Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1952 (starts 12/16/19)

    It was 50 years ago today that 1969 was coming to an end. Musically it had been a year of transition, as the singles-oriented pop music of 1960s was giving way to the album-oriented rock of the 1970s. Several iconic pop artists would release their final efforts, to be replaced by new bands, several of which would quickly disappear, while others would end up dominating the upcoming decade. Oddly enough, the top selling album of the year was a holdover from 1968, as was the LP that spent the most weeks at the top of the album charts. Both the greatest (Woodstock) and the most disastrous (Altamont) rock festivals were staged in 1969. Overall it was a pretty crazy year, and this week we partake of the insanity that was 1969.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Come Together
Source:    CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1969
    After the Beatles released their 1968 double LP (the so-called White Album), they went to work on their final film project, a documentary about the band making an album. Unfortunately, what the cameras captured was a group on the verge of disintegration, and both the album and the film itself were shelved indefinitely. Instead, the band went to work recording an entirely new group of compositions. Somehow, despite the internal difficulties the band was going through, they managed to turn out a masterpiece: Abbey Road. Before the album itself came out, a single was released. The official A side (green Apple label) was George Harrison's Something, the first Harrison song ever to be released as a Beatle A side. The other A side (Apple core label) was the song that opened the album itself, John Lennon's Come Together. In later years Come Together came to be Lennon's signature song and was a staple of his live performances.

Artist:     Bob Seger System
Title:     Tales Of Lucy Blue (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Source:     LP: Ramblin' Gamblin' Man
Writer:     Bob Seger
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1969
     For many years the only Bob Seger record I owned was the single Ramblin' Gamblin' Man that I bought new in 1969 at the Base Exchange at Ramstein Air Force Base Germany for about 50 cents. The B side was the song Tales of Lucy Blue. After that single disappeared from my collection I never bought another Bob Seger record (although I did score a promo copy of Turn The Page from a radio station I was working at in the mid 90s). More recently I was allowed to pillage the WEOS vinyl archives (found on the Hobart and William Smith campus in a storage area in one of the dorms) and found this copy of the Ramblin' Gamblin' Man album. The cover features a young blond woman dressed in blue satin against a blue background. It turns out that the album (Seger's first) was originally going to be titled Tales of Lucy Blue but was changed at the last minute by the shirts at Capitol in order to capitalize on the popularity of the single that I had bought a copy of. Luckily they didn't change the cover art as well, as a picture of Seger in blue satin probably wouldn't have worked.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Honky Tonk Women
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1969
    After revitalizing their career with Jumpin' Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man in 1968, the Stones delivered the coup-de-grace in 1969 with one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded: the classic Honky Tonk Women. The song was the band's first single without Brian Jones, who had been found dead in his swimming pool shortly after leaving the group. Jones's replacement, Mick Taylor (fresh from a stint with blues legend John Mayall), plays slide guitar on the track.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Leaving My Troubles Behind
Source:    LP: Blues Image
Writer:    Blues Image
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Miami's Blues Image was highly regarded by critics and musicians alike. Unfortunately, they were never able to translate that acclaim into album sales, despite recording a pair of fine albums for Atco. Leaving My Troubles Behind, one of the outstanding tracks on their first LP, was sung by percussionist Joe Lala, who later went on to have a successful acting career, and was known particularly for his voice work. Following the release of the band's second LP guitarist Mike Pinera left Blues Image to replace Eric Brann in Iron Butterfly, and after one more unsuccessful album the group disbanded.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:     I Put A Spell On You
Source:     CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer:     Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Label:     Rhino
Year:     1969
     Before getting major attention for its string of top five singles (including three consecutive # 2 songs), CCR released a pair of cover tunes in 1968: Dale Hawkins' Suzy Q and this one from an entirely different Hawkins, Screamin' Jay. Although the Creedence version of I Put A Spell On You only made it to the # 58 spot on the national charts, it was still part of their repertoire when they played at Woodstock the following year.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Be Careful With A Fool
Source:    British import CD: Johnny Winter
Writer(s):    King/Josea
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    Johnny Winter's first album for Columbia (his second overall) is nothing less than a blues masterpiece. Accompanied by bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner, Winter pours his soul into classics like B.B. King's Be Careful With A Fool, maybe even improving on the original (if such a thing is possible).

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Evil Ways
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer(s):    Clarence Henry
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Evil Ways was originally released in 1968 by jazz percussionist Willie Bobo on an album of the same name. When Carlos Santana took his new band into the studio to record their first LP, they made the song their own, taking it into the top 10 in 1969.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Source:    LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    One of the ironies of 1969 is that the top selling album of the year was actually released in June of 1968. The full version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, clocking in at slightly over seventeen minutes, was long the go-to record for DJs needing to take a nature break and for many people is the embodiment of the psychedelic era itself.

Artist:    Jerome Ragni/James Rado/original cast
Title:    Hair
Source:    Canadian import LP: Hair-Original Broadway Cast Recording
Writer(s):    Ragni/Rado/MacDermott
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1968
    Although it was released in May of 1968, the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hair spent more time in the #1 spot on the Billboard Album Charts than any other record in 1969, racking up a total of 13 consecutive weeks there. It was also the last Broadway show album ever to top the charts at all. The album spawned several hit single for a variety of artists, although none of the soundtrack recordings themselves were released as singles. In all honesty, nearly every one of them was an improvement over the soundtrack version. The sole exception, in my opinion, was the title track of the album/musical itself. Sung by Jerome Ragni and James Rado (who wrote the lyrics and script for the production itself), Hair is a joyous paean to the most visible symbol of the late 1960s youth rebellion. The Cowsills hit single version, on the other hand, sounds more like a parody of the original soundtrack recording, almost as if they were embarrassed to be recording the song in the first place.

Artist:    Zager And Evans
Title:    In The Year 2525
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Rick Evans
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1969
    Since the advent of rock and roll in the 1950s there have been literally hundreds of one-hit wonders, artists who had one fairly big hit and then faded off into the background. Usually these artists recorded one or more a follow-up records that got minor airplay (and sometimes even major airplay in a limited number of markets), but were not successful enough to make a long-term career of it. A few of them get cited as the "ultimate" one-hit wonder, but for my money the title undisputedly belongs to folk-rockers Zager And Evans. The reason I say this is because they were more extreme than any other one-hit wonders, both in their success and their subsequent failures. The success part is impressive: In The Year 2525 spent six weeks in the number one spot on the US charts and finished second only to the 5th Dimension's Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In for the entire year 1969. The song also topped the British charts for three weeks. Their subsequent failures were equally impressive: not only did they fail to crack the top 40 chart in either country again, they couldn't even make the Billboard Hot 100! Even Tiny Tim was able to do that.

Artist:    Thunderclap Newman
Title:    Something In The Air
Source:    CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Keen
Label:    Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year:    1969
    Thunderclap Newman was actually the creation of the Who's Pete Townshend, who assembled a bunch of studio musicians to work with drummer (and former Who roadie) John "Speedy" Keen. Keen had written Armenia City In The Sky, the opening track on The Who Sell Out, and Townshend set up the studio project to return the favor. Joining Keen were 15-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (who would eventually join Paul McCartney's Wings before dying of a heroin overdose in 1979), studio engineer Andy "Thunderclap" Newman (who had worked with Pink Floyd, among others) on piano, and Townshend himself on bass. Following the success of Something In The Air, the group recorded an album, but sales were disappointing and the group soon disbanded.

Artist:    Temptations
Title:    I Can't Get Next To You
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Motown Yesteryear
Year:    1969
    After the departure of David Ruffin in 1968, producer Norman Whitfield, at the suggestion of bandleader Otis Williams, took the Temptations in a new direction, with the emphasis on lead vocals bouncing from one group member to another (often within the same song) and psychedelic instrumental arrangements. The first album to showcase this new direction was Cloud Nine. The LP went to the #4 spot on the Billboard album charts and earned the Temptations their first Grammy award. By 1969 the Temptations were in full "psychedelic soul" mode with the chart-topping I Can't Get Next To You. This trend would continue through 1972, when they released the iconic Papa Was A Rolling Stone.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Seeing
Source:    LP: Moby Grape '69
Writer(s):    Skip Spence
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    By the time their third LP, Moby Grape '69, was released, Skip Spence had left the group he had co-founded just a couple years before, after his departure from Jefferson Airplane. Nonetheless, the final track on Moby Grape '69 features Spence on a song he wrote himself. In all likelihood the song was left over from sessions for their previous album, Wow.

Artist:    Evergreen Blues (aka Ever-Green Blues)
Title:    Try A Little Tenderness
Source:    LP: Comin' On
Writer(s):    Campbell/Connelly/Woods
Label:    ABC
Year:    1969
    The Ever-Green Blues was a band from East L.A. best-known for being the group that first recorded Midnight Confession, releasing it as a single a year before the Grass Roots. Although the Ever-Green Blues version of the song (on the Mercury label) was not a hit, it did garner enough attention to get them a contract to record an album for a second major label, ABC. One of the more interesting tracks on that album, Comin' On (released as Evergreen Blues) was a cover of the Otis Redding hit Try A Little Tenderness which uses an almost identical arrangement to Redding's.

Artist:    Elephants Memory
Title:    R.I.P.
Source:    CD: Elephants Memory
Writer(s):    Bronstein/Sussman
Label:    BMG/Collector'sChoice (original label: Buddah)
Year:    1969
    Although they are best known for backing up John Lennon and Yoko Ono from 1971 to 1973 (and appearing on the 1972 album Sometime In New York City), Elephants Memory was already well-established as a politically active street band in the same vein as David Peel And The Lower East Side by the time they started working with John and Yoko. Formed in 1967 by Stan Bronstein (saxophone, clarinet, and vocals) and Rick Frank Jr. (drums), the group had expanded its membership to seven by 1969, when they recorded their self-titled debut album for the Buddah label. The album itself was an unusual mixture of blue-eyed soul and psychedelia, with the instrumental R.I.P. being a good, albeit short, example of the latter. The band never really fit in with the Buddah image, however, and left the label soon after the album was released, signing with the short-lived Metromedia label and releasing their second LP the following year. After more membership changes they hooked up with John and Yoko and released another self-titled LP on the Apple label in 1972.

