Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1821 (starts 5/23/18)

Relatively speaking, this week's show is pretty mainstream. Of course, "pretty mainstream" for Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is still pretty far out there.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Bringing Me Down
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    One of several singles released mainly to San Francisco Bay area radio stations and record stores, Bringing Me Down is an early collaboration between vocalist Marty Balin and guitarist/vocalist Paul Kantner. Balin had invited Kantner into the band without having heard him play a single note. It turned out to be one of many right-on-the-money decisions by the young bandleader.
   
Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source:     Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:     1966
     One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
   
Artist:    Euphoria
Title:    Hungry Women
Source:    British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Wesley Watt
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1966
            Euphoria was the brainchild of multi-instrumentalists Wesley Watt and Bill Lincoln. The band existed in various incarnations, starting in 1966. Originally based in San Francisco, the group, minus Lincoln, relocated to Houston in early summer of 1966, only to return a couple months later with a pair of new members pirated from a band called the Misfits that had gotten in trouble with local law enforcement officials. Around this time they were discovered by Bob Shad, who was out on the west coast looking for acts to sign to his Chicago-based Mainstream label. The band recorded four songs at United studios, two of which, Hungry Women and No Me Tomorrow, were issued as a single in late 1966. The following year both songs appeared in stereo on Shad's Mainstream showcase LP With Love-A Pot Of Flowers, along with tunes from several other Bay Area acts that Shad had signed in 1966.
       
Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    The World's On Fire
Source:    LP: Incense And Peppermints
Writer(s):    King/Bunnell/Freeman/Weitz/Seal
Label:    Sundazed/Uni
Year:    1967
    So you think because you've heard Incense And Peppermints (the song, not the album) about a million times, you have a pretty good grip on what the Strawberry Alarm Clock was all about? Well, a listen to the opening track of their first LP (also titled Incense And Peppermints) will disabuse you of that notion in a hurry. Running well over eight minutes in length, The World's On Fire is essentially an extended jam showcasing the talents of the band itself. The piece was also included in the 1968 film Psych-Out.

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the group, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Hall Of The Mountain King
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Edvard Greig
Label:    MCA
Year:    1967
    In the early 1960s various local instrumental rock and roll bands began to mix rocked out versions of classical pieces into their sets, such as Nut Rocker by B. Bumble And The Stingers (from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker). In the UK the most popular of these adaptations was Hall Of The Mountain King, from Greig's Peer Gynt Suite, which was actually recorded by several different bands. The Who did their own studio version of the piece in late 1967, although the recording was not released until 1995, as a bonus track on The Who Sell Out CD.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
            One of the first tracks recorded for the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the title track itself, which opens up side one of the LP. The following song, With A Little Help From My Friends (tentatively titled Bad Finger Boogie at the time), was recorded nearly two months later, yet the two sound like one continuous performance. In fact, it was this painstaking attention to every facet of the recording and production process that made Sgt. Pepper's such a landmark album. Whereas the first Beatle album  took 585 minutes to record, Sgt. Pepper's took over 700 hours. At this point in the band's career, drummer Ringo Starr was generally given one song to sing (usually written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney) on each of the group's albums. Originally, these were throwaway songs such as I Wanna Be Your Man (which was actually written for the Rolling Stones), but on the previous album, Revolver, the biggest hit on the album ended up being the song Ringo sang, Yellow Submarine. Although no singles were released from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, With A Little Help From My Friends received considerable airplay on top 40 radio and is one of the most popular Beatle songs ever recorded.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Because
Source:    CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1969
    Take Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Turn a few notes around, add some variations and write some lyrics. Add the Beatles' unmistakeable multi-part harmonies and you have John Lennon's Because, from the Abbey Road album. A simply beautiful recording.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    She's Leaving Home
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1967
    One of the striking things about the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the sheer variety of songs on the album. Never before had a rock band gone so far beyond its roots in so many directions at once. One of Paul McCartney's most poignant songs on the album was She's Leaving Home. The song tells the story of a young girl who has decided that her stable homelife is just too unfulling to bear and heads for the big city. Giving the song added depth is the somewhat clueless response of her parents, who can't seem to understand what went wrong.
   
Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Ain't It Hard
Source:    Mono CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tillison/Tillison
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes got their big break in 1966 when a real estate saleswoman heard them playing in a garage in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley and told her friend Dave Hassinger about them. Hassinger was a successful studio engineer (having just finished the Rolling Stones' Aftermath album) who was looking to become a record producer. The Prunes were his first clients, and Hassinger's production style is evident on their debut single. Ain't It Hard had already been recorded by the Gypsy Trips, and the Electric Prunes would move into more psychedelic territory with their next release, the iconic I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In) (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk
Writer:    McElroy/Bennett
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    It took me several years to sort out the convoluted truth behind the recorded works of San Jose, California's most popular local band, the Chocolate Watchband. While it's true that much of what was released under their name was in fact the work of studio musicians, there are a few tracks that are indeed the product of Dave Aguilar and company. Are You Gonna Be There, a song used in the cheapie teenspliotation flick the Love-In and included on the Watchband's first album, is one of those few. Ironically, the song was co-written by Don Bennett, the studio vocalist whose voice was substituted for Aguilar's on a couple of other songs from the same album.

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

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    How Many More Times
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Led Zeppelin)
Writer(s):    Page/Jones/Bonham
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1969
    Like many early Led Zeppelin songs, How Many More Times was originally credited to the band members (except, for contractual reasons, singer Robert Plant). More recent releases of the song, however, list Chester Burnett (Howlin' Wolf) as a co-writer, despite the fact that he and the members of Led Zeppelin had never met. This is because of the similarity, especially in the lyrics, to a 1951 Howlin' Wolf record called How Many More Years. The band reportedly tried to trick radio programmers into playing the eight and a half minute song by listing it on the album cover as being three minutes and thirty seconds long. I doubt anyone was fooled.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Boom Boom
Source:    LP: The Animals On Tour
Writer(s):    John Lee Hooker
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1964
    One of the highlights of the Animals' first UK album was their energetic rendition of John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom. The performance was so strong, in fact, that M-G-M chose to release the song as a single in early 1965. This was followed by a US-only album called The Animals On Tour that featured the tune as its opening track. Despite the title, The Animals On Tour was not a live album. Rather, it was a collection of blues and R&B cover songs, many of which were learned from records acquired by the band members at local record stores during their 1964 US tour (thus the album title).

Artist:    Love
Title:    Can't Explain
Source:    Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols/Fleckenstein
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    Love's original lineup consisted of bandleader Arthur Lee on vocals, Johnny Echols on lead guitar, John Fleckenstein on bass and Don Conka on drums, with Lee, a prolific songwriter, providing the band's original material. They were soon joined by singer/songwriter/guitarist Bryan MacLean, who gave up his traveling gig as a roadie for the Byrds. Before they completed their first album, however, Fleckenstein and Conka had been replaced by Ken Forssi and Snoopy Pfisterer, although Lee himself provided most of the drums and some of the bass tracks on the LP. Two of the tracks on the album, however, are rumored to have been performed by the original five members, although this has never been verified. One of those tracks is Can't Explain, on which Fleckenstein has a writing credit. The song is certainly one of the band's earliest recordings and captures Love's hard-edged "L.A.-in" take on folk-rock.

Artist:     Monkees
Title:     Randy Scouse Git
Source:     CD: Headquarters
Writer:     Barry/Sager
Label:     Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:     1967
     The original concept for the Monkees TV series was that the band would be shown performing two new songs on each weekly episodes. This meant that, even for an initial 13-week order, 26 songs would have to be recorded in a very short amount of time. The only way to meet that deadline was for several teams of producers, songwriters and studio musicians to work independently of each other at the same time. The instrumental tracks were then submitted to musical director Don Kirschner, who brought in Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith to record vocal tracks. Although some of the instrumental tracks, such as those produced by Nesmith, had Nesmith and Tork playing on them, many did not. Some backing tracks were even recorded in New York at the same time as the TV show was being taped in L.A. In a few cases, the Monkees themselves did not hear the songs until they were in the studio to record their vocal tracks. A dozen of these recordings were chosen for release on the first Monkees LP in 1966, including the hit single Last Train To Clarksville. When it became clear that the show was a hit and a full season's worth of episodes would be needed, Kirschner commissioned even more new songs (although by then Clarksville was being featured in nearly every episode, mitigating the need for new songs somewhat). Without the band's knowledge Kirschner issued a second album, More Of The Monkees, in early 1967, using several of the songs recorded specifically for the TV show. The band members were furious, and the subsequent firestorm resulted in the removal of Kirschner from the entire Monkees project. The group then hired Turtles bassist Chip Douglas to work with the band to produce an album of songs that the Monkees themselves would both sing and play on. The album, Headquarters, spent one week at the top of the charts before giving way to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There were, however, no singles released from the album; at least not in the US. It turns out that the seemingly nonsensical title of the album's final track, Randy Scouse Git, was actually British slang for "horny guy from Liverpool", or something along those lines. The song was released everywhere but the continental US under the name Alternate Title and was a surprise worldwide hit.

Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Mony Mony
Source:    CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1968 (originally released as45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    James/Cordell/Gentry/Bloom
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:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
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:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Snowblind Friend
Source:    CD: Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf 7)
Writer(s):    Hoyt Axton
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1970
    One of the most popular tracks from the first Steppenwolf album was a Hoyt Axton tune called The Pusher. For their next few albums the group wrote most of their own material, but included another Axton tune, Snowblind Friend, on their seventh LP. Although not released as a single, the tune did well on progressive rock radio stations, and is generally considered one of their better tunes from 1970. The band had gone through a few personnel changes by that point, and the song features new members Larry Byrom (guitar) and George Biondo (bass), both of which had been members of a band called T.I.M.E. before replacing Michael Monarch and Nick St. Nicholas in Steppenwolf.
       
Artist:     Cream
Title:     Mother's Lament
Source:     CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer:     Trad. Arr. Cream
Label:     Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:     1967
     The shortest-ever Cream recording was an old English drinking song called Mother's Lament. Vocals on the song were led by drummer Ginger Baker, and the track was chosen to close out the Disraeli Gears album. By one of those odd coincidences of the music industry, the album was issued in Europe on the Polydor label (as were many cutting-edge bands of the time, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Procol Harum and the Who), which at the time did not issue records in the US. By the late 1980s, however, Polydor was well established in the US and all the Cream albums on Compact Disc were released under the Polydor imprint.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Why
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the earliest collaborations between Byrds songwriters David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the up-tempo raga rocker Why. The song was first recorded at RCA studios in Los Angeles in late 1965 as an intended B side for Eight Miles High, but due to the fact that the band's label, Columbia, refused to release recordings made at their main rival's studios, the band ended up having to re-record both songs at Columbia's own studios in early 1966. Although the band members felt the newer versions were inferior to the 1965 recordings, they were released as a single in March of 1966. Later that year, for reasons that are still unclear, Crosby insisted the band record a third version of Why, and that version was used for the band's next LP, Younger Than Yesterday.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    I'm A Man
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Winwood/Miller
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1967
    The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer. The group itself continued on for several years, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes. As for Steve Winwood, he quickly faded off into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Except as the leader of Traffic. And a member of Blind Faith. And Traffic again. And some critically-acclaimed collaborations in the early 1980s with Asian musicians. Oh yeah, and a few major solo hits like Higher Love and Roll With It in the late 80s. Other than that, nothing.

Artist:    Ultimate Spinach
Title:    (Ballad Of The) Hip Death Goddess
Source:    LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer(s):    Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    Ultimate Spinach was the brainchild of Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote and arranged all the band's material. Although the group had no hit singles, some tracks, such as (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess received a significant amount of airplay on progressive "underground" FM stations. The recording has in more recent years been used by movie producers looking to invoke a late 60s atmosphere.

Artist:     Pink Floyd
Title:     Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Source:     CD:  A Saucerful of Secrets
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    EMI (original label: Tower)
Year: 1968
     With mental illness pretty much taking Sid Barrett out of the Pink Floyd equation by 1968, the other members of the band stepped up their own songwriting for the band's second LP, A Saucerful Of Secrets. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, a Roger Waters composition, is the only Pink Floyd recording to have both Barrett and his replacement, David Gilmour (who sings the lead vocal on the track), playing guitar parts and was considered strong enough to be included on the Works compilation album in the early 80s. A Saucerful Of Secrets is the only Pink Floyd album that failed to chart in the US, due in part to it being released on Capitol's Tower subsidiary, which was generally regarded as a tax writeoff by the Capitol bigwigs and thus received virtually no promotional help from the parent company.
 
Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Gypsy Eyes
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Among the many ways that Jimi Hendrix was an innovator was in his approach to studio recordings. Whereas previous artists had concentrated on their mono mixes, with the stereo versions often done almost as an afterthought, Hendrix instead saw stereo mixing as fertile ground for creative experimentation. By the time of Electric Ladyland he was doing only stereo mixes; the mono mix heard here is a simple recombining of the two channels rather than a seperate dedicated mix.

Artist:     United States of America
Title:     Hard Coming Love
Source:     LP: The United States of America
Writer:     Byrd/Moskowitz
Label:     Sundazed/Columbia
Year:     1968
     Following the success of the Monterey International Pop Festival and the wave of new San Francisco bands such as the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Columbia Records chief Clive Davis set out to corner the market on counter-culture rock artists. Among those signed were Taj Mahal, Sly and the Family Stone, Moby Grape, the Chambers Brothers, Laura Nyro and this group of L.A. avant-garde artists who had decided to become rock musicians, despite none of them having any sort of rock 'n' roll background. Led by pioneer performance artist Joseph Byrd and fronted by vocalist Dorothy Moscowitz, the United States of America was one of the first groups to make extensive use of electronics. Byrd was one of the first musicians to discover that just because something sounds great through an expensive sound system doesn't mean it will still sound good when played through cheap speakers. Unfortunately he didn't learn that until several of the tracks on the group's only LP were recorded and mixed.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Mrs. Robinson
Source:    LP: Bookends
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    A shortened version of Mrs. Robinson first appeared on the soundtrack for the film The Graduate in 1967, but it wasn't until the Bookends album came out in 1968 that the full four minute version was released.
   
       

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1821 (starts 5/23/18)

    This week's show has all kinds of twists and turns as we journey through years 1968 to 1975...and then start back down again.

Artist:      David Bowie
Title:     Space Oddity
Source:      45 RPM single (originally released on LP: Space Oddity)
Writer:    David Bowie
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1969
     When David Jones first started his recording career he was a fairly conventional folk singer. With Space Oddity he became David Bowie (or maybe Ziggy Stardust) and the rock world was never quite the same.
   
Artist:    Pentangle
Title:    Waltz
Source:    LP: The Pentangle
Writer(s):    Cox/Jansch/McShea/Renbourne/Thompson
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Once in a while an album comes along that is so consistently good that it's impossible to single out one specific track for airplay. Such is the case with the debut Pentangle album from 1968. The group, consisting of guitarists John Renbourne and Bert Jansch, vocalist Jacqui McShea, bassist Terry Cox, and drummer Danny Thompson, had more talent than nearly any band in history from any genre, yet never succumbed to the clash of egos that characterize most supergroups. About half of the tracks on their first album were Pentangle originals, including Waltz, which closes out the second side of the LP.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     Sitting On Top Of The World (live version)
Source:     CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer:     Vinson/Chatmon (original) Chester Burnett (modern version)
Label:     Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:     1969
     Cream broke up in early 1969, leaving their final album unfinished. The band's previous album, Wheels Of Fire, had been a major success as a double LP set, with one disc containing studio tracks and the other live material, but the group had only completed three new studio recordings before calling it quits, leaving the record company to come up with filler material to make a final Cream LP. The solution was to include live versions of songs from the band's earlier albums, including this version of Howlin' Wolf's Sitting On Top Of The World.

Artist:    Czar
Title:    Ritual Fire Dance
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution
Writer(s):    de Falla/arr. Hodges
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    1970
    After a series of unsuccessful singles for various labels from 1965-1969, Tuesday's Children decided to abandon light pop for a more progressive sound, changing their name to Czar in the process. Czar's debut LP came out in May of 1970, but it was missing one track due to difficulties over publishing rights: an adaptation of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance that the group had recorded in February of that year, about a month after their first gig using their new name.
   
Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Slippery St. Paul
Source:    LP: The Doobie Brothers
Writer(s):    Simmons/Johnston
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    The first Doobie Brothers album failed to make the Billboard album charts when it was originally released in 1971, despite having a number of decent tunes, including Slippery St. Paul. The song itself is a rare collaboration between the band's two main songwriters, Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons, who generally worked separately.

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:    Little Feat
Title:    Juliette
Source:    CD: Dixie Chicken
Writer(s):    Lowell George
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Little Feat hit their stride with the 1973 album Dixie Chicken. The majority of songs on the LP, including the melodic Juliette, were written by Lowell George, who would continue to be the band's dominant force until his death in 1979.
   
Artist:    Kansas
Title:    Journey From Mariabronn
Source:    LP: Kansas
Writer(s):    Livgren/Walsh
Label:    Kirshner
Year:    1974
    The band known as Kansas had its origins in Topeka in 1969, when a cover band called the Reasons Why changed its name to Saratoga and began performing original material written by guitarist/keyboardist Kerry Livgren. The following year Saratoga merged with another local band, White Clover, taking the name Kansas for the first time. In 1971 several of the members of the group split off from Kansas to form a new version of White Clover. Both bands went through several personnel changes over the next couple of years. In 1973 Livren left Kansas to join White Clover, which by then included drummer Phil Ehart, along with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). When the band signed to Kirshner Records they decided to use the name Kansas rather than White Clover, releasing their first LP in 1974. Livgren and Walsh wrote most of the material on the album, including Journey From Mariabronn, a complicated progressive rock piece with lyrics inspired by Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund.
   
Artist:    Queen
Title:    Seaside Rendezvous
Source:    LP: A Night At The Opera
Writer(s):    Freddie Mercury
Label:    Virgin (original label: Asylum)
Year:    1975
    Freddie Mercury's whimsical side is in full display on the song Seaside Rendezvous, from the fourth Queen album A Night At The Opera. The song is done in a vaudevillian style reminiscent of such Paul McCartney Beatles tracks as Honey Pie and When I'm 64. Seaside Rendezvous, however, benefits from mid-70s technology, particularly the availability of many more tracks to record on than the Beatles had in the late 60s, and Queen uses them to full advantage, with Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor performing a musical bridge entirely with their voices. The track uses several instruments not often found in rock music, including tubas, trumpets, clarinets and even a kazoo (Taylor handles the brass instruments, while Mercury provides the winds). The tap dance segment of the song is actually Mercury and Taylor wearing thimbles on their fingers and tapping on the mixing desk.

Artist:    Paul Simon
Title:    You're Kind
Source:    LP: Still Crazy After All These Years
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1975
    Paul Simon thanked Stevie Wonder for "not putting an album out" in 1975 in his acceptance speech at the 1976 Grammy Awards ceremony for receiving the award for best album that year (Wonder had won the two previous years and would win another Grammy the following year as well). The Simon album in question, Still Crazy After All These Years, was recorded as Simon was in the process of getting a divorce, which probably explains the wealth of break up songs on the album, including the hit single 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and the somewhat snarky You're Kind.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Lamia
Source:    CD: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Atco)
Year:    1974
    I'm not going to even try to describe how The Lamia fits into the narrative of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, because the plot would be considered bizarre even by European art films of the 1960s standards. Instead I'll mention that The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was Peter Gabriel's final album as a member of Genesis and that he was the one responsible for the lyrics of The Lamia. In Greek mythology, Lamia was one of Zeus's many mistresses. As was often the case, Zeus's wife Hera found out about Lamia and devised a rather nasty punishment: she kills all of Lamia's children and transforms Lamia herself into a monster that hunts and devours the children of others. Apparently Hera didn't give much thought to collateral damage. 

Artist:    Bloodrock
Title:    Gimme Your Head
Source:    CD: Bloodrock
Writer:    Bloodrock
Label:    One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    Bloodrock was a hard rock band out of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area that is best known for recording the song D.O.A., a minor (but memorable) hit in 1971. The group was discovered by Grand Funk Railroad producer Terry Knight, who got the band a contract with Capitol Records and produced their eponymous first album, released in 1970. Additionally, Knight booked Bloodrock as Grand Funk's opening act for their 1970 national tour, assuring the album plenty of promotion. Lead vocalist Jim Rutledge played drums on the album, which featured tunes like Gimme Your Head, but did not yield a hit single.

   

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1820 (starts 5/16/18)

    This week's first hour is mostly made up of sets from 1966 and 1968, with a handful of songs from other years thrown in. The second hour, on the other hand, shifts the emphasis to tracks never heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before, including three Advanced Psych tunes from the Rochester, NY-based McFadden's Parachute.

Artist:    Shadows of Knight
Title:    Gloria
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (essentially substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.

Artist:    Outsiders
Title:    Time Won't Let Me
Source:    Mono CD: Battle Of The Bands Vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    King/Kelly
Label:    Era (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    From Cleveland we have another local band signed to a major label, in this case Capitol Records, which at the time was having great success with both the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Lead vocalist Sonny Gerachi would reappear a few years later with the band Climax, singing a song called Precious and Few, which is one of the greatest juxtapositions of artist names and song titles ever.

Artist:    Cyrkle
Title:    How Can I Leave Her
Source:    Mono LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s):    Danneman/Dawes
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Originally known as the Rhondells, the Cyrkle got a huge break when they came to the attention of Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles, in late 1965. Epstein had been looking for an American band to manage, and liked what he heard when he caught the band in Atlantic City on Labor Day weekend. By the following summer the group, whom Epstein had renamed the Cyrkle (with John Lennon credited for the unique spelling) found itself opening for the Beatles on their last North American tour, including their final live performance at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on August 29th. By then the Cyrkle had released a hit single, Red Rubber Ball, and soon would release an album with the same title. About half the tracks on the LP were written by band members, including the soft-pop How Can I Leave Her, which features the Cyrkle's Beach Boys-inspired harmonies.

Artist:    The Underground
Title:    Easy
Source:    Mono British import: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    O'Keefe/Wright
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1966
    The Underground was a Houston-based vocal group made up of four folk singers (two male, two female) looking to transition to pop music. If this sounds a bit familiar, it might be because the Mamas and the Papas were at the peak of their popularity when the Underground was formed. The quartet included Larry O'Keefe, Jerry Wright, Susan Giles and Kay Oslin, with O'Keefe and Wright writing all four of the band's sides recorded for Bob Shad's Mainstream label in 1966. Although there were no production credits listed on the label, the song Easy was produced by Walt Andrus and recorded at his facility in Houston. The record was released in November of 1966.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes
Source:    LP: Projections
Writer(s):    Blind Willie Johnson
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1966
    One lasting legacy of the British Invasion was the re-introduction to the US record-buying public to the songs of early Rhythm and Blues artists such as Blind Willie Johnson. This emphasis on classic blues in particular would lead to the formation of electric blues-based US bands such as the Butterfield Blues Band and the Blues Project. Unlike the Butterfields, who made a conscious effort to remain true to their Chicago-style blues roots, the Blues Project was always looking for new ground to cover, which ultimately led to them developing an improvisational style that would be emulated by west coast bands such as the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, and by Project member Al Kooper, who conceived and produced the first rock jam LP ever, Super Session, in 1968. As the opening track to their second (and generally considered best) LP Projections, I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes served notice that this was a new kind of blues, louder and brasher than what had come before, yet tempered with Kooper's melodic vocal style. An added twist was the use during the song's instrumental bridge of an experimental synthesizer known among band members as the "Kooperphone", probably the first use of any type of synthesizer in a blues record.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Kicks
Source:    Mono European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    Kicks may not have been the first pop song with a strong anti-drug message, but it was the first one to be a certified hit, making it to the number four spot on the US charts and hitting number one in Canada. It was also the biggest hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders until Indian Reservation went all the way to the top five years later.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Taxman
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    The Beatles' 1966 LP Revolver was a major step forward, particularly for guitarist George Harrison, who for the first time had three of his own compositions on an album. Making it even sweeter was the fact that one of these, Taxman, was chosen to lead off the album itself. Although Harrison is usually considered the band's lead guitarist, the solo in Taxman is actually performed by Paul McCartney, whose own style had a harder edge than Harrison's. This made the song difficult to perform live, but, as the world would soon know, the group had already decided to retire from live performing altogether in order to concentrate on perfecting their studio work.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Brave New World
Source:    LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1969
    It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the film itself.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Volunteers
Source:     LP: Volunteers
Writer:     Balin/Kantner
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1969
     By 1969 Jefferson Airplane's music was a staple of progressive FM stations but had all but disappeared from the top 40 charts. Still, the band continued to release singles from their albums, including the title track to their fifth (and final with the classic JA lineup) LP, Volunteers.

