Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1734 (starts 8/23/17)

All kinds of good stuff this week, with long tracks from the Doors and the Grateful Dead and artists' sets from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and Cream highlighting the show.

Artist:     Them
Song:     One Two Brown Eyes
Source:     Mono LP: Them
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:     Parrott
Year:     1964
     Van Morrison's One Two Brown Eyes was first released in the UK in late 1964 as the B side of Them's first single. It was included on the US version of Them's first album, but not on the version released in the UK.

Artist:    Hollies
Title:    Look Through Any Window
Source:    Mono LP: The Very Best Of The Hollies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Gouldman/Silverman
Label:    United Artists (original label: Imperial)
Year:    1965
    Although the Hollies were far more popular in their native England than in the US, they did have their fair share of North American hits. The first Hollies tune to crack the US top 40 was Look Through Any Window, released in December of 1965 and peaking at #33 in early 1966. The song did even better in Canada, going all the way to the #3 spot.

Artist:     Chocolate Watch Band
Title:     Sweet Young Thing
Source:     Mono CD: More Nuggets (CD bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Ed Cobb
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Uptown)
Year:     1967
     There is actually very little on vinyl that captures the actual live sound of the Chocolate Watchband, as most of their recorded work was heavily influenced by producer Ed Cobb. One of the few records that does accurately represent the Watchband sound is Cobb's Sweet Young Thing. The song was released as the Watchband's first single (under their own name) on the Uptown label in January of 1967. They had previously released a quickie cover version of Davie Allan's Blues Theme as the Hogs on the HBR label in 1966.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    She Hangs Out
Source:    LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD
Writer(s):    Jeff Barry
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1967
    She Hangs Out is a tune written by Jeff Barry that, through no fault of its own, became the straw that broke the camel's back. In this particular case, the camel was rock impressario Don Kirschner, who, until early 1967, was music director for all things Monkees. The song was one of many recorded in 1966 for use on the Monkees TV show. A dozen songs had been chosen for the first Monkees album in late 1966. The situation at that time was such that the Monkees themselves didn't really have much of a voice in what was included on that album (actually, "voice" was about the only thing the band members did have on most of the tracks). At the time, however, just getting the album out in time for Christmas overrode other considerations, and the band basically stood by and let Krischner run the show. Early the next year, however, Kirschner once again raised the ire of the band members by releasing a second LP, More Of The Monkees, without the band's knowledge or input (other than the vocals that had been recorded in 1966). The Monkees responded by recording a new song, All Of Your Toys, intending it to be their third single. Kirschner, however, again without knowledge or consent of the band, released a Neil Diamond-penned track, A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, backed with a Jeff Barry song, She Hangs Out, as a single. Both tracks were produced by Barry, and were essentially solo efforts by Davy Jones, whose lead vocals had at that point only appeared on album tracks, accompanied by studio musicians. Ultimately this unauthorized move by Kirschner led to his being taken off the entire Monkees project and the single withdrawn from circulation. The Monkees were not done with She Hangs Out, however. Later in 1967 the band re-recorded the song, this time playing most of the instruments themselves, for inclusion on their fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.

Artist:    Troggs
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Troggs Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Reg Presley
Label:    Spectrum (original US label: Fontana)
Year:    1968
    Although best known for their 1966 hit Wild Thing, the Troggs actually had a string of successful singles in their native UK. Even some of their minor hits, such as the 1968 single Little Girl, are fondly remembered by fans of the Troggs, which include members of R.E.M. and the Police, among others.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Something
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    For years, the Beatles' George Harrison had felt that he was not getting the respect he deserved from his bandmates for his songwriting ability. That all changed in 1969 when he introduced them to his latest tune for inclusion on the Abbey Road album. Something impressed everyone who heard it, including John Lennon (who said it was the best song on the album), Paul McCartney (who called it Harrison's best song ever) and even producer George Martin, who made sure the song was released as the A side of the only single from Abbey Road. Commercially, Something was a major success as well, going to the top of the US charts and placing in the top 5 in the UK. Perhaps more tellingly, Something is the second most covered song in the entire Beatles catalog (behind Paul McCartney's Yesterday), with over 150 artists recording the tune over the years.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Singing All Day
Source:    CD: Benefit (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Capitol/Chrysalis
Year:    1970
    Singing All Day is one of several tracks recorded during the sessions for the third Jethro Tull LP, Benefit, but not included on the album itself. The song finally got released in 1973 on the Living In The Past album and is now available as a bonus track on the CD version of Benefit.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    I'm So Glad
Source:    Mono CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Skip James
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Unlike later Cream albums, which featured psychedelic cover art and several Jack Bruce/Pete Brown collaborations that had a decidedly psychedelic sound, Fresh Cream was marketed as the first album by a British blues supergroup, and featured a greater number of blues standards than subsequent releases. One of those covers that became a concert staple for the band was the old Skip James tune I'm So Glad. The song has become so strongly associated with Cream that the group used it as the opening number for all three performances when they staged a series of reunion concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in 2004. For reasons unknown, the studio version of I'm So Glad has never been mixed in stereo.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     N.S.U.
Source:     LP: Fresh Cream
Writer:     Jack Bruce
Label:     Atco
Year:     1966
     The US version of Fresh Cream starts off the with powerful one-two punch of I Feel Free and N.S.U. Although I Feel Free was a purely studio creation that never got performed live, N.S.U. became a staple of the band's concert performances, and was even performed by various other bands that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce was a member of over the years.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dreaming
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Jack Bruce
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were a few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Alligator/Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
Source:    LP: Anthem Of The Sun
Writer(s):    Lesh/McKernan/Hunter/Garcia/Kreutzmann/Weir
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1968
    After a debut album that took about a week to record (and that the band was unanimously unhappy with) the Grateful Dead took their time on their second effort, Anthem Of The Sun. After spending a considerable amount of time in three different studios on two coasts and not getting the sound they wanted (and shedding their original producer along the way) the Dead came to the conclusion that the only way to make an album that sounded anywhere near what the band sounded like onstage was to use actual recordings of their performances and combine them with the studio tracks they had been working on. Side two of the album, which includes the classic Alligator and the more experimental Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks), is basically an enhanced live performance, with new vocal tracks added in the studio. Alligator itself is notable as the first Grateful Dead composition to feature the lyrics of Robert Hunter, who would become Jerry Garcia's main collaborator for many many years. Anthem Of The Sun, along with other early Dead albums, was remixed by Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh in 1973, and the new mix was used on all subsequent pressings of the LP (and later CD). Recently, Rhino records has pressed a new vinyl copy of Anthem Of The Sun using the original 1968 mix of the album, which is what I've used on this week's show.

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     Love Me Till The Sun Shines
Source:     CD: Something Else
Writer:     Dave Davies
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     The 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks was a turning point for the band in more ways than one. It was the first Kinks album produced entirely by Ray Davies, as well as the first Kinks album to be released in stereo. Something Else also saw the emergence of the younger Davies brother, Dave, as a songwriter in his own right on songs like Love Me Till The Sun Shines. I'm not sure, but it sounds to me like Dave Davies is the singer on the track as well.

Artist:    Crosby, Still, Nash & Young
Title:    Ohio
Source:    LP: So Far (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    One of the most powerful records to come out of the Nixon years, Ohio was written by Neil Young in response to shooting deaths of four college students by National Guard troops at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Young wrote the lyrics after seeing photos of the incident in Life Magazine. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded the song with their new rhythm section of Calvin Samuels and Johnny Barbata on May 21st. The recording was rush released within a few week, becoming a counter-culture anthem and cementing the group's reputation as spokesmen for their generation. Young later referred to the Kent State shootings as "probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning," adding that "David Crosby cried when we finished this take." Crosby can be heard ad-libbing "Four, why? Why did they die?" and "How many more?" during the song's fadeout. 

