Title:    You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here
Source:    CD: Freak Out!
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year:    1966
    Once upon a time in a semi-mythical city known as Los Angeles there was a bar band called the Soul Giants. This band, led by one Frank Zappa, was known for its rendition of blues and R&B songs, but was slowly adding several original tunes written by Zappa. In 1966 producer Tom Wilson, who had recently relocated to L.A. from New York, signed the Soul Giants to the Verve label, believing them to be (according to Zappa) a white blues band in the vein of New York's Blues Project, whose first two albums Wilson had produced. Although he soon discovered that the newly-rechristened Mothers were far more experimental than he had at first thought, he became an ardent supporter of the band, even risking his own position with the label to secure additional funding for what would become Freak Out, the first double-LP debut album in rock music history. Musically  the album covers a lot of ground, including R&B, doo-wop, blues-rock and even avant-garde classical in the vein of John Kay. Zappa himself later referred to Freak Out as a concept album satirizing American pop culture. Although it appears as the last track of the first LP, You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here is a natural show opener, and is being used as such to open  this week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    The Birdman Of Alkatrash
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Mark Weitz
Label:    Uni
Year:    1967
    The Birdman of Alkatrash was originally intended to be an A side. For some reason radio stations instead began playing the other side of the record and it became one of the biggest hits of 1967. That other side? Incense and Peppermints.

Artist:    October Country
Title:    My Girlfriend Is A Witch
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Michael Lloyd
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the L.A. under-age club scene was winding down, and several now out of work bands were making last (and sometimes only) attempts at garnering hits in the studio. One such band was October Country, whose first release had gotten a fair amount of local airplay, but who had become bogged down trying to come up with lyrics for a follow-up single. Enter Michael Lloyd, recently split from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and looking to become a record producer. Lloyd not only produced and wrote the lyrics for My Girlfriend Is A Witch, he also ended up playing drums on the record as well.

Artist:    Q'65
Title:    Cry In The Night
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the Netherlands as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Bieler/Nuyens/Baar
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    Formed in the Hague in 1965, Holland's Q'65 were living proof that you didn't have to have anglo roots to rock out in the 1960s. The group, consisting of Wim Beiler on vocals and harmonica, Frank Nuyens and Joop Roelofs on guitars, Peter Vink on bass and Jar Baar on drums, recorded several songs for the Decca label in late 1965, the first of which was issued as a single in early 1966. Their second single, The Life I Live, featured an equally strong B side, Cry In The Night, that could easily stand beside punk classics by groups like the Pretty Things or the Shadows Of Knight. Q'65 continued to release records in the Netherlands for various labels through the early 1970s.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Mother's Little Helper
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1966
    By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.

Artist:    Mouse And The Traps
Title:    Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Henderson/Weiss
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year:    1966
    Mouse (Ronnie Weiss) was, for a time, the most popular guy in Tyler, Texas, at least among the local youth. His band, Mouse and the traps, had a series of regional hits that garnered airplay at stations all across the state (and a rather large state at that). Although Mouse's first big hit, A Public Execution, had a strong Dylan feel to it, subsequent releases covered a wide range of styles, such as the garage-rock of his 1966 single Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice.

Artist:      Young Rascals
Title:     Good Lovin'
Source:      CD: Time Peace-The Rascals' Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Clark/Resnick
Label:    Atlantic
Year:     1966
     The most successful band ever to come from Long Island was originally called the Rascals. Atlantic Records, for reasons now unknown, convinced the band to add the word "Young" to their name, which was how they were known until 1968 or so, when they went back to their original appellation. Among their many well-known hits was Good Lovin', one of the few songs that deserves the tag "iconic".

Artist:     Bob Dylan
Title:     It Ain't Me Babe
Source:     Mono CD: Best of the Original Mono Recordings (originally released on LP: Another Side Of Bob Dylan)
Writer:     Bob Dylan
Label:     Columbia/Legacy
Year:     1964
     One of Bob Dylan's best known songs was It Ain't Me Babe, from his 1964 album Another Side Of Bob Dylan. The song was electrified by the Turtles the following year, becoming their first hit single.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Rock Coast Blues/Magoo
Source:    LP: I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Although not as strong an album as their debut LP seven months earlier, Country Joe And The Fish's second effort for Vanguard, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die, is nonetheless a classic slice of vintage 1967 San Francisco psychedelia, as can plainly be heard on Rock Coast Blues, which segues into a spacy thing called Magoo.

Artist:    Wild Flowers
Title:    More Than Me
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    The Wildflowers
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Aster)
Year:    1967
    Phoenix, Arizona, was home to the Wildflowers, a band that included bassist Michael Bruce, who would go on to become a founding member of Alice Cooper. The Wildflowers only released a couple of singles on the local Aster label, the second of which was More Than Me, released in 1967.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Hideaway
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Underground)
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After the moderately successful first Electric Prunes album, producer David Hassinger loosened the reigns a bit for the followup, Underground. Among the original tunes on Underground was Hideaway, a song that probably would have been a better choice as a single than what actually got released: a novelty tune called Dr. Feelgood written by Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, who had also written the band's first hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).

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.

