Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1925 (starts 6/17/19)

    This week's show comes in three parts: The first is a set of singles and B sides (starting with a couple of alternate versions of song made famous by Three Dog Night). Next we have female voices from the Commonwealth, and finally a set of tunes last heard on our companion show, Stuck in the Psychedelic Era (with a classic Led Zeppelin track thrown in to finish out the show).

Artist:    Randy Newman
Title:    Mama Told Me (Not To Come)
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: 12 Songs)
Writer(s):    Randy Newman
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    Although it is best known as a Three Dog Night song, Randy Newman's Mama Told Me (Not To Come) was actually written for Eric Burdon, whose version appeared on the album Eric Is Here in early 1967. Newman's own version of the tune, written from the perspective of a strait-laced young man experiencing his first Los Angeles style party, was included on his 1970 LP 12 Songs, which came out at around the same time as Three Dog Night's cover of the tune. Newman's version features slide guitar work from Ry Cooder, supplementing Newman's own piano playing.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    It Ain't Easy
Source:    CD: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Writer(s):    Ron Davies
Label:    Ryko (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1972
    David Bowie had little need to record cover songs. He was, after all, one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century. But when he did record the occasional cover tune, you can bet it was a good one. Take It Ain't Easy, for instance. The song was already well known as the title track of two different albums, one by Three Dog Night and one by Long John Baldry, when Bowie recorded it, yet he still managed to make the song his own. The song itself was written by Nashville songwriter Ron Davies, whose younger sister Gail was the first female producer in country music.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    A Passion Play- Edit #8
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    On the 1971 album Aqualung, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson took on the religious establishment. The following year the band broke new ground by releasing Thick As A Brick, a single track that took up both sides of a conventional LP record. Both were commercial successes with generally favorable reviews from the rock press. The band's next studio LP, A Passion Play, was another story. Like Thick As A Brick, A Passion Play was one long piece stretched out over an entire album. The problem was that Thick As A Brick was actually a satirical piece that worked on more than one level, while A Passion Play took itself far more seriously. Although commercially successful at first, the album got mostly negative reviews from the rock press, and is generally considered to be the beginning of the band's decline in popularity. As a way of making the album more radio-friendly, a special pressing was sent to stations dividing the piece into 10 numbered edits, with #8 also issued as a single. When it came time for the band to issue a greatest hits album, A Passion Play edit #8 was selected for inclusion. Personally I would have gone with #9, which was issued as the B side of the single. Shows what I know.

Artist:    Billy Preston
Title:    Outa-Space
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Preston/Greene
Label:    A&M
Year:    1972
    As soon as he was finished recording his instrumental piece he called Outa-Space, keyboardist Billy Preston knew he had a hit single on his hands. His label, however, thought differently, and issued the song as the B side of I Wrote A Simple Song in early 1972. It wasn't long before DJs began flipping the record over and playing Outa-Space instead. As a result, Outa-Space became a huge hit, going all the way to the #2 spot on the US charts, while I Wrote A Simple Song only made it to the #77 spot, once again proving that local disc jockeys often know more about audience tastes than record company executives. Too bad there aren't any local disc jockeys in commercial radio anymore, their duties having been taken over by computer algorithms and professional consulting firms.

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

Artist:    Rod Stewear
Title:    True Blue
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side (from LP: Never A Dull Moment)
Writer(s):    Stewart/Wood
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1972
    Rod Stewart and Ron Wood started performing together in 1967, when they were both members of the Jeff Beck Group. When that group disbanded, the two of them joined up with the remnants of the Small Faces to form Faces. Even as Faces was growing in popularity, Stewart was pursuing a parallel solo career. This has led to some confusion over which songs were Faces tunes and which ones were Stewarts. Complicating things further is the fact than most of the members of Faces (including Wood) played on many of Stewart's records, including the hit single You Wear It Well, which appeared on Stewart's 1972 LP Never A Dull Moment. The B side of that single was True Blue, a Stewart/Wood collaboration that also served as Never A Dull Moment's opening track. Things got considerably less confusing in 1975, however, when Wood accepted an invitation to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones, a position he has held ever since.

Artist:    Pentangle
Title:    A Maid That's Deep In Love
Source:    British import CD: Cruel Sister
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Pentangle
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    By 1970 Pentangle had established itself as one of the world's most successful bands, with their own unique fusion of British folk, jazz and folk-rock. Most groups would have continued in the same vein that got them where they were, but such was the quality and integrity of the band's members that they instead chose to go with a far more traditional approach to their fourth album, Cruel Sister. The album opens with a ballad, A Maid That's Deep In Love, that showcases vocalist Jacqui McShee while showing a musical depth rarely heard in popular music at the time.

Artist:    Renaissance
Title:    Trip To The Fair
Source:    LP: Scheherazade And Other Stories
Writer(s):    Dunford/Thatcher/Tout
Label:    Sire
Year:    1975
    Annie Haslam joined Renaissance in 1971 following an audition in response to an ad in England's Melody Maker magazine and has been an integral part of the band ever since. Her five-octave vocal range helped define the band's sound during its most successful years. Although Haslam was not actively involved in the group's songwriting process, her first date with fellow musician Roy Wood (the Move, Wizzard) inspired the lyrics of Trip To The Fair, which appeared on the 1975 album Scheherazade And Other Stories.

Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    All I Want
Source:    LP: Blue
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1971
    All I Want is one of two last minute additions to Joni Mitchell's fourth album, Blue, replacing two older songs that had originally been slated to appear on the album. The song was written to and for James Taylor, who Mitchell was in a relationship with at the time. The 1971 album is often cited as Mitchell's best; indeed NPR ranks it as the best album ever made by a woman (Mitchell produced Blue herself).

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    You Don't Love Me
Source:    LP: Super Session
Writer(s):    Willie Cobb
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1968
    You Don't Love Me was originally recorded and released as a single by Willie Cobbs in 1960. Although the song is credited solely to Cobbs, it strongly resembles a 1955 Bo Diddley B side, She's Fine She's Mine, in its melody, lyrics and repeated guitar riff. The Cobbs single was a regional hit on the Mojo label in Memphis, but stalled out nationally after being reissued on Vee-Jay Records, due to the label pulling promotional support from the song due to copyright issues. A 1965 version by Junior Wells with Buddy Guy saw some minor changes in the lyrics to the song; it was this version that was covered by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills for the 1968 Super Session album. The recording extensively uses an effect called flanging, a type of phase-shifting that was first used in stereo on the Jimi Hendrix Experience track Bold As Love.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Doing That Scrapyard Thing
Source:    CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    In its original form, the album Goodbye Cream had three new studio tracks on it, one for each member of the band. Jack Bruce's contribution was Doing That Scrapyard Thing, co-written (as were the majority of Bruce's compositions) by poet Pete Brown. Lyrics don't get much more psychedelic than this.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Title:    Carry On
Source:    CD: Déjà Vu
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Carry On, the opening track from the Crosby, Still, Nash & Young album Déjà Vu, is a Stephen Stills song that incorporates lyrics from an earlier piece, Questions, which appeared on the third Buffalo Springfield album, Last Time Around. The song was the fourth single released from Déjà Vu, but failed to make the top 40 (which only reinforces my belief that top 40 radio had outlived its usefulness by 1970).