Artist:    Tommy Flanders
Title:    The Moonstone
Source:    LP: The Moonstone
Writer(s):    Tommy Flanders
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1969
    In early 1966, M-G-M, the parent company of Verve Records, had the members of the New York based Blues Project flown out to Los Angeles as part of a campaign to promote the band as America's answer to the Rolling Stones. While they were there, lead vocalist Tommy Flanders' girlfriend convinced him that he was the true star of the band and that he was destined to have a film career as well as a musical one. This led to a confrontation between Flanders and the rest of the band that culminated in Flanders quitting the group just as their first album was about to be released. Flanders did manage to secure a solo contract with the same label the band itself was recording for, and, after taking a year off to visit Europe, Flanders returned to the studio to cut a single, Friday Night City, in early 1967. The record, however, was not successful, despite the presence of Frank Zappa, who played guitar on the record (and possibly arranged and conducted as well) and Tom Wilson, the legendary producer of such classics as Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, Zappa's Freak Out (with the Mothers of Invention) and the Blues Project's Projections albums. Nobody seems to know what happened to Flanders over the next year or so, but in 1969 he released his first and only solo LP, The Moonstone, also on the Verve Forecast label. The album itself was extremely low-key, to the point of prompting one critic to call it a "fairly forgettable record"  characterized by "mellowness threatening to dissolve into sleepiness" and calling it "one of those albums where nothing's especially wrong, but neither is anything especially right." The highlight of The Moonstone album was its title track, which has enough changes within the song to make it interesting. Flanders himself, after releasing a final single in 1970, moved behind the scenes and took up a career in artist management.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Somewhere Friday Night
Source:    German import CD: Turtle Soup
Writer(s):    The Turtles
Label:    Repertoire (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1969
    One generally does not think of the Kinks and the Turtles in the same context, yet the two bands actually have more in common then one would think. Both started off with hit singles (the Kinks with You Really Got Me and the Turtles with It Ain't Me Babe) that established very quickly where they fell on the rock spectrum (hard rock for the Kinks, jangly folk-rock for the Turtles). Yet, both the Kinks and the Turtles ended up straying far from the musical beginnings over the years. In the case of the Turtles it was a constant struggle between the band, who wanted more creative freedom, and their record label, who depended on them as their primary source of income. Things finally came to a head in 1969 when the Turtles, in defiance of their label, brought in Ray Davies of the Kinks to produce what would be their final album (although White Whale would continue to issue Turtles records after the group disbanded until the label's own demise in the early 1970s). Turtle Soup provided no major hits for the band, although a couple of singles did make the lower reaches of the Hot 100. After the album was released the band issued one final single, a cover of a song called Lady-O. The B side of that record was a Turtles original called Somewhere Friday Night that was taken from the Turtle Soup album. The next album project was abandoned midway, and Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman briefly hooked up with the Mothers of Invention before going it as a duo known as the Pholorescent Leech (soon shortened to Flo) and Eddie.

Artist:    Fat Water
Title:    Gotta Get Together
Source:    LP: Fat Water (promo copy)
Writer(s):    Lance Massey
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1969
    Fat Water was one of many Chicago area bands to release their first album in 1969. Unfortunately for them, it was also their last. Part of the reason, I suppose, is that they really didn't sound much like the other Chicago area bands that released their first album in 1969. For one thing, they didn't have a horn section. For another, they weren't really blues-based. Finally, unlike the other Chicago area bands that released their first album in 1969, Fat Water did not record for Columbia Records, and thus did not have the advantage of having Clive Davis backing them, which was huge in 1969. In fact, their album appeared on the M-G-M label, whose fortunes were on a steep decline at the time. As a result, even songs like Gotta Get Together couldn't save Fat Water from obscurity.

Artist:    Earth Opera
Title:    Sanctuary From The Law
Source:    LP: The Great American Eagle Tragedy
Writer(s):    Peter Rowan
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1969
    In 1967, two prominent members of the Boston folk and bluegrass scene, Peter Rowan and David Grisman, decided to try their hand at psychedelic rock, recruiting John Nagy on bass, Paul Dillon on drums, and Bill Stevenson on keyboards and vibraphone to form Earth Opera. The band soon came to the attention of Elektra Records president Jack Holzman, and released their first album in 1968. Although the album did not chart, Holzman had enough faith in the band to get them back in the studio for a second LP, The Great American Eagle Tragedy. Released in 1969, the album had several guest musicians on it, including the Velvet Underground's John Cale and former Mothers of Invention drummer Billy Mundi. The LP was dominated by Rowan, who wrote all but one of the songs on the album, as well as providing lead vocals on songs like Sanctuary From The Law. Following the band's breakup, both Rowan and Grisman went on to have highly successful careers, including reuniting in 1973 to form Old & In The Way with Jerry Garcia and Vassar Clements.

Artist:     Kak
Title:     Lemonade Kid
Source:     British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released on LP: Kak)
Writer:     Gary Lee Yoder
Label:     Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:     1969
     Kak was a group from Davis, California that was only around long enough to record one LP for Epic. That self-titled album did not make much of an impression commercially, and was soon out of print. Long after the band had split up, critics began to notice the album, and copies of the original LP are now highly-prized by collectors. Songs like the Lemonade Kid show that Kak had a sound that holds up better today than many of the other artists of the time. In fact, after listening to this track a couple times I went out and ordered a copy of the import CD reissue of the Kak album.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Motherless Children
Source:    LP: Your Saving Grace
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Miller
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    Motherless Children is one of those songs that seems to have always been there. The first known recording of the song was made by Blind Willie Johnson in 1927, and the tune was considered a traditional ballad even then. Over the years several versions of Motherless Children have been recorded by such notables as Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Eric Clapton, Rosanne Cash and Lucinda Williams. Perhaps the most unusual arrangement of the tune, however, was the opening track of side two of the Steve Miller Band album Your Saving Grace, released in 1969. Rather than take a traditional blues approach to the tune, Miller slows down the song, giving it an almost drone-like quality and stretching it out to a full six minutes in length.

Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    Kozmic Blues
Source:    LP: I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s):    Joplin/Mekler
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    After she parted company with Big Brother and the Holding Company following the Cheap Thrills album, Janis Joplin got to work forming a new band that would come to be known as the Kozmic Blues Band. Unlike Big Brother, this new band included a horn section, and leaned more toward R&B than the earlier band's hard rocking sound. Joplin released only one studio album with the Kozmic Blues Band, 1969's I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama. Although the album sold well, it was savaged by the rock press. Still, there were some standout tracks on the album, including the title tune (of sorts), Kozmic Blues. Joplin made several live appearances with this group, including the Woodstock performing arts festival, before disbanding the unit in favor of a smaller group, the Full-Tilt Boogie Band.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Peace Of Mind
Source:    LP: New Improved Blue Cheer
Writer(s):    Randy Holden
Label:    Philips
Year:    1969
    Following the release of the second Blue Cheer album, guitarist Leigh Stephens left the group with several unfullfilled stage commitments. To meet these obligations, the remaining band members brought in Randy Holden, formerly with a group called the Other Half, who, like Blue Cheer, had a reputation for being one of the loudest bands on the San Francisco music scene. At first, it seemed like a good fit, and in some ways a step forward for the band, as Holden was also a pretty decent songwriter, as can be heard on Peace Of Mind, from the band's third LP, New Improved Blue Cheer. Holden, however, abruptly left Blue Cheer midway though production of the album and only appears on side two of the original LP.

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    Girl With No Eyes
Source:    CD: It's A Beautiful Day
Writer(s):    Linda and David LaFlamme
Label:    San Francisco Sound (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    The truth of the adage that adversity fuels creativity is nowhere more evident than on the 1969 debut album of San Francisco's It's A Beautiful Day. The band had spent much of the previous year in Seattle, Washington in a tiny room above the San Francisco Sound, a less-than-popular club owned by their manager, Matthew Katz. As the house band at the club, It's A Beautiful Day ostensibly got a percentage of the door, but as the place always had poor attendance the band was pretty much broke the entire time they spent there, making them virtual prisoners. During this time the husband and wife team of David and Linda LaFlamme concentrated on their songwriting, coming up with the material that eventually became the group's first album. The best of these tracks were collaborations between the two, including the band's signature song, White Bird, and the gentle Girl With No Eyes, which closes out side one of the original LP. Ironically, once the group was successful the LaFlammes split up, with Linda leaving the band altogether. Although It's A Beautiful Day continued on with a new keyboardist, David LaFlamme's solo material was not as strong as his collaborations with Linda and the group eventually disbanded.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1952 (starts 12/16/19)

    This week's it's 1969 all over again...and you're Rockin' with a hermit in the Days of Confusion. 'Nuff said.
   
Artist:    King Crimson
Title:    The Court Of The Crimson King
Source:    CD: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Writer:    MacDonald/Sinfield
Label:    Discipline Global Mobile (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1969
    Perhaps the most influential progressive rock album of all time was King Crimson's debut LP, In The Court Of The Crimson King. The band, in its original incarnation, included Robert Fripp on guitar, Ian MacDonald on keyboards and woodwinds, Greg Lake on vocals and bass, Michael Giles on drums and Peter Sinfield as a dedicated lyricist. The title track, which takes up the second half of side two of the LP, features music composed by MacDonald, who would leave the group after their second album, later resurfacing as a founding member of Foreigner. The album's distinctive cover art came from a painting by computer programmer Barry Godber, who died of a heart attack less than a year after the album was released. According to Fripp, the artwork on the inside is a portrait of the Crimson King, whose manic smile is in direct contrast to his sad eyes. The album, song and artwork were the inspiration for Stephen King's own Crimson King, the insane antagonist of his Dark Tower saga who is out to destroy all of reality, including our own.