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Where Did The Time Go
Source:    CD: 50
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rag Baby
Year:    2017
    50 years after the release of the album Electric Music For The Mind And Body we find Country Joe McDonald asking the musical question Where Did The Time Go. Sometimes, though, it seems that things haven't really changed all that much since the 1960s, when a growing number of people were expressing their disenchantment with the status quo and, in particular, the political leaders of the time.

Artist:    George Harrison
Title:    When We Was Fab
Source:    CD: Cloud Nine
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Dark Horse
Year:    1987
    George Harrison recorded two different songs referencing his years as a member of the world's most popular rock band. The first, All Those Years Ago, was done in Harrison's own early 80s style, and was released not long after the death of former bandmate John Lennon. The second, When We Was Fab, was stylistically a throwback to the Beatles' most psychedelic period, with a strong resemblance to Lennon's I Am The Walrus from Magical Mystery Tour. The song appeared on Harrison's Cloud Nine album, which was recorded around the same time as the first Traveling Wilburys album, and features guest appearances from some of the other members of that group, including Beatles fans Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty.

Artist:     West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:     A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death
Source:     CD: A Child's Guide To Good and Evil
Writer:     Markley/Morgan
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1968
     A Child's Guide To Good and Evil is generally considered the best album from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band as well as their most political one. A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death has a kind of creepy humor to it that makes it stand out from the many antiwar songs of the time.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Ritual #1
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Ware
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Technically, Volume III is actually the fourth album by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. The first one was an early example of a practice that would become almost mandatory for a new band in the 1990s. The LP, titled Volume 1, was recorded at a home studio and issued independently by the Harris brothers. Many of the songs on that LP ended up being re-recorded for their major label debut, which they called Part One. That album was followed by Volume II, released in late 1967. The following year they released their final album for Reprise, which in addition to being called Volume III was subtitled A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. Included on that album were Ritual #1 and Ritual #2, neither of which sounds anything like the other.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Until The Poorest People Have Money To Spend
Source:    CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
            The final West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is generally considered the group's best album as well, despite the absence of founding member Danny Harris (who would return for their next LP on the Amos label). As always, Bob Markley provided the lyrics for all the band's original songs on the LP, including Until The Poorest People Have Money To Spend, which Shaun Harris wrote the music for. Although the sentiment expressed in the song is a good one, the sincerity of Markley's lyrics is somewhat suspect, according to guitarist Ron Morgan, who said that Markley was notoriously miserly with his own money (of which he had inherited quite a lot).
       
Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Oh, Sweet Mary
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    The only song credited to the entire membership of Big Brother And The Holding Company on their Cheap Thrills album was Oh, Sweet Mary (although the original label credits Janis Joplin as sole writer and the album cover itself gives only Joplin and Peter Albin credit). The tune bears a strong resemblance to Coo Coo, a non-album single the band had released on the Mainstream label before signing to Columbia. Oh, Sweet Mary, however, has new lyrics and, for a breath of fresh air, a bridge section played at a slower tempo than the rest of the tune.

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    Detroit was one of the major centers of pop music in the late 60s. In addition to the myriad Motown acts, the area boasted the popular retro-rock&roll band Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the harder rocking Bob Seger System, the non-Motown R&B band the Capitols, and Ted Nugent's outfit, the Amboy Dukes, who scored big in 1968 with Journey To The Center Of The Mind.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Pink Wine Sparkles In The Glass
Source:    CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer(s):    Bachman/Cummings
Label:    Iconoclassic (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1968
    Originally written as a poem, Pink Wine Sparkles In The Glass, from the 1968 Guess Who album Wheatfield Soul, is on the surface a fairly light psychedelic tune. Hidden within the lyrics, however, are hints of Burton Cummings' awareness of social issues, an awareness that would only continue to grow over the next few years, resulting in classics like American Woman and Share The Land. Guitarist Randy Bachman apparently liked the original poem so much that he wrote music to go with it. Cummings, who normally played keyboards, plays rhythm guitar on the song.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    May This Be Love
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The original UK version of Are You Experienced? featured May This Be Love as the opening track of side two of the album. In the US, the UK single The Wind Cries Mary was substituted for it, with May This Be Love buried deep on side one. It's obvious that Hendrix thought more highly of the song than the people at Reprise who picked the track order for the US album.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Tattoo
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Decca
Year:    1967
    Starting in 1966, the Who wrote songs about things no other rock group had even considered writing songs about. Happy Jack, for instance, was about a guy who would hang out on the beach and let the local kids tease (but not faze) him. I'm A Boy was about a guy whose mother insisted on dressing him the same as his sisters. And I'm not even getting into the subject matter of Pictures Of Lily. The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967, continued this trend with songs like Tattoo, about an adolescent and his brother who go out and get (without their parents' permission) their first tattoos. The song is accompanied by a jingle for Radio London, the most successful of the British pirate radio stations that operated from studios in London but utilized illegal transmitters floating on platforms off the coast (the BBC having a monopoly on broadcasting at the time).

Artist:    Third Bardo
Title:    I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Evans/Pike
Label:    Rhino (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1967
    The Third Bardo (the name coming from the Tibetan Book of the Dead) only released one single, but I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time has become, over a period of time, one of the most sought-after records of the psychedelic era. Not much is known of this New York band made up of Jeffrey Moon (vocals), Bruce Ginsberg (drums), Ricky Goldclang (lead guitar), Damian Kelly (bass) and Richy Seslowe (guitar).

Artist:    Doors
Title:    When The Music's Over
Source:    CD: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    I remember the first time I heard When The Music's Over. My girlfriend's older brother had a copy of the Strange Days album on the stereo in his room and told us to get real close to the speakers so we could hear the sound of a butterfly while he turned the volume way up. What we got, of course, was a blast of "...we want the world and we want it now." Good times.

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

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion #1734 (starts 8/23/17)

This week we start off in 1967 with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and work our way up to 1974, with a rather lengthy stayover in 1972 along the way.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Spanish Castle Magic
Source:    LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    When the second Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Axis: Bold As Love, came out it was hailed as a masterpiece of four-track engineering. Working closely with producer Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer, Hendrix used the recording studio itself as an instrument, making an art form out of the stereo mixing process. The unfortunate by-product of this is that most of the songs on the album could not be played live and still sound anything like the studio version. One notable exception is Spanish Castle Magic, which became a more or less permanent part of the band's performing repertoire.

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

Artist:    Who
Title:    The Acid Queen
Source:    CD: Tommy
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1969
    Pete Townshend, the primary composer of the Who's rock opera Tommy, takes the lead vocals on The Acid Queen, a song that, while integral to the Tommy storyline, also stands as one of Townshend's strongest standalone compositions. The song is sung from the first person viewpoint of a gypsy who promises to cure Tommy's condition (blind, deaf and dumb) by using a combination of sex and drugs. Although her efforts are unsuccessful, the attempt itself has a profound effect on the youngster, who explores his inner self under the influence of LSD. Townshend himself has said that the song is "not just about acid: it's the whole drug thing, the drink thing, the sex thing wrapped into one big ball." In a reference to peer pressure, he adds that "society – people – force it on you. She represents this force." The song later became a hit single for, not surprisingly, Tina Turner, who played the part of the Acid Queen in the hit movie version of Tommy.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Every Mother's Son
Source:    LP: John Barleycorn Must Die
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1970
    Following the breakup of Blind Faith, Steve Winwood returned to the studio to work on his first solo LP, to be titled Mad Shadows. Winwood completed two tracks, including Every Mother's Son, before deciding to invite Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi to reform his old band, Traffic. The group recorded four more tracks for the LP, which was retitled John Barleycorn Must Die and released in 1970 as the fourth Traffic album. Winwood's already completed recording of Every Mother's Son was included as the final track on the LP.