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

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1924 (starts 6/10/19)

    The emphasis is on the unusual and obscure this week, as we search deep and wide for no less than nine tracks that have never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before, three of which are by artists making their debut as well. Of course there are some familiar tunes here as well, such as our opening track...

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Wait
Source:    Mono CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1965
    The oldest song on the Rubber Soul album, Wait was originally recorded for the Help album, but did not make the final cut. Six months later, when the band was putting the finishing touches on Rubber Soul, they realized they would not be able to come up with enough new material in time for a Christmas release, so they added some overdubs to Wait and included it on the new album. The song itself was a collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with the two sharing vocals throughout the tune.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Tripmaker
Source:    LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s):    Tybalt/Hooper
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    For some strange reason whenever I hear the song Tripmaker from the second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, I am reminded of a track from the Smash Mouth album Astro Lounge. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which one came first.

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

Artist:    McGough & McGear
Title:    So Much To Love
Source:    Mono CD: McGough & McGear
Writer(s):    McGough/McGear
Label:    Real Gone (original UK label: Parlophone)
Year:    1968
    The Scaffold was a uniquely English performance trio consisting of comic John Gorman, poet Roger McGough and musician Mike McGear formed in 1964 in Liverpool. In 1968 McGough and McGear decided to make a record album, utilizing McGear's contacts in the record industry to secure a contract with EMI's Parlophone label (his older brother was a member of a band signed to the label). Unlike the first Scaffold album, a live performance released later the same year, McGough & McGear was a studio creation that included guest appearances from Jimi Hendrix (who plays guitar on So Much To Love), and drummer Mitch Mitchell. Mike McGear, incidentally, was a stage name for Peter Michael McCartney, whose older brother Paul provided backup vocals for So Much To Love as well as being listed (along with McGear and Paul Samwell-Smith) as co-producer of the LP. Other contributors to the album include Graham Nash, Jane Asher and Dave Mason.

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:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Good Thing
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: The Spirit Of '67 and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lindsay/Melcher
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    From 1965 to 1967 Paul Revere And The Raiders were on a roll, with a string of six consecutive top 20 singles, four of which made the top 5. Among these was Good Thing, a tune written by lead vocalist Mark Lindsay and producer Terry Melcher (sometimes referred to as the "Fifth Raider"). The song first appeared on the Spirit Of  '67 LP in 1966, and was released as a single late that year. The song ended up being the Raiders' second biggest hit, peaking at # 4 in early 1967.

Artist:    Bee Gees
Title:    Red Chair Fade Away
Source:    CD: Bee Gees 1st
Writer(s):    Barry & Robin Gibb
Label:    Reprise (original label: Atco
Year:    1967
    The album Bee Gees' 1st, released in 1967, is an eclectic mix of soft rock, experimental and downright psychedic material, all of which features the trademark harmonies of the Gibb brothers. Perhaps the most overtly psychedelic song on the album is Red Chair Fade Away, which features odd time signature changes that manage to work well. The tune was covered by the Cyrkle in 1968 as the B side of their final single.

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

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Laughing
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Canned Wheat)
Writer(s):    Bachman/Cummings
Label:    Priority (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1969
    Following the success of their American LP debut, Wheatfield Soul (and the hit single These Eyes), the Guess Who headed back to the studio to record their fifth album, Canned Wheat. RCA Victor had a policy stating that groups signed to the label had to use RCA's own studios, whether they wanted to or not. The Guess Who and their producer, Jack Richardson, however, felt that RCA's New York studios were to inferior to A&R studios, where Wheatfield Soul had been recorded, and to prove their point secretly re-recorded two songs, Laughing and Undun, at A&R. They then sent dubs of the two new recordings to the shirts at RCA, who immediately issued the recordings as the band's next single, unaware that they had been recorded at A&R. By the time RCA realized what was going on, the single was already climbing the charts (eventually hitting the #10 spot), and ended up using the two new recordings on Canned Wheat. The remainded of the album was made up of the tracks recorded at RCA Studios. Their next album, American Woman, would be recorded at RCA's brand new Mid-America Recording Center in Chicago.
       
    If the McGough and McGear track and the Bee Gees LP track weren't obscure enough for you, we present three tunes never played on the show before, two of them from artists never played on the show before (and the third from a CD never featured on the show before)...

Artist:    Knowbody Else
Title:    Free Singer's Island
Source:    British import CD: Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sound of Memphis
Writer(s):    Brewer/Mangrum/Reynolds
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2012
    The Knowbody Else was formed by a bunch of high school friends in 1963 in the area of Monette, Arkansas, located about a dozen miles east of Jonesboro. After stealing the local high school's PA system, the band soon was on the run, living incognito somewhere in northern Arkansas. They surfaced in 1967 at Memphis, Tennessee's Argent Studios, where they recorded an album's worth of material (including Free Singer's Island) for producer Jim Dickinson. The album, tentatively titled Soldiers Of Pure Piece, remains unreleased, but two tracks, including Free Singer's Island, showed up on the British Big Beat label in 2012 on a collection called Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sound of Memphis. The Knowbody Else, meanwhile, signed with Stax Records the following year, releasing one self-titled album in 1969 on Stax's Hip subsidiary label. Not long after that, the Knowbody Else changed their name to Black Oak Arkansas and released the first of 10 LPs for the Atco label in 1971. Incidentally, the band members did end up getting charged (in absentia) for the theft of the Monette high school PA system and received a 26 year sentence that was later suspended. By then, apparently, they were living high on the hog and paid the high school back with interest.

Artist:    Misty Wizards
Title:    It's Love
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ted Lucas
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The Misty Wizards were formed somewhere in the midwestern US by Ted Lucas and Dick Keelan. A trip to New York found them in the studio, working with producer Harvey Brooks, the bass player from the Butterfield Blues Band turned studio guru. The group only cut one single, a tune called It's Love, that was released during the summer of 1967. The rock music world's attention, however, was focused at that time on San Francisco, and the single went nowhere.