Artist:      David Bowie
Title:     Space Oddity
Source:      CD: David Bowie (original US title: Man Of Words/Man of Music, later retitled Space Oddity)
Writer:    David Bowie
Label:     Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year:     1969
     When David Jones first started his recording career he was a fairly conventional folk singer. With his second self-titled album (later retitled Space Oddity) he truly became the David Bowie we all know, and the rock world was never quite the same.
   
Artist:    Blind Faith
Title:    Can't Find My Way Home
Source:    CD: Blind Faith
Writer:    Steve Winwood
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Blind Faith was the result of some 1969 jam sessions in guitarist Eric Clapton's basement with keyboardist/guitarist Steve Winwood, whose own band, Traffic, had disbanded earlier in the year. Drummer Ginger Baker, who had been Clapton's bandmate in Cream for the previous three years, showed up one day, and Winwood eventually convinced Clapton to form a band with the three of them and bassist Rick Grech. Clapton, however, did not want another Cream, and even before Blind Faith's only album was released was ready to move on to something that felt less like a supergroup. As a result, Winwood took more of a dominant role in Blind Faith, even to the point of including one track, Can't Find My Way Home, that was practically a Winwood solo piece. Blind Faith disbanded shortly after the album was released, with the various band members moving on to other projects. Winwood, who soon reformed Traffic, is still active as one of rock's elder statesmen, and still performs Can't Find My Way Home in his concert appearances.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    Matty Groves
Source:    LP: Liege And Lief
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Fairport Convention
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    Britain's Fairport Convention was quite prolific in 1969, releasing no less than three LPs that year. The last of these was Liege And Lief, considered by some to be the greatest British folk-rock album ever made. The album is notable for several reasons, including the fact that it was the group's first album to consist entirely of rocked out adaptations of traditional British folk tunes such as Matty Grove, along with a handful of original compositions done in a similar style. It was also the first Fairport Convention album to feature guitarist Martin Carthy (who had made a guest appearance on the band's previous album, Unhalfbricking) and drummer Dave Mattacks as full-time members. Finally, Liege And Lief was the last Fairport album to feature vocalist Sandy Denny and bassist Ashley Hutchings, both of whom left to form their own British folk-rock bands (Fotheringay and Steeleye Span, respectively). Like many British folk songs, Matty Grove tells the somewhat morally ambiguous tale of a low-born rascal who beds the wife of his Duke, only to have said Duke catch them in the act, killing them both. Trust me, it sounds better coming from Fairport Convention that it does me.
       
Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    For A Thousand Mothers
Source:    CD: Stand Up
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969

    For years, the only copy I had of Jethro Tull's second album, Stand Up, was a homemade cassette tape. As a result I was under the impression that For A Thousand Mothers was actually two separate songs. Long silences will do that. Long silences will also trip automatic sensors on automated radio station equipment, which partially explains why such a great track has always gotten far less airplay than it deserves.

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Cowgirl In The Sand
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer:    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    It has been said that adverse conditions are conducive to good art. Certainly that truism applies to Neil Young's Cowgirl In The Sand, written while Young was running a 102 degree fever. The song, from Young's second LP, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, almost makes you wish you could be that sick sometime.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    In Need
Source:    CD: Grand Funk
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    Anyone who wants to know just what made Grand Funk Railroad the most popular arena rock band of the early 1970s needs only listen to GFR's second album, Grand Funk (usually just referred to as the Red Album). The 1969 album is pure...well, pure Grand Funk Railroad. It's loud, it's messy and, most importantly, it rocks. Hard. Case in point: In Need, which features a Mark Farner guitar solo, recorded in a single take, that needs to be played at maximum volume.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Gimme Shelter
Source:    LP: Let It Bleed
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1969
    Following a strong positive reaction, both critically and commercially, to their 1968 album Beggar's Banquet album, the Rolling Stones showed that they were around to stay with the follow up LP, Let It Bleed. The album starts off with Gimme Shelter, an anthemic song on a par with Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Woman. In addition to some of the band's most powerful lyrics (including the repeated line "Rape, murder! It's just a shot away! It's just a shot away!") the tune features prominent guest vocals from Merry Clayton, who reported was called in by producer Jack Nitzsche at around midnight to add her part during the mixdown phase. Gimme Shelter was the first Rolling Stone song to feature Keith Richards using open tuning rather than the standard EADGBE tuning.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Ramble On
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    Some songs grab you the first time you hear them, but soon wear out their welcome. Others take a while to catch on, but tend to stay with you for a lifetime. Then there are those rare classics that manage to hook you from the start and yet never get old. One such song is Led Zeppelin's Ramble On, from their second LP. The song starts with a Jimmy Page acoustic guitar riff played high up on the neck with what sounds almost like footsteps keeping time (but turns out to be John Bonham playing bongo style on a guitar case). John Paul Jones soon adds one of the most melodic bass lines ever to appear in a rock song, followed closely by Robert Plant's Tolkien-influenced lyrics. For the chorus the band gets into electric mode, with guitar, bass and drums each contributing to a unique staggered rhythmic pattern. The song also contains one of Page's most memorable solos, that shares tonal qualities with Eric Clapton's work on Cream's Disraeli Gears album. Although I usually don't pay much attention to lyrics, one set of lines from Ramble On has stuck with me for a good many years:
"'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor I met a girl so fair.
But Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her."
Fun stuff, that!

Stuck with a hermit at Yuletide # 1951 (starts 12/16/19)

    Just about every weekly radio show does a Christmas special this time of year, and for several years now Stuck In the Psychedelic Era has been no exception. There is a problem, though, and that is the unavoidable fact that for the most part the artists featured on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era never had the opportunity (or inclination, for that matter) to record Christmas songs. There are exceptions, of course, and this week you'll hear some of those by Jethro Tull, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, and others. But, unless I wanted to spend over half the show on Beach Boys Christmas songs (and there are nearly enough of those for an entire show), I knew I would have to take an entirely different approach to selecting the songs. After a couple of years of experimenting around with various approaches I finally decided to just pick out the coolest holiday tracks I could find, regardless of genre or year they were recorded, and have been doing it that way ever since. The addition of our second show, Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, gave me the opportunity to dig even deeper into the Yule (cata)log, adding artists like Bob Seger (with his mid-60s band The Heard), Ike And Tina Turner, The Royal Guardsmen and even Soupy Sales. So get ready to kick back and have a Cool Yule!

Artist:      John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Title:     Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Source:      CD: Now That's What I Call Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/Ono
Label:     Zomba (original label: Apple)
Year:     1971
     Originally intended as an anti-Vietnam War song, John and Yoko's Happy Xmas (War Is Over) has long since acquired classic status and is now one of the most familiar songs of the season. It was first released in the US in December of 1971, but due to a problem with the publisher did not appear in the rest of the world until November of 1972.

Artist:      Beatles
Title:     Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
Source:      CD single: Free As a Bird
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey)
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:     Recorded 1966 and 1967, released 19671997
     Every year the Beatles would record a special Christmas message to go out to members of their fan club, and mail it out on what was then known as a floppy disc. This was not the same as a computer floppy disc, however. In fact, the medium the Beatles used eventually came to be known as a flexi-disc, just to keep things from getting any more confusing. Regardless of what you called it, the things tended to wear out after just a few plays and I doubt there are many playable copies of these discs left in the universe. Luckily for us, George Martin had the foresight to hang on to everything the Beatles ever recorded, including this tune, which was chopped up and used for the 1967 Christmas Greeting. When the Beatles Anthology was released in 1997, the piece was included on the Free As a Bird CD single, and we got to hear the song in its uninterrupted entirety for the first time. Included at the end are Christmas greetings from the 1966 fan club disc and a bit of poetry read by John Lennon.

Artist:      Simon And Garfunkel
Title:     Silent Night/7 O'Clock News
Source:      CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s):    Gruber/Muhr, arr. Paul Simon   
Label:     Columbia       
Year:     1966
     Simon and Garfunkel's Silent Night/7 O'Clock News is unique for several reasons. The most obvious is that it uses two unrelated recordings to make an ironically chilling point. The first is a rendition of Franz Gruber's Silent Night, with vocals in the center channel and piano only coming from one speaker. As the song progresses a newscast in the other channel slowly gets louder. Eventually the song ends and there is only the news. What's also unusual is that this well-known Christmas carol is not featured on a Christmas album at all; instead it appears as the final track of the duo's 1966 LP Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme.

Artist:      Simon And Garfunkel
Title:     A Hazy Shade of Winter
Source:      CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Writer:    Paul Simon
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     I wish I could take credit for putting Simon And Garfunkel's Silent Night/7 O'Clock News and A Hazy Shade of Winter back to back. The truth is I don't know who came up with the idea; my best guess is someone from Westwood One radio, as I first heard it done on one of their syndicated programs. Still, it's not a bad idea, and I happened to have a copy of the Westwood One version of the paired tracks, so there it is.

Artist:      Chuck Berry
Title:     Merry Christmas, Baby
Source:      Mono CD: The Chess Box (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Baxter/Moore
Label:     Chess/MCA
Year:     1958
     Chuck Berry did not record too many cover tunes, as he was a prolific songwriter himself. However, for his 1958 Christmas single he cut this tasty version of Charles Brown's "other" Christmas song, Merry Christmas, Baby, originally recorded by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers (with Brown on lead vocal). The B side of Berry's single, Run Rudolph Run, was also a cover song, although the tune has come to be almost exclusively associated with Berry himself.

Artist:    Ike And Tina Turner
Title:    Merry Christmas Baby
Source:    CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Baxter/Moore
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1964
    Ike Turner was a talent scout for Chess Records that formed a band called the Kings Of Rhythm in the early 50s, immediately scoring a #1 R&B hit backing Jackie Brenston on a song called Rocket 88. By 1964 he had married Anna Mae Bullock, who changed her name to Tina Turner and began receiving co-billing on Ike's records, such as the 1964 B side, Merry Christmas Baby. Although lyrically the same as the Charles Brown song of the same name, the track is musically worlds away from Brown's slow blues number.