Artist:    "E" Types
Title:    Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    The E-Types were originally from Salinas, California, which at the time was known for it's sulfiric smell by travelers along US 101. As many people from Salinas apparently went to "nearby" San Jose (about 60 miles to the north) as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. The Bonner/Gordon songwriting team were just a couple months away from getting huge royalty checks from the Turtles' Happy Together when Put The Clock Back On The Wall was released in early 1967. The song takes its title from a popular phrase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space) it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    The Ballad Of You & Me & Pooniel (live long version)
Source:    CD: After Bathing At Baxter's (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    Jefferson Airplane's original plan for their third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, was to open the LP with a live, eleven-minute version of The Ballad Of You & Me & Pooniel. Plans changed, and a shorter studio version of the track was instead included as part of the first of six suites that made up the final album. This is the original live recording of the song, included as a bonus track on the remastered CD version of After Bathing At Baxter's.

Artist:    Velvet Illusions
Title:    Acid Head
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Weed/Radford
Label:    Rhino (original label: Metromedia, also released on Tell Records)
Year:    1967
    Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a suburban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle scene as one of their own) the Illusions backtracked the Prunes steps, leaving their native Yakima and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut this lone single, Acid Head, before calling it quits.

Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Fanfare-Fire Poem/Fire
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Writer(s):    Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label:    Polydor (mono version not released in US)
Year:    1968
    When the master tapes for the debut album of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown were sent over to the US, the people at Atlantic Records were understandably blown away by the creativity and sheer bizarreness of what they were hearing. On the other hand, they were not happy with the overall sound of the record, and, working with Brown, made extensive changes to side one of the album, including the addition of strings and the deletion of short audio bits between tracks. The band's drummer, Drachen Theaker, was especially upset with the changes, as he felt his drums were buried in the new mix. According to Brown, when the band first heard an acetate copy of the new mix, Theaker jumped over a table, took the record off the turntable and smashed it on the wall. Nonetheless, the remixed album was a commercial success that Brown was never able to equal, thanks in no small part to the inclusion of the tune Fire, which is still one of the most recognizable songs of the late 1960s.

Artist:    Beacon Street Union
Title:    Mystic Mourning
Source:    British import CD: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s):    Ulaky/Weisberg/Rhodes
Label:    See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    If I had to choose one single recording that represents the psychedelic era, my choice would be Mystic Mourning, from the album The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Everything about the tune screams (whispers? purrs?) psychedelic, starting with a short spacy intro of electric piano over cymbals, leading into a raga beat with a solo bass line that builds up to a repeating riff that ends up getting played at various times by guitar, bass, and/or piano. The lyrics are appropriately existential, and both guitar and piano get a chance to show their stuff over the course of the nearly six-minute track.

Artist:     Southwest F.O.B.
Title:     Smell Of Incense
Source:     LP: Smell Of Incense
Writer:     Markley/Morgan
Label:     Hip
Year:    1968
     When I first ran across the album called Smell Of Incense I immediately recognized the title as being the same as one of the better songs by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. As it turns out it's because Southwest F.O.B. issued their version of the Bob Markley/Ron Morgan song as their only single, and used it as the opening track on their only LP as well. What I didn't realize at the time is that Southwest F.O.B (F.O.B. standing for "freight on board") was the launching pad for the careers of England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley. The duo had a string of solo hits in the late 1970s, and Seals went on to become one of the top country artists of the 1980s (his song Bop is still heard on some of the more inclusive country stations).

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     Yellow Rose
Source:     CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer:     Gilbert/Theilhelm
Label:     Mercury
Year:     1968
     The Blues Magoos was probably the most successful psychedelic band to hail from America's East Coast (specifically, The Bronx, NY). Unfortunately, that isn't saying much, as most successful psychedelic bands came from either California or Texas in the US, or from the UK. Still, the Magoos had a fair share of decent recordings. The band enjoyed their greatest artistic freedom on the 1968 album Basic Blues Magoos, much of which was recorded at their own home studios. As a result, Yellow Rose does not sound much like anything else the band ever released (although it is still quite psychedelic in its own way).

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Lazy Me
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Bob Mosley
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Such is the quality of the first Moby Grape LP that there are many outstanding tracks that have gotten virtually no airplay in the years since the album was released. Lazy Me, written by bassist Bob Mosley, is one of those tracks. Enjoy.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Horse Latitudes/Moonlight Drive
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Much of the second Doors album consisted of songs that were already in the band's repertoire when they signed with Elektra Records but for various reasons did not record for their debut LP. One of the earliest was Jim Morrison's Moonlight Ride, which he wrote even before the band was formed. As was the case with all the Doors songs on their first three albums, the tune was credited to the entire band. Horse Latitudes, which leads into Moonlight Ride, was also an obvious Morrison composition, as it is essentially a piece of Morrison poetry with a soundtrack provided by the rest of the band.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    World Of Pain
Source:    Mono Russian import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    Lilith (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, keyboardist/producer Felix Pappalardi, who, along with his wife Janet Collins, provided World Of Pain.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    No Way Out
Source:    CD: No Way Out
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    The Chocolate Watchband, from the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area (specifically Foothills Junior College in Los Altos Hills), were fairly typical of the south bay music scene, centered in San Jose. Although they were generally known for lead vocalist Dave Aguilar's ability to channel Mick Jagger with uncanny accuracy, producer Ed Cobb gave them a more psychedelic sound in the studio with the use of studio effects and other enhancements (including adding tracks to their albums that were performed entire by studio musicians). The title track of No Way Out is credited to Cobb, but in reality is a fleshing out of a jam the band had previously recorded, but had not released.

Title:    Cinnamon Girl
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used an amped-up version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:    Helpless
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Many of the songs on the second Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album, Deja Vu, sound as if they could have been on solo albums by the various band members, particularly Neil Young, whose style really didn't mesh well with the others. A prime example of this is Helpless. Despite this (or maybe because of it) Helpless got more radio airplay than most of the other songs on the album.