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

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dandelion
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    If there was a British equivalent to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in terms of time and money spent on a single song, it might be We Love You, a 1967 single released by the Rolling Stones. To go along with the single (with its state-of-the-art production) the band spent a considerable sum making a full-color promotional video, a practice that would not become commonplace until the advent of MTV in the 1980s. Despite all this, US radio stations virtually ignored We Love You, choosing to instead flip the record over and play the B side, a tune called Dandelion. As to why this came about, I suspect that Bill Drake, the man behind the nation's most influential top 40 stations, simply decided that the less elaborately produced Dandelion was better suited to the US market than We Love You and instructed his hand-picked program directors at such stations as WABC (New York), KHJ (Los Angeles) and WLS (Chicago) to play Dandelion. The copycat nature of top 40 radio being what it is, Dandelion ended up being a moderate hit in the US in the summer of '67.
       
Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Your Wall's Too High
Source:    CD: Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s):    John Kay
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Most of the songs on Steppenwolf's first album had been in the group's stage repertoire for a year or more, giving the band plenty of opportunity to work the bugs out of their arrangements. As a result the band sounded tight and well-rehearsed on their debut LP, as is evident on Your Wall's Too High, a tune written by leader John Kay, who also played slide guitar on the tune.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Just A Little Bit
Source:    LP: Insideoutside
Writer(s):    Dick Peterson
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    The first Blue Cheer album, Vincebus Eruptum, was known for its loudness. In fact, the feedback-drenched rendition of Eddie Cochrane's Summertime Blues, which was a top 40 hit in 1968, was actually only the tip of the loudness iceberg for the San Francisco power trio. The second Blue Cheer album, Outsideinside, continued the loudness, but tried to give it a bit of structure to go with it. The result was tracks like Just A Little Bit, the band's second single. Just A Little Bit did not, however, repeat the chart success of Summertime Blues, barely scraping the bottom reaches of the Billboard Hot 100. As a result, the album itself did not do as well as its predecessor, and guitarist Leigh Stephens soon departed for a solo career.

Artist:    Creation
Title:    How Does It Feel To Feel
Source:    Mono British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Garner/Phillips
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1968
    Creation was one of a handful of British bands that were highly successful in Germany, but were unable to buy a hit in their own country. Evolving out of a band known as the Mark Four, Creation was officially formed in 1966 by vocalist Kenny pickett, guitarist Eddie Phillips, bassist Bob Garner and drummer Jack Jones. Their first single stalled out at #49 on the British charts, but went to #5 in Germany. The gap was even wider for their second single, which topped the German charts but did not chart in Britain at all. Garner and Phillips both left the band just as How Does It Feel To Feel was issued in early 1968. The band, with a fluctuating lineup, continued on for a few months but finally threw in the towel in late 1968.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Codine
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Revolution soundtrack)
Writer:    Buffy Sainte-Marie
Label:    Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    Buffy St. Marie's Codine was a popular favorite among the club crowd in mid-60s California. In 1967, L.A. band The Leaves included it on their second LP. Around the same time, up the coast in San Francisco, the Charlatans selected it to be their debut single. The suits at Kama-Sutra Records, however, balked at the choice, and instead released a cover of the Coasters' The Shadow Knows. The novelty-flavored Shadow bombed so bad that the label decided not to release any more Charlatans tracks, thus leaving their version of Codine gathering dust in the vaults until the mid 1990s, when the entire Kama-Sutra sessions were released on CD. Meanwhile, back in 1968, Quicksilver Messenger Service were still without a record contract, despite pulling decent crowds at various Bay Area venues, including a credible appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. Not long after that the producers of the quasi-documentary film Revolution decided to include footage of three as-yet unsigned Bay Area bands, one of which was Quicksilver Messenger Service, who performed Codine in the film. Rather than use that performance for the soundtrack album, the producers chose to have the band re-record the song, making Codine the group's first officially released studio recording.

Artist:    T.I.M.E.
Title:    Tripping Into Sunshine
Source:    CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: T.I.M.E. and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nicholas/Richardson/Byron/Rumph
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    After the demise of the Canadian band Sparrow, bassist Nick St. Nicholas gravitated to San Francisco, where he met up with former members of the San Diego-based Hard Times to form T.I.M.E. (Trust In Men Everywhere). The band recorded two albums for Liberty, the first of which opens with the track Tripping Into Sunshine. After the group's demise St. Nicholas rejoined his former Sparrow bandmates in their new band Steppenwolf. He was eventually joined by guitarist Larry Byrom.

Artist:    Limey And The Yanks
Title:    Guaranteed Love
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Reed/Paxton
Label:    Rhino (original label: Star-Burst)
Year:    1966
    Limey and the Yanks were an Orange County, California band that boasted an honest-to-dog British lead vocalist. Despite being kind of Zelig-like on the L.A. scene, they only recorded two singles. The first one, Guaranteed Love, was co-written by Gary Paxton, best known for his involvement in various novelty records, including the Hollywood Argyles' Alley Oop, which he co-wrote with Kim Fowley, and Bobby "Boris" Pickett's Monster Mash, which was released on Paxton's own Garpax label.

    Although the psychedelic era itself officially covers only a few years in the late 1960s, for many the spirit of the era's music lives on. One such person is Darren Brennessel of Rochester, NY, who is the mastermind behind over two dozen McFadden's Parachute albums. Brennessel has been playing professionally since 1989, when he was the drummer for a band called the Purple Flashes, conceiving and recording the first McFadden's Parachute album as a side project. In the years since, in addition to playing multiple instruments on McFadden's Parachute albums then Brennessel has continued to play drums with a variety of bands, including Sky Saxon's Green Forests, which recorded an as-yet unreleased album in 2004. Brennessel has recently sent me a copy of his new CD, Fuzzy Organs, as well as a special sampler collection of McFadden's Parachute tracks recorded mostly in the 1990s. This week we present a special extended Advanced Psych segment made up entirely of McFadden's Parachute tunes. Enjoy.

Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    I Can't Get High
Source:    CD: Fuzzy Organs
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    2018

Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    Uncle Thaddeus
Source:    CD: Psolipsystic Psychedelic Pslyces Of McFadden's Parachute
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    1996

Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    Good Girls
Source:    CD: Fuzzy Organs
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    2018
   
Artist:    Fotheringay
Title:    The Way I Feel
Source:    LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Fotheringay
Writer(s):    Gordon Lightfoot
Label:    A&M
Year:    1970
    After leaving Fairport Convention in 1970, vocalist Sandy Denny formed a new band, Fotheringay. The group released one self-titled LP before Denny decided to go it solo. A highlight from that album is a strong version of Gordon Lightfoot's The Way I Feel.

Artist:    Pentangle
Title:    Once I Had A Sweetheart
Source:    LP: Basket Of Light
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Cox/Jansch/McShea/Renbourne/Thompson
Label:    Reprise (promo copy)
Year:    1969
    The folk-rock supergroup Pentangle continued to have major chart success in the UK in 1969 with their Basket Of Light LP, which peaked at the #5 spot on the British album charts. Two singles from the album also made the charts; the second of these, Once I Had A Sweetheart, reached a high of #46.

