Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2230 (starts 7/18/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/430695-pe-2230

    This week, among other things, Stuck in the Psychedelic Era presents the Severely Abridged Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Those "other things" include the first Really Long Pink Floyd track and an even longer rendition of Baby Please Don't Go.

Artist:    Phil Ochs
Title:    I Ain't Marching Anymore
Source:    CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Phil Ochs
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1965
    Phil Ochs' I Ain't Marching Anymore didn't get a whole lot of airplay when it was released in 1965 (unless you count a handful of closed-circuit student-run stations on various college campuses that could only be picked up by plugging a radio into a wall socket in a dorm room). Ochs was aware of this, and even commented that "the fact that you won't be hearing this song on the radio is more than enough justification for the writing of it." He went on to say that the song "borders between pacifism and treason, combining the best qualities of both." The following year Ochs recorded this folk-rock version of the song (backed up by members of the Blues Project) that was released as a single in the UK.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Can You See Me
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced? (stereo mix originally released in US on LP: Smash Hits)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    EU: 1967, US: 1969
    Before releasing the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, in the US, Reprise Records decided to make some changes to the track lineup, adding three songs that had been released as non-album singles in the UK and creating entirely new stereo mixes of all the songs. To make room for these, three songs were cut from the original UK version of the LP. One of those three tunes, however, was apparently intended to make the final cut, as it also got a new stereo remix. That tune was Can You See Me, a song that was included in the band's US debut performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967.  Despite the audience's positive response to the song, the band dropped Can You See Me from their live set shortly after their appearance at Monterey. The stereo remix of Can You See Me sat on the shelf until 1969, when it was included on the US version of the Smash Hits LP.

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

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Green River
Source:    LP: Chronicle (originally released on LP: Green River and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1969
    In 1969 I was living in Germany (on Ramstein AFB, where my father, a career NCO, was stationed), where the choices for radio listening consisted of Radio Luxembourg, which only came in after dark and faded in and out constantly, the American Forces Network (AFN), which had a limited amount of music programming, most of which was targeted to an older demographic, and an assortment of German language stations playing ethnic and classical music. As a result, I didn't listen much to the radio, instead relying on word of mouth from my fellow high school students and hearing songs played on the jukebox at the Ramstein teen club on base. Both Proud Mary and Bad Moon Rising had completely slipped under my radar, in fact, so Green River was the first Creedence Clearwater Revival song I was even aware of. I immediately went out and bought a copy of the single at the BX, and soon had my band covering the record's B side, Commotion. I'm afraid Green River itself was beyond our abilities, however. Nonetheless, I still think of that "garage" band I was in (actually, since we all lived in apartment buildings, we had to practice in the basement of one of them rather than an actual garage) whenever I hear Green River.
 
Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    Who Do You Love
Source:    Mono British import CD: Before The Dream Faded
Writer(s):    Elias McDaniel
Label:    Cherry Red
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1982
    Originally from California's Inland Empire town of Riverside, the Misunderstood relocated to London in1966, where they recorded several songs for the British Fontana label. Not all of those songs were released at the time however. This psychedelic rave-up version of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love sat on the shelf for 16 years, finally being released on an album called Before The Dream Faded that collected all of the band's recordings.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    She'll Return It
Source:    Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s):    Jenkins/Rowberry/Burdon/Chandler/Valentine
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    As a general rule the Animals, in their original incarnation, recorded two kinds of songs: hit singles from professional songwriters such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and covers of blues and R&B tunes, the more obscure the better. What they did not record a lot of was original tunes from the band members themselves. This began to change in 1966 when the band began to experience a series of personnel changes that would ultimately lead to what amounted to an entirely new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, in 1967. One of the earliest songs to be credited to the entire band was She'll Return It, released as the B side of See See Rider in August of 1966 and included on the Animalization album. In retrospect, it is one of the strongest tracks on one of their strongest LPs.