Title:    Down By The River
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Down By The River is one of four songs on the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere that Neil Young wrote while running a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 39.5 degrees for people in civilized nations that use the Celsius, aka centrigrade, scale). By some strange coincidence, they are the four best songs on the album. I wish I could have been that sick in my days as a wannabe rock star.

Artist:     Who
Title:     It's Not True
Source:     Mono Canadian import CD: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer:     Pete Townshend
Label:     MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:     1965
     Released in December, 1965, the first Who album (called simply My Generation in the UK) was recorded while the band was in their "maximum R&B" phase. The band members themselves were not happy with the album, feeling that they had been rushed through the entire recording process and did not have much say in how the final product sounded. Still, the album is considered one of the most influential debut albums of all time and has made several critics' top albums lists over the years. It's Not True, a song that critically addresses the ridiculousness of unfounded rumors, is fairly typical of the songs Pete Townshend was writing at the time.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    The Other Side Of This Life
Source:    LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals-Vol. II (originally released in US on LP: Animalism)
Writer(s):    Fred Neil
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    The final album by the original Animals was a late 1966 collection of mostly blues covers that was released only in the US. Animalism (not to be confused with the UK LP Animalisms from earlier in the year which was the basis for the US album Animalization) was recorded in Los Angeles, possibly at the same time as the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out. Frank Zappa collaborated on at least one of the album's songs (All Night Long) and is listed as a co-producer of the band's version of Fred Neil's best-known tune, The Other Side Of This Life, which was being performed regularly by several California bands (including Jefferson Airplane) at around the same time.

 Artist:    Dantalion's Chariot
Title:    The Madman Running Through The Fields
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Money/Somers
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    In the early to mid 1960s the US had literally hundreds of talented artists whose records appeared on the Rhythm & Blues charts, sometimes crossing over to the pop charts as well. In the UK, these artists were a distant legend, although their music was quite popular there. To fill a demand for live R&B in British clubs, several cover bands popped up throughout the decade. One of the most popular, and musically accomplished, bands on the London R&B/soul scene was Zoot Money's Big Roll Band. As the decade rolled on, however, public tastes started changing, and the Big Roll Band was finding it difficult to find steady work. Money responded to the situation by disbanding the group and forming the four-piece Dantalion's Chariot in 1967. The band soon gained a reputation for both their musicianship and their light show, and were considered, along with Pink Floyd and Tomorrow, to be the cream of the crop of British psychedelic bands. Unfortunately, the band had too much talent to survive long, and split up by the end of the year. Just how talented were they? Well, in addition to Money himself on vocals and keyboards, the band included a guitarist named Andy Somers, who would eventually change the spelling of his last name to Summers and form a band called the Police. Then there was the drummer, Colin Allen, who would soon resurface as a member of John Mayall's new band on the album Blues From Laurel Canyon. Not bad for a group that only released one single.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1640 (starts 10/5/16)

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    Misty Moisty Morning
Source:    LP: Parcel Of Rogues
Writer(s):    Trad. Lyrics, music: Steeleye Span
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    Steeleye Span hit their commercial peak with the 1973 album Parcel Of Rogues. The album was a byproduct of the band's decision to take on a theatrical project based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel Kidnapped. While doing research for the play, the band unearthed several Scottish poems dating back to the 18th century. These poems became the basis for Parcel Of Rogues. The LP opens with Misty Moisty Morning, a bright, happy song that sets up the rest of the album nicely.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Highway Star
Source:    LP: Machine Head
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    Deep Purple's most successful album was Machine Head, which hit #7 on the Billboard album charts in 1972 and went all the way to the top in several countries, including the UK. The LP starts off with Highway Star, a song that was written on the band's tour bus as a demonstration of how the band created new material. It was first performed the same day it was written. The song is a hard rocker that features extended solos from both guitarist Richie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord. Both solos were inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The song became a concert staple and was often used as the show opener throughout the band's existence.