Artist:    Fever Tree
Title:    Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source:    LP: Fever Tree
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Uni
Year:    1968
    Although not the best track on the 1968 Fever Tree debut LP by any means, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing was nonetheless an interesting choice of cover songs for the Houston area band. The string and horn arrangements on the track were by David Angel, who had worked with Love the previous year on their Forever Changes album.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    The World Turns All Around Her
Source:    LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer(s):    Gene Clark
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    In their early days, the Byrds were known more for their reworking of other writers' material, such as Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn! than for the songs they wrote themselves. Eventually, Jim (Roger) McGuinn, David Crosby and Chris Hillman would all develop into outstanding songwriters, but before they did, Gene Clark was considered the band's top composer. The World Turns All Around Her, from their second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!, shows why.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Visions Of Johanna
Source:    Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Sundazed
Year:    1966
    A favorite among hardcore Bob Dylan fans, Visions Of Johanna, from the Blonde On Blonde album, was one of the most difficult Dylan songs to get right in the studio. Dylan first attempted to record the song in New York in November of 1965, utilizing the talents of some of the same musicians he had worked with on his Highway 61 Revisited album as well as members of what would come to be called The Band. After something like 15 takes the song was put on the shelf and not revisited until sessions in Nashville for the Blonde On Blonde album had begun. Only two of the musicians that had worked on the earlier sessions were present in Nashville: guitarist Robbie Robertson and organist Al Kooper. Other musicians on the final recording include guitarists Charlie McCoy and Wayne Moss, bassist Joe South and drummer Kenneth Buttrey.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Manic Depression
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    On February 22, 1967 the Jimi Hendrix Experience played what was possibly their worst gig, which culminated in Hendrix's white Stratocaster being stolen before it was fully paid for. Later that night the band made an appearance at a press reception at which Hendrix, in the words of manager/producer Chas Chandler, sounded like a manic depressive. Inspired by Chandler's observation, Hendrix wrote a song on the subject, which he taught to the band and recorded the next day. Hendrix later referred to Manic Depression as "ugly times music", calling it a "today's type of blues."

Artist:    Albert King
Title:    Night Stomp
Source:    LP: Live Wire-Blues Power
Writer(s):    Jackson/King
Label:    Stax
Year:    1968
    Two legends came together when guitarist Albert King played the Fillmore Auditorium in June of 1968, just one month before promoter Bill Graham closed the venue in favor of the larger Fillmore West. The performance was recorded and released later that same year as Live Wire-Blues Power on the Stax label. It was King's first live album.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    You Need Meat (Don't Go No Further)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971
    The Doors only released three non-album tracks during their existence, one of which was recorded after the death of vocalist Jim Morrison. The newer of the two that did feature Morrison, You Need Meat (Don't Go No Further), was issued as the B side of Love Her Madly, and was released ahead of the L.A. Woman album in 1971. The tune, originally released by Muddy Waters in 1956, was one of several blues covers recorded during the L.A. Woman sessions. The song first appeared in album form on the LP Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine, but remained unavailable on CD until 2006, when it appeared on the Perception box set. Weird Scenes was finally reissued on CD in 2014.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The Unknown Soldier
Source:    CD: Waiting For The Sun (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    One of the oddest recordings to get played on top 40 radio was the Door's 1968 release, The Unknown Soldier. The song is notable for having it's own promotional film made by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had been a film major at UCLA when the Doors were formed. It's not known whether the song was written with the film in mind (or vice versa), but the two have a much greater synergy than your average music video.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1820 (starts 5/16/18)

    This week we feature then entire first side of the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland, including the live-in-the-studio original version of Voodoo Chile with Steve Winwood on organ and Jack Casidy on bass. This kicks off a long set that starts on the bluesy side and ends up rockin' out.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    …And The Gods Made Love/Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
Source:    LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Like its predecessor, the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Electric Ladyland, starts off with a track that is pure special effects. Unlike EXP (from Axis: Bold As Love), which was essentially made up of controlled guitar feedback, …And The Gods Made Love is a more subtle piece employing tape and echo effects to simulate, well, the title says it all. This leads directly in to what was for many Experience fans was new territory, but for Hendrix himself a hearkening back to his days as a backup musician for various soul artists. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) is, in fact, a tribute to guitarist/vocalist Curtis Mayfield, leader of the Impressions, whom Hendrix had cited as an influence on his own guitar style.
    By 1968 it didn't matter one bit whether the Jimi Hendrix Experience had any hit singles; their albums were guaranteed to be successful. Nonetheless the Electric Ladyland album had no less that three singles on it (although one was a new stereo mix of a 1967 single). The first single to be released concurrently with Electric Ladyland was Crosstown Traffic, a song that has been included on several anthologies over the years.
    Midway through the making of the Electric Ladyland album, producer Chas Chandler parted ways with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. At first this may seem to be a mystery, but consider the situation: Hendrix, by this time, had considerable clout in the studio. This allowed him to invite pretty much anyone he damn well pleased to hang out while he was making records, including several fellow musicians. It also allowed him the luxury of using the studio itself as a kind of incubator for new ideas, often developing those ideas while the tape machine was in "record" mode. Chandler, on the other hand, had learned virtually everything he knew about producing records from Mickie Most, one of Britain's most successful producers. As such, Chandler tended to take a more professional approach to recording, finding Hendrix's endless jamming to be a waste of valuable studio time. Whether you side with Chandler or Hendrix over the issue, there is one thing that can't be disputed: the Hendrix approach resulted in some of the most memorable rock recordings ever made. Case in point: Voodoo Chile, a fourteen and a half minute studio jam featuring Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane) on bass and Steve Winwood (Traffic) on keyboards, as well as regular Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Born Under A Bad Sign
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:    Jones/Bell
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were pretty much considered the cream of the crop of the British blues scene in the mid 1960s, so it came as no surprise when they decided to call their new band Cream. Although the trio would go on to record several memorable non-blues tunes such as I Feel Free and White Room, they never completely abandoned the blues. Born Under A Bad Sign, originally recorded by Albert King  for the Stax label and written by labelmates William Bell and Booker T. Jones, is one of the better known tracks from Cream's double-LP Wheels Of Fire, the last album released while the band was still together.

Artist:    Love Sculpture
Title:    Wang Dang Doodle
Source:    British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1968
    During my first year of college I moved into a house shared by five other people (not all of whom were students) near the University of New Mexico. Shortly after moving in I bought an old Philips reel-to-reel machine and began taping various albums from my roommates' collections. Not long after that I discovered a gold mine in the basement. A former resident of the house had left a box of reel-to-reel tapes, some of which were only vaguely labeled, if at all. One of the tapes was labeled simply "Love Sculpture". It turned out that some of the songs on that tape were actually from the Blues Project's Projections album, but others, such as this rather tasty version of Koko Taylor's Wang Dang Doodle, were indeed by a band called Love Sculpture. I was not aware at the time, however, that the song was from an album called Blues Helping, or that Love Sculpture's lead guitarist and vocalist was none other than Dave Edmunds, who I had only known as the guy who did the remake of I Hear You Knockin' in the early 1970s.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I'll Drown In My Own Tears
Source:    British import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s):    Henry Glover
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    Originally recorded by Lula Reed in 1951 under the title I'll Drown In My Tears, Drown In My Own Tears was one of Ray Charles's legendary hits for the Atlantic label. Released in 1956, it was Charles's fourth song to top the R&B charts, and inspired him to hire a permanent group of backup singers that would come to be known as the Raelettes. In 1969 Johnny Winter combined the two titles for the version included on his first album for the Columbia label. Although most of the tracks on that album showcase Winter's prowess on guitar, I'll Drown In My Own Tears shifts the emphasis to his vocals, with an arrangement that closely parallels of the Ray Charles version. Keyboards on the track are provided by Johnny's brother Edgar, who would become a full-fledged member of Johnny's band for the album Second Winter.

Artist:    Lynyrd Skynyrd
Title:    I Know A Little
Source:    LP: Gold And Platinum (originally released on LP: Street Survivors)
Writer(s):    Steve Gaines
Label:    MCA
Year:    1977
    Guitarist Steve Gaines was only on one studio album, Street Survivors, as a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, having joined the band as Ed King's replacement just before the recording of the live album One More For The Road, but he certainly made his mark with the band. Street Survivors was a major success, going into the top 5 on the Billboard album chart in 1977, the highest-charting album for the band at that point. Gaines's own contributions to the album were considerable, and included I Know A Little, which he wrote and played outstanding lead guitar on. Three days after the album was released, Gaines and two other members of the band were killed in a plane crash: Gaines's sister Cassie, who had gotten him invited to play with the band in the first place, and lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant. 