Artist:    Wimple Winch
Title:    Save My Soul
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Christopholus/Kelman
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1966
    Dee Fenton and the Silhouettes were a fairly typical merseybeat band formed in 1961 by Dee Christopholus, a Greek immigrant whose parents had moved to Liverpool in the 1950s. In 1963 they changed their name to the Four Just Men, which became the Just Four Men when they were signed to Parlophone the following year. After a pair of singles failed to make a dent in the British charts EMI (Parlophone's parent company) cut the band from its roster. Rather than disband, the group decided to reinvent themselves as a British counterpart to the many garage bands popping up in the US. Changing their name to Wimple Winch, the group released three singles on the Fontana label, the second of which was Save My Soul, released in June of 1966. All three singles did well in Liverpool but failed to make an impression elsewhere. The group finally decided to call it quits when Fontana dropped them in early 1967.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Wait Till The Summer Comes Along
Source:    Mono LP: Kinks Kinkdom (originally released in UK on EP: Kwyet Kinks)
Writer(s):    Dave Davies
Label:    Reprise (original UK label: Pye)
Year:    1965
    Kinks Kinkdom was an LP that was only released in the US. Most of the songs had been previously released in the UK, but not in the US. Among the songs on Kinks Kinkdom are four tracks that had appeared in the UK on an Extended Play 45 RPM record called Kwyet Kinks. The EP was a deliberate attempt on the part of the band to distance themselves from their early image as one of the hardest rocking bands of the British Invasion. The opening track of Kwyet Kinks was Wait Till The Summer Comes Along, a Dave Davies composition that has a decidedly country feel to it.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Dr. Stone
Source:    CD: Hey Joe
Writer:    Beck/Pons
Label:    One Way (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    The Leaves were a solid, if not particularly spectacular, example of a late 60s L.A. club band. They had one big hit (Hey Joe), signed a contract with a major label (Capitol), and even appeared in a Hollywood movie (the Cool Ones). Dr. Stone, the opening track of their first album for Mira Records, is best described as folk-rock with a Bo Diddly beat.

Artist:    Pride And Joy
Title:    Girl
Source:    CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dennis Dahlquist
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1967
    When their single, I Call My Baby STP, failed to catch on with Chicago area radio listeners, the Del-Vetts decided to change their name to Pride And Joy and soften their approach somewhat with the melodic Girl, released in 1967. The song made the local charts, but once again failed to break nationally. After one more single released late in the year on the Acta label, Pride And Joy called it quits.

Artist:    Stephen Stills and Richie Furay
Title:    Sit Down I Think I Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Rhino
Year:    Recorded, 1966, released 2009
    Stephen Stills and Richie Furay were still in the process of forming their new band when they cut this demo of Sit Down I Think I Love You, a song that would appear later in the year on the first Buffalo Springfield album and be covered the following year by the San Francisco flower pop band the Mojo Men. This version is basically just the two of them sitting around in a friend's living room singing harmony with Stills on acoustic guitar.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    I Am Waiting
Source:    British import LP: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    The Aftermath album was a turning point for the Rolling Stones. For one thing, it was their first album recorded entirely in the US, and at a much more leisurely pace than their previous albums. This afforded the band the opportunity to spend more time working on their arrangements before committing songs to tape. It also gave Brian Jones a chance to experiment with instruments not normally associated with rock and roll music, such as sitar, dulcimer, marimbas, and koto. Aftermath was also the first Rolling Stones album made up entirely of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, including the semi-acoustic I Am Waiting.
 
Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let Me In (original uncensored version)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1966
    Not long after the first copies of Jefferson Airplane Takes Off hit the streets of San Francisco, the Shirts at RCA Victor told the band to go back to the studio and change the lyrics on two of the album's songs. The biggest changes were made to Let Me In, the first song that featured Paul Kantner rather than Marty Balin on lead vocals. Arguing that the original lyrics were too sexually suggestive for a teen-oriented audience, Balin and Kantner changed the line " I gotta get in, you know where" to "You shut your door, now it ain't fair". In addition, the line "Don't tell me you want money" was changed to  "Don't tell me it's so funny" because, according to the Shirts, the original version could be interpreted as a reference to prostitution. As an aside, I did a search for both sets of lyrics on the internet, but the only ones that showed up were billed as the "original uncensored" lyrics, yet in every case were actually the revised ones. Explain that one to me!