Artist:    Black Oak Arkansas
Title:    Lord Have Mercy On My Soul/When Electricity Came To Arkansas
Source:    LP: Black Oak Arkansas
Writer(s):    Black Oak Arkansas
Label:    Atco
Year:    1971
    The final phase of my summer of '71 adventures started with a concert. I had arrived at the Southwestern College campus in Weatherford, Oklahoma on a September evening, hoping that our band, Sunn, would be able to regroup after losing our lead guitarist and driving force, David Mason (no, not The Dave Mason). Our rhythm guitarist, DeWayne Davis and drummer, Mike Higgins, were both starting their freshman year at Southwestern and were rooming together at one of the dorms. Our second lead guitarist, Doug Philips, had stayed in Mangum while I had gone back to New Mexico to visit my parents for a couple weeks following Dave's decision to quit the band and join the Air Force so he could marry his pregnant girlfriend. The day following my arrival in Weatherford, DeWayne, Mike and our roadie, Ronnie, were planning on going down to Norman to see Grand Funk Railroad, and had already bought their tickets. I was invited to go along and buy a ticket at the gate. I did, but the only tickets left at that point were way up in the bleacher seats, while the other guys had floor tickets. So, at least for the opening band, I got to sit by myself in the cheap seats. It turns out that was actually a blessing in disguise, as I was able to focus my attention completely on the band itself, without any distractions. This was a good thing, since it was a band I had never even heard of before called Black Oak Arkansas, performing, in its entirety, their self-titled first album. I found myself imagining that I was a music critic up there in the bleachers, and, thanks to an enhanced state of mind, had a very clear picture of Black Oak Arkansas as a band by the time their set was done. My favorite part of their set was the final two songs, a rocker called Lord Have Mercy On My Soul that sequed directly into an instrumental called When Electricity Came To Arkansas that featured twin lead guitars playing in harmony in a way remiscent of Wishbone Ash or the Allman Brothers Band. The next time I had enough money to buy an album I snatched up a copy of the debut Black Oak Arkansas LP, which is still my favorite out of the ten albums they recorded in the 1970s.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Love Is The Answer
Source:    CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Blues Image started off in Tampa, Florida, but soon relocated to Miami, where they soon became 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:    Procol Harum
Title:    Bringing Home The Bacon
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM promo single
Writer:    Brooker/Reid
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    After the departure of original lead guitarist Robin Trower, the remaining members of Procol Harum continued to record quality albums such as Grand Hotel, although their airplay was limited to sporadic plays on progressive FM stations. One song that probably should have gotten more attention than it did was Bringing Home The Bacon, from the aforementioned Grand Hotel album. The group would experience a brief return to top 40 radio the following year with the release of their live version of Conquistador, a track that originally appeared on the band's 1967 debut LP.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Kid Charlemagne
Source:    CD: The Royal Scam
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA
Year:    1976
    Outstanding guitar work from guest musician Larry Carlton highlights Kid Charlemagne, the opening track from the fifth Steely Dan album, The Royal Scam. The song itself is a tribute to Owsley Stanley, the legendary chemist and sound man for the Grateful Dead. The technicolor motor home referred to in the lyrics was the Further bus used by the Merry Pranksters. Carlton's guitar solo was singled out as one of the 100 greatest guitar songs by Rolling Stone magazine, which called it "so complex it's a song in its own right".

Artist:    Curtis Mayfield
Title:    Superfly
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Curtom
Year:    1972
    Although his original group, The Impressions, made some inroads on the top 40 charts (in addition to being a strong presence on the R&B charts) throughout the 1960s, it was as a solo artist in the early 1970s that Curtis Mayfield had his greatest commercial success. His soundtrack for the film Superfly is considered some of the finest music to come out of the funk era. The album produced two top 10 singles, Freddie's Dead and the film's title track, which peaked at #8.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Your Saving Grace
Source:    LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Your Saving Grace)
Writer:    Tim Davis
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    One of the most highly regarded of the Steve Miller Band's early albums was 1969's Your Saving Grace. A listen to the title track of the album shows why. As often as not, spoken sections in the middle of a song come off as silly or pretentious, but here Miller manages to make it work, enhancing what is already a fine recording.

Artist:    Paul Simon
Title:    Mother And Child Reunion
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM promo single
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    Paul Simon became one of the first white musicians to incorporate elements of reggae music into a rock song with his 1972 hit Mother And Child Reunion. Before recording sessions commenced, Simon was instructed by members of Toots And The Maytals and Jimmy Cliff's band on the differences between reggae, ska and bluebeat. The song itself was recorded at Dynamic Sounds Studios at Torrington Bridge in Kingston, Jamaica with many of those same musicians. Simon finished the song by adding piano and vocal tracks in New York at a later date.

Artist:    Mighty Baby
Title:    Same Way From The Sun
Source:    British import CD: Mighty Baby
Writer(s):    Powell/Whiteman/Stone/Evans/King
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    1969
    The Action was one of the most popular Beat bands in mid-1960s London, but by 1968 were looking to shed their Mod image and move in a more progressive direction. Unfortunately, despite the quality of the music they were making, the band was unable to get any of the British record labels interested in a deal. Finally, in 1969, the Action officially changed names to Mighty Baby, a moniker chosen by John Curd, who signed them to his newly formed Head label. The resulting album is considered a lost classic of British Rock, thanks to tracks like Same Way With The Sun. Sadly, the album didn't sell well, and Head Records soon folded, making Mighty Baby, in its original form, a highly sought after collector's item. Luckily for the rest of us, the album is now available (along with several previously released Action tracks) on compact disc.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Harvey's Tune
Source:    CD: Super Session
Writer(s):    Harvey Brooks
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Probably the most overlooked track on the classic Super Session LP is the album's closer, a two-minute instrumental called Harvey's Tune. The piece was written by bassist Harvey Brooks, who, along with Mike Bloomfield, had been a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and later, the Electric Flag.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1639 (starts 9/28/16)

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 points

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    The Sound Of Silence
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The Sound Of Silence was originally an acoustic piece that was included on Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. The album went nowhere and was soon deleted from the Columbia Records catalog. Simon and Garfunkel themselves went their separate ways, with Simon moving to London and recording a solo LP, the Paul Simon Songbook. While Simon was in the UK, producer John Simon, who had been working with Bob Dylan on Highway 61 Revisited, pulled out the master tape of The Sound Of Silence and got Dylan's band to add electric instruments to the existing recording. The song was released to local radio stations, where it garnered enough interest to get the modified recording released as a single. It turned out to be a huge hit and prompted Paul Simon to move back to the US and reunite with Art Garfunkel.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Dark Side
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Rogers/Sohns
Label:    Dunwich
Year:    1966
    Dark Side, written by guitarist Warren Rogers and singer Jim Sohns, is probably the quintessential Shadows of Knight song. It has all the classic elements of a garage rock song: three chords, a blues beat and lots of attitude. Oh, and the lyrics "I love you baby more than birds love the sky". What more can you ask for?