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Seamus
Source:    CD: Meddle
Writer:    Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label:    Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    After spending several months on the concept album Atom Heart Mother, the members of Pink Floyd decided to lighten things up a bit for their next album, Meddle. Stylistically, Meddle probably has the most variety of any Pink Floyd album, ranging from the driving rocker One Of These Days, to the acoustic blues tune Seamus. The latter song is best played loud, preferably with at least one dog in the room with you.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Over The Hills And Far Away
Source:    CD: Houses Of The Holy
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    Although it was released in 1973 on the album Houses Of The Holy, Over The Hills And Far Away actually dates back to the 1970 songwriting sessions at Bron-Y-Aur that produced most of the music for the Led Zeppelin III album. The band started playing the song in concert in 1972 and released it as a single in advance of the Houses Of The Holy album in early 1973. Although it only got a lukewarm reception from the rock press when it was first released, Over The Hills And Far Away has since come to be regarded as one of Led Zeppelin's top songs, making several "best of" lists over the years.

Artist:    Aerosmith
Title:    Dream Om
Source:    CD: Aerosmith
Writer(s):    Steven Tyler
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    My former bandmate and roomate, the late Jeff "Quincy" Adams, was an Air Force brat like me, although my dad was an enlisted man and his father was a full bird colonel. One of the many places Quincy lived was the Boston area, near Andover AFB, in the early 1970s. Quincy once told me about this band that had a practice room down the street from where he lived. As an aspiring guitarist himself he would try to check out this band whenever possible, but as a young teenager he was of course too shy to actually approach any of the band members. Quincy, looking back on those times fifteen years later, swore that one of the songs that band was playing was Dream On, a song that was not recorded until 1973, when it came out on the first Aerosmith album. So was that jam band down the street indeed Aerosmith? Could be.

Artist:    Deep Purple   
Title:    Living Wreck
Source:    LP: Deep Purple In Rock
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Deep Purple In Rock was the first studio album to feature what is now considered the "classic" Deep Purple lineup: Richie Blackmore on guitar, Ian Gillan on vocals, Roger Glover on bass, Jon Lord on organ and Ian Paice on drums. It was also the first Deep Purple to hit the top 10 on the British album charts, although the band had done much better in the US with the original lineup. The album is pretty much straight forward hard rock, especially on tunes like Living Wreck, which features Blackmore using a phasing effect and Lord playing through a Leslie rotating horn speaker cabinet.

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Queen Of Torture
Source:    CD: The Collection (originally released on LP: Wishbone Ash)
Writer:    Upton/Turner/Turner/Powell
Label:    Spectrum/Universal (original label: Decca)
Year:    1970
    One of the first bands to use dual lead guitars was Wishbone Ash. When Glen Turner, the band's original guitarist, had to leave, auditions were held, but the remaining members and their manager couldn't decide between the two finalists, Andy Powell and Ted Turner, so they kept both of them. Queen Of Torture, from their 1969 debut album, shows just how well the two guitars meshed.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    I'm Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band)
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    John Lodge
Label:    Threshold
Year:    1972
    Following the release of the eighth LP, Seventh Sojourn (don't ask), the Moody Blues decided to take a sojourn of a different kind: a five-year hiatus, allowing the individual members to pursue various solo projects. Before calling it quits, however, they released one last single. As the last track on Seventh Sojourn, I'm Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band) was an appropriate choice for a final effort, and did reasonably well on the US charts, peaking at #12, although it barely made the top 40 in their native England. Since reforming in 1978, the Moody Blues have established themselves as a consistent concert draw, especially around PBS pledge drive time.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1819 [B19] (starts 5/9/18)

    This week's first hour has a couple of long progressions through the years (with a short 1968 set thrown in), while the second hour is a series of sets from specific years, and includes half a dozen tunes that have never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before.

 Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Can't Seem To Make You Mine
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer:    Sky Saxon
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1965
    One of the first psychedelic singles to hit the L.A. market in 1965 was Can't Seem To Make You Mine. The song was also chosen to lead off the first Seeds album. Indeed, it could be argued that this was the song that first defined the "flower power" sound, its local success predating that of the Seeds' biggest hit, Pushin' Too Hard, by several months.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Gotta Get Away
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Gordon/Adams
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    As was common with most 1966 LPs, the Blues Magoos debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, included a handful of cover songs, not all of which had been hits for other groups. One of the non-hits was Gotta Get Away, a fairly typical piece of garage rock that opens side two of the LP. The song was also selected as the B side for the group's second (and by far most successful) single, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet. As the usual practice was to bring in outside songwriters for a new band's early singles and let the band write their own B side, it is possible that Gotta Get Away may have been the intended A side of the single.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Page/McCarty
Label:    Epic
Year:    1967
    By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from their blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. The band had recently picked up a new producer, Mickey Most, known mostly for his work with Herman's Hermits and the original Animals. Most had a tendency to concentrate solely on the band's single A sides, leaving Page an opportunity to develop his own songwriting and production skills on songs such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, a track that also shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style (including an instrumental break played with a violin bow) that would help define 70s rock.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The Unknown Soldier
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    One of the oddest recordings to get played on top 40 radio was the Door's 1968 release, The Unknown Soldier. The song is notable for having it's own promotional film made by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had been a film major at UCLA when the Doors were formed. It's not known whether the song was written with the film in mind (or vice versa), but the two have a much greater synergy than your average music video.


Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Cosmic Charlie
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    After spending several months working on their 1969 album, Aoxomoxoa, experimenting with state-of-the-art 16-track equipment and coming in waaaaay over budget in the process, the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh returned to the studio in 1971 to remix the entire album. Garcia felt that the band had "tended to put too much on everything...A lot of the music was just lost in the mix, a lot of what was really there" when doing the original mix, and the newer mix has been the only one in print ever since. Because the remix was done relatively soon after the original release, copies of the earlier mix are now considered quite rare and have become collectors items. Rarer still are the mono mixes of two tracks from the album that were issued as a 45 RPM single in 1969. The B side of that single was Cosmic Charlie. Feel free to compare it to your newer copy of the album (you know you have one, admit it).

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Money Can't Save Your Soul
Source:    CD: Looking In
Writer(s):    Simmonds/ Peverett
Label:    Deram (original label: Parrott)
Year:    1970
    Looking In was the sixth album by British blues-rockers Savoy Brown, and the first without lead vocalist Chris Youlden. It was also the final outing for guitarist Dave Peverett, bassist Tone Stevens and drummer Roger Earl, who would go on to form Foghat after being dismissed by bandleader Kim Simmonds. The album was made up entirely of original compositions such as the low-key Money Can't Save Your Soul, which was written by Simmonds and Peverett, had had taken over lead vocals upon Youlden's departure. Both Foghat and a new Savoy Brown lineup would continue to have success, especially in the US, where both bands toured extensively throughout the 1970s.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Born To Be Wild
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    Mars Bonfire
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Born To Be Wild's status as a counter-cultural anthem was cemented when it was chosen for the soundtrack of the movie Easy Rider. The popularity of both the song and the movie resulted in Steppenwolf becoming the all-time favorite band of bikers all over the world.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    As Kind As Summer
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    The first time I heard As Kind As Summer from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil I jumped up to see what was wrong with my turntable. A real gotcha moment.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Combination Of The Two
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Sam Andrew
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
     Everything about Big Brother And The Holding Company can be summed up by the title of the opening track for their Cheap Thrills album (and their usual show opener as well): Combination Of The Two. A classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, Big Brother, with Janis Joplin on lead vocals, had an energy that neither Joplin or the band itself was able to duplicate once they parted company. On the song itself, the actual lead vocals for the verses are the work of Combination Of The Two's writer, bassist Sam Houston Andrew III, but those vocals are eclipsed by the layered non-verbal chorus that starts with Joplin then repeats itself with Andrew providing a harmony line which leads to Joplin's promise to "rock you, sock you, gonna give it to you now". It was a promise that the group seldom failed to deliver on.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    By 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:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the group, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Birthday
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    One of the great ironies of rock history was that the album entitled simply The Beatles was the one that had the fewest songs with all four of the band members playing on them. By 1968 the Beatles were experiencing internal conflicts, and nearly all of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songs were played by just the two of them, while George Harrison's songs (and Ringo Starr's single contribution as a songwriter) featured an array of some of the UK's top musicians (including guitarist Eric Clapton). The opening track of side three of the album is typical of this approach, as Birthday is essentially a McCartney solo piece.