Artist:     Jo Jo Gunne
Title:     Run Run Run
Source:     45 RPM single (stereo promo)
Writer:     Ferguson/Andes
Label:     Asylum
Year:     1972
     After Spirit called it quits following the disappointing sales of the Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes hooked up with Andes's brother Matt and William "Curly" Smith to form Jo Jo Gunne. Their best known song was Run Run Run, which hit the British top 10 and the US top 30 in 1972, receiving considerable amount of airplay on progressive rock stations as well.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Honky Cat
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    Uni
Year:    1972
    Elton John hit the top of the US charts with his fifth LP, Honky Chateau, in 1972. It was the first of seven consecutive #1 albums for the singer/songwriter and included two major hit singles. The second of these was the album's opening track, Honky Cat, which made the top 10 that same year, despite having a length of over five minutes at a time when most radio stations still observed the three and a half minute standard for top 40 singles.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Bare Trees
Source:    CD: Bare Trees
Writer(s):    Danny Kirwan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    Bare Trees, the last Fleetwood Mac to feature Danny Kirwan saw the guitarist/vocalist at his most prolific, writing half of the album's ten songs, including the title track. Bare Trees is also one of the catchiest tunes on the album, and got a decent amount of airplay on FM rock radio when it was released in 1972. Since Linday Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, the band's earlier songs, including Bare Trees, have been noticably neglected by so-called classic rock stations.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Soul Love
Source:    CD: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1972
    The second song on the album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Soul Love is an often overlooked gem from the David Bowie catalog. This partial obscurity may be due in part to the fact that Bowie seldom performed the song live. In fact, he only performed it twice on his Ziggy Stardust tour, and then not again until years later.

Artist:    Argent
Title:    Hold Your Head Up
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: All Together Now)
Writer(s):    Argent/White
Label:    Sony Music (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1972
    Following the dissolution of the Zombies, keyboardist Rod Argent went about forming a new band called, appropriately enough, Argent. The new group had its greatest success in 1972 with the song Hold Your Head Up, which went to the #5 spot on the charts in both the US and UK. The song originally appeared on the album All Together Now, with a running time of over six minutes. The first single version of the tune ran less than three minutes, but was quickly replaced with a longer edit that made the song three minutes and fifteen seconds long. In the years since, the longer LP version has come to be the most familiar one to most radio listeners.

Artist:    Cat Stevens
Title:    Foreigner Suite
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Cat Stevens (originally released on LP: Foreigner)
Writer(s):    Cat Stevens
Label:    A&M
Year:    1973
    Steven Demetre Georgiou has always had issues with his own success. At age 15 he got his first guitar and almost immediately began writing his own songs. He also began to exhibit talent as a painter, which pretty much set him apart from his peers. By the time he entered college he was performing regularly as a solo artist in various London clubs, using the name Cat Stevens. An audition with record producer Mike Hurst (former member of the Springfields) resulted in Stevens signing with Decca and releasing the first record on the new Deram label, a single containing I Love My Dog and Portabello Road. The followup single, Matthew And Son, went all the way to the #2 spot on the British charts (kept out of the top spot by the Monkees' I'm A Believer); virtually overnight Stevens's income jumped from about two pounds a week to 300 pounds a night. By the time he turned 20 he had several more top 10 hits, both as an artist and as a songwriter for other groups, such as the Tremeloes (Here Comes My Baby). By the early 1970s, however, Stevens had grown weary of being a pop star and decided to completely change musical directions. Starting with his 1970 album, Mona Bone Jakon, Stevens established a reputation for writing tunes with deeply spiritual lyrics set to catchy melodies. By 1973 he was one of the most successful singer/songwriters in the world, with tunes like Wild World, Peace Train and Moonshadow dominating the airwaves. But once again Stevens was getting restless, and that year he released what was up to that point the least commercial album of his career. Foreigner is basically a musical version of stream-of-thought writing, without any real breaks between sections. This excerpt from Foreigner Suite runs well over seven minutes in length; keep in mind, it is only an excerpt from a much longer piece. By the end of the decade Georgiou had undergone the biggest change of all, changing his name to Yusaf Islam and turning his back on the spotlight altogether.

Artist:    Gentle Giant
Title:    The Face
Source:    CD: The Power And The Glory
Writer(s):    Shulman/Minnear/Shulman
Label:    Alucard (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1974
    The Power And The Glory is a 1974 album by Gentle Giant that focuses on an individual that chooses politics as a means to make the world a better place. Like his predecessors, however, he becomes corrupted by power and ultimately becomes that which he originally fought against. The piece called The Face is the climax of the album itself, in which the protagonist declares himself to be the ultimate authority and demands total loyalty and obedience from his subjects (kind of like certain current political leaders). As of 2014, The Power And The Glory is available on Blu-Ray, with each song fully animated with various abstract patterns and all the lyrics displayed prominently on the screen. The latter makes a huge difference in the ability to enjoy the album, as Gentle Giant's vocals are often hard to decipher.

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.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1733 (starts 8/16/17)

This week's show includes the first part of an interview with Country Joe McDonald, as we continue our summer long song by song showcase of the album 50. Lots of other good stuff, too, including side two of Eric Burdon and the Animals The Twain Shall Meet and a rare Jimi Hendrix jam.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Salesman
Source:    CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s):    Craig Smith
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1967
    The first song on the Monkees' fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. was also the most controversial. Michael Nesmith, as a side project, had been producing songs for a group led by Craig Vincent Smith called the Penny Arkade. One song in particular, Salesman, impressed Nesmith so much that he decided to produce a Monkees version of the song as well. The track was then used in a Monkees TV episode called The Devil And Peter Tork. NBC-TV at first refused to air the episode, claiming that the line "Salesman with your secret goods that you push while you talk" was a veiled drug reference (although producer Bert Schnieder was convinced the real reason was the liberal use of the word "hell" in the show's script).

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    It's Wonderful
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Once Upon A Dream)
Writer:    Cavaliere/Brigati
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1967
    Psychedelic rock is generally considered to have begun on the West Coast (although Austin, Texas has a legitimate claim as well). By the time of the Summer of Love, however, psychedelic rock was a national trend. New York had always been one of the major centers of the music industry, so it's not surprising that on the East Coast 1967 was the year of the psychedelic single. One of the most popular New York bands of the time was the Young Rascals, generally considered to be the greatest blue-eyed soul band of the era, if not of all time. Still, the times being what they were, the Rascals departed from their usual style more than once in '67, first with the smash hit How Can I Be Sure, and then with their own psychedelic single, It's Wonderful, released in November of the same year.

Artist:    Superfine Dandelion
Title:    Crazy Town (Move On Little Children)
Source:    CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Collins/Musel
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    The Mile Ends were a Phoenix, Arizona band that were regulars at a local teen club called the Fifth Estate, which was run by a guy named Jim Musil. Musil became the group's manager, booking studio time to record a drinking song called Bottle Up And Go in 1966. Not long after that the group, now consisting of guitarists Mike McFadden and Ed Black, along with drummer Mike Collins, began calling themselves the Superfine Dandelion for a studio project sponsored by Musil. The group recorded an album's worth of material that came to the attention of Bob Shad, who was looking for material to issue on his Mainstream label. Shad bought the tapes, releasing the album in November of 1967. Shad chose Crazy Town (Move On Little Children) as a single, but a lack of interest by both radio and the record buying public brought the story of the Superfine Dandelion to a close by mid-1968.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Purple Haze
Source:     LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK as a single, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise got the rights to release the first Hendrix album, Are You Experienced?, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. The song next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which in Europe was on the Polydor label. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA (now Universal) acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced? with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced? is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that the song has now been released by all three of the currently existing major record companies.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Jam 292
Source:    CD: Blues
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    1969
    Jam 292 is basically a blues jam recorded at the Record Plant in New York in May of 1969. If you listen real close you can hear the occasional tinkling of piano keys played by Sharon Layne. Really, though, this one's all about the guitar solos.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     The Wind Cries Mary
Source:     LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     The US version of Are You Experienced was significantly different than its UK counterpart. For one thing, the original UK album was only available in mono. For the US version, engineers at Reprise Records, working from the original multi-track masters, created all new stereo mixes of about two-thirds of the album, along with the A sides of the three singles that the Jimi Hendrix Experience had released in the UK, which were then added to the album, replacing three of the original tracks. The third of these singles was The Wind Cries Mary, which had hit the British charts in February of 1967. The tune opens up side two of the American LP.