Artist:    Them
Title:    Just One Conception
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Them
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    Most of the songs on Them's second album without founder Van Morrison, Time Out! Time In! For Them, were written for the band by the wife and husband team of Sharon Pulley and Tom Lane. There were, however, a couple of exceptions, including Just One Conception, which was credited to the band itself. The track, which opens with massive sitar, shows just how deep into the psychedelic pool the original Irish punk band had dived by 1968.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s):    McKinley Morganfield
Label:    United Artists (original label: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year:    1968
    Johnny Winter's first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was originally released in 1968 on the Texas-based Sonobeat label. A ctitical success, it was picked up and reissued on the Imperial label a year later. Most of the songs on the album are covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Don't Pass Me By
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Richard Starkey
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    Although it was the first song Ringo Starr ever wrote, Don't Pass Me By did not get released until 1968, when it was inserted between George Harrison's Piggies and Paul McCartney's Why Don't We Do It In The Road on what became known as the White Album. Don't Pass Me By is, to my knowledge, the only song written by Ringo to appear on a Beatles album.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    (At The) Woodchopper's Ball
Source:    European imort CD: Ten Years After (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Bishop/Herman
Label:    Deram
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2015
    The first Ten Years After actually did better in the US than in the band's native England, prompting the band to set up their first US tour. Understandable, their record label wanted the band to have a new album out to promote on the tour itself. The problem was that, due to extensive gigging, the band hadn't spent a whole lot of time in the studio since releasing their first LP, and only had about half an album's worth of material recorded. The solution was to rent a place called Klook's Kleek for a night and record the entire performance, releasing it as the band's second album, Undead. Of course this left half an album's worth of studio tracks unreleased for several decades, until Deram put them on a bonus disc when they reissued the first Ten Years After album. As you can hear, their studio version of Woody Herman's signature tune, (At The) Woodchopper's Ball, sounds very much like the version heard on Undead.    

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Just Like Me
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dey/Brown
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
    Just Like Me was the first top 10 single from Paul Revere And The Raiders, a band that deserves much more credit than they are generally given. The group started in the early part of the decade in Boise, Idaho, when Revere (his real name) hooked up with saxophonist Mark Lindsay. Like most bands at the time, the Raiders' repertoire consisted mostly of instrumentals, as PA systems were a luxury that required more space than was generally allotted to a small town band. It wasn't long before the Raiders relocated to Portland, Oregon, where they became a popular attraction at various clubs. After a hiatus caused by Revere's stint in the military, the band resumed its place as one of the founding bands of the Portland music scene. They soon made their first visit to a recording studio, recording Richard Berry's Louie Louie at around the same time as another popular Portland band, the Kingsmen. Due as much to superior promotion efforts from Wand Records as anything else, the Kingsmen's version ended up being a huge hit while the Raiders' version was virtually ignored. Undeterred, the band continued to grow in popularity, recording another single in 1964 (Like Long Hair) and going on tour. It was while playing in Hawaii that the band was noticed by none other than Dick Clark, who hired them to be the house band on his new afternoon TV show, Where The Action Is. He also got them a contract with Columbia Records, at the time the second-largest record company in the world. The Raiders were Columbia's first rock band, and they paired the band up with their hippest young producer, Terry Melcher. It was a partnership that would lead to a string of hits, starting with Steppin' Out in 1965. The next record, Just Like Me, was the first of a string of top 10 singles that would last until early 1967, when rapidly changing public tastes made the band seem antiquated compared to up and coming groups like Jefferson Airplane. Just Like Me, despite some rather cheesy lyrics, still holds up well after all these years. Much of the credit for that has to go to Drake Levin, whose innovative double-tracked guitar solo rocked out harder than anything else on top 40 radio at the time (with the possible exception of a couple of well-known Kinks songs).

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Billy Roberts
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     Take My Love
Source:     Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer:     Gilbert/Scala
Label:     Mercury
Year:     1967
     The Blues Magoos were one of the most visible bands to wear the label "psychedelic". In fact, much of what they are remembered for was what they wore onstage: electric suits. They were also one of the first bands to use the term "psychedelic" on a record, (their 1966 debut album was called Psychedelic Lollipop). Unlike some of their wilder jams such as Tobacco Road and a six-minute version of Gloria, Take My Love, from the band's sophomore effort Electric Comic Book, is essentially garage rock done in the Blues Magoos style. That style was defined by the combination of Farfisa organ and electric guitar, the latter depending heavily on reverb and vibrato bar to create an effect of notes soaring off into space.

Artist:    Bubble Puppy
Title:    Hot Smoke And Sassafras
Source:    European import CD: A Gathering Of Promises
Writer(s):    Prince/Cox/Potter/Fore
Label:    Charly (original US label: International Artists)
Year:    1969
    Bubble Puppy was a band from San Antonio, Texas that relocated to nearby Austin and signed a contract with International Artists, a label already known as the home of legendary Texas psychedelic bands 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. The group hit the national top 20 with Hot Smoke and Sassafras, a song that was originally intended to be a B side, in 1969. Not long after the release of their first LP, A Gathering Or Promises, the band relocated to California and changed their name to Demian, at least in part to disassociate themselves with the then-popular "bubble gum" style (but also because of problems with International Artists).