Artist:      Solomon Burke
Title:     Presents For Christmas
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Burke/Burke/Burke
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:     1966
     Solomon Burke was a staple artist for the Atlantic label at a time when Atlantic itself was being overshadowed by the Stax/Volt labels that it distributed. Nonetheless, Burke had several R&B hits throughout the sixties and was highly respected by his fellow artists. Presents For Christmas captures Burke at his peak in 1966.

Artist:      Jimmy McCracklin
Title:     Christmas Time
Source:      Mono CD: Blue Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Jimmy McCracklin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Art-Tone)
Year:     1961
     Jimmy McCracklin recorded one of the catchiest, yet underplayed, tunes of the 50s when he did The Walk. Christmas Time, from a few years later, actually sounds like beach music. Go figure.

Artist:      James Brown
Title:     Santa Claus, Santa Claus
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released on LP: Soulful Christmas)
Writer(s):    Bobbitt/Jones
Label:     Rhino (original label: King)
Year:     1968
     Few people would ever accuse James Brown of being a blues artist, but this recording of Santa Claus, Santa Claus (sometimes called just Santa Claus) from 1968 shows what it would have sounded like if he was.
   
Artist:      Ed "Cookie" Byrnes
Title:     Yulesville
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Galanoy/Olafson/Barker
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:     1959
     The ABC TV network was a perennial also-ran that was just starting to find a winning formula in the late 50s with shows targeted toward a younger audience. The most popular of these was 77 Sunset Strip, starring Ed "Cookie" Byrnes. He and co-star Connie Stevens, staying in character, cut a hit novelty record called Cookie, Cookie, which played on Cookie's propensity for combing his hair. Byrnes, again in character, followed it up with this hip retelling of the classic poem Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Artist:    Elvis Presley
Title:    Santa Claus Is Back In Town
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Lieber/Stoller
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1957
    Santa Claus Is Back In Town is the opening track on the 1957 LP Elvis' Christmas Album.  The song, written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, was also released that year in the UK as a single, going to the #7 spot on the charts. In the US, however, it remained available only as an album track until 1965, when it was released as a single, going to the #4 spot on the Billboard chart. For the B side, RCA reissued Blue Christmas, which had gone into the top 10 the previous year. The Blue Christmas/Santa Claus Is Back In Town single was certified platinum in 1999.

Artist:    Martels
Title:    Rockin' Santa Claus
Source:    Mono CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mason/Robinson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Bella)
Year:    1959
    Rock history is littered with one-hit wonders, many of whom only got to release one single. The Martels, however, released only half a single, as the other side of the record was by another artist altogether. They cut Rockin' Santa Claus for the tiny Bella label in San Jose, California in 1959, and were never heard from since.

Artist:      Ray Stevens
Title:     Santa Claus Is Watching You
Source:      45 RPM single
Writer:    Ray Stevens
Label:     Mercury
Year:     1962
     I've mentioned something called the Grab Bag before. Basically, it was a sealed paper bag (sometimes with a clear plastic front) containing four 45 RPM records, generally "cut-outs" that were no longer in print. The one my family bought for Christmas of 1964 had a Sing Along With Mitch Christmas EP in the front. By far the oddest record in the bag was Santa Claus Is Watching You by Ray Stevens, although I seem to remember that version being slightly different than the one heard here. One thing that both versions had in common was the presence of Clyde the Camel from Stevens's first hit, Ahab the Arab.

Artist:      Sonics
Title:     Santa Claus
Source:      Mono CD: Cool Yule (originally released on LP: Merry Christmas)
Writer:    Greg Roslie
Label:     Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:     1965
     The Pacific Northwest was home to several bands that can only be described as proto-punk (think Louie Louie). One of the top bands on the scene up there was the Sonics, who recorded raw hard-driving songs with titles like Psycho, the Witch and Strychnine. Santa Claus is very much in the same vein, making it the punkiest Christmas song of the sixties, if not all time.

Artist:    Bob Seger And The Last Heard
Title:    Sock It To Me Santa
Source:    Mono: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Seger/Honaker/Lagassa
Label:    Wicked Cool (original label: Cameo)
Year:    1966
    Years before he was singing that old time rock 'n' roll on his way to Katnandu, Bob Seger led a band called the Last Heard. The band was formed when Seger decided to leave his former band, the Omens, to record a song called East Side Story. The song, released on the local Hideout label, was Seger's first hit, selling about 50,000 copies, mostly in the Detroit area. This led to a deal with Cameo-Parkway Records. The first single released by the band on Cameo was a Christmas tune called Sock It To Me Santa that predates fellow Detroiter Mitch Ryder's Sock It To Me-Baby by a few weeks. Seger, of course, would eventually sign with Capitol Records, changing the name of the band to the Bob Seger System, and later, the Silver Bullet Band.

Artist:      Beach Boys
Title:     Little Saint Nick (stereo single version)
Source:      CD: Beach Boys Ultimate Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol
Year:     1963
     When the Beach Boys first recorded Little Saint Nick they were the hottest surf music band in the country. A year later Beatlemania had set in, and a new version of Little Saint Nick was recorded for the Beach Boys Christmas Album. The new version put a greater emphasis on the vocals, and much of the original instrumentation was deleted from the arrangement. That is the version that usually gets heard on commercial radio every year. In the mid-70s, Carl Wilson, who by then had stepped into the leader's role formerly held by older brother Brian, pulled out the original 1963 tapes and created a new stereo mix of the song. The instruments have greater prominence in this version and include the distinctive sound of sleighbells that were completely exorcised from the 1964 version.

Artist:    Soupy Sales
Title:    Santa Claus Is Surfin' To Town
Source:    Mono CD: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gillespie/Coots
Label:    Wicked Cool/Reprise
Year:    1963
    Best known as the host of a popular kids' show on TV, Soupy Sales cut this bit of weirdness for the Reprise label in 1963. Need I say more?

Artist:      Eartha Kitt
Title:     Santa Baby
Source:      Mono CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1935-1954 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Javits/Springer/Springer
Label:     Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:     1953
     Eartha Kitt has one of the most unique voices in the history of jazz, and put it to good use on the original 1953 version of Santa Baby, a tune that has unfortunately in recent years become associated with Madonna. Kitt continued to perform with nearly as much energy as she had in the 50s right up to her death on Christmas Day, 2008.

Artist:      Rufus Thomas
Title:     I'll Be Your Santa Baby
Source:      Mono CD: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Thomas/Roberts
Label:     Wicked Cool (original label: Stax)
Year:     1973
     Rufus Thomas had a long and storied career going back to the 1950s, first with Bear Cat, an answer song to Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's Hound Dog, and later with his own series of "dog" hits (Walking the Dog being the most famous). By the mid-1960s he was an important member of the Stax/Volt stable of artists, where his daughter Carla was making a name for herself with hits like B-A-B-Y and (with Otis Redding) Tramp. After Stax severed its distribution deal with Atlantic Records Rufus Thomas stayed with the now fully independent Stax, releasing I'll Be Your Santa Baby in 1973.

Artist:      Clarence Carter
Title:     Back Door Santa
Source:      CD: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carter/Daniel
Label:     Wicked Cool (original label: Atlantic)
Year:     1969
     Clarence Carter is an icon of the beach music (for you non-Carolinians, beach music has nothing to do with surf music) crowd. For everyone else, he is a moderately successful soul artist known mostly for his mid-70s hit Slip Away. Regardless of where you might know him from, his Back Door Santa will surprise you with its down and funky energy.

Artist:    Ramsey Lewis Trio
Title:    Winter Wonderland
Source:    45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s):    Bernard/Smith
Label:    Cadet (original label: Argo)
Year:    1960
    The Ramsey Lewis Trio released their first LP, Ramsey Lewis and the Gentlemen of Swing, in 1956. They remained primarily a jazz band over their first ten years of existence, releasing several singles on the Argo label, a Chess subsidiary. As well as original material, the group recorded their own distinctive versions of standards such as the holiday-oriented Winter Wonderland, which appeared as a B side in 1960.

Artist:      Bobby "Boris" Pickett
Title:     Monster's Holiday
Source:      45 RPM single
Writer:    Bobby Pickett
Label:     Garpax
Year:     1962
     Bobby Picket scored big with his Halloween hit Monster Mash in 1962, and quickly followed it up with this sequel set around the Christmas holidays. Legendary producer Gary Paxton was responsible for both recordings making it onto vinyl and on the air.

Artist:      Spike Jones and His City Slickers
Title:     All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)
Source:      Mono CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1935-1954 (originally released as 78 RPM single)
Writer:    Don Gardner
Label:    Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:     1948
     Spike Jones and His City Slickers were a highly talented bunch who made music out of sound effects, toy instruments, and whatever else it occurred to them to use. Their forte was the novelty record, and no one did it better.  All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) was written by Middleton, NY schoolteacher Donald Yetter Gardner, who was inspired to write the song when he asked his second grade class what they wanted for Christmas and was struck by how many of them were lisping due to missing front teeth.

Artist:      Chipmunks
Title:     The Chipmunk Song
Source:      CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ross Bagdasarian
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:     1958
     In 1958 pop-jazz composer/bandleader Ross Bagdasarian decided to play around with a variable-speed tape recorder and came up with the novelty hit Witch Doctor. He followed it up by using multiple tape machines to create a trio of sped up voices that he called the Chipmunks, and released this smash hit in time for the Christmas season. The success of The Chipmunk Song led to a Saturday morning cartoon series and a series of albums for the Liberty label. His son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. has revived the concept in recent years, although not with the same level of success. Bagdasarian himself, incidentally, had a small part as a lonely pianist in the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window.

Artist:    Royal Guardsmen
Title:    Snoopy's Christmas
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Hugo & Luigi/Weiss
Label:    Laurie
Year:    1967
    Like many American bands, the Ocala, Florida based Posmen decided to change their name to something more Anglo sounding in the wake of the British invasion of 1964. As the Royal Guardsmen they had their first regional hit in 1966 with a song called Baby Let's Wait. It was their next release, however, that established the direction the group's career would take from that point on. Snoopy vs. the Red Baron was a huge national hit, going all the way to the #2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1966. Several more Snoopy themed songs followed, including Snoopy's Christmas, released in 1967. The most recent of these is Snoopy vs. Osama, which came out in 2006.