Artist:    Ace Of Cups
Title:    Taste Of One
Source:    Mono British import CD: It's Bad For You, But Buy It
Writer(s):    Denise Kaufman
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 196?, released 2003
    Ace Of Cups was one of the first self-contained all-female bands, and an integral part of the late 60s San Francisco music scene. Their greatest strengths were their strong harmonies and their quickly developing abilities as songwriters. Formed in 1966 by bassist Mary Gannon and keyboardist Marla Hunt, the band soon added guitarist Mary Ellen Simpson and drummer Diane Vitalich. The final piece of the puzzle came at a New Year's party at the house where the members of Blue Cheer lived, when Simpson (who hung out there frequently) met Denise Kaufman, one of the most colorful characters on the Bay Area scene. Kaufman's connections led to the band opening regularly for Quicksilver Messenger Service, one of the most popular bands in the area. Despite the band's growing visibility, Ace Of Cups never made any formal studio recordings, although several tapes of demos and live performances were collected an issued in 2003 on a CD called It's Bad For You, But Buy It. Among the tunes on that CD is Kaufman's Taste Of One, which was probably made as a demo on either cassette or home reel-to-reel equipment. Ace Of Cups (minus Marla) finally did get the chance to record professionally decades later, and their 2018 album contains, among other songs, a newly recorded version of Taste Of One.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Strange Brew
Source:    British import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Clapton/Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    RSO (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in Europe and the UK (but not in the US) in early 1967. The song has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    One of the most popular songs in the Kinks' catalog, I'm Not Like Everybody Else was originally written for another British band, the Animals. When that group decided not to record the tune, the Kinks did their own version of the song, issuing it as the B side of the 1966 hit Sunny Afternoon. Although written by Ray Davies, it was sung by his brother Dave, who usually handled the lead vocals on only the songs he himself composed. Initially not available on any LPs, the song has in recent years shown up on various collections and as a bonus track on CD reissues of both the Kink Kontroversy and Face To Face albums. Both Davies brothers continue to perform the song in their live appearances.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Astrologically Incompatible
Source:    CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    Astrologically Incompatible, in addition to being one of the first known rock songs to make references to the signs of the zodiac (which would become fashionable in the following decade), marks a transition point in the history of the Music Machine. One of the last tracks recorded by the original lineup, it was also the B side of the first single released under the name Bonniwell Music Machine on Warner Brothers. The horn overdubs were played by Bonniwell himself and organist Doug Rhodes, using then state-of-the-art 8-track technology.

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Surrender To Your Kings
Source:    German import CD: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Writer(s):    Ted Nugent
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    Although they would soon become nothing more than Ted Nugent's backup band, in 1968 the Amboy Dukes were still very much a collective, with rhythm guitarist/vocalist Mark Farmer writing over half of the material on the group's second LP, Journey To The Center Of The Mind. One of the songs not written by Farmer was the album's second track, Surrender To Your Kings, which was all Nugent's, and presages the direction the band would eventually go in.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I'm Yours And I'm Hers
Source:    European import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    1969 was a big year for Johnny Winter. An article the previous year in Rolling Stone magazine referring to the "albino guitarist with long white hair causing a stir in the Southwest" had led to his album The Progressive Blues Experiment being picked up by Imperial Records for national distribution, which in turn led to Winters signing with Columbia, one of the world's largest and most influential record labels. His first album for Columbia, titled simply Johnny Winter, was a critical and commercial success, instantly putting him in the top tier of both blues and rock guitarists. The opening track of the LP was I'm Your And I'm Hers, a Johnny Winter original that utilized the talents of future Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer "Uncle" John Turner, both members of Johnny's band Winter at the time. This same lineup would record a second album for Columbia with Johnny's brother Edgar on keyboards and saxophone before being disbanded in favor of the larger group that would come to be known as Johnny Winter And. 

    Our second hour features an inside look at what happens when you put a perfectionist in charge of a recording session, and a fifteen minute long psychedelic blues jam featuring electric violin played through just about every effect available in 1969. But first, a different version of Jimi Hendrix's Lover Man than the one we heard last month...

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Lover Man
Source:    stereo 45 RPM single B side (originally released on CD box set: The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2000, single released 2016
    When the Jimi Hendrix Experience made their US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 they opened with a high-energy workup of the Muddy Waters classic Killing Floor. Hendrix' arrangement of the song was so radically different from the original that Hendrix eventually decided to write new lyrics for the song, calling it Lover Man. Several attempts were made to get the song recorded in the studio, with the most recent being in 1970 by a group consisting of Hendrix on guitar and vocals, Billy Cox on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. This version was included on the 2000 box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience, leading to speculation that, had Hendrix lived, he would have used that name for the new lineup. Accordingly, when Sundazed issued a new Hendrix single consisting of the same trio's 1969 recording of Stone Free, backed with the 1970 version of Lover Man in 2016, both songs were attributed to the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
   
Artist:    Love
Title:    Your Mind And We Belong Together (tracking sessions & final mix)
Source:    CD: Forever Changes (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1968
    The last record to be released by the classic Love lineup of Arthur Lee, Ken Forssi, Johnny Echols, Bryan MacLean and Michael Stuart was a single, Your Mind And We Belong Together. Although released in 1968, the song is very much the same style as the 1967 album Forever Changes. A bonus track on the Forever Changes CD shows Lee very much in command of the recording sessions, calling for over two dozen takes before getting an acceptable version of the song. The song serves as a fitting close to the story of one of the most influential, yet overlooked, bands in rock history...or would have, if Lee had not tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the band's success with new members several times in the ensuing years.

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

    Our final half hour is even more unusual and obscure than the previous segments, beginning with perhaps the first pop song ever to deal with interracial romance, followed by several songs that either haven't been played on the show in several years or have never played on the show at all.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Society's Child
Source:    LP: Janis Ian
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1966
    Janis Ian began writing Society's Child, using the title Baby I've Been Thinking, when she was 13 years old, finishing it shortly after her 14th birthday. She shopped it around to several record labels before finally finding one (Now Sounds) to take a chance on the controversial song about interracial dating. The record got picked up and re-issued in 1966 by M-G-M's experimental label Verve Folkways (soon to be renamed Verve Forecast), a label whose roster included Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro and the Blues Project, among others. Despite being banned on several radio stations the song became a major hit when re-released yet another time in early 1967. Ian had problems maintaining a balance between her performing career and being a student which ultimately led to her dropping out of high school. She would eventually get her career back on track in the mid-70s, scoring another major hit with At Seventeen, and becoming somewhat of a heroine to the feminist movement.

Artist:     Chambers Brothers
Title:     Please Don't Leave Me
Source:     CD: The Time Has Come
Writer:    George Chambers
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:     1967
     The Chambers Brothers are best known for their eleven minute long psychedelic classic Time Has Come Today, yet the band has a history dating back to 1954, when they were formed as a gospel group in Lee County, Mississippi. Those gospel roots, as well as a strong blues presence, can be heard on Please Don't Leave Me, a George Chambers composition from the 1967 album The Time Has Come.

Artist:      Beacon Street Union
Title:     The Clown's Overture
Source:      LP: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer:    Larry Fallon
Label:    M-G-M
Year:     1968
     Sounding a bit like Erik Satie (a year before Blood, Sweat & Tears did their Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie), The Clown's Overture, from the second Beacon Street Union LP, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens, is a purely orchestral piece. Just how it got on the album in the first place is a bit of a mystery, however. My best guess is that the producer, Wes Farrell (who would have great success as the producer of several Partridge Family records) thought it was a good idea at the time.