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Love In The City
Source:    European import CD: Turtle Soup
Writer(s):    The Turtles
Label:    Repertoire (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1969
    One of the most overlooked songs in the Turtles catalog, Love In The City was the last single released from the album Turtle Soup in 1969. At this point the band had gone through various personnel changes, although the group's creative core of Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman and Al Nichol remained intact. Still, as good as Love In The City was, it had become clear that the Turtles had run their last race. After releasing one more single (a rather forgettable balled called Lady-O), the band called it quits. Kaylan and Volman would end up joining the Mothers of Invention, appearing on the legendary Live At Fillmore East album before striking out on their own as the Phlorescent Leech (later shortened to Flo) And Eddie.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Oh! Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin')
Source:    Mono LP: The Rolling Stones Now!
Writer(s):    Barbara Lynn Ozen
Label:    London
Year:    1965
    There was one song on the US-only compilation album The Rolling Stones Now that had not yet appeared in the band's native England. That song was a cover of Barbara Lynn's Oh! Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin'), which would be included on the UK version of their next LP, Out Of Our Heads. The song was written by Barbara Lynn Ozen, whose story is quite remarkable in its own right. For one thing she was a female R&B artist that wrote her own material at a time when the assembly-line produced Motown sound was coming to dominate the soul charts. Even more unusual, Ozen was a guitarist as well as a vocalist. To top it off, she played left-handed! Her best knows song was You'll Lose A Good Thing, which went all the way to the top of the R&B charts and was later covered by the San Francisco band Cold Blood. Using the stage name Barbara Lynn, Ozen remains active in her native Beaumont, Texas.

Artist:    ? And The Mysterians
Title:    96 Tears
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    The Mysterians
Label:    Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year:    1966
    Although his birth certificate gives the name Rudy Martinez, the leader of the Mysterians had his name legally changed to "?" several years ago. He asserts that he is actually from the planet Mars and has lived among dinosaurs in a past life. Sometimes I feel like I'm living among dinosaurs in this life, so I guess I can relate a little. The band's only major hit, 96 Tears, has the distinction of being the last top 10 single on the Cameo label before Cameo-Parkway went bankrupt and was bought by Allen Klein, who now operates the company as Abkco.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Morning Dew
Source:    LP: 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:    Crow
Title:    Gonna Leave A Mark
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Larry Weigand
Label:    Amaret
Year:    1969
    Crow was formed in 1967 as South 40, using that name in their native Minneapolis until signing a contract with Amaret Records in 1969.   
Although it was a hit in 1970, Crow's most famous song, Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me), was actually released in 1969 on the band's debut LP, Crow Music. Like many of the band's tunes, the B side of that single, Gonna Leave A Mark, was written by bassist Larry Weigand. Other members of the band included Weigand's brother Dick on guitar, David Wagner on vocals, Kink Middlemist on keyboards and Denny Craswell on drums.

Artist:    Philisteens
Title:    Dead And Gone
Source:    12" EP: Turn Up The Music
Writer(s):    Otis/Neil/Glover
Label:    RFA
Year:    1982
    I have to admit that until the early 2000s I didn't even know that the Philisteens had recorded an EP called Turn Up The Music as a follow-up to their debut LP. I also have to admit that I've known guitarist Larry Otis (mainly through his brother Jeff...Hi Jeff!) since high school, so I can't claim to have an unbiased opinion of his work (which I consider outstanding). I ran across the EP when going through a stack of albums that had been sitting in a storeroom on the Hobart and William Smith Colleges campus for at least ten years (since WEOS vacated its original basement studios for a free-standing house on the edge of campus that didn't have as much shelf space). So, for your listening pleasure we have, Dead And Gone, a track that I know for sure hasn't been played since at least 1998.

Artist:    Chesterfield Kings
Title:    You're Gone
Source:    LP: Don't Open Til Doomsday
Writer(s):    Babiuk//Prevost/O'Brien/Cona/Meech
Label:    Mirror
Year:    1987
    Formed in the late 1970s in Rochester, NY, the Chesterfield Kings (named for an old brand of unfiltered cigarettes that my grandfather used to smoke) were instrumental in setting off the garage band revival of the 1980s. Their earliest records were basically a recreation of the mid-60s garage sound, although by the time their 1987 album, Don't Open Til Doomsday, was released they had gone through some personnel changes that resulted in a harder-edged sound on tracks like You're Gone.    

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Astronomy Domine
Source:    CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (originally released in UK and Canada)
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: EMI Columbia)
Year:    1967
    When the US version of the first Pink Floyd LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, was released on the Tower label, it was missing several tracks that had appeared on the original British version of the album. Among the most notable omissions was the original album's opening track, Astronomy Domine, which was replaced by the non-LP single See Emily Play.  Astronomy Domine is a Syd Barrett composition that was a popular part of the band's stage repertoire for several years. The piece is considered one of the earliest examples of "space rock", in part because of the spoken intro (by the band's manager Peter Jenner) reciting the names of the planets (and some moons) of the solar system through a megaphone.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    The Great Banana Hoax
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After three consecutive singles written by professional songwriters Annette Tucker, Nancie Mantz and Jill Jones, the Electric Prunes were finally given a chance to test the top 40 waters with their own material in late 1967 with the release of The Great Banana Hoax. The song, which had already appeared as the opening track from the band's second LP, Underground, failed to make a dent in the charts and, after one more unsuccessful single, the band's autonomy was usurped by producer Dave Hassinger, to whom the band had signed away the rights to their own name as part of their original contract.
   