Artist:    Bubble Puppy
Title:    I've Got To Reach You
Source:    British import CD: A Gathering Of Promises
Writer(s):    Potter/Cox
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1969
    The Bubble Puppy came into existence in 1967, when two former members of the legendary Corpus Christie,Texas garage band the Bad Seeds, guitarist Rod Prince and keyboardist/bassist Roy Cox, relocated to San Antonio, recruiting guitarist Todd Potter and drummer Craig Root to form the new band. Success came quickly in the form of the band's very first gig, opening for the Who at the San Antonio Colosseum. After David Fore replaced Root in the band, the group relocated to Austin, where they got a steady gig at the Vulcan Gas Company. By 1968 the Bubble Puppy was traveling all over Texas for gigs, and late in the year got a contract with Houston-based International Artists, a label that had already gained notoriety by signing the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. After releasing a surprise top 40 hit, Hot Smoke And Sassafras, in December of 1968, the band got to work on a full album, A Gathering Of Promises. International Artists failed to get the album, which was full of fine tunes like I've Got To Reach You, out quickly enough to capitilize of the popularity of Hot Smoke And Sassafras, and further hurt the band's chance of success by refusing to grant licensing rights on the single to Apple Records for European release. By 1970 the band and the label had parted company, with the Bubble Puppy relocating to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian, in part to disassociate themselves from a genre (bubble gum) that they were actually never a part of to begin with.

Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Talkin' And Signifyin'
Source:    LP: Travelin' (promo copy)
Writer(s):    James/King
Label:    Roulette
Year:    1970
    Tommy James And The Shondells were one of the most popular acts of the late 1960s, with several top 40 hits, including Hanky Panky, Mony Mony, and Crimson And Clover, to their credit. By 1970, however, public tastes were changing, and the Shondells, who had, perhaps unfairly, become associated with the "bubble-gum" trend that dominated the airwaves in 1968, found themselves faced with poor record sales and shrinking audiences for their live performances. Their seventh album, Cellophane Symphony, peaked at a disappointing #141 spot on the Billbard album charts, a severe drop from the #8 performance of their previous LP, Crimson And Clover. The band's final LP, Travelin', was an attempt to be taken more seriously, as can be heard on songs like Talkin' And Signifyin' (lots of apostrophes on that album), but managed to achieve a peak chart position of only #91. James soon departed the band for a solo career.

Artist:    Van Der Graff Generator   
Title:    Firebrand
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Peter Hammill
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    One of the rarest records ever released was Van Der Graff's debut single, People You Were Going To, with a tune called Firebrand appearing on the B side. The record was released on the UK Polydor label in January of 1969, but was almost immediately withdrawn due to the fact that the band's leader, Peter Hammill, had signed a contract with Mercury Records the previous year. The Mercury contract was so bad, however, that the rest of the band members refused to sign it, and for a while it looked like Van Der Graaf Generator would be little more than a footnote in the history of British Rock. Later that year, however, Hammill began work on a solo album that appeared under the name Van Der Graaf Generator, but only in the US. Nonetheless, it was enough to fulfill the terms of his Mercury contract, freeing Hammill up to reform the band and sign with the Charisma label, where they established themselves as one of the most influential progressive rock bands of the 1970s.
   
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 (despite the fact that it was actually recorded in London), the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, released in late 1966, certainly was the first 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:     Kinks
Title:     Deadend Street
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Year:     1967
     The last major Kinks hit in the US was Sunny Afternoon in the summer of 1966. The November follow-up, Deadend Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success in the US (although it was a top five hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola was released in 1970.

Artist:    Outsiders
Title:    Help Me Girl
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    English/Weiss
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Although it doesn't happen very often these days, throughout pop music history there have been, on occasions, competing versions of the same song released by two or more artists. Sometimes one version would become the "standard" version soon enough for a record to be a genuine hit (for instance the Kingsmen's version of Louie Louie as opposed to the Paul Revere and the Raiders version recorded at around the same time and place), but as often as not the competing versions would actually end up hurting each other's chart action. Such was the case with Help Me Girl, a song released simultaneously by the Outsiders and Eric Burdon (as Eric Burdon And The Animals, despite actually being Burdon's vocals backed up by studio musicans). In Denver, where I was living at the time, there were two competing top 40 stations, ratings leader KIMN and ABC network affiliate KBTR, which still carried some network programming such as Don McNeill's Breakfast Club in the morning. Both stations published weekly charts, which were available in record stores and other locations. Although I listened to both stations, I was a bigger fan of KBTR, whose top 40 charts were included in a four page mini-newspaper, as opposed to KIMN's single page top 60 listing. When Help Me Girl came out, KIMN played the Eric Burdon version exclusively, while KBTR did the same for the Outsiders version. As a KBTR listener I was more into the Outsiders version of the song, so much so that I bought a copy of the 45. To me, Sonny Gerachi's yearning vocals seem to fit the song better than Burdon's swaggering style. Nationally, the Burdon version made it to the #29 spot, while the Outiders version stalled out at #37, reflecting, perhaps, the fact that by 1966 the Animals, with Burdon as frontman, already had a string of top 20 hits, while the Outsiders were known for just one song, Time Won't Let Me. Sonny Gerachi would have one more hit single a few years later as the lead vocalist of a group called Climax with a song called Precious And Few, while Outsiders drummer Jim Fox would go on to found the James Gang.

Artist:    The Id
Title:    The Rake
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Paul Arnold
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1967
    Not much is known about the Id other than the fact that they were from San Diego and released an album called The Inner Sounds Of The Id. The entire LP was written, produced and arranged by Paul Arnold, and was released on the RCA Victor label (at the time the world's #1 record label) in 1967. The opening track from that album, The Rake, was released as a single as well.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    She's My Girl
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967
    A favorite among the Turtles' members themselves, She's My Girl is full of hidden studio tricks that are barely (if at all) audible on the final recording. Written by the same team as Happy Together, the song is a worthy follow up to that monster hit.

Artist:    Garden Club
Title:    Little Girl Lost-And-Found
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Walsh/Almer
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1967
    Garden Club was in reality Ruthann Friedman (who wrote the Association hit Windy) on vocals with a bunch of studio musicians performing a song co-written by Tandyn Almer (co-writer of the Association hit Along Comes Mary and inventor of the dual-chamber bong). Oddly enough, the track reminds me somehow of Suzanne Vega.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    If 6 Was 9
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Before 1967 stereo was little more than an excuse to charge a dollar more for an LP. That all changed in a hurry, as artists such as Jimi Hendrix began to explore the possibilities of the technology, in essence treating stereophonic sound as a multi-dimensional sonic palette. The result can be heard on songs such as If 6 Were 9 from the Axis: Bold As Love album, which is best listened to at high volume, preferably with headphones on. Especially the spoken part in the middle, when Jimi says the words "I'm the one who's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want." It sounds like he's inside your head with you.
   
Artist:    Bonzo Dog Band
Title:    I'm The Urban Spaceman
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Neil Innes
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (as they were originally called) was as much theatre (note the British spelling) as music, and were known for such antics as starting out their performances by doing calisthentics (after being introduced as the warm-up band) and having one of the members, "Legs" Larry Smith tapdance on stage (he was actually quite good). In 1967 they became the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's TV show that also featured sketch comedy by future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with David Jason, the future voice of Mr. Toad and Danger Mouse. In 1968 the Bonzos released their only hit single, I'm The Urban Spaceman, co-produced by Paul McCartney. Frontman Neil Innes would go on to hook up with Eric Idle for the Rutles project, among other things, and is often referred to as the Seventh Python.