Artist:    Dodie Stevens
Title:    Merry, Merry Christmas Baby
Source:    Mono CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sylvia/Lopez
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dot)
Year:    1960
    Dodie Stevens only had one hit record, the semi-novelty Pink Shoelaces, which came out in 1959. That didn't stop her from trying her luck with a contemporary holiday tune called Merry, Merry Christmas Baby the following year. The song, based on the Tune Weavers' Happy, Happy Birthday Baby, came out on the Dot label, which was no stranger to cover songs, having established itself by releasing sanitized Pat Boone remakes of songs originally recorded by Little Richard and other early rock 'n' roll artists.

Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    Merry Christmas Baby
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Baxter/Moore
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Merry Christmas Baby was originally released by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, which featured Charles Brown on guitar and vocals, in 1947. Several different versions of the song have been recorded over the years by such diverse artists as Chuck Berry, Ike & Tina Turner, Hansen, Christina Aguilara, Bruce Springsteen and Brown himself. Otis Redding's version of the song was released in 1968, almost a year after the plane crash that killed the singer and most of his band.

Artist:      Charles Brown
Title:     Please Come Home For Christmas
Source:      CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brown/Redd
Label:    Rhino (original label: King)
Year:     1960
     By now just about everyone is familiar with the Eagles version of Please Come Home For Christmas. Not everyone, however, knows the song was written by blues great Charles Brown. Even fewer have actually heard Brown's 1960 original, which is a shame, as it blows the Eagles version clean out of the water.

Artist:      Johnny Preston
Title:     (I Want a) Rock and Roll Guitar
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    J.P. Richardson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:     1960
     Johnny Preston recorded his signature song in 1960, the classic Running Bear, penned by J.P. Richardson, the Big Bopper. The pair teamed up again to create a brand new Christmas song, (I Want a) Rock and Roll Guitar, later the same year. Interesting enough, by the middle of the decade a guitar was exactly what many kids were indeed asking for. I should know; I got my first guitar (and amp) as a Christmas present after badgering my parents mercilessly for months. I think between the two they might have run about $100, which made it the most expensive Christmas I ever had.

Artist:      Ventures
Title:     Sleigh Ride
Source:     LP: The Ventures Christmas Album
Writer:    Leroy Anderson
Label:    Dolton
Year:     1965  
        The Ventures are by far the most successful instrumental rock group in history, with over 100 albums released over several decades. One of the most successful of these was their 1965 Christmas album, which featured this surfinated version of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride, a piece usually associated with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Artist:    Brenda Lee
Title:    Papa Noel
Source:    CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ray Botkin
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1958
    Just about everyone is familiar with Brenda Lee's 1958 hit Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. Not as well known is the flip side of that single, a song called Papa Noel. Lee, known as "Little Miss Dynamite" was first discovered by country legend Red Foley when still in her teens.

Artist:    Crystals
Title:    Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Source:    Mono CD: A Christmas Gift For You
Writer(s):    Coots/Gillespie
Label:    Phil Spector Records (original label: Philles)
Year:    1963
    In 1963 Phil Spector was riding high as one of the most successful record producers on the East coast. His "wall of sound" was heard on top 40 radio stations coast to coast on recordings by groups like the Crystals, who hit it big with And Then He Kissed Me and Da Doo Ron Ron that same year. Late in the year Spector issued an album called A Christmas Gift For You, which featured all the groups on his Philles label. The Crystals had three songs on the album, including an arrangement of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town that was later used by Bruce Springsteen.

Artist:    Ronettes
Title:    Frosty The Snowman
Source:    Mono CD: A Christmas Gift For You
Writer(s):    Nelson/Rollins
Label:    Phil Spector Records (original label: Philles)
Year:    1963
    1963 was probably the peak year for the Ronettes, with two of their biggest hits, Baby I Love You and Be My Baby, being released that year. To cap it all off they contirbuted a trio of tunes to Phil Spector's classic holiday LP, the first of which was their unique take on Frosty The Snowman.   

Artist:    Darlene Love
Title:    Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Source:    Mono CD: A Christmas Gift For You (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Spector/Greenwich/Barry
Label:    Phil Spector Records (original label: Philles)
Year:    1963
    Only one song from Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift For You was ever released as a single: Darlene Love's solo track, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). Surprisingly, it was not a major hit and to this day is one of the least-played songs on the album.

Artist:      Jack Scott
Title:     There's Trouble Brewin'
Source:      CD: Cool Yule (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Laura Veronica
Label:    Rhino (original label: Groove)
Year:     1963
    Canadian born Jack Scott was one of the great rockabilly performers of the late 50s, scoring several top 10 hits, including My True Love and Burning Bridges. This 1963 recording of There's Trouble Brewin' shows him at the peak of his vocal powers.

Artist:      Canned Heat
Title:     Christmas Blues
Source:      Mono CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Canned Heat
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:     1968
     Possibly the strangest pairing on record was the 1968 remake of The Chipmunk Song by the Chipmunks and Canned Heat. Yes, you read that correctly. Canned Heat did indeed provide the instrumental backing tracks for Simon, Theodore and Alvin's 10th anniversary remake of their best-known song. The B side of that record is a true gem: an original Canned Heat composition called Christmas Blues.

Artist:      Jethro Tull
Title:     Christmas Song
Source:      British import EP
Writer:    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:     1968
     I wanted to play one set made up entirely of songs from the psychedelic era performed by artists that I feature on the show on a fairly regular basis. One of these artists is the band Jethro Tull, led by flautist/acoustic guitarist/vocalist Ian Anderson. His somewhat cynical Christmas Song, originally released in the UK in 1968, did not appear in the US until the 1973 anthology album Living In the Past.
   
Artist:      Cadillacs
Title:     Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Source:      45 RPM vinyl
Writer:    Johnny Marks
Label:    Josie
Year:     1956
     Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been recorded by a lot of different artists over the years, but this version by the Cadillacs stands out for its pure sense of fun. Doo-wop was at the peak of its popularity in 1956 and the Cadillacs, led by Earl "Speedoo" Carroll, were among the best of the bunch.

Artist:      Drifters
Title:     White Christmas
Source:      Mono CD: Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Irving Berlin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:     1955
     The Drifters were a kind of early R&B doowop supergroup made up of ex-members of other R&B groups such as Billy Ward's Dominoes. The most distinctive voice of the original Drifters was high tenor Clyde McPhatter (for whom Ray Stevens's famous camel was named), which is heard prominently on their version of Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Over the years the group's lineup changed many times and led to several former members forming competing groups, all using the Drifters name. Over time, members of these offshoots would in turn form their own Drifters, despite having virtually no connection to the original group. This is why it sometimes seems that half the doowop singers in the world claim to be former members of the Drifters.

Artist:      Marquees
Title:     Christmas In the Congo
Source:      Mono CD: Cool Yule (Originally released as 45 RPM single, possibly promo only)
Writer(s):    Masten/Botkin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:     1959
     I recently saw a signed publicity photo of the Marquees taken sometime in the late 1950s. One of the signatures is Marvin Gaye's. What I have not been able to find is any evidence that this record was actually released commercially, although at least one promo copy is known to exist.

Artist:      King Curtis
Title:     The Christmas Song
Source:      45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Mel Torme
Label:    Atco
Year:     1966
     King Curtis was one of the most in-demand saxophone players of the first wave of rock and roll. His best known work was on the song Yakety Yak by the Coasters in 1958. In the sixties he became the music director for the Atlantic Records group, appearing on a variety of recordings by artists such as Solomon Burke and occassionally releasing material on the Atco label under his own name. Tragically, his life was cut short when he was the victim of a stabbing when he attempted to stop junkies from shooting up on his front steps in New York.

Rockin' the Holidays of Confusion # 1951 (starts 12/16/19

This week we are Rockin' the Holidays of Confusion, with some pretty cool tracks ranging from Steeleye Span to Emerson, Lake And Palmer. See playlist below for details.

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    The King
Source:    LP: Please To See The King
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Steeleye Span
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Big Tree)
Year:    1971
    The King, adapted and recorded by Steeleye Span for their second LP, Please To See The King, has its origins in the old Irish "Cutty Wren" ceremony, wherein a wren in a cage is paraded around as if it were a king. Since the ceremony was traditionally held on December 26th, St. Stephen's Day, the song itself was often performed as a Christmas Carol. The tradition has seen a resurgence in recent years, but in England rather than Ireland.

Artist:      Jethro Tull
Title:     Ring Out Solstice Bells
Source:      LP: Songs From the Wood
Writer:    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:     1976
     Until the late 1940s the predominate form of recorded music was the 78 RPM (revolutions per minute) record, which was either 10 or 12 inches in diameter and made of a brittle material called shellac. The 10 inch version was the standard for popular music, with a running time of about 3 to 4 minutes. RCA Victor developed a direct replacement for the 78 that was 7 inches in diameter and ran at 45 RPM. Meanwhile, RCA's top rival, Columbia Records, developed a slower long-playing record that used something called microgroove technology that allowed up to half an hour's worth of recorded material per side. Somewhere along the way somebody decided to try the microgroove approach to the 45 and the Extended Play (EP) record was born. In the US, EPs were somewhat popular in the 1950s, but pretty much died out by the time of the Beatles, except for specialized formats such as children's records and low-budget cover labels that would hire anonymous studio musicians to re-create popular hits. In the UK, on the other hand, the format remained viable up through the mid-70s. Jethro Tull took advantage of the EP format to release a Christmas record in December of 1976. Ring Out Solstice Bells was the featured song on the EP, and would not be released in the US until the following spring, when it was included on the album Songs From the Wood.