Artist:    Joe Byrd And The Field Hippies
Title:    Gospel Music For Abraham Ruddell Byrd III
Source:    LP: The American Metaphysical Circus
Writer(s):    Joseph Byrd
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Following his departure from the United States Of America, Joseph Byrd embarked upon an even more avant-garde project called The American Metaphysical Circus. Utilizing an array of West Coast musicians (including a young Tom Scott), Byrd created an album that was so far removed from the rock mainstream that Columbia chose to issue it on their classical Masterworks label. This resulted in the album staying in print for 20 years (The United States Of America, on the other hand, was deleted from the Columbia catalog within a year of its initial release). Among the more unexpected tracks on The American Metaphysical Circus was a piece called Gospel Music For Abraham Ruddell III, alternately known simply as Gospel Music. It is exactly what you'd expect a piece called Gospel Music written by Joseph Byrd to sound like (although I have no idea who Abraham Ruddell III is or was).


Artist:    Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Title:    Swinging On A Star
Source:    LP: Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Writer(s):    Burke/Van Heusen
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1967
    As a young child I remember hearing the original Bing Crosby of Swinging On A Star and wanting to hear it again and again. Unfortunately we didn't have a copy of the record, so I only heard it every once in a while on the radio or on TV. Many years later I ran across the 1967 Dave Van Ronk version of the tune from the album Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters. Van Ronk gives the song what he calls a "Buster Keatonish" reading that is even more fun to listen to than the Crosby original.

Artist:    Troggs
Title:    Cousin Jane
Source:    British import CD: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Trogglodynamite; original US release: 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Reg Presley
Label:    Spectrum (original UK label: Page One; original US label: Fontana)
Year:    1967 (US release: 1968)
    When most people hear the name Troggs, they think of the song Wild Thing, which is natural, considering how huge an impact the song has had over the years. But the Troggs were about a lot more than just one song, as a listen to the slightly creepy Cousin Jane will attest. The song itself first appeared in the UK in February of 1967 on the band's second LP, Trogglodynamite, and was later included on an EP called Trogg Tops 2. It's US release didn't happen until 1968, when it appeared as the final track on the album Love Is All Around and as the B side of Surprise Surprise (I Need You). Good luck trying to find a copy of that last one!

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Flaming
Source:    CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (not included on original US release)
Writer:    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    Despite his legendary status as the original driving force behind Pink Floyd there is actually very little recorded material by the band itself that is credited to Syd Barrett. Most of that material is on the first Floyd album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, and on a handful of singles released by the group at a time when single releases in the UK seldom appeared on albums. Unlike Barrett's singles, which managed to be commercial without sacrificing their psychedelic qualities, album tracks such as Flaming (from Piper) show a willingness to go off into unexplored musical territory. It was these types of explorations that would set the direction the band would take once Barrett became unable to continue with the group. Flaming, for many years, was almost impossible to find in US record stores, as it was left off Capitol Records' original 1967 release of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn on their Tower subsidiary.

Artist:    Hollies
Title:    Maker
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK on LP: Butterfly and in US on LP: Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse)
Writer(s):    Clarke/Hicks/Nash
Label:    EMI (original UK label: Parlophone, original US label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    Graham Nash was the one of the three core members of the Hollies who pushed the other two (the other two being Tony Hicks and Allan Clarke) into the band's most psychedelic phase in 1967, first with the single King Midas In Reverse and then with the album Butterfly (which was issued in substantially altered form as Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse in the US). Nash's influence can be heard throughout the album, especially on Maker, which meshes Nash's penchant for experimentation with the group's trademark harmonies. This change in musical direction did not sit well with the rest of the band, however, and ultimately led to Nash's departure from the Hollies in 1968.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1924 (starts 6/10/19)

    Once again, Rockin' in the Days of Confusion takes you on a musical journey through the years 1968-1975, with a few extra tunes thrown in for good measure. It starts with Golden Earring...

Artist:    Golden Earring
Title:    Radar Love
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Kooymans/Hay
Label:    Track/MCA
Year:    1973
    Formed in The Hague in 1961, the Golden Earrings (they dropped the plural in 1969) released 25 studio albums and took nearly 30 songs into the top 10 over a period of nearly 30 years...in their native Holland. They were completely unknown in the US, however, until 1973, when Radar Love became an international hit. They returned to the US charts in 1982 with Twilight Zone, and had a final international hit in 1984 with When The Lady Smiles, although that song did not do as well in the US.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Boogie Music
Source:    British import CD: Living The Blues
Writer(s):    L T Tatman III
Label:    BGO (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of San Francisco Bay Area blues purists who by 1968 had relocated to Southern California's Laurel Canyon. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout its existence. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. The B side of Going Up The Country was a tune called Boogie Music. The song is credited to L T Tatman III, which may be a pseudonym for the entire band, much as Nanker Phelge was for the Rolling Stones. Unusually, the single version of the song is actually longer than the album version heard here, thanks to a short coda made to sound like an archive recording from the 1920s.

Artist:      Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     Mr. Limousine Driver
Source:      CD: Grand Funk
Writer:    Mark Farner
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1969
     When Grand Funk Railroad first appeared on the scene they were universally panned by the rock press (much as Kiss would be a few years later). Despite this, they managed to set attendance records across the nation and were instrumental to establishing sports arenas as the venue of choice for 70s rock bands. Although their first album, On Time, was not an instant hit, their popularity took off with the release of their second LP, Grand Funk (also known as the Red Album). One of the many popular tracks on Grand Funk was Mr. Limousine Driver, a song that reflects the same attitude as their later hit We're An American Band.

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

Artist:    Fanny
Title:    Think About The Children
Source:    LP: Fanny Hill
Writer(s):    June Millington
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    So you're 19 or so, and you see this album on the racks that has four chicks dressed in black turtleneck sweaters against a white background. What do you do? You buy it, of course. It turns out the album in question was called Fanny Hill, and it was the third LP from Fanny, one the first self-contained female rock groups. The band was centered around the Millington sisters, June (guitar) and Jean (bass), who had moved from the Phillipines to Sacramento, California while in their teens. They were eventually joined by drummer Alice de Buhr and keyboardist Nicky Barclay. Released in 1972, Fanny Hill was the most successful album for the band, thanks to a combination of solid musicianship and quality songwriting on tunes like Think About The Children. June Millington left the group in 1974, however, partially due to pressures from the band's producers to dress more provocatively, which Millington resisted. After one final album without their original leader, Fanny called it quits in 1975.

Artist:    Emitt Rhodes
Title:    In Desperate Need
Source:    LP: Farewell To Paradise
Writer(s):    Emitt Rhodes
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1973
    Emitt Rhodes is a songwriter who has a clear idea of what his songs should sound like. He also has the talent to not only sing and produce, but to play every instrument and engineer his own professional quality recordings in his own studio. Rhodes first came to regional fame in Los Angeles at the age of 16, when he was the drummer for a group called the Palace Guard that had a local hit called Like Falling Sugar. That same year he formed his own group, the Merry-Go-Round, scoring another local hit, Live, in 1967. This was followed by two LPs for the A&M label, one by the Merry-Go-Round and one solo LP, The American Dream, which remained unreleased until 1970. Following the breakup of the Merry-Go-Round Rhodes built his own home studio, where all of his solo recordings were made. Unfortunately, he made a tactical error by signing a contract with Dunhill Records requiring him to provide the label with six albums over a three year period. As he was recording and playing all the instruments and vocals himself, this proved to be an impossible commitment to live up to, resulting in Dunhill suing him for breach of contract and withholding royalties on the three albums he did release during that period. The last of these albums, Farewell To Paradise, took a year to make, even with the help of Curt Boettcher, who did the final mixdown of the LP. Keeping in mind that Rhodes played and sang (and engineered) everything on songs like In Desperate Need, it's easy to understand why it took so long to make the album.