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, considering the song's subject matter, Last Time Around may well be the very first death metal rock song ever recorded.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released in UK only on LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1966
    When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the band's original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1970 soundtrack album for the movie Homer that the studio version was finally released in the US. Unfortunately the compilers of that album left out the last 25 seconds or so from the original recording.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow
Source:    LP: Incense And Peppermints
Writer(s):    Bunnell/Bartek
Label:    Sundazed/Uni
Year:    1967
    The song Incense And Peppermints was originally a B side released in 1967 on the regional All-American label in southern California. DJs began flipping the record over, however, and the song soon attracted the interest of the people at MCA, who reissued the record on their Uni label. The song was such a huge national hit that Uni gave the band the go ahead to record an entire album. That album, also titled Incense And Peppermints, contained several fine songs, including Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow. This unsung psychedelic classic opens with a flute solo from Steve Bartek, who co-wrote Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow. Strange as it may seem, Bartek was not considered a member of the Strawberry Alarm Clock, although he co-wrote (with bass player George Bunnell) four of the album's 12 tracks and plays on most of them.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Pow R. Toc H.
Source:    CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s):    Barrett/Waters/Wright/Mason
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    British psychedelic music was always more avant-garde than its US counterpart, and Pink Floyd was at the forefront of  the British psychedelic scene. Pow R. Toc H., one of the few tracks on their first LP that was written by the entire group (most of The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn was written by Syd Barrett), was a hint of things to come.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Fixing A Hole
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
    The first Beatle album to appear with the same tracks in the same order on both US and UK versions was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The only differences between the two were a lack of spaces in the vinyl (called "banding") on the UK version and a bit of gobbledygook heard at the end of the record (but only if you did not have a turntable that automatically lifted the needle out of the groove after the last track). The main consequence of this is that disc jockeys in the US had an easier time cueing up tracks like Fixing A Hole in the days before the album came out on CD.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    You're Lookin' Fine
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    One of the earliest recordings included on the Kinks' 1966 album Face To Face, You're Lookin' Fine is also the least tied into the album's loose theme of sardonic looks at social issues. In fact, You're Lookin' Fine is actually a pretty straightforward rock song, which by late 1965 (when it was recorded) was becoming somewhat of a rarity for songwriter Ray Davies.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     D.C.B.A.-25
Source:     Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer:     Paul Kantner
Label:     Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:     1967
     D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25"...it was 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.

Artist:    People
Title:    I Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Chris White
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the major labels had signed just about every San Francisco band with any perceived potential. Capitol, having had some success with the Chocolate Watchband from San Jose on its Tower subsidiary, decided to sign another south bay band, People, to the parent label. The most successful single for the band was a new recording of an obscure Zombies B side. I Love You ended up hitting the top 20 nationally, despite the active efforts of two of the most powerful men in the music industry, who set out to squash the song as a way of punishing the record's producer for something having nothing to do with the song or the band itself.

Artist:    Inner Light
Title:    Temptation
Source:    Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Dick Steffes
Label:    Arf! Arf!
Year:    1969
    You probably wouldn't expect a recording by a band from a farming community named Page, North Dakota, to be very psychedelic, even if the band's name was the Inner Light. And indeed, if you only heard the A side of this band's only single, you'd be absolutely right. The B side, however, the fuzztone flavored Temptation, is another story altogether. The record was one of the few freestanding releases by the Century Custom Recording Service, which usually released made to order records by school orchestras and church groups.

Artist:     Dave Clark Five
Title:    Glad All Over
Source:     Mono CD: 5 By Five (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Clark/Smith
Label:    Hollywood (original label: Epic)
Year:     1963
     The Dave Clark Five were originally formed as a way of raising money for Clark's football (soccer) team. Toward the end of 1963 they scored a number one hit in England with Glad All Over, which was released to an enthusiastic US audience a few months later. For a while they even rivaled the Beatles in popularity.

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Era Of Guns (includes comments from artist)
Source:    CD: 50
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rag Baby
Year:    2017
    Country Joe McDonald's latest album, 50, contains several tunes that address topics like the environment, racism, the current political climate and other relevant issues. Era Of Guns addresses the proliferation of violence in modern times, repeating the world weary phrase "Just another day in the era of guns."

Artist:    Liquid Scene
Title:    Which Side Of Time Are You On
Source:    CD: Revolutions
Writer(s):    Becki diGregorio
Label:    Ziglain
Year:    2014
    My favorite new band (by a long shot), Liquid Scene was formed by a group of San Francisco Bay area musicians that shared a love of 60s psychedelic music. Led by multi-instrumentalist Becki diGregorio, the band also includes guitarist Tom Ayers, bassist Endre Tarczy (who also provides some keyboard parts) and drummer Trey Sabatelli. Liquid Scene's first album, Revolutions, was released in late 2014. All nine tracks, including Which Side Of Time Are You On, are worth repeated listenings. I'm looking forward to their next effort.
      
Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source:    CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night))
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in late 1966 and hitting the charts in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation and Rhino's first Nuggets LP.

Artist:            Easybeats
Title:        Friday On My Mind
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year:        1966
       Considered by many to be the "greatest Australian song" ever recorded, the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, released in late 1966, certainly was the first (and for many years only) major international hit to emerge from the island continent. Rhythm guitarist George Young, who co-wrote Friday On My Mind, would go on to produce another Australian band featuring his two younger brothers, Angus and Malcolm.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Just Like A Woman
Source:    LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    By late 1966 the shock of Bob Dylan's going electric had long since worn off and Dylan was enjoying a string of top 40 hits in the wake of the success of Like A Rolling Stone. One of the last hits of the streak was Just Like A Woman, a track taken from his Blonde On Blonde album. This was actually the first Bob Dylan song I heard on top 40 radio.

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     The Twain Shall Meet (side two)
Source:     LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer(s):     Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     M-G-M
Year:     1968
     The Twain Shall Meet was the second album from Eric Burdon and the Animals, the new group formed in early 1967 after Eric Burdon changed his mind about embarking on a solo career. Produced by Tom Wilson (who had also produced Bob Dylan's first electric recordings and the Blues Project's Projections album), The Twain Shall Meet was an ambitious work that shows a band often reaching beyond its grasp, despite having its heart in the right place. For the most part, though, side two of the album works fairly well, starting with the anti-war classic Sky Pilot and continuing into the instrumental We Love You Lil. The final section, All Is One, is a unique blend of standard rock instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards) combined with strings, horns, sitar, bagpipes, oboe, flute, studio effects, and drone vocals that builds to a frenetic climax, followed by a spoken line by Burdon to end the album.

Artist:    Ultimate Spinach
Title:    Pamela
Source:    LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer:    Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1967   
    Trying to take in the entire first Ultimate Spinach album (or even just one side of it) can be a bit overwhelming. Taken individually, however, songs like Pamela, which closes the album, are actually quite listenable.
   
Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Iron Butterfly Theme
Source:    CD: Heavy
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Although much of the material on the first Iron Butterfly album, Heavy, has a somewhat generic L.A. club sound to it, the final track, the Iron Butterfly Theme, sounds more in line with the style the band would become known for on their In-A-Gadda-Vida album a few months later.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1733 (starts 8/16/17)

This week we are into geography, with visits to the Land of the Midnight Sun, Raging River of Fear, and Land of 1000 Nights (among other things). We end up Asleep in the Desert.