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Interstellar Overdrive/The Gnome
Source:    CD: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Writer(s):    Barrett/Waters/Wright/Mason
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Syd Barrett was still very much at the helm for Pink Floyd's first LP, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, released in 1967. The group had already released a pair of Barrett-penned singles, Arnold Layne (which was banned by the BBC) and See Emily Play. Piper, though, was the first full album for the group, and some tracks, notably the nine-minute psychedelic masterpiece Interstellar Overdrive, were entirely group efforts. On the original UK version of the LP Overdrive tracks directly into a Barrett piece, the Gnome. The US version, issued on Tower records, truncated Overdrive and re-arranged the song order. The only CD version of Piper currently available, heard here, follows the original UK ordering of the tracks.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    Orange Fire
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released in US on EP: Mad River)
Writer(s):    Lawrence Hammond
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Wee)
Year:    1967
    Mad River was formed in 1965 in Yellow Spings, Ohio, as the Mad River Blues Band. The group (after several personnel changes) relocated to the Berkeley, California in spring of 1967, and soon began appearing at local clubs, often alongside Country Joe And The Fish. Around this time the band came into contact with Lonnie Hewitt, a jazz musician who had started his own R&B-oriented label, Wee. After auditioning for Fantasy Records, the band decided instead to finance their own studio recordings, which were then issued as a three-song EP on Wee. From the start, Mad River's music was pretty far out there, even by Bay Area standards. Orange Fire, for instance, was an attempt by bandleader Lawrence Hammond to portray the horrors of war musically. Interestingly enough, all the tracks on the EP had been written and arranged before the band moved out to the West Coast. The group eventually signed with Capitol, releasing two decidedly non-commercial albums for the label before disbanding in 1969.
        
Artist:    Byrds
Title:    The Girl With No Name
Source:    Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Chris Hillman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    As is often the case, a failed relationship was the inspiration for The Girl With No Name, one of five songs written or co-written by Byrds bassist Chris Hillman for the group's fourth LP, Younger Than Yesterday. The tune has a strong country feel to it, presaging Hillman's future career as a member of the Desert Rose Band in the 1980s. Guitarist Clarence White, who would soon become a member of the band, makes an early appearance on the track.

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

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     Good Morning Good Morning/Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)/A Day In The Life
Source:     CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:     1967
     One of the great accidents of record production was the splice that turned the chicken at the end of Good Morning Good Morning into a guitar, starting off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) and ultimately leading into A Day In The Life, with it's slowly dissolving orchestral chord that brings the number one album of 1967 to a close.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Some of the best rock and roll songs of 1966 were banned on a number of stations for being about either sex or drugs. Most artists that recorded those songs claimed they were about something else altogether. In the case of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, "stoned" refers to a rather unpleasant form of execution (at least according to Dylan). On the other hand, Dylan himself was reportedly quite stoned while recording the song, having passed a few doobies around before starting the tape rolling. Sometimes I think ambiguities like this are why English has become the dominant language of commerce on the planet.

Artist:    Sands
Title:    Listen To The Sky
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sands
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1967
    The Others, from Middlesex, England released a 1964 version of Bo Diddley's Oh Yeah that was later copied, note for note, by Chicago's Shadows Of Knight. Three years later, now calling themselves Sands, the same band released a gem called Listen To The Sky that starts off sounding a bit like the Beatles, but turns into a psychedelic freakout before it's all over.

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

Artist:    Love
Title:    My Little Red Book
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Bacharach/David
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    The first rock record ever released by Elektra Records was a single by Love called My Little Red Book. The track itself (which also opens Love's debut LP), is a punked out version of a tune originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the What's New Pussycat movie soundtrack. Needless to say, Love's version was not exactly what composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David had in mind when they wrote the song.

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    One of the quintessential songs of the psychedelic era is the Chambers Brothers' classic Time Has Come Today. The song was originally recorded and issued as a single in 1966. The more familiar version heard here, however, was recorded in 1967 for the album The Time Has Come. The LP version of the song runs about eleven minutes, way too long for a 45 RPM record, so before releasing the song as a single for the second time, engineers at Columbia cut the song down to around 3 minutes. The edits proved so jarring that the record was recalled and a re-edited version, clocking in at 4:57 became the third and final single version of the song, hitting the charts in 1968.