Artist:    Greg Lake
Title:    I Believe In Father Christmas
Source:    British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Lake/Sinfield
Label:    Manticore
Year:    1975
    According to Greg Lake, I Believe In Father Christmas was not intended to be a Christmas song, despite its title. Lake said he wrote the song to protest the commercialization of Christmas. Peter Sinfield, who wrote the lyrics to the song, had a different take on the matter, saying that the words are about a loss of innocence and childhood belief. One thing they did agree on was that the song is not anti-religious, despite what some critics have said. In fact, Lake made his own views clear in an interview after the song was released, saying "I find it appalling when people say it's politically incorrect to talk about Christmas, you've got to talk about 'The Holiday Season'. Christmas was a time of family warmth and love. There was a feeling of forgiveness, acceptance. And I do believe in Father Christmas." The song was recorded in 1974 and released in 1975, while Lake was still a member of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. It was his most successful solo recording, going to the #2 spot on the British singles chart (kept out of the #1 spot by Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody).

Artist:      Kinks
Title:     Father Christmas
Source:      CD: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:     Wicked Cool (original label: Arista)
Year:     1977
     There are not many socially-conscious Christmas songs, especially slightly twisted ones like the Kinks' classic Father Christmas. Originally released in 1977 the track is recognized as one of the greatest rock Christmas songs ever, as well as one of Ray Davies' most unforgettable tunes.

Artist:      Dennis Wilson (Beach Boys)
Title:     Morning Christmas
Source:      CD: Beach Boys Ultimate Christmas
Writer:    Dennis Wilson)
Label:    Capitol
Year:     Recorded 1977, released 1998
     Dennis Wilson was not hanging around with the rest of the Wilson clan in 1977, but did want to make a contribution to their new Christmas album that year, so he sent in this recording of a song he wrote called Morning Christmas. The album ended up not being released, but the track finally did see the light of day on the Beach Boys' Ultimate Christmas collection issued in 1998.

Artist:    Big Crosby/David Bowie
Title:    Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy
Source:    Mono CD: Now That's What I Call Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Grossman/Fraser/Kohan/Simeone/Onerati/Davis
Label:    Zomba (original label: RCA)
Year:    1982
    In 1977 David Bowie was deliberately trying to "normalize" his musical reputation following his stint as the "king of glitter-rock". One way of doing this was to appear on Bing Crosby's annual Christmas special on NBC-TV, about as mainstream an event as still existed in 1977. Bowie later admitted that the only reason he appeared on the show is that he knew his mother liked Crosby. The two were slated to exchange scipted stories describing each one's own family Christmas traditions before breaking into a duet of The Little Drummer Boy, a song made famous by the Harry Simeone Chorale in 1958. Bowie reportedly told the show's producers that he hated the song, and asked if he could sing something else instead. The producers responded by coming up with a whole new song, Peace On Earth, that was designed to be sung as a counterpoint to The Little Drummer Boy. On the show, Crosby sang the original tune and Bowie the new one, creating a new Christmas classic in the process. Sadly, Crosby died a month before the show aired. The song was not released on vinyl until 1982, when RCA issued it as a single. The song has gone on to become one of Bowie's most successful singles, as well as Crosby's last recording ever to hit the charts.

Artist:    Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Title:    The Three Kings And I (What Really Happened)
Source:    CD: The Christmas Attic
Writer(s):    O'Neil/Kinkel
Label:    Lava
Year:    1998
    The Christmas Attic was the second part of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Christmas Trilogy. Released in 1998, the music was not performed live until 2014. One of my personal favorite tracks on the album is The Three Kings And I (What Really Happened), which has a kind of beatnik feel to it. Good stuff.

Artist:    Queen
Title:    Jesus
Source:    LP: Queen
Writer(s):    Freddie Mercury
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1973
    Although technically not a Christmas song, Freddie Mercury's song Jesus, from the first Queen album, was one of the songs I knew I had to include on Rockin' the Holidays of Confusion. After all, without Jesus there wouldn't be a Christmas in the first place, right?

Artist:    Who
Title:    Christmas
Source:    LP: Tommy
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Decca
Year:    1969
    Although not usually considered a Christmas song per se, The Who's Christmas, from the rock-opera Tommy, is actually one of the most thought-provoking pieces on the subject ever put to music. The song features the repeated question "How can he be saved from the eternal grave" if he remains unaware of who Jesus is, due to his inability to see or hear anything. It is the same kind of question I used to ask as a child about various aboriginal peoples that lived and died without ever having been exposed to Christian doctrine. Needless to say, I never did get a satisfactory answer from any of the adults I posed the question to.

Artist:      Cheech and Chong
Title:     Santa Claus and His Old Lady
Source:      CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marin/Chong
Label:    Rhino (original label: Ode)
Year:     1971
     I heard Cheech And Chong's Santa Claus and His Old Lady on the radio the year it was released and managed to find a copy of the 45 only to have it disappear on me a few years later. Luckily, the folks at Rhino somehow knew of my dilemma and included it on their Rock and Roll Christmas CD (sure they did). Incidentally, the B side of that old 45 was Dave's Not Here from Cheech and Chong's first album.

Artist:    Chesterfield Kings
Title:    Hey Santa Claus
Source:    CD: Christmas A Go-Go
Writer(s):    Babiuk/Prevost/Morabito/Boise
Label:    Wicked Cool
Year:    2004
    Formed in the late 1970s in Rochester, NY, the Chesterfield Kings (named for an old brand of unfiltered cigarettes that my grandfather used to smoke) were instrumental in setting off the garage band revival of the 1980s. Although much of their material is self-released, they have a habit of showing up on various compilations such as Christmas A Go-Go, a 2004 presentation of Little Steven's Underground Garage released on the Wicked Cool label. As near as I can tell, this is the only place Hey Santa Claus appears.

Artist:      George Thorogood and the Destroyers
Title:     Rock And Roll Christmas
Source:      CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    George Thorogood
Label:    Rhino (original label: EMI America)
Year:     1983
     I'm not sure what prompted roots rocker George Thorogood to write Rock And Roll Christmas and record it with his the band, the Destroyers, but I'm glad he did. The tune was released as a single on the EMI America label in 1983.

Artist:    Keith Richards
Title:    Run Rudolph Run
Source:    Mono CD: Christmas A Go-Go (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marks/Brodie
Label:    Wicked Cool (original label: Rolling Stones)
Year:    1978
    Chuck Berry is undisputably one of the most (if not the most) influential rock 'n' roll artists of 1950s. In fact, John Lennon once said of him that if they couldn't call it rock 'n' roll they'd have to call it Chuck Berry. Nonetheless, Berry has always had a bit of shady side to him. For instance, he had the reputation of being so cheap that he refused to hire his own touring band, instead using local bands to back him up at his gigs, whether they could perform his material competently or not. Another cost-saving measure he was known for was re-using old music tracks with new lyrics to create a whole new song. Finally, like many of his contemporaries in the blues world, Berry was not above borrowing someone else's ideas and putting his own name on it. Consider Run Rudolph Run, which was released by Berry as a B side in late 1958. The following year the song Little Queenie was released using the same backing tracks as Run Rudolph Run. The label on the original pressing of Run Rudolph Run credits the song to Chuck Berry Music/Brodie, despite the fact that the song was actually written by Marvin Brodie and Johnny Marks, while Little Queenie is credited entirely to Chuck Berry Music. Newer versions of Run Rudolph Run such as Keith Richards's 1978 single credit Brodie and Marks, while using a variation of the Berry arrangement of the tune.

Artist:      Foghat
Title:     All I Want For Christmas Is You
Source:      CD: Billboard Rock and Roll Christmas (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Dave Peverett
Label:    Rhino (original label: Bearsville)
Year:     1981
     Foghat was formed when all the members of Savoy Brown except leader Kim Simmonds decided to form their own band in the early 70s. After a moderately successful run, founding member "Lonesome" Dave Peverett was all set to call it quits in 1981, but not until after he wrote and recorded All I Want For Christmas Is You. The song was pressed as a promo single in 1981, but I'm not sure if it was ever released to the public.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    Nutrocker
Source:    LP: Pictures At An Exhibition
Writer(s):    Kim Fowley
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1972
    In 1962, Kim Fowley, the Zelig of 60s rock, managed to secure the rights to a rock 'n' roll arrangement of Tchaikovsky's March Of The Toy Soldiers from the Nutcracker ballet. He took this arrangement to a couple different Los Angeles record company labels, both of which recorded the song with their house bands. The second of these was released as Nut Rocker by B.Bumble And The Stingers. The song made it to the #23 spot on the US charts and hit #1 in the UK (which might explain how Fowley found himself producing British bands in London by the middle of the decade). Ten years later, Emerson, Lake And Palmer released their own live version of Nutrocker, which they had been using as an encore, on their Pictures At An Exhibition album.

A quick heads up

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow I'll be posting three weeks' worth of shows, then taking a break from the blog for the rest of the year. The order these three shows will actually run in is being left up to individual stations, so, as they say, check your local listings.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1950 (starts 12/9/19)

    This week's show has artists' sets, sets from individual years and a set of obscurities from 1965 to 1969. What more can you ask for? How about five songs making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut, including one from a band never heard on the show before?

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Old John Robertson (single version)
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Hillman
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    In late 1967 the Byrds released a non-album single of a new David Crosby song, Lady Friend. The B side of that single was a song written by Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman called Old John Robertson. The tune, about a man that Hillman knew growing up, was a strong indication of the band's ongoing transition from folk-rock to what would come to be known as country-rock. A newer mix of the song was included on the 1968 Byrds album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers.
       
Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Mr. Blues
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Bob Mosley
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Bassist Bob Mosley wrote and sang on Mr. Blues, one of ten songs released simultaneously on 45 RPM vinyl from the first Moby Grape album. It was a marketing disaster that forever tarnished a talented band.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    The War Is Over
Source:    LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    The songs on the third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, are grouped into suites of two or three songs apiece. Most of the suites mix songs by different songwriters; the sole exception is The War Is Over, which is made up of two Paul Kantner tunes, Martha and Wild Thyme. The War Is Over is also the shortest of the five suites on After Bathing At Baxter's, clocking in at about six and a half minutes.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)
Source:    Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    The recording of the first song that would appear on Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album was not an easy process. Dylan had been spending time at Columbia's Studio A in New York with his stage band, the Hawks (later to be known as The Band) since October of 1965, but was not satisfied with any of the recordings. On January 25, 1966, he showed up at Studio A with an unfinished (and untitled) song that he actually finished during the session, which would last nine hours. By take five, the song had a title: One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later), but it took until take 15 to get a full version of the song on tape. Dylan, backed by backed by drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Rick Danko (or possibly Bill Lee), guitarist Robbie Robertson, pianist Paul Griffin, and organist Al Kooper, continued to fine tune the track through anther nine takes before calling it a wrap on the morning of January 26th. The song, about a relationship in its death throes, was released as a single on Valentine's Day, 1966, but failed to break the top 100 in the US. It did slightly better in the UK, peaking at #33. By this time the sessions had shifted to Columbia's Studio B in Nashville, and when Blonde On Blonde was released four months later, One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) was the only song recorded in New York to make it onto the album.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Disguises
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Magic Bus (originally released in UK on EP: Ready Steady Who)
Writer:    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1966
    After a successful appearance on the British TV show Ready Steady Go (the UK's answer to American Bandstand), the Who released an EP featuring mostly cover songs such as Bucket T and the Batman theme. Two tracks on the record, however, were Who originals: a new version of Circles (a song that originally appeared on the My Generation album) and Disguises, which made its debut as the lead track of the EP. The song did not appear in the US until the Magic Bus album, released in 1968. When MCA issued a remastered version of A Quick One in the 1990s, the entire contents of the EP (except Circles) were included as bonus tracks on the CD.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Little Olive
Source:    Mono CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    James Lowe
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Allowing a band to compose its own B side was a fairly common practice in the mid-1960s, as it saved the producer from having to pay for the rights to a composition by professional songwriters and funneled some of the royalty money to the band members. As a result, many B sides were actually a better indication of what a band was really about, since most A sides were picked by the record's producer, rather than the band. Such is the case with Little Olive, a song written by the Electric Prunes' lead vocalist James Lowe and released as the B side of the band's debut single in 1966.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    No Expectations
Source:    LP: More Hot Rocks (Big Hits And Fazed Cookies) (originally released on LP: Beggar's Banquet)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The first single to be released in the US from Beggar's Banquet was Street Fighting Man, which was also the first Rolling Stones track to be produced by Jimmy Miller, who had already established a reputation working with Steve Winwood, both with the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic. Brian Jones's slide guitar work on The B side of the single, No Expectations, is sometimes considered his last important contribution to the band.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    I Need A Man To Love
Source:    CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Joplin/Andrew
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded their first album at the Chicago studios of Mainstream records in 1967. Mainstream, however, was a jazz label and their engineers had no idea how to make a band like Big Brother sound good. When the band signed to Columbia the following year it was decided that the best way to record the band was onstage at the Fillmore West. As a result, when Cheap Thrills was released, four of the seven tracks were live recordings, including the Janis Joplin/Peter Albin collaboration I Need A Man To Love.

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:    Cream
Title:    As You Said
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
     Cream started off as a British blues supergroup, but soon found themselves putting out some of the finest psychedelic tunes east of the Atlantic. Much of the credit for this goes to the songwriting team of bassist Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown was originally brought in as a songwriting partner for Ginger Baker, but soon found a better synergy with Bruce. The two went on to write some of Cream's most memorable songs, including Tales of Brave Ulysses, Deserted Cities of the Heart and White Room. As You Said, from Cream's third LP, Wheel's Of Fire, is somewhat unusual in that it features acoustical instruments exclusively (including Ginger Baker setting aside his drumsticks in favor of brushes).

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    At The Zoo
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Simon and Garfunkel did not release any new albums in 1967, instead concentrating on their live performances. They did, however, issue several singles over the course of the year, most of which ended up being included on 1968's Bookends LP. At The Zoo was one of the first of those 1967 singles. It's B side ended up being a hit as well, but by Harper's Bizarre, which took The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) to the top 10 early in the year.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    A Most Peculiar Man
Source:    LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer:    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    You would think that a high school on a US military facility would be inclined to use the most staunchly traditional teaching methods known to man. Surprisingly, though, this was not the case at General H. H. Arnold High School in Weisbaden, Germany. In fact, the English department was teaching some sort of new system that dispensed with terms such as verb and noun and replaced them with a more conceptual approach to language. What I best remember about my Freshman English class is the day that my rather Bohemian teacher (he wore sandals to class!), actually brought in a copy of the Sounds Of Silence and had us dissect two songs from the album, Richard Cory and A Most Peculiar Man. We spent several classes discussing the similarities (they both deal with a suicide by someone representing a particular archetype) and differences (the methods used and the archetypes themselves) between the songs. I have forgotten everything else about that class and its so-called revolutionary approach, but those two songs have stayed with me my entire life. I guess that teacher (whose name I have forgotten) was on to something.

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

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Suppose They Give A War And No One Comes
Source:    LP: Volume II
Writer(s):    Markley/Bryant
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    One of the more popular posters of the pyschedelic era took the phrase Suppose They Give A War And No One Comes and highlighted the letters P,E,A,C and E with colors that, when viewed under a black light, stood out from the rest of the text. At around the same time a movie came out with a similar title. Quite possibly both were inspired by a track from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's late 1967 LP Volume II. The song itself is either really cool or really pretentious. I've had a copy of it for over 30 years and still haven't figured out which.

Artist:    Mystery Trend
Title:    Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nagle/Cuff
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly on the San Francisco music scene of the late 1960s. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Stylistically they preferred short, tightly arranged songs to the long spacey jams that bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead were known for. Perhaps they were simply ahead of their time, as that exact same approach was taken just a couple years later by another local band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, to great success. Although the Mystery Trend (their name taken from misheard Bob Dylan lyrics) played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first and only record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster, surprising friends, family and neighbors. The Mystery Trend, unable to find enough gigs to stay afloat financially, called it quits in 1968.

Artist:    Gurus
Title:    It Just Won't Be That Way
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    J. Ryan
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    As near as I can tell, the Gurus were kind of a New York City supergroup made up of music majors who got together as a "musical experiment". They got a contract with United Artists and released two singles for the label. The second one, released in early 1967, was It Just Won't Be That Way, a song that features a sitar played like a lead guitar in its instrumental break. Neither record sold well, and the group soon disbanded.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Poor Cow
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    In September of 1967 Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch recorded a pair of songs for a film called Poor Cow. One of these songs, Poor Girl, was retitled and re-recorded in early 1968 and released as the B side of Jennifer Juniper. The single did well enough in the UK, but stiffed stateside. Donovan's next single, The Hurdy Gurdy Man, was a worldwide hit, however.

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:    Donovan
Title:    Tangier
Source:    British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    Although officially credite to Donovan Leitch, Tangier, from the 1968 LP The Hurdy Gurdy Man, was actually written by Donovan's close friend Gyp Mills (also known as Gypsy Dave). The song's original title was In Tangier Down A Windy Street. The piece is one of three songs on The Hurdy Gurdy Man that are built around a single note (known in Eastern music as a drone). Due to an ongoing contractual dispute between Donovan and Pye Records, The Hurdy Gurdy Man was originally released only in the US.

Artist:    Primitives
Title:    You Said
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Geoff Tindall
Label:    Rhino (original label: Pye)
Year:    1964
    The Corn Flakes were formed in Oxford, England, but did not get much attention until they changed their name to the highly appropriate Primitives in 1964. Following the name change, the Primitives were able to garner several TV and magazine appearances based on their image alone. As can be heard on their second single, You Said, the band sounded a bit like a cross between the Who and the Rolling Stones. The guitar break on the track, incidentally, was played by a studio musician by the name of Jimmy Page. In 1966 the Primitives relocated to Italy, enjoying a much greater degree of chart success than they had been able to drum up in their own country.

Artist:    Association
Title:    Blistered
Source:    LP: And Then...Along Comes The Association
Writer(s):    Billy Edd Wheeler
Label:    Valiant
Year:    1966
    In the early 1960s American pop albums (they didn't use the word "rock" back then) were, by and large, a ripoff, containing one or two hit singles and a whole lot of filler. Most of that filler was made up of cover versions of hit singles by other artists that were generally lacking in whatever spark that made the original versions hits in the first place. This began to change at the very end of 1965, when the Beatles released Rubber Soul, but even then, their US label insisted on leaving out several songs from the original British version of the album, replacing them with leftover tracks from previous albums. The real sea change in the US came in May of 1966, with the release of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. The 13-song LP had absolutely no filler on it, with only one non-original tune in the bunch (that being the group's hit version of the traditional Sloop John B). Pet Sounds sent shockwaves throughout the entire music industry, especially on the West Coast, inspiring other producers and artists to take a similar approach to album making. One of the first efforts in the direction came only two months later, with the release of the album And Then...Along Comes The Association. Produced by 22-year-old Curt Boettcher, the album had only two cover songs on it, one of them being the band's first hit single, Along Comes Mary. The other cover was Blistered, a Billy Edd Wheeler song that approaches garage-rock in its intensity (ironic, considering that Wheeler is a member of the  Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame). Boettcher continued to develop as a producer, culminating in his 1968 project The Millennium, a critically-acclaimed album that nevertheless was a commercial failure. The Association, meanwhile, became one of the most successful soft-pop groups of the late 1960s.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Summer Is The Man
Source:    Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    Following up on their successful debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, the Blues Magoos released Electric Comic Book in March of 1967. Unfortunately the first single from the album had two equally strong songs, one of which was favored by the producers and the other by the band. Radio stations were unsure which song to push, and as a result, neither made the top 40, which in turn had a negative effect on album sales. Most of the remaining tracks on the album were written by the band members, including Summer Is The Man, a song with an interesting chord structure, a catchy melody and somewhat existential lyrics.