Artist:    Butterfield Blues Band
Title:    Everything's Gonna Be Alright
Source:    CD: Woodstock 2
Writer(s):    Walter Jacobs
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1969
    The Butterfield Blues Band had already gone through several personnel changes by the time they played the Woodstock festival in August of 1969. They had also evolved stylistically, adding a horn section and, for the most part, moving away from the long improvisational jams that had characterized their landmark 1966 LP East-West. Those elements were not entirely gone, however, as their nearly nine minute long performance of Walter Jacobs' Everything's Gonna Be Alright amply demontrates. In addition to a Butterfield harmonica solo to start things off, the piece showcases the talents of new guitarist Buzzy Feiten.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Why Didn't Rosemary
Source:    LP: Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Lord/Blackmore/Evans/Paice/Simper
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1969
    Deep Purple's self-titled third LP was plagued with problems not of the band's own making. Most of these can be traced to the fact that their American label, Tetragrammaton, was in deep (no pun intended) financial trouble. This meant virtually no promotion budget for the album, and problems with distribution as well. Actually, the company went bankrupt not long after the album was released, making Deep Purple (the album) almost impossible to find on the record racks. Their were internal problems brewing as well; this would be the last Deep Purple album to feature original lead vocalist Rod Evans and bassist Nicky Simper, who were dismissed to make room for Ian Gillan and and Roger Glover. The shame of it all is that Deep Purple was actually a pretty good album, covering a lot of musical ground. One of the tracks, Why Didn't Rosemary, is about as good as British blues-rock gets. Apparently the band's new label thought so as well, as Why Didn't Rosemary, as well as most of the rest of the tracks from Deep Purple, was included on a double-LP anthology album called Purple Passages that collected the best of the band's Tetragrammaton material.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Love Her Madly
Source:    LP: L.A. Woman
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971   
    The first single released from L.A. Woman, the final Doors album to feature vocalist Jim Morrison, Love Her Madly was a major success, peaking just outside the top 10 in the US, and going all the way to the #3 spot in Canada. The album itself was a return to a more blues-based sound by the Doors, a change that did not sit well with producer Paul Rothchild, who left the project early on, leaving engineer Bruce Botnik to assume production duties. Rothchild's opinion aside, it was exactly what the Doors needed to end their run (in their original four man incarnation) on a positive note.

Artist:     Flower Travellin' Band
Title:     Satori (part 1)
Source:     CD: Satori
Writer:     Flower Travellin' Band
Label:     Phoenix (original label: GRT)
Year:     1971
     The Flower Travellin' Band was arguably the first Japanese heavy metal band. Their first album, released in 1968, consisted entirely of cover songs of the hardest rocking US and UK bands. It wasn't until 1971 that the group finally cut an album of original material. The album was called Satori and consisted of five tracks (called Satori parts one through five). Satori is now hailed as one of the earliest (and best) examples of Japanese heavy metal.

Artist:    Al DiMeola
Title:    Land Of The Midnight Sun
Source:    LP: Land Of The Midnight Sun
Writer(s):    Al DiMeola
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1976
    One of the finest guitarists to emerge from the jazz-rock fusion movement of the early 1970s was Al DiMeola, who came to prominence as a member of Chick Corea's band, Return To Forever. For his first album released under his own name, DiMeola called upon fellow jazzmen Barry Miles (electric piano, Mini-Moog synthesizer) Anthony Jackson (bass),  Lenny White (drums) and  Mingo Lewis (percussion) to record Land Of The Midnight Sun. The album, released in 1976, shows DiMeola's talents as both a composer and instrumentalist, as can be plainly (and effectively) heard on the album's title track.


Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    Land Of 1000 Nights
Source:    Canadian import CD: Strange Universe
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    Just A Minute (original label: 20th Century)
Year:    1975
    Formed in Montreal in 1970, Mahogany Rush was, in its early days, a power trio led by guitarist Frank Marino, along with bassist Paul Harwood and drummer Jimmy Ayoub. Marino's style has often been compared to that of Jimi Hendrix, whom Marino cites as a major influence. Perhaps their most successful album was Strange Universe, recorded in Montreal and released on the 20th Century label in 1975. Later in the decade the trio was joined by Marino's brother Vince on rhythm guitar and began touring as Frank Marino And Mahogany Rush.

Artist:    Captain Beyond
Title:    Raging River Of Fear
Source:    LP: Captain Beyond
Writer(s):    Caldwell/Evans
Label:    Capricorn
Year:    1972
    No band has ever impressed me during a live performance more than Captain Beyond did in 1972. Some friends and I had made the trip from Alamogordo to El Paso to catch a concert. Back in those days a typical rock concert featured three bands: one headliner, a middle band that had an album or two under their belt but had not yet achieved headliner status, and an opening act that was generally either a new band promoting their debut LP or a popular local band. I honestly don't remember who the headliner was on this particular night, but they were obviously enough of a draw to get the bunch of us to drive the 85 miles of two-lane blacktop across the Texas-New Mexico line to come see them. As it turns out, it didn't matter, because the opening act (whom none of us had ever heard of) totally blew both the other bands off the stage. The thing I was most impressed by was how big of a sound they had on songs like Raging River Of Fear, considering they had only one guitar, along with bass, drums and vocals. Later that week I discovered the second most impressive thing about Captain Beyond: their concert performance sounded exactly like their album, which I bought as soon as I found a copy on the racks. Once I had a copy of the album I realized that I was already familiar with the work of some of the band members, including Lee Dorman and Rhino (both from Iron Butterfly) and Rod Evans (the original Deep Purple vocalist). Drummer Bobby Caldwell's name was unfamiliar, but he certainly left an impression with his power and precision, a combination that fit the band quite well.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    Take A Pebble
Source:    CD: Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Writer(s):    Greg Lake
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1970   
    From the flamboyant piano of Jerry Lee Lewis to the cheesy Farfisa sound of ? and the Mysterians, keyboards were an integral part of rock music right from the start. Nonetheless, the electric guitar was still the instrument of choice for most rock musicians. A new development in the late 1960s, however, would forever change the balance between guitar and keyboards: the invention of the Moog synthesizer (and subsequent electronic keyboard instruments). One of the first rock musicians to experiment with the new technology was Keith Emerson, keyboardist for the Nice. In 1970 Emerson teamed up with bassist Greg Lake and drummer Carl Palmer to form a new band that, shockingly, had no electric guitars at all (although Lake did occassionally play an acoustic guitar). The new band's self-titled debut album was a surprise hit, thanks in large part to the tune Lucky Man, which managed to get airplay on both AM and FM radio. The Lake composition Take A Pebble, at twelve and a half minutes, was way too long for AM airplay, but did get considerable exposure on the album-oriented rock stations that were starting to show up on the FM band. Emerson, Lake and Palmer would continue to have success throughout the 70s, particularly in Italy, where they were the number one band in the country for several years.

Artist:    ZZ Top
Title:    Asleep In The Desert
Source:    LP: Tejas
Writer(s):    Billy Gibbons
Label:    London
Year:    1976
    Guitarist Billy Gibbons takes center stage for the final track on ZZ Top's 1976 LP Tejas, a low-key instrumental called Asleep In The Desert. Warning: this one will stick in your head.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1732 (starts 8/9/17)

First we go up, then we go down. Then we go up again and we go down again...through the years, that is. Then, it's time for another track from the new Country Joe McDonald album before resuming our roller coaster ride.