Artist:    Beacon Street Union
Title:    Baby, Please Don't Go
Source:    LP: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Writer(s):    Joe Williams
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    One of the most popular club songs in the mid-1960s was an old Joe Williams blues tune called Baby, Please Don't Go. The song became popular among garage bands after Them released it as their first single in 1964, despite the fact that the record was not readily available in the US (having a copy of the import was, in fact, a mark of status among garage rockers). The song became better known in the US when the Amboy Dukes included it on their debut LP in 1967, also releasing the track as a single. The following year the Beacon Street Union turned the tune into a 17-minute showcase of the individual members' talents on their second LP, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Love Story
Source:    CD: This Was (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968 (UK), 1969 (US)
    Love Story was the last studio recording by the original Jethro Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornish. The song was released as a single (Jethro Tull's first in the US) following the band's debut LP, This Was. Shortly after its release Abrahams left the group, citing differences with Anderson over the band's musical direction. Love Story spent eight weeks on the UK singles chart, reaching the #29 spot. In the U.S., Love Story was released in March 1969, with A Song for Jeffrey (an album track from This Was) on the B-side, but did not chart. Like most songs released as singles in the UK, Love Story did not appear on an album until several years later; in this case on the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past. It has most recently been included as a bonus track on the expanded CD version of This Was.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2230 (starts 7/18/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/430693-dc-2230

    This week, with the exception of our first and last tunes, it's 1972 on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, with tracks from Roy Buchanan, Steely Dan, T. Rex and several more, including an extended comedy bit from George Carlin's breakthrough album Class Clown.

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    Seven Hundred Elves
Source:    LP: Now We Are Six
Writer(s):    Trad. arr. Steeleye Span
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1974
    One of Steeleye Span's most popular albums, Now We Are Six had a title with a double meaning: it was the band's 6th LP and with the addition of drummer Nigel Pegrum the band now had six members. Not that previous albums had been drumless. Studio drummers had been used extensively on previous albums, but it was felt that the time was right for the addition of a full-time percussionist to further the group's move towards a blend of tradition English folk music and rock. The final track on side one of the original LP, Seven Hundred Elves, combines traditional lyrics with music written by the band members to create a unique hybrid. Steeleye Span's popularity continued to grow until the advent of punk rock turned British audiences against anything perceived as old-fashioned, including the various folk-rock bands that had flourished earlier in the decade.

Artist:    Roy Buchanan
Title:    Sweet Dreams
Source:    CD: The Best Of Roy Buchanan (originally released on LP: Roy Buchanan)
Writer(s):    Don Gibson
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1972
    Although relatively unknown to the general public, Roy Buchanan was one of the most highly respected guitarists in American music history. Born in 1939 in Ozark, Arkansas, he was already making a name for himself at age 16 as a member of the Heartbeats, a group that also featured future Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden. After being stranded in Oklahoma City by an unscrupulous agent who took all the band's money, Buchanan soon found himself performing on Tulsa Bandstand, where he was discovered by the legendary Dale Hawkins, becoming his lead guitarist for the next three years. From there he became a member of Hawkins's cousin Ronnie's band, the Hawks, a group that would eventually become known as The Band. By the late 1960s Buchanan had settled in Washington, DC, playing gigs at local clubs and filling in for just about anyone who asked him to. In 1970 he became the focus of feature articles in both the Washington Star, and later the Washington Post, which led to a 1972 PBS documentary called Introducing Roy Buchanan. It was then that Buchanan signed his first record contract as a solo artist, releasing his self-titled debut on the Polydor label, which was in the process of establishing itself as a player in the US market. The opening track on that album was Sweet Dreams, a song written by Don Gibson and originally recorded by Patsy Cline a month before her death in a 1963 plane crash. Buchanan went on to record several more albums in the 1970s before taking a six-year-long hiatus, returning to the studio in 1985 to record the grammy nominated When A Guitar Plays The Blues. During his lifetime Buchanan was praised by the likes of Eric Clapton and Jerry Garcia and was even invited to join the Rolling Stones (he declined).

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

Artist:    George Carlin
Title:    Class Clown
Source:    LP: Class Clown
Writer(s):    George Carlin
Label:    Little David