Artist:     Cream
Title:        White Room
Source:    CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:        1968
        Musically almost a rewriting of Eric Clapton's Tales of Brave Ulysses (from Cream's Disraeli Gears album), White Room, a Jack Bruce/Pete Brown composition from the Wheels Of Fire album, is arguably the most popular song ever to feature the use of a wah-wah pedal prominently.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Second Time Around
Source:    LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    Dick Peterson
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    Blue Cheer was the loudest, heaviest band on the San Francisco scene (and maybe the whole world) in 1968, and Second Time Around was the most feedback-drenched track on their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum. Appropriately, it was also the closing track on the LP.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Good Time Music
Source:    Mono LP: What's Shakin'
Writer(s):    John Sebastian
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    Elektra Records almost signed its first rock band in 1965. The label, formed in New York in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt, had built up a following for its folk music records in the 1950s and 60s, including recent releases by Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton, and was looking to broaden its scope with the locally popular Lovin' Spoonful. The Spoonful, however, despite their friendship with Holzman, decided that signing with Elektra was too risky. According to bassist Steve Boone, they "wanted to be clearly identified as a rock band" including appearances on Dick Clark's shows American Bandstand and Action, something the owners of Kama Sutra Records were able to provide, due to their connections. The fact that Kama Sutra had a national distribution deal with M-G-M Records, then one of the six major labels, probably factored into their decision as well. Still, the band felt that they owed Holzman something for his support, and gave him four recorded songs to use as he saw fit. Those four tracks ended up on an Elektra anthology album called What's Shakin' that was released in 1966. By that time, the Lovin' Spoonful was one of the hottest acts in the country, and the presence of songs like John Sebastian's Good Time Music helped make the album a success (as did the presence of recordings by the Butterfield Blues Band and a trio of songs credited to Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse). Many years later Sebastian would express his regret in not signing with Elektra, as the band got ripped off financially by Kama Sutra.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Don't Look Away
Source:    CD: A Quick One (original US title: Happy Jack)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    Don't Look Away may well be the least documented Who song ever. Even the expanded liner notes for the 1966 album A quick One are limited to a single line describing where and when the song was recorded (IBC Studios, London, November 1966 for those who care). The song was never issued as a B side or EP track. In fact, it seems to only exist as the opening track of side two of A Quick One. So there.

Artist:    Mamas And The Papas
Title:    Strange Young Girls
Source:    CD: The Mamas And The Papas
Writer(s):    John Phillips
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1966
    The Mamas And The Papas had their own little soap opera going in 1966 when it was discovered that Mama Michelle (who was married to Papa John) and Papa Denny were having an affair. Being the 60s Michelle, but not Denny, soon found herself kicked out of the group, to be replaced by Mama Jill, who was actually Producer Lou's girlfriend. Michelle had already recorded several tracks for the group's second album, and some of those got recorded over by Jill. A couple of months later, however, Michelle rejoined the band and ended up recording over some (but not all) of Jill's vocal tracks. At this late date, nobody seems to know for sure just whose vocals ended up on which tracks by the time the LP hit the racks, and it is even possible that all five singers can be heard on songs such as Strange Young Girls, which has some of the most complex harmonies ever recorded by the group.

Artist:    Glad
Title:    Let's Play Make Believe
Source:    Feelin' Glad
Writer(s):    Floegel/Phillips
Label:    ABC
Year:    1969
    The band Glad is significant not for anything they released on their two albums (for example, a song called Let's Play Make Believe), but for what happened to the band afterwards. One member, Timothy B. Schmidt, went on to replace bassist Randy Meisner in Poco the following year (and the Eagles a few years after that), while the rest of the band eventually changed their name to Redbone and had a hit with Witch Queen of New Orleans.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1819 [B19] (starts 5/9/18)

    This week we have the most recent of five "contingency" shows, recorded in December of 2017, but not aired until now. It's a good one, too.

Artist:    Blue Oyster Cult
Title:    (Don't Fear) The Reaper
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Agents Of Fortune)
Writer(s):    Donald Roeser
Label:    Sony Music
Year:    1976
    Guitarist/vocalist Buck Dharma wrote (Don't Fear) The Reaper in his late 20s. At the time, he said, he was expecting to die at a young age. Dharma (real name Donald Roeser), is now 71 years old.

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:    Gun
Title:    Yellow Cab Man
Source:    British import CD: Gun
Writer(s):    Gurvitz/Parsons
Label:    Repertoire (original label: CBS)
Year:    1968
    Sometimes your timing is just right. Such was the case with Gun, whose powerful three-piece sound came along just as iconic bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were on the verge of breaking up. Released in 1968. Gun's self-titled debut LP featured the hit single Race With The Devil, a tune that made the top 10 in England and Germany. Other strong tracks on the album included Yellow Cab Man, which incorporated car horns mixed with the loud fuzz guitar of Adrian Gurvitz (then calling himself Adrian Curtis), backed by his brother Paul on bass and Louis Farrell on drums. Gun was unable to sustain their popularity after Race With The Devil had fallen off the charts, and the Gurvitz brothers soon disbanded the group and formed first Three Man Army and then the Baker-Gurvitz (with legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker) in the 1970s.

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:      Fairport Convention
Title:     Tam Lin
Source:      LP: Leige and Leaf
Writer(s):    Trad. arr. Swarbuck
Label:     A&M
Year:     1969
     Fairport Convention was hailed as England's answer to Jefferson Airplane when they first appeared. As Tam Lin, from their 1969 album Leige And Lief shows, they soon established a sound all their own. Sandy Denny, heard here on lead vocals, is probably best known to US audiences for her backup vocals on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore from their fourth LP.

Artist:    Badfinger
Title:    No Matter What
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Pete Ham
Label:    Apple
Year:    1970
    Aside from the Beatles, the band most closely associated with Apple Records was Badfinger. Originally known as the Iveys, Badfinger was the first band signed to Apple and remained with the label throughout its existence. Led by Pete Ham, Badfinger had a string of successful singles for the label, including No Matter What, a Ham composition from the band's second LP, No Dice. The song, released in 1970, is considered by many to be the earliest example of what would come to be known as power pop later in the decade.

Artist:     Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     Rock 'N' Roll Soul
Source:     Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer:     Mark Farner
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1972
     By 1972 Grand Funk Railroad's performances were no longer all sellouts, and the band began to shift emphasis to their recorded work. Problems with Terry Knight's management practices were also becoming an issue, and their sixth studio LP, Phoenix, would be the last to be produced by Knight. Rock 'N' Roll Soul, a somewhat typical Mark Farner song, was the first and only single released from the album, and would have only minor success on the charts. The next record, We're An American Band, would signal a major change of direction for the band, with other members besides Farner taking a role in the songwriting and a much greater emphasis on hit singles than ever before.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Everybody's Everything
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Santana/Moss/Brown
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Santana's third album, released in 1971, was called simply Santana. The problem is, their first album was also called Santana. The guitar solo on Everybody's Everything, by the way, is not by Carlos Santana. Rather it was performed by the then 17-year-old Neal Schon, who, along with keyboardist Greg Rolie would leave the band the following year to form Journey.

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Black Hearted Woman
Source:    CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: The Allman Brothers Band)
Writer(s):    Gregg Allman
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    It's almost a cliche that a rock and roll songwriter will get at least one good song out of a relationship that ends badly. If this is indeed the case, Gregg Allman's relationship with a woman in Los Angeles named Stacy must have been particularly rocky, as it served as the inspiration for no less than three songs on the Allman Brothers Band's debut LP. Perhaps the most "to the point" of these was Black Hearted Woman, which pulls no punches whatsoever.

Artist:    Yes
Title:    We Are Heaven/South Side Of The Sky
Source:    CD: Fragile
Writer(s):    Anderson/Squire
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    The fourth Yes album, Fragile, introduced the "classic" Yes lineup of John Anderson (vocals), Bill Bruford (drums), Steve Howe (guitar), Chris Squire (bass) and Rick Wakemen (keyboards), and features some of the band's best known songs. Four of the album's songs, including South Side Of The Sky, feature the entire band, while the remaining five tracks were contributed by the individual members. We Have Heaven, a multi-tracked Anderson solo piece, leads directly into South Side Of The Sky, and has a lyrical connection to the longer piece, as both songs address matters of mortality. South Side, according to new liner notes, is about a polar expedition that ends with the death of the entire party, with somewhat metaphorical references to mountain climbing as well. Anderson says the inspiration for the song's lyrics came from an article he read in which sleep was referred to as Death's little sister. Although the song is credited to Anderson and Squire, the basic guitar riff actually came from a composition played by Howe's previous band, Bodast, while the repeating piano arpeggio in the middle of the piece was provided by Wakeman.

Artist:     Jethro Tull
Title:     Wond'ring Aloud
Source:     CD: Aqualung
Writer:     Ian Anderson
Label:     Chrysalis (original US label: Reprise)
Year:     1971
     If the first three Jethro Tull albums can be considered steps on a path, then Aqualung would have to be the destination. The first Tull album to achieve massive commercial success, Aqualung shows the band finally divorced from its beginnings as a blues band and firmly in the control of vocalist/flautist/acoustic guitarist/songwriter Ian Anderson. An expanded version of Wond'ring Aloud called Wond'ring Again was recorded around the same time and was included on the 1973 album Living In The Past.