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    LP released 1967, single edit released 1968
    Time Has Come Today has one of the most convoluted histories of any song of the psychedelic era. First recorded in 1966 and released as a two-and-a-half minute single the song flopped. The following year an entirely new eleven minute version of the song was recorded for the album The Time Has Come, featuring an extended pyschedelic section filled with various studio effects. In late 1967 a three minute edited version of the song was released that left out virtually the entire psychedelic section of the recording. Soon after that, the single was pulled from the shelf and replaced by a longer edited version that included part of the psychedelic section. That version became a hit record in 1968, peaking just outside the top 10. This is actually a stereo recreation of that mono second edited version.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Born On The Bayou
Source:    LP: Bayou Country
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1968
    If there is any single song that sums up what Creedence Clearwater Revival was all about, it could very well be Born On The Bayou, the opening track of CCR's second LP, Bayou Country. The song, which was written by John Fogerty late at night, became the opening for nearly every Creedence concert over the next few years, and is considered by many to be the band's signature song. Oddly enough, John Fogerty had never set foot on a bayou in his life when he wrote the song, but had always been a fan of the movie Swamp Fever, as well as having a fascination with "every other bit of southern bayou information that had entered my imagination from the time I was born."

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Sweet Dream
Source:    LP: Living in the Past
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1969
    Jethro Tull released several singles that were not originally available on their LPs. Among the best of these was Sweet Dream, a 1969 track that was released in the UK and continental Europe, as well as selected Middle Eastern countries, but not in the US or Canada. The song finally appeared in North America on the Living In The Past album in 1973, and is now available as a bonus track on the Stand Up CD.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Good Good Lovin'
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Stein/Bogert/Martell/Appice
Label:    Real Gone/Rhino
Year:    1969
    Originally recorded for the album Near The Beginning, the Vanilla Fudge original Good Good Lovin' instead appeared as the B side of the band's hard-driving cover of Jr. Walker's Shotgun. As a general rule, the Fudge were better at arranging other people's material than in composing their own, but Good Good Lovin' is actually a pretty powerful piece musically, with some antiwar lyrics thrown in for good measure.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Overs
Source:    LP: Bookends
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Originally written for (but not used in) the film The Graduate, Overs is the middle part of a series of songs on side one of the Bookends album that follow the cycle of life from childhood to old age. The song deals with a long relationship that is coming to an end after years of slow stagnation. Musically the tune is quiet and contemplative, with a loose structure that has more in common with the cool jazz of Miles Davis than either folk or rock.
   
Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     The Wind Cries Mary
Source:     LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP Are You Experienced?)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     The US version of Are You Experienced was significantly different than its UK counterpart. For one thing, the original UK album was only available in mono. For the US version, engineers at Reprise Records, working from the original multi-track masters, created all new stereo mixes of about two-thirds of the album, along with all three of the singles that the Jimi Hendrix Experience had released in the UK. The third of these singles was The Wind Cries Mary, which had hit the British charts in February of 1967.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    The Bells Of Rhymney
Source:    LP: The Byrds' Greatest Hits
Writer(s):    Davies/Seeger
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    It's hard to argue with the fact that the Byrds, on the early albums, did a lot of Bob Dylan covers. In fact, their first hit, Mr. Tambourine Man, was written by Dylan, as were three other tracks on their first LP. Dylan was not the only artist covered by the Byrds, however. Their second #1 hit, Turn Turn Turn, was written by Pete Seeger, as was The Bells Of Rhymney, a track on their first LP. The song was adapted by Seeger from a lyric by Welsh poet Idris Davies, and tells the story of a coal mining disaster in Wales. The Byrds began performing the song during their time as the house band at Ciro's, a club on Los Angeles's Sunset Strip, and it quickly became an audience favorite. George Harrison was reportedly influenced by Roger McGuinn's guitar riff for The Bells Of Rhymney when writing his own If I Needed Someone for the Rubber Soul album.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let's Get Together
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Dino Valenti
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    Although Dino Valenti recorded a demo version of his song Let's Get Together in 1964, it wasn't until two years later that the song made its first appearance on vinyl as a track on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The Airplane version of the song is unique in that the lead vocals alternate between Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin, with each one taking a verse and all of them singing on the chorus.

Artist:    Hollies
Title:    Pay You Back With Interest
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Hollies
Writer(s):    Clarke/Hicks/Nash
Label:    Cema Special Products (original label: Imperial)
Year:    1967
    By 1967 the Hollies had actually achieved a level of popularity in the US that allowed them to issue singles that were not available in their native UK. One of these was Pay You Back With Interest, which made the US top 20 in 1967. The tune was written by the Hollies' usual songwriting partnership of Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, and Graham Nash, who left the group the following year, citing creative differences with the rest of the band members.

Artist:    Los Chijuas
Title:    Changing The Colors Of Life
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jose and Julian Ganem
Label:    Rhino (original label: Musart)
Year:    1968
    Although it was issued on an American label, Changing The Colors Of Life was actually the product of Los Chijuas, a band from Ciudad Juarez, a city located directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Like Tijuana, Juarez was a popular destination for off-duty US military personnel from White Sands Missile Range, Holloman AFB (both in New Mexico) and especially Fort Bliss, located in El Paso itself. The city had a strong local music scene, with bands performing various mixtures of salsa, ranchero, mariachi, rock and soul nightly at the city's many clubs. One band that stood out from the rest was Los Chijuas, who, unlike most of the local groups, was strongly influenced by the folk-rock movement that had stormed the US West Coast just a couple years earlier. Changing The Colors Of Life, written by co-founders Jose and Julian Ganem, was recorded in Juarez, but released on the American Musart label in 1968. The group also had a hit in Mexico that same year with their own version of Bob Dylan's Mighty Quinn, thanks in part to the support of El Paso disc jockey Steve Crosno, who in addition to being the voice of XELO (the bilingual AM top 40 station radiating 100 kilowatts of power from south of the border) was host of a weekly dance show on a local El Paso TV station.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Oh, Sweet Mary
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    The only song credited to the entire membership of Big Brother And The Holding Company on their Cheap Thrills album was Oh, Sweet Mary (although the original label credits Janis Joplin as sole writer and the album cover itself gives only Joplin and Peter Albin credit). The tune bears a strong resemblance to Coo Coo, a non-album single the band had released on the Mainstream label before signing to Columbia. Oh, Sweet Mary, however, has new lyrics and a "dreamy" bridge section played at a slower tempo than the rest of the tune.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Janey's Blues
Source:    LP: Janis Ian
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1967
    Following the success of her first hit single, Society's Child, singer/songwriter/poet Janis Ian released her self-titled debut LP in early 1967, follwing it up with two more albums, For All The Seasons Of Your Mind and The Secret Life Of J. Eddy Fink, over the next year or so. Although there were singles released from each of these, none of them got much chart action. Finally, in late 1968, her label decided to go back to her debut LP for her fifth single, Janey's Blues. I suspect the song's length (nearly five minutes) automatically kept many AM radio DJs from playing the song, which is a shame, as Janey's Blues is one of the undiscovered gems of the late 1960s.

Artist:    Outsiders (Dutch band)
Title:    Touch
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the Netherlands as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tax/Splinter
Label:    Rhino (original label: Relax)
Year:    1966
    The Outsiders were formed in Holland in 1964 by vocalist Wally Tax and guitarist Ronald Splinter. Although most of the band members were only 15, they managed to get a four night a week gig at a local club, and by 1966 had become one of the top bands in the country. Touch was the fifth of many hit singles for the band, which split up in 1969.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Do You Believe In Magic
Source:    CD: Battle Of The Bands (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Do You Believe In Magic)
Writer(s):    John Sebastian
Label:    Era (original label: Kama Sutra)
Year:    1965
    Do You Believe In Magic, the debut single by the Lovin' Spoonful, was instrumental in establishing not only the band itself, but the Kama Sutra label as well. Over the next couple of years, the Spoonful would crank out a string of hits, pretty much single-handedly keeping Kama Sutra in business. In 1967 the band's lead vocalist and primary songwriter John Sebastian departed the group for a solo career, and Kama Sutra itself soon morphed into a company called Buddah Records. Buddah (the misspelling being discovered too late to be fixed) soon came to dominate the "bubble gum" genre of top 40 music throughout 1968 and well into 1969, but eventually proved in its own way to be as much a one-trick pony as its predecessor.
     