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    The Loner
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: Neil Young)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    The Loner could easily have been passed off as a Buffalo Springfield song. In addition to singer/songwriter/guitarist Neil Young, the tune features Springfield members Jim Messina on bass and George Grantham on drums. Since Buffalo Springfield was functionally defunct by the time the song was ready for release, however, it instead became Young's first single as a solo artist. The song first appeared, in a longer form, on Young's first solo album in late 1968, with the single being released three months later. The subject of The Loner has long been rumored to be Young's bandmate Stephen Stills, or possibly Young himself. As usual, Neil Young ain't sayin'.

Artist:    Scarlet Letter
Title:    Timekeeper
Source:    Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Seanor/Spindler
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1969
    One of the Detroit music scene's most overlooked bands, the Scarlet Letter released three singles for Bob Shad's Mainstream label. The best of these was a tune called Mary Maiden, with the equally strong Timekeeper on the flip side. The group also released a single on the Time label (a subsidiary of Mainstream) using the name Paraphernalia in 1968.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    Woodstock
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    It's somewhat ironic that the most famous song about the Woodstock Music and Art Festival was written by someone who was not even at the event. Joni Mitchell had been advised by her manager that she would be better off appearing on the Dick Cavett show that weekend, so she stayed in her New York City hotel room and watched televised reports of what was going on up at Max Yasgur's farm. Further inspiration came from her then-boyfried Graham Nash, who shared his firsthand experiences of the festival with Mitchell. The song was first released on the 1970 album Ladies Of The Canyon, and was made famous the same year when it was chosen to be the first single released from the Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young album déjà vu. The CSNY version peaked just outside of the Billboard top 10.

Artist:    Frijid Pink
Title:    Boozin' Blues
Source:    German import CD: Frijid Pink
Writer(s):    Thompson/Beaudry
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1970
    Although never considered a first-tier band, Frijid Pink was a solid component in Detroit's "second-wave" of rock bands in the late 1960s. Formed in 1967, when fellow Detroiters Mitch Ryder and ? And The Mysterians were already riding high, Frijid Pink came up around the same time as the Amboy Dukes and The Stooges, among others. Despite releasing some of the hardest rocking singles of the time, they experience limited commercial success until their cover of House Of The Rising Sun became an international smash hit in 1970. A self-titled album soon followed which included several of their earlier singles, as well as originals like the sultry Boozin' Blues. Subsequent efforts by the band failed to equal the success of House Of The Rising Sun, however, and within a couple of years Frijid Pink had melted back into the shadows.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Hear My Train A-Comin'
Source:    CD: Blues
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/MCA
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 1994
    Structured similarly to the better-known Voodoo Child, Hear My Train A-Comin' is actually the earlier of the two compositions, having been recorded as early as 1967, when Jimi Hendrix was experimenting with a 12-string acoustic guitar in the studio. I say experimenting, as playing an acoustic 12-string guitar when you are used to a fast-necked electric model such as a Fender Stratocaster is akin to learning an entirely new instrument. This particular version of Hear My Train A-Comin' was recorded live at Berkeley Community Theater on May 30, 1970 (which happens to be 40 years to the day before Stuck in the Psychedelic Era aired its first syndicated episode).

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.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1950 (starts 12/9/19)

    This time around we have three sets: one each from 1970 and 1972 framing a longer set that  goes from 1969 to 1974, one year at a time. There are a few surprises in all of this, though. Keep reading...

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Mark Says Alright
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Farner/Brewer/Schacher
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Grand Funk Railroad's Live Album, released in 1970, continued the group's pattern of getting universally negative reviews from the rock press while selling millions of copies to the band's fans. Unlike most live albums, the double LP contained no overdubs or remixes, reflecting the band's desire to present an accurate, if flawed, representation of how the band actually sounded in concert. Although most of the songs on the Live Album are also available as studio tracks on their first three albums, one track, the five-minute long instrumental piece called Mark Says Alright, was nearly exclusive to the Live Album. I say "nearly" because the track was also issued as the B side of the album's first single, Mean Mistreater.

Artist:    Chicago
Title:    In The Country
Source:    CD: Chicago (II)
Writer(s):    Terry Kath
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    Although guitarist Terry Kath was by no means the most prolific songwriter in Chicago, he did pen some of the band's most memorable early works, such as In The Country, from the group's second double-LP. The song was considered so strong, in fact, that it was used as the band's set opener when they played Carnegie Hall, recording the performance for their first live album.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Fairies Wear Boots
Source:    LP: Paranoid
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Fairies Wear Boots is the final track on Black Sabbath's second LP, Paranoid. The title either comes from the ban's encounter with boot-wearing skinheads or a stoned vision of fairies running around a park with boots on, depending on which band member you ask. On the US version of the album, the instrumental intro to the track is listed as Jack The Stripper. As far as anyone knows, Ozzie Osbourne wrote the lyrics himself, although he claims to have no idea what the song is about.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Underway
Source:    CD: Then Play On (original promo copy)
Writer(s):    Peter Green
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Fleetwood Mac's third album, Then Play On, included three tracks that were compiled by guitarist Peter Green from several hours of studio jam sessions made by the band. Underway, which originally closed out side one of the US version of the album (before Oh Well was inserted into the lineup in a revised edition of the LP), is the mellowest of the three tracks.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Night Bird Flying
Source:    CD: Voodoo Soup (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    Night Bird Flying was one of a handful of fully completed tracks that were slated for the next Jimi Hendrix album when the guitarist unexpectedly passed away in late1970. Naturally, the song was selected for inclusion of the first posthumous Hendrix LP, The Cry Of Love, as well as various CDs over the years, including Voodoo Soup and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, both of which were attempts to assemble what would have been the fourth Jimi Hendrix studio album. In all cases, however, I think the compilers missed the obvious: Night Bird Flying should have been the second track on the album, following Freedom (which indeed does start off all three of the above cited collections). Don't ask me how I know this. I just do. Call it a gut feeling if you will, but Night Bird Flying belongs in that #2 slot. Period.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Cross-Eyed Mary
Source:    LP: Aqualung
Writer:    Ian Anderson
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1971
    The fortunes of Jethro Tull improved drastically with the release of the Aqualung album in 1971. The group had done well in their native UK but were still considered a second-tier band in the US. Aqualung, however, propelled the group to star status, with several tracks, such as Cross-Eyed Mary, getting heavy airplay on progressive rock radio.

Artist:    Todd Rundgren
Title:    Some Folks Is Even Whiter Than Me
Source:    LP: Something/Anything?
Writer(s):    Todd Rundgren
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1972
    The first three sides of Todd Rundgren's third solo LP, Something/Anything?, were recorded in Los Angeles, with Rundgren using multi-track technology to play all of the instruments himself. After an earthquake rocked the area, Rundgren decided to finish the album in New York using studio musicians. Most of the New York sessions were at the Record Plant, but the final two songs, including Some Folks Is Even Whiter Than Me, were recorded at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY. Personnel on the song included his longtime associate Moogy Klingman on piano, former Mothers Of Invention drummer Billy Mundi, and three members of the Butterfield Blues Band: Ralph Walsh (guitar), Bugsy Maugh (bass) and Gene Dinwiddie (tenor sax), along with Serge Katzen on conga. 

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Time/The Great Gig In The Sky
Source:    The Dark Side Of The Moon
Writer(s):    Mason/Waters/Gilmour/Wright/Torry
Label:    Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1973
    There are very few albums in rock history that have achieved the iconic status of Pink Floyd's Dark side Of The Moon. Listening to the last two tracks on side one, it's easy to see why this album makes the grade. In case you're wondering, the "Torry" in the songwriting credits is Clare Torry, who does all that wordless vocalizing throughout The Great Gig In The Sky. Her name did not originally appear in the credits, but then lawyers got involved...
   
Artist:    Three Man Army
Title:    Dog's Life
Source:    German import CD: 3
Writer(s):    Adrian Gurvitz
Label:    Revisited
Year:    Recorded 1974, released 2004 (dates approximate)
    The Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul, got their first taste of international fame as two thirds of the band Gun, whose Race With The Devil was a monster hit in Germany and the UK, among other places. Following the breakup of Gun, the brothers went their separate ways for a year or so, reuniting in 1971 to form Three Man Army. The first album featured three different drummers, but the next two featured the talents of Tony Newman, formerly of the Jeff Beck Group. Plans for a fourth album were shelved when Newman left the group, to be replaced by Ginger Baker (prompting a name change to Baker-Gurvitz Army), but not until several tracks had already been recorded. Those tracks remained unreleased until 2004, when a German label released 3 (so named because it was the third album to feature Newman). One of the lighter, and more memorable, tracks on the album is Dog's Life. I'll leave it to you to figure out why.

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Warrior
Source:    CD: Argus
Writer(s):    Upton/Turner/Turner/Powell
Label:    MCA/Decca
Year:    1972
    One of the first bands ever to feature two lead guitarists was Wishbone Ash. The story goes that following the departure of their original guitar player, bassist Martin Turner and drummer Steve Upton auditioned several lead guitarists and got it down to two finalists, Andy Powell and Ted Turner (no relation to either Martin Turner or Jane Fonda), but could not decide between the two. At that point they decided just to keep both of them, and a heavy metal tradition was born. Whether the story is true or not, the two definitely traded off leads for the next three years and five albums, including their third and most successful LP, Argus. One of the album's best-known songs, Warrior, is built around classical Greek literary themes and features shared lead vocals from Andy Powell and Martin Turner, as well as simultaneous lead guitar tracks from Powell and the other Turner.

Artist:    Little Feat
Title:    Texas Rose Cafe
Source:    CD: Sailin' Shoes
Writer(s):    Lowell George
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    After a concert in Houston in 1971, the members of Little Feat visited a local restaurant (hippie hangout, club, beer garden, whatever) called the Texas Rose Cafe. Bandleader Lowell George said at the time that he liked the place so much he was going to write a song about it. He did, and that song appeared as the final track on the band's second LP, Sailin' Shoes.