Artist:    Frank Zappa
Title:    Uncle Remus
Source:    CD: Apostrophe (')
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Zappa (original label: Discreet)
Year:    1974
    One of the shortest free-standing songs in the entire Frank Zappa catalogue, Uncle Remus is a bit of a rarity in that it was a collaboration with another musician, George Duke, who also performs on the track. The song itself is more serious in tone than the rest of the tunes on the Apostrophe (') album, dealing as it does with the subject of continuing racism in America.

Artist:    ZZ Top
Title:    Heard It On The X
Source:    LP: The Best Of ZZ Top (originally released on LP: Fandango)
Writer(s):    Gibbons/Hill/Beard
Label:    London
Year:    1975
    ZZ Top's fourth album, Fandago, was a unique mixture of live recordings and new studio tracks. Among those studio tracks was the somewhat autobiographical Heard It On The X. The "X" refers to the various high-powered AM stations that used to broadcast American top 40 style shows in English from Mexico, where the 50,000 watt legal limit imposed by the FCC on US radio stations did not apply. I don't know specifically which station the trio from Texas listened on, but in southern New Mexico it was XELO, out of Ciudad Juarez, directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso. The 100,000 watt station was well-known in the area as the home of DJ Steve Crosno, who also hosted a popular teen dance show on an El Paso TV station. Sometime in the early 1970s XELO became XeROK and started carrying the Wolfman Jack show.

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

Artist:    Yes
Title:    Heart Of The Sunrise
Source:    CD: Fragile
Writer(s):    Anderson/Squire/Bruford
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    Although it is the fourth most played song in the Yes catalogue, Heart Of The Sunrise, from the 1971 album Fragile, was never issued as a single. This is due mostly to the fact that the track runs over ten minutes in length, far exceeding even such lengthy tunes as Paradise By The Dashboard Light, American Pie or MacArthur Park. The song was written by Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman, but due to contractual reasons, Wakeman's name had to be left off the credits.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1923 (starts 6/3/19)

    This week we have something you have probably never heard before: the stereo album version of the Doors' Light My Fire played at the speed it was actually recorded at. For the full story check out the entry below. Other than that, it's mostly sets from 1966, 1967 and 1968, with a couple of artists' sets thrown in and a set of regional hits from various locales (one of which went national in 1966). It starts appropriately, with the Story of Rock and Roll, and ends with (literally) the Show Stoppers.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    The Story Of Rock And Roll
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Harry Nilsson
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1968
    Harry Nilsson was still an up and coming, but not yet arrived, young singer/songwriter when he penned The Story Of Rock And Roll. The Turtles, always in a struggle with their record label, White Whale, over whether to record their own material or rely on professional songwriters, were the first to record the tune, releasing it as a single in 1968. Although it was not a major hit, the song did set the stage for Nilsson's later successes.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    We're Coming To Dinner
Source:    CD: Wheatfield Soul
Writer(s):    Bachman/Cummings
Label:    Iconoclassic (original labels: Canada:Nimbus, US: RCA Victor)
Year:    1968
    I suppose it was inevitable that a band named the Guess Who would include a song called We're Coming To Dinner on their first American LP. After all, lots of people were talking about the film Guess Who's Coming To Dinner in 1968, when the album was recorded. The song itself, however, can be seen more as an announcement to those in the lower 48 that one of Canada's most popular bands had arrived and was ready to take their place at the dinner table of American success. Or something like that.

Artist:    H.P. Lovecraft
Title:    It's About Time
Source:    Two Classic Albums from H. P. Lovecraft (originally released on LP: H.P. Lovecraft II)
Writer(s):    Terry Callier
Label:    Collector's Choice/Universal Music Special Markets (original label: Philips)
Year:    1968
    The second H.P. Lovecraft album, coming after a series of gigs opening for such acts as Pink Floyd, Donovan and Jefferson Airplane, was even more psychedelic than their first effort. Like the early Airplane, Lovecraft were at their best doing psychedelic arrangements of folks tunes from lesser-known songwriters such as Terrier Callier, whose fan base, according to rock critic Richie Unterberger, was small enough to make Fred Neil's seem huge by comparison. Lovecraft's treatment of Callier's It's About Time certainly has the same sort of vocal harmonies that characterized the San Francisco take on folk-rock, despite the fact that H.P. Lovecraft was actually from Chicago, a city not particularly known for its psychedelic scene.

Artist:    Monks
Title:    Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy
Source:    German import CD: Black Monk Time
Writer(s):    Burger/Spangler/Havlicek/Johnston/Shaw
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Polydor International)
Year:    1966
    The Monks were ahead of their time. In fact they were so far ahead of their time that only in the next century did people start to realize just how powerful the music on their first and only LP actually was. Released in West Germany in 1966, Black Monk Time both delighted and confused record buyers with songs like Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy, which sounds at first like a typical mid-60s dance tune, but soon displays a subversive edge that presages both the British punk-rock movement of the late 1970s and the hypnotic rhythmic patterns that would become the basis of kraut-rock as well. Not bad for a group of five American GIs (probably draftees) who, while stationed at Frankfurt, managed to come up with the idea of a rock band that looked and dressed like Monks (including the shaved patch on the top of each member's head) and sounded like nothing else in the world at that time. Of course, such a phenomenon can't sustain itself indefinitely, and the group disappeared in early 1967, never to be seen or heard from again.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Mainline
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Standells (originally released on LP: Why Pick On Me/Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White)
Writer(s):    Huntress/Chellis
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1966
    The Standells are generally not known for their album tracks, but Mainline, from their second LP, Why Pick On Me/Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, was considered strong enough by the folks at Rhino to be included on their Best Of The Standells compilation CD in the late 1980s. That's gotta count for something.

Artist:    Rattles
Title:    It's My Fault
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Germany on LP: Hurra Die Rattles Kommen)
Writer(s):    Achim Reichel
Label:    Rhino (original label: Star Club)
Year:    1965
    Hamburg's Star Club is famous for being the place where the Beatles honed their sound in the early 1960s. The club continued to bring in both British and American bands throughout the decade. Often opening for these bands was Hamburg's own popular beat group, the Rattles. The band, which was managed by the club's owner, Manfred Weissleder, released several records on the Star Club label, and even starred in their own Beatles-style movie in 1966, Hurra, Die Rattles Kommen. It's My Fault, from the film's soundtrack, is a good example of the band's mid-60s sound. In 1970, following the departure of original lead vocalist Achim Reichel, who was drafted into the army soon after the film was released, the Rattles scored an international hit with a song called The Witch, but by then the band's sound had changed a lot from their beat days.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Eight Miles High
Source:    CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s):    Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    By all rights, the Byrds' Eight Miles High should have been a huge hit. Unfortunately, the highly influential Gavin Report labelled the tune as a drug song and recommended that stations avoid playing it, despite band's insistence that it was about a transatlantic plane trip. The band's version actually makes sense, as Gene Clark had just quit the group due to his fear of flying (he is listed as a co-writer of the song), and the subject was probably a hot topic of discussion among the remaining members.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Walk Away Renee
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Brown/Calilli/Sansune
Label:    Smash
Year:    1966
    The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee is one of the most covered songs in rock history, starting with a version by the Four Tops less than two years after the original recording had graced the top 5. The Left Banke version kicked off what was thought at the time to be the latest trend: baroque rock. The trend died an early death when the band members themselves made some tactical errors resulting in radio stations being hesitant to play their records.