Artist:     Blues Image
Title:     Ride Captain Ride
Source:     CD: Open
Writer:     Blues Image
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:     1970
     After having mild commercial success with their self-titled debut album in 1969, Blues Image deliberately set out to write a hit song for their second LP, Open. The result was Ride Captain Ride, which made the top 40 in 1970. The album itself, however, did not do as well as its predecessor, and was the last one issued by the band's original lineup.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Top Of The Pops
Source:    Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
            For reasons that now really don't make a whole lot of sense, the Kinks were blacklisted by the American Federation of Musicians from 1965 through 1969, meaning they couldn't perform in the US. This, in turn, had a negative effect on the group's record sales, as they were unable to promote their new music through touring. As a result, the Kinks suffered a dearth of hits in the US throughout the late 1960s. As soon as the ban was lifted, the Kinks arranged a US tour, but illnesses suffered by various band members forced cancellation of all but a handful of the scheduled gigs. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it gave Ray Davies plenty of time to work on new material. The result was the 1970 album Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One, featuring the song Lola, which was their most successful single since the 1966 hit Sunny Afternoon. The album itself is a concept album taking a somewhat skewed look at the music industry itself. One obvious example is the song Top Of The Pops, which was also the name of a popular weekly British TV show that showcased the top songs of the day.

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Daughter Of England
Source:    CD: 50
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rag Baby
Year:    2017
    Country Joe McDonald's new album, 50, has been described as "a contemporary survey of current topics". That label certainly applies to Daughter Of England, a song about the current state of affairs in what was once the crown jewel of the British colonial empire and has now become the most powerful (and some say most dangerous) nation on Earth.

Artist:    Mumphries
Title:    Living In A Drug Zone
Source:    CD: Thank You, Bonzo
Writer(s):    Schwar/Webb
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1989
    The Mumphries evolved out of an earlier Albuquerque band called the Soft Corp. Unlike the Mumphries, the Soft Corps had a somewhat fluid membership, with some members taking the stage while others sat out particular numbers. The drummer for the Soft Corps was Jim Schwar, who is currently active on the Albuquerque jazz scene. Schwar provided most of the lyrics for Living In A Drug Zone, a somewhat sardonic look at what was left of the 60s/70s counterculture as the 1980s were coming to a close (Albuquerque being famously ten years behind the times). The song was one of bassist Quincy Adams's favorites, so it became part of the Mumphries repertoire as well. For those paying close attention to the lyrics, Cabin Lance was (and probably still is) a busker who was regularly seen hanging out in the area of the University of New Mexico, playing what he calls "Kentucky reggae".

Artist:    Gandalf
Title:    Can You Travel In The Dark Alone
Source:    LP: Gandalf
Writer(s):    Peter Sando
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    What's in a name? Well, when You're a rock band and your name is the Rhagoos, apparently not enough to keep the producers happy. The name the producers suggested, however, was even worse. I mean, you really can't blame the band members for hating a name like the Knockrockers, right? It took a while, but after throwing around several possibilities, the band decided to go with Gandalf And The Wizards, a name suggested by drummer Davy Bauer that was later shortened to just Gandalf. Gandalf only recorded one album, which was released on the Capitol label in 1969. Most of the tracks on that album were cover songs, with only two originals, both of which were provided by guitarist Peter Sando. Of those, Can You Travel In The Dark Alone is the more notable. For the completists among you, the other two members of this New York band were Bob Muller (bass) and Frank Hubach (keyboards). I'm not sure who provided the vocals, although my guess would be Sando.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Supplicio/Can You Dig It
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Peter Tork
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1968
    Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings. The first, and most familiar, was For Pete's Sake, which was released on the Headquarters album in 1967 and used as the closing theme for the second season of their TV series. The second Tork solo piece was the more experimental Can You Dig It used in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. Not long after Head was completed, Tork left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album. Supplicio, which precedes Can You Dig It on the LP, is a short bit of uncredited electronics effects that lead into the Tork tune.

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

Artist:    Animals
Title:    See See Rider
Source:    LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals Vol. II (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s):    Ma Rainey
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    One of the last singles released by the original incarnation of the Animals, See See Rider traces its roots back to the 1920s, when it was first recorded by Ma Rainey. The Animals version is considerably faster than most other recordings of the song, and includes a signature opening rift by organist Dave Rowberry (who had replaced founder Alan Price prior to the recording of the Animalization album that the song first appeared on) that is unique to the Animals' take on the tune.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Flowers)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1966
    By mid-1966 there was a population explosion of teenage rock bands popping up in garages and basements all across the US, the majority of which were doing their best to emulate the grungy sound of their heroes, the Rolling Stones. The Stones themselves responded by ramping up the grunge factor to a previously unheard of degree with their last single of the year, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? It was the most feedback-laden record ever to make the top 40 at that point in time, and it inspired America's garage bands to buy even more powerful amps and crank up the volume (driving their parents to drink in the process).

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Steve's Song
Source:    Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s):    Steve Katz
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:    1966
    The members of the Blues Project came from a variety of backgrounds, including jazz, rock, classical and of course, blues. Guitarist Steve Katz had the strongest connection to the Greenwich Village folk scene and was the lead vocalist on the Project's recording of Donovan's Catch The Wind on their first LP. For their second album Katz wrote his own song, entitled simply Steve's Song. The tune starts with a very old-English style repeated motif that gets increasing complicated as it repeats itself before segueing into a more conventional mode with Katz on the lead vocal. Katz would write and sing similarly-styled tunes, such as Sometimes In Winter, during his tenure as guitarist for Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Sometimes I Think About
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala/Theilheim/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    Although it sounds like it could have been a remake of an old blues tune, Sometimes I Think About is actually a Blues Magoos original. The song, from their debut Psychedelic Lollipop album, is slow and moody, yet actually rocks out pretty hard, a pattern that would become somewhat of a hard rock cliche in the 1970s (think Grand Funk Railroad's Heartbreaker).

Artist:    Bee Gees
Title:    Holiday
Source:    CD: Bee Gees 1st
Writer(s):    Barry and Robin Gibb
Label:    Reprise (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Prior to 1967 the Bee Gees were virtually unknown beyond Australia and New Zealand. That all changed in a big way when the three Gibb brothers, Barry, Robin and Maurice, relocated to London and signed new recording contracts with Polydor in the UK and Atco in the US. The first album to come out on these labels (entitled Bee Gees 1st, despite it actually being their third LP) had no less than three hit singles on it in the US, and two in the UK. The song that was only released as a single in North America was Holiday, a slow, heavily orchestrated tune that was described by one music critic as "elegantly schlocky". The Bee Gees would continue to make records in a similar vein into the early 1970s, before transforming themselves into poster children for disco music later in the decade.

Artist:      Blue Cheer
Title:     Summertime Blues
Source:      Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    Cochrane/Capehart
Label:    Philips
Year:     1968
     European electronics giant Philips had its own record label in the 1960s. In the US, the label was distributed by Mercury Records, and was known primarily for a long string of hits by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1968 the label surprised everyone by signing the loudest band in San Francisco, Blue Cheer. Their cover of the 50s Eddie Cochrane hit Summertime Blues was all over both the AM and FM airwaves that summer.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Soul Sacrifice
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer(s):    Brown/Malone/Rolie/Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Of all the bands formed in the late 1960s, very few achieved any degree of popularity outside of their local community. Fewer still could be considered an influence on future stars. Most rare of all are those who managed to be both popular and influential while maintaining a degree of artistic integrity. One name that comes immediately to mind is Santana (both the band and the man). It might be surprising, then, to hear that the first Santana album, released in 1969, was savaged by the rock press, particularly the San Francisco based Rolling Stone magazine, who called it boring and repetitious. It wasn't until the band performed Soul Sacrifice (heard here in its original studio version) at Woodstock that Santana became major players on the rock scene.