Artist:    Doors
Title:    Love Me Two Times
Source:    CD: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Although the second Doors album is sometimes dismissed as being full of tracks that didn't make the cut on the band's debut LP, the fact is that Strange Days contains some of the Doors' best-known tunes. One of those is Love Me Two Times, which was the second single released from the album. The song continues to get heavy airplay on classic rock stations.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    She May Call You Up Tonight
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Martin
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    Unlike their first two singles, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina, She May Call You Up Tonight failed to chart, possibly due to the release two months earlier of a song called Ivy Ivy, written by keyboardist Michael Brown and marketed as a Left Banke song. The song was in reality performed entirely by session musicians, including lead vocals by Bert Sommer, who would be one of the acoustic acts on the opening afternoon of the Woodstock festival a couple years later. The resulting fued between Brown and the rest of the band left a large number of radio stations gun shy when came to any record with the name Left Banke on the label, and She May Call You Up Tonight tanked, despite being a fine tune in its own right.

Artist:    Tomorrow
Title:    Why
Source:    Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    EMI
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1998
    One of the most overlooked bands on the British psychedelic scene was a group called Tomorrow. The group was formed in 1966 when vocalist Keith West and guitarist Steve Howe joined forces with bassist Junior Wood and drummer Twink Adler. One of the highlights of the band's stage performances was their cover of the Byrds' Why, which often featured extended solos by Howe. A studio version of Why was recorded, but was not released while the band was still together. In fact, the tape was misplaced for many years, finally surfacing in time to be included on EMI's Psychedelia At Abbey Road collection in 1998. By then Howe had become a major rock star as the guitarist for Yes during their most popular period.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    A Bit Of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning
Source:    LP: Black Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    According to Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, the band's debut LP was recorded in one day, in a marathon 12-hour session, and mixed the following day. Most of the tracks, including the 14-minute long Warning, were done in one take with no overdubs. The tune itself is listed on the album cover as three separate tracks, even though it is the same continuous piece that appeared on the original UK version of the album. The reason for this is probably so the band could get more in royalties for three compositions than they could for just one. The Grateful Dead did essentially the same thing on their 1968 album Anthem Of The Sun with the 18-minute long track That's It For The Other One. Both albums appeared in the US on the Warner Brothers label.

Artist:    Kak
Title:    Bryte 'N' Clear Day
Source:    British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Yoder/Grelecki
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    The origins of the band called Kak are a bit on the strange side. Gary Lee Yoder's popular Oxford Circle had just broken up when a guy named Gary Grelecki walked up to the singer/songwriter/guitarist and introduced himself, telling him how much he liked the Oxford Circle and adding that he could get him a record deal with CBS. Yoder, somewhat naively, gave Grelecki his phone number, and a couple months later received a call from Grelecki saying he had landed him a contract with the Epic label. Yoder, not quite knowing whether the offer was for real or not, nonetheless recruited his former bandmate Dehner Patton to play lead guitar. Patton, in turn, brought in percussionist Chris Lockheed, who already knew Yoder from doing some TV production work. In early 1968 they recruited drummer Joe-Dave Damrell, and Kak was born (the name coming from college professor Dan Phillips, who had come up with the concept of Kak as being something like a joker in a deck of cards that could mean anything you want it to. Around this time Yoder learned that Grelecki's father was in the CIA, and actually did have contacts at Columbia Records, using record distribution outlets in the Far East as fronts for various covert activities. The new band got to work on their debut LP, releasing it in 1969. Yoder wrote all the band's material, mostly by himself, but sometimes in collaboration with Grelecki on songs such as Bryte 'N' Clear, a tune that sounds like it could have come from a 70s Texas boogie band like ZZ Top.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Lucky Man/Gangster Of Love/ You're So Fine
Source:    CD: Sailor
Writer(s):    Peterman/Watson/Reed
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    The Steve Miller Band's second album, Sailor, was the last to feature original members Jim Peterman and Boz Scaggs. The album is less overtly psychedelic than its predecessor, Children Of The Future, instead shifting the focus to more of a blues-rock sound. This can be heard on the medley of tunes heard on side two of the album. Lucky Man is a Peterman original, while Gangster Of Love came from Johnny "Guitar" Watson. The final part of the trilogy was Jimmy Reed's You're So Fine. Miller made an in-song reference to Gangster Of Love a few years later in his hit tune The Joker.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source:    CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released in US only as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Jim McCarty
Label:    Raven (original label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from the blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style (such as using a violin bow) that would help define 70s rock with his next band, Led Zeppelin. 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1639 (starts 9/28/16)

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    London
Source:    LP: Rocket Cottage
Writer(s):    Trad. lyrics, music by Steeleye Span
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1976
    The term "folk-rock" meant something entirely different in the UK in the 1970s than it had in the US in the 1960s. Whereas American folk-rock was basically the electrification of the folk music boom that had swept the country in the late 50s and early 60s (instigated by Bob Dylan in 1965), the British folk-rock was based on an English folk music tradition that dated back centuries. Most of the British folk-rock bands drew heavily on material they had learned as schoolchildren and that had long been in the public domain. One of the most popular of these British folk-rock bands was Steeleye Span. The group released nine albums over a five-year period starting in 1971. Unfortunately for the band their ninth album, Rocket Cottage, came out just as punk-rock was taking over the British music scene; bands like Steeleye Span, along with progressive rock bands such as Yes, were soon being referred to as "dinosaurs" by the British rock press. As it turned out, Rocket Cottage would be the last Steeleye Span album to feature founding members Peter Knight and Bob Johnson, although Maddy Prior would continue with the band into the 1980s. Like most of Steeleye Span's material, London, the opening track of Rocket Cottage, combines the lyrics from an old English folk tune and new music from the band members themselves.