Artist:    Bobby Fuller Four
Title:    Love's Made A Fool Of You
Source:    Mono CD: I Fought The Law: The Best Of The Bobby Fuller Four (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Holly/Montgomery
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mustang)
Year:    1966
    The Bobby Fuller Four had their biggest hit in 1966 with I Fought The Law, a song written by Sonny Curtis and originally performed by the Crickets not long after the death of Buddy Holly (Curtis having replaced Holly on guitar in the group). Fuller followed I Fought The Law with another Crickets song, this one written by Buddy Holly himself. Love's Made A Fool Of You was actually written in 1954, but the only recording he himself made of the song was a demo intended for the Everly Brothers. The Everlys passed on the tune and the post-Holly Crickets ended up recording the song, although it did not chart for them. Fuller's version, released in 1966, made it the the #26 spot on the Billboard chart.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Let's Spend The Night Together
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    When Let's Spend The Night Together was climbing the charts, the Rolling Stones made one of their many appearances on the Ed Sullivan show. The show's producers (or maybe Ed himself) asked Mick Jagger to change the words to "Let's Spend Some Time Together", and he actually complied! I can't imagine anyone doing that to the Stones now (nor can I imagine the band agreeing to it).

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Fakin' It
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Writer:    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Fakin' It, originally released as a single in 1967, was a bit of a departure for Simon And Garfunkel, sounding more like British psychedelic music than American folk-rock. The track starts with an intro that is similar to the false ending to the Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever; midway through the record the tempo changes drastically for a short spoken word section (name-dropping Mr. [Donovan] Leitch) that is slightly reminiscent of the bridge in Traffic's Hole In My Shoe. The song was later included on the 1968 LP Bookends.

Artist:    Balloon Farm
Title:    A Question Of Temperature
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label:    Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year:    1967
    It's not entirely clear whether the Balloon Farm was an actual band or simply an East Coast studio concoction. Regardless, they did manage to successfully cross bubble gum and punk with A Question Of Temperature, originally released on the Laurie label in 1967. Band member Mike Appel went on to have greater success as Bruce Springsteen's first manager.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    So-Lo
Source:    CD: Heavy
Writer(s):    Ingle/DeLoach
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    The band that came to be known as Iron Butterfly traces its roots to two local San Diego cover bands: the Palace Pages, which included organist Doug Ingle and guitarist Danny Weis, and the Voxmen, which included bassist Jerry Penrod and drummer Ron Bushy. In 1966 Ingle and Weis decided to move north to Los Angeles and form a new band, which they called Iron Butterfly. The original bassist and drummer didn't work out, and Ingle and Weis persuaded Penrod and Bushy to join them, along with vocalist Daryl DeLoach. After a slow start the band started to build a following on the Sunset Strip, and in 1967 landed a contract with Atco, recording their first album, Heavy. Although DeLoach's role with the band was limited to vocals, tambourine and percussion, he actually sang lead on only four of the album's ten tracks, among them the opening track of the second side of the LP, a tune he and Ingle co-wrote called So-Lo. Before the album was released, the band temporarily split up, and it was not until the new lineup of Ingle, Bushy, guitarist Erik Braunn and bassist Lee Dorman hit the stage in early 1968 that Atco decided to release Heavy. That lineup would go on to record two more Iron Butterfly albums, including the iconic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Wish Me Well
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M/Rebound
Year:    1968
    The second Procol Harum album, Shine On Brightly, saw the group moving in an increasingly progressive direction, incorporating elements of a variety of styles, including Indian, classical and even gospel music. An example of the latter is Wish Me Well, which finishes out side one of the LP. Gary Brooker's gospel-styled piano work on the track is enhanced by some tasty fills from guitarist Robin Trower.

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

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    You've Never Had It Better
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    Snagster/Schwartz/Poncher
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Following the lack of a hit single from their second album, Underground, the Electric Prunes took one last shot at top 40 airplay with a song called Everybody Knows Your Not In Love. The band might have had better luck if they had pushed the flip side of the record, You Never Had It Better, which is a much stronger song. As it is, the record stiffed, and producer David Hassinger reacted by stripping the band of any creative freedom they might have had and made an album called Mass in F Minor using mostly studio musicians. The band, having signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes to their manager early on, could do nothing but watch helplessly as Hassinger created an album that had little in common with the original band other than their name. Because of this, the original members soon left, and Hassinger brought in a whole new group for two more albums (and several singles) before retiring the Prunes name for good. In recent years several members of the original band have reformed the Electric Prunes. Whether they had to get permission to use the name is unknown.

Artist:    Motorcycle Abileen
Title:    (You Used To) Ride So High
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Warren Zevon: The First Sessions)
Writer(s):    Warren Zevon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Varese Sarabande)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2003
    One of the ripple effects of the British Invasion was the near-disappearance of the solo artist from the top 40 charts for several years. There were exceptions, of course. Folk singers such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, pop singers such as Jackie DeShannon and Dionne Warwick and more adult-oriented vocalists such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin all did reasonably well, but if you wanted to be a rock and roll star you had to have a band. Producers took to creating band names for pieces that were in fact entirely performed by studio musicians, and in a few cases a solo artist would use a band name for his own recordings. One such case is the Motorcycle Abilene, which was in reality producer Bones Howe on various percussion devices working with singer/songwriter Warren Zevon, who sings and plays all non-percussion instruments on (You Used To) Ride So High, a song he wrote shortly after disbanding the duo Lyme And Cybelle (he was Lyme, presumably).

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I Need You
Source:    Mono LP: Kinkdom
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    After a series of hard-rocking hits in 1964 such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks mellowed out a bit with songs like Set Me Free the following year. Lurking on the other side of the single, though, was a song that showed that the band still knew how to rock out: I Need You. The song was also included on the 1965 LP Kinks Kinkdom, and went on to become something of a garage rock standard.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Stone Free
Source:    Simulated stereo CD: Are You Experienced? (bonus track originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Polydor)
Year:    1966
    Whether or not Stone Free was the first song ever written by Jimi Hendrix, there is no doubt it was the first original composition to be recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In fact, it is the only song written by Hendrix to be released in 1966 (as the B side to Hey Joe). The song was first released in 1969 on the US on the Smash Hits anthology album. A newer version was recorded that same year under the title Stone Free Again, but was not released during Hendrix's lifetime.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Can You See Me
Source:    Mono LP: Are You Experienced (UK version) (original US release: LP: Smash Hits)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1967 (US 1969)
    Before releasing the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, in the US, Reprise Records decided to make some changes to the track lineup, adding three songs that had been released as non-album singles in the UK. To make room for these, three songs were cut from the original UK version of the LP. The most popular of these three tracks was Can You See Me, a song that was included in the band's US debut set at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967.  Despite the audience's positive response to the song, the band apparently dropped Can You See Me from their live set shortly after Monterey. The song was originally slated to be released as the B side of The Wind Cries Mary, but instead was used as an album track.
 
Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Third Stone From The Sun
Source:     CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     Jimi Hendrix once stated that he was far more comfortable as a guitarist than as a vocalist, at least in the early days of the Experience. In that case, he was certainly in his element for his classic instrumental from the Are You Experienced album, Third Stone From The Sun. The train sequence at the end of the track, incidentally, was done entirely on guitar.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Baby, I Want You
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Electric Comic Book)
Writer:    Gilbert/Theilhelm
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    Although not as well-known as their debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, the Blues Magoos' Electric Comic Book is a worthy successor to that early psychedelic masterpiece. Handicapped by a lack of hit singles, the album floundered on the charts, despite the presence of songs like Baby, I Want You, one of many original tunes on the LP.

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

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Love Seems Doomed
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    Unlike most of the tracks on the Blues Magoos' 1966 Debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, Love Seems Doomed is a slow, moody piece with a message. Along with the Paul Revere and the Raiders hit Kicks from earlier that year, Love Seems Doomed is one of the first songs by a rock band to carry a decidedly anti-drug message. While Kicks warned of the addictive qualities of drugs (particularly the need for larger doses of a drug to achieve the same effect over time), Love Seems Doomed focused more on how addiction affects the user's relationships, particularly those of a romantic nature. Love Seems Doomed is also a more subtle song than Kicks (which tends to hit the listener over the head with its message).

Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay
Source:    LP: Dock Of The Bay (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Redding/Cropper
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1968
    Otis Redding's (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay, co-written by legendary MGs guitarist Steve Cropper, was released shortly after the plane crash that took the lives of not only Redding, but several members of the Bar-Kays as well. Shortly after recording the song Redding played it for his wife, who reacted by saying "Otis, you're changing." Redding's reply was "maybe I need to."

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     Fixing A Hole
Source:     LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Parlophone/EMI (original US label: Capitol)
Year:     1967
     The first Beatle album to appear with the same tracks in the same order on both US and UK versions was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The only differences between the two were a lack of spaces in the vinyl (called "banding") on the UK version and a bit of gobbledygook heard at the end of the record (but only if you did not have a turntable that automatically lifted the needle out of the groove after the last track). Said gobbledygook is included after A Day In The Life on the CD version of Sgt. Pepper's as a hidden track if you really want to hear what it sounds like.

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

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

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Light My Fire
Source:    LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The first Doors album was the only one to be released in both mono and stereo versions. Due to an error in the mastering process the stereo version was slowed down by about 3.5%, or about half a step in musical terms. As the mono version was deleted from the Elektra catalog soon after the album's release, the error went unnoticed for many years until a college professor contacted engineer Bruce Botnick and told him of the discrepancy. This week we have the stereo LP version played 3.5% faster than the normal 33 1/3 RPM (thanks to WHWS having turntables capable of a bit of speed variance). Sure enough, everything is pitch perfect.

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Chess Game
Source:    LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    New York's Greenwich Village based Circus Maximus was driven by the dual creative talents of guitarist/keyboardist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker. Although Walker went on to have the greatest success, it was Bruno's more jazz-influenced songwriting on songs like Chess Game that defined the band's sound. Bruno is now a successful visual artist, still living in the New York area.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    Strychnine
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Here Are The Sonics)
Writer:    Gerry Roslie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1965
    From 1965 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered one of the foundation stones of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of the songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics are often cited as the first true punk rock band.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label:    Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    In the early 1960s the San Bernardino/Riverside area of Southern California (sometimes known as the Inland Empire), was home to a pair of rival top 40 stations, KFXM and KMEN. The newer of the two, KMEN, had a staff that included Ron Jacobs, who would go on to co-create the Boss Radio format (more music, less talk!), and Brian Lord, one of the first American DJs to champion British Rock. Lord arranged for copies of Beatles albums to be shipped to KMEN from record shops in London before they were released in the US, giving the station an edge over its competition in 1964. More importantly in the long term, Lord was the man responsible for setting up the Rolling Stones' first US gig (in San Bernardino). From 1965-67 Lord took a break from KMEN, moving north to the San Jose area. While there, he heard a local band playing in a small teen club and invited them to use his garage as a practice space. The band was Count Five, and, with Lord's help, they got a contract with L.A.'s Double Shot label, recording and releasing the classic Psychotic Reaction in 1966. Lord later claimed that this was the origin of the term "garage rock".

Artist:    Show Stoppers
Title:    If You Want To, Why Don't You
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    W.E. Hjerpe
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    The Show Stoppers were a Rochester, NY based club band that included Don Potter and Bat McGrath, who would go on to release an album together on the Epic label in 1969. The Show Stoppers were discovered by John Hammond in 1967 and signed to the Columbia label, where they released two singles. Although three of the tracks would best be described as danceable pop music, the A side of their second single, If You Want To, Why Don't You, had more of a garage-rock sound, and has appeared on at least one garage-rock compilation. Both Potter and McGrath now reside in Nashville, where Potter became well-known as the creator of the "Judds sound" in the 1980s. Special thanks to Tom at the Bop Shop in Rochester (a record store that specializes in vinyl) for making this record available to me.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1923 (starts 6/3/19)

    This week it's one long strange trip on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, as we journey from 1967 to 1974, one year at a time. But before we get into that, a little Black Sabbath...

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Paranoid
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits 1970-1978 (originally released on LP: Paranoid)
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Rhino/Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Although it was the last track recorded for Black Sabbath's second album, Paranoid was actually the first song released from the sessions, appearing as a single about six months after the first LP hit the racks. The song, according to bassist Geezer Butler, was recorded as an afterthought, when the band realized they needed a three minute filler piece for the LP. Tony Iommi came up with the basic riff, which Butler quickly wrote lyrics for. Singer Ozzie Osbourne reportedly sang the lyrics directly from the handwritten lyric sheet. Paranoid turned out to be one of Black Sabbath's most popular tunes, and has shown up on several "best of" lists, including VH1's "40 Greatest Metal Songs", where it holds the # 1 spot. In Finland, the song has attained near-legendary status, and the phase "Soittakaa Paranoid!" can often be heard being yelled out from a member of the audience at a rock concert there, regardless of what band is actually on stage (much as "Free Bird" was heard at various concerts in the US throughout the 70s and 80s).