Artist:    Morning Dew
Title:    Crusader's Smile
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US on LP: Morning Dew)
Writer(s):    Mal Robinson
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1970
    In the late 1960s Roulette Records was pretty much wholly supported by one act: Tommy James And The Shondells, who had cranked out a string of hit records starting with Hanky Panky in 1966 (the song had actually, however, been released in 1964). There were other artists recording for the label, however, but for the most part their efforts went unnoticed by the record buying public. This is a bit of a shame, as some of those artists, such as Morning Dew, were actually pretty good. The Topeka, Kansas band took its name from the Tim Rose song made famous by the Grateful Dead, and on most tracks sounded pretty much exactly as one would expect. The group's only LP, released in 1970, started off on a bit more energetic note with the song Crusader's Smile, which was written by band leader Mal Robinson.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1732 (starts 8/9/17)

This time around we revisit a couple of old favorites from Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before breaking into some classic progressive rock with Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Genesis. From there it's more old favorites from some pretty familiar names.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Are You Experienced?
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    Before the release of Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience the emphasis in rock music (then generally known as pop music) was on the 45 RPM single, with albums seen as a luxury item that supplemented an artist's career rather than defined it. Are You Experience helped change all that. The album was not only highly influential, it was also a major seller, despite getting virtually no airplay on US top 40 radio. The grand finale of the LP was the title track, which features an array of studio effects, including backwards masked guitar and tape loops. Interestingly enough, the album was originally issued only in a mono version in the UK, with European pressings using a simulated stereo mix. After Reprise bought the rights to release the LP in the US the label hired its own engineers to create stereo mixes of the songs from the four-track master tapes.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Rock Me Baby
Source:    Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    King/Josea
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    The first Blue Cheer LP, Vincebus Eruptum, is cited by some as the first heavy metal album, while others refer to it as proto metal. However you want to look at it, the album is dominated by the feedback-laden guitar of Leigh Stephens, as can be plainly heard on their version of B.B. King's classic Rock Me Baby. Although there seem to be very few people still around who actually heard Blue Cheer perform live, the power trio has the reputation of being one of the loudest bands in the history of rock music. 

Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    Aquatarkus
Source:    LP: Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends-Ladies And Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Writer(s):    Keith Emerson
Label:    Manticore
Year:    1974
    We don't often think of a keyboardist as a front man, but there have been a few notable examples throughout the history of rock and roll, starting with Jerry Lee Lewis, who was as much a showman as any of his contemporaries. Another example is Keith Emerson, whose presence dominated his first successful band, the Nice. This sense of showmanship developed further with his next group, Emerson, Lake And Palmer. What makes Emerson's case unusual is the fact that he did not sing. But somehow he managed to stay in the spotlight with his boundless energy resembling nothing more than a modern Mozart or Liszt. Usually energy like this does not translate well into recorded media, but in the case of Aquatarkus, from the 1974 live album Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends-Ladies And Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake And Palmer, that energy comes through loud and clear. The piece itself is the grand finale of Tarkus, a multi-part masterpiece that took up an entire side of an album when recorded in the studio.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Musical Box
Source:    CD: Nursery Cryme
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1971
    In a sense, the story of the rock band known as Genesis gets underway with the release of the 1971 album Nursery Cryme. Technically it was the third Genesis album. However, the first two albums, From Genesis To Revelation and Trespass, were not really rock albums at all. It was only after the departure of original guitarist Anthony Phillips and his replacement by Steve Hackett, along with the addition of drummer Phil Collins, that Genesis became a true electric rock band, albeit one with a heavy element of British folk music. Although Genesis sounded nothing like harder British progressive rock bands like Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, their music was every bit as innovative and complex, as plainly can be heard on the ten minute long opening track from Nursery Cryme, The Musical Box. The lyrics of the song are based on a fairy tale by Peter Gabriel about two children in a country house, one of which (a girl) kills the other by beheading him with a croquet mallet. From there, it only gets weirder (and more adult). The Musical Box is still considered one of Genesis' most influential works, and has even inspired a group of young musicians to call themselves The Musical Box.

Artist:     Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     I Can Feel Him In The Morning
Source:     CD: Survival
Writer:     Farner/Brewer
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1971
     In the late 1980s I met a woman from L.A who had been in high school the year Grand Funk Railroad's fourth studio LP came out. When she discovered that I still had my original copy of Survival she told me how an 8-track copy of that album got her through the summer of '71 when she was living with her mother in an apartment overlooking one of the hookers' corners on Hollywood Blvd. She said that whenever she was feeling overwhelmed by life she would draw inspiration from the song I Can Feel Him In The Morning. The tune, with its flowing beat and spiritual lyrics, was a departure from the loud, raw sound the band from Flint was known for.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Living In The Past
Source:    LP: Living In The Past (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    By the end of the 1960s most UK labels had abandoned the British tradition of not including singles on LPs. One notable exception was Island Records, who continued to issue mutually exclusive Jethro Tull albums, singles and EPs into the early 1970s. Among those non-LP tracks was the 1969 single Living In The Past, which would not be included on an LP until 1972, when the song became the title track of a double LP Jethro Tull retrospective. The song then became a hit all over again, including in the US, where the original single had failed to chart.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Changes
Source:    CD: Hunky Dory
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Parlophone (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1971
    Sometimes a seemingly innocous little song will turn out to be something far more than it started out to be. Such is the case with Changes, one of the most recognizable songs of the 20th century. Originally appearing on the 1971 album Hunky Dory and released as a single in 1972, Changes, according to Bowie, started off as a parody of a nightclub song, "a kind of throwaway", that featured Bowie himself on saxophone, with strings provided by Mick Ronson. Rick Wakeman's keyboards also feature prominently in the recording. The song was Bowie's first North American release on the RCA Victor label (although Mercury had released The Man Who Sold The World two years previously, the record had gone nowhere at the time). Changes is often taken as a statement of artistic intent, as Bowie was constantly reinventing himself throughout his career. Oddly enough, the song did not make the British charts until its re-release following Bowie's death in 2016.

Artist:    Patti Smith Group
Title:    Ask The Angels
Source:    LP: Radio Ethiopia
Writer(s):    Smith/Kral
Label:    Arista
Year:    1976
    Patti Smith's second LP, Radio Ethiopia, was, in some ways, a deliberate attempt at commercial success. As such, it received mixed reviews from the rock press for songs such as Ask The Angels, the LP's opening track. The song, which was released as the album's third single, was co-written by bassist Ivan Kral, who was the band member pushing the hardest for commercial success.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    The Song Remains The Same
Source:    CD: Houses Of The Holy
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    The Song Remains The Same was originally meant to be an instrumental overture to open the band's fifth album, Houses Of The Holy. Vocalist Robert Plant, however, had different ideas, and added what has been called his tribute to world music, expressing a belief in music as a universal language. A couple of the track's original elements survived, however. The song still serves as the opening track for the album, and is still followed immediately by The Rain Song. The two were often performed in sequence at the band's concerts as well. The Song Remains The Same is also the name of Led Zeppelin's legendary concert film as well.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Leaving My Troubles Behind
Source:    LP: Blues Image
Writer:    Blues Image
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Miami's Blues Image was highly regarded by critics and musicians alike. Unfortunately, they were never able to translate that acclaim into album sales, despite recording a pair of fine albums for Atco. One of the highlights of their self-titled debut LP was a track called Leaving My Troubles Behind. By all rights the song should have become a rock standard, but for some reason never truly caught on. Following the release of the band's second LP, guitarist Mike Pinera left Blues Image to replace Eric Brann in Iron Butterfly, and after one more unsuccessful album the group disbanded.