Artist:    Love Sculpture
Title:    Blues Helping
Source:    British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s):    Williams/Edmunds/Jones
Label:    EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1968
    When the name Dave Edmunds comes up, it is usually in association with an early 70s remake of the classic Fats Domino tune I Hear You Knockin'. What many people are not aware of, however, is that Edmunds was a major force on the late 60s British blues scene with his band Love Sculpture. The title track of that band's debut LP, Blues Helping, showcases Edmunds's prowess as a guitarist (as does the rest of the album).

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Lazy Day Blues
Source:    LP: Blues Image
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Formed in Tampa, Florida in 1966, Blues Image made a name from themselves in 1968 after they moved to Miami, becoming the house band for the legendary club Thee Image. The band moved to Los Angeles in 1969 and signed with Atco Records, releasing their first LP that same year. Although the album did not produce any hit singles, it managed to achieve a respectable peak in the #122 spot on the Billboard album charts, thanks to solid musicianship, as can be heard on the acoustic ballad Lazy Day Blues.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Ashes The Rain And I
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer(s):    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    For their second LP, James Gang Rides Again, the band decided to devote the entire second of the LP to some new acoustic tunes that guitarist Joe Walsh had been working on. The grand finale of the album was Ashes The Rain And I, a tune that embellishes Walsh's guitar and vocals with strings tastefully arranged by Jack Nitzsche.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Going To California
Source:    LP: Led Zeppelin IV
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    The fourth Led Zeppelin album is known for the band's return to a harder rock sound after the acoustic leanings of Led Zeppelin III. There were, however, a couple of acoustic songs on LZ IV, including Going To California, a song that vocalist Robert Plant has since said was about Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. The tune features Plant on vocals, Jimmy Page on acoustic guitar and John Paul Jones on Mandolin.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    From The Beginning
Source:    CD: Trilogy
Writer(s):    Greg Lake
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1972
    Although his primary function in Emerson, Lake And Palmer was to provide lead vocals and play bass lines supporting Keith Emerson's keyboard work, Greg Lake generally got to include one of his own ballads on each ELP album. Usually Lake played acoustic guitar on these tracks, with synthesizer backup from Emerson and little or no drumwork from Carl Palmer. For the band's third LP, Trilogy, Lake provided From The Beginning, one of most melodic tunes in the group's catalog. The song ended up being the band's highest charting single, peaking at # 39.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Pretzel Logic
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1974
    Steely Dan's third album, Pretzel Logic, was almost universally praised by the rock press, including NME magazine, which named it the 1974 album of the year, and Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, who ranked it at the top of his own annual list. The title track, according to co-writer Donald Fagan, is actually about time travel, and includes references to Napoleon Bonaparte and travelling minstrel shows.

Artist:     Jerry Garcia
Title:     Sugaree
Source:     45 RPM promo single
Writer:     Garcia/Hunter/Kreutzmann
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1972
     In 1972 Warner Brothers gave the individual members of the Grateful Dead to record solo albums. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and drummer Micket Hart took them up on the offer. Garcia's effort was unique in that he played virtually all the instruments on the album himself (except for the drum parts, which were played by Bill Kreutzmann). One of the best known songs from that album is Sugaree, which was soon added pretty much permanently to the Dead's concert repertoire.

Artist:    Starcastle
Title:    Lady Of The Lake
Source:    LP: Starcastle
Writer(s):    Tassler/Luttrell/Strater/Schildt/Stewart/Hagler
Label:    Epic
Year:    1976
    The first track of the first Starcastle album established beyond any question that the Champagne, Illinois band was firmly rooted in the progressive rock movement that had produced bands such as Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Unfortunately for Starcastle, that whole genre was already starting to wane in popularity when their album came out. Nonetheless, Lady Of The Lake, with it's complex musical arrangement and Arthurian lyrical theme, is a fine example of the progressive rock genre that sounds as good now as it did in 1976.

Artist:    Premiati Forneria Marconi
Title:    Celebration
Source:    Italian import CD: Photos Of Ghosts
Writer(s):    Mussida/Pagani/Sinfield
Label:    RCA
Year:    1973
    The most popular song in the PFM catalogue, Celebration is a re-recording of a song called E Festa from the band's 1971 debut album, Storia di un minuto. The 1973 Photos Of Ghosts recording of Celebration features all new lyrics by Peter Sinfield, who was also working with Emerson, Lake And Palmer, who had signed PFM to their Manticore label for their US releases. Photos Of Ghosts was the first of those releases, and became the first album by an Italian band to crack the Billboard 200 album chart.

Artist:    Frank Zappa
Title:    Zoot Allures
Source:    LP: Zoot Allures
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1976
    When Frank Zappa went to work on his 22nd album he originally intended it to be a two LP set. Disputes between Zappa and his manager, Herb Cohen, however, led not only to the album being reduced to a single disc, but to it being released on the Warner Brothers label rather than Zappa's own Discreet label. Furthermore, two tracks, including the instrumental Zoot Allures, were not even on the original tracklist for the album. Naturally, the album ended up being named for that instrumental.

Artist:      Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     Feelin' Alright
Source:      CD: Survival
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1971
     The first three Grand Funk Railroad albums had a total of one cover song between them (the Animals' Inside Looking Out on Grand Funk). The band's fourth studio effort, Survival, had two.  One of those was Feelin' Alright, a Dave Mason song that had appeared on the second Traffic album. Grand Funk Railroad's version ended up being released as a single in late 1971. Mason himself released his own solo version of the tune later in the decade.