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source:    CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind, aka Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
            Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most  closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's Dear Mr. Fantasy from Traffic's 1967 debut LP Mr. Fantasy. The album was originally released in a modified version in the US in early 1968 under the title Heaven Is In Your Mind, but later editions of the LP, while retaining the US track order and running time, were renamed to match the original British title.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Walk On The Water
Source:    LP: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Writer(s):    John and Tom Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1968
    Having money and power doesn't necessarily mean you are qualified to make wise decisions. Case in point: since 1959, brothers Tom and John Fogerty, along with Doug Clifford and Stu Cook, had been making music together as the Blue Velvets, releasing a handful of singles on the Oakland, California based Orchestra Records. In 1964 they made their first recordings for Fantasy Records, which had recently had national success with Vince Guaraldi's Cast Your Fate To The Wind. This success had given the labels owners, including one Max Weiss, the kind of money and power it takes to change the name of a band signed to your record label without consulting the band itself. Thus, when the Blue Velvets' first single came out on the Fantasy label in late 1964, the band's name was now the Golliwogs, which pretty much proves my point about money and power. The group ended up releasing several singles on both Fantasy and its subsidiary label Scorpio, including a song called Walking On The Water, over the next three years. In 1967 Fantasy found itself with a new owner, Saul Zaentz, who gave the band the opportunity to pick a new name for themselves. The band soon came up with Creedence Clearwater Revival, and released their first LP in 1968. One of the songs on that album was a newly recorded (and slightly retitled) Walk On The Water, which would end up being the only CCR song to be credited to both John and Tom Fogerty (John having taken over as the band's sole songwriter sometime in 1966).

Artist:    Chicago
Title:    Introduction
Source:    German import LP: Underground '70 (originally released in US on LP: Chicago Transit Authority)
Writer(s):    Terry Kath
Label:    CBS (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    When living in Germany in 1969 I bought a copy of an album called Underground '70 in a local record store. The album itself was on purple vinyl that glowed under a black light and featured a variety of artists that had recently released albums in the US on the Columbia label (since the name Columbia was trademarked by EMI in Europe and the UK, US albums from the American Columbia label were released on the CBS label instead). The opening track of the album was appropriately called Introduction and was also the opening track of the first Chicago (Transit Authority) album. Written by guitarist Terry Kath, the piece effectively showcases the strengths of the band, both as an extremely tight ensemble and as individual soloists, with no one member dominating the song. Finally, in 2018, I couldn't resist the urge to track down a copy of Underground '70, purple vinyl and all. Thank you Internet.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Nature's Way/Animal Zoo/Love Has Found A Way/Why Can't I Be Free
Source:    CD: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Writer(s):    California/Ferguson/Locke
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1970
    Spirit was one of those bands that consistently scored well with the critics, yet was never truly able to connect with a large segment of the record buying audience at any given time. Perhaps their best album was Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, released in 1970 to glowing reviews. Despite this, the album actually charted lower than any of their three previous efforts, and would be the last to feature the band's original lineup. In the long haul, however, Twelve Dreams has become the group's top selling album, thanks to steady catalog sales over a period of years. Unlike many more popular records of the time, Twelve Dreams sounds as fresh and original today as when it first appeared, as can be easily heard on the four-song medley that makes up the bulk of the LP's first side. Indeed, despite never having charted as a single, Nature's Way, a Randy California tune which starts the sequence, is one of the best-known songs in the entire Spirit catalog. Additionally, its ecological theme segues naturally into Animal Zoo, a Jay Ferguson tune with a more satirical point of view. Love Has Found A Way, written by vocalist Ferguson and keyboardist John Locke, can best described as psychedelic space jazz, while Why Can't I Be Free is a simple, yet lovely, short coda from guitarist California. Although Spirit, in various incarnations, would continue to record for many years, they would never put out another album as listenable as Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus.


Artist:    Santana
Title:    Guajira
Source:    LP: Santana (III)
Writer(s):    Areas/Brown/Reyes
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Santana's third album, released in 1971, was an immediate success, going all the way to the top of the Billboard album charts. Like its predecessor, Abraxas, Santana (also known as Santana III to distinguish it from the band's 1969 debut LP) contains a mix of Anglo and Hispanic rock, with Guarija serving as an example of the latter. The song was co-written by Jose Areas, who also wrote Se A Cabo and El Nicoya on the Abraxas album. The original label, however, credits "Jose Reyes" instead. Another co-writer of the song, Rico Reyes, although not an actual band member, provides the lead vocals on the track.

Artist:    Pink Fairies
Title:    Right On, Fight On
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: What A Bunch Of Sweeties)
Writer(s):    Pink Fairies
Label:    Polydor (UK import)
Year:    1972
    While most rock musicians in the early 1970s were dreaming of becoming rich and famous, there were a few notable exceptions on both sides of the Atlantic. Among those were Detroit's MC5, whose radical politics were at the forefront of everything they did, and the New York City street band David Peel and the Lower East Side, who were more a musical guerrilla theater group than an actual rock band. In the UK, it was the Pink Fairies bucking the establishment, performing such anarchic acts as giving free concerts outside the gates of places where other bands were playing for pay, such as the 1970 Isle Of Wight music festival. Formed from the ashes of another anarchic band, the Social Deviants, the Pink Fairies recorded three albums from 1971-73, finally cutting a single for Stiff Records in 1976 before splitting up. The group has reformed several times since.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Firth Of Fifth
Source:    CD: Selling England By The Pound
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1973
    Firth Of Fifth, from the Genesis album Selling England By The Pound, was originally written by keyboardist Tony Banks for inclusion of the band's fourth LP, Foxtrot, but was rejected by the rest of the band's members. After reworking the tune, Banks again presented it to the band in time for it to be included on their next LP, Selling England By The Pound. The title is a parody of the name of a Scottish body of water called the Firth of Forth, an estuary of the River Forth. The lyrics were worked out by Banks and Genesis bassist Mike Rutherford. The song, considered by many to be a classic example of the progressive rock genre, remained part of the band's stage repertoire for many years.

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    The Giant Toad
Source:    LP: Dear Friends
Writer(s):    Procter/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    And now a word from our sponsor. The four man (Phillip Proctor, Peter Bergman, Phil Austin, David Ossman) aural comedy group known as the Firesign Theatre had their own radio show on Pacifica's KPFK (Los Angeles) from September of 1970 through February of 1971. In 1972 they collected several bits from the show on a double LP called Dear Friends. The Giant Toad was probably the work of Bergman, although, like all the Firesign Theatre works, it is credited to the entire group.

Artist:    Wet Willie
Title:    Keep On Smilin'
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Hall/Hall/Hirsch/Anthony/Ross
Label:    Capricorn
Year:    1974
    Formed as Fox in Mobile, Alabama in 1969, Wet Willie was one of the first Southern Rock bands to score a top 10 single with Keep On Smilin' in 1974. The band, consisting of the Hall brothers Jimmy (vocals, saxophone, harmonica) and Jack (bass), John David Anthony (keyboards), Ricky Hirsch (guitar) and Lewis Ross (drums), relocated from Mobile to Macon, Georgia in 1971 where they signed with Phil Walden's Capricorn label, releasing several singles and albums over the next few years. The group still performs occasionally as either Wet Willie or the Wet Willie Band, depending on whether Jimmy Hall is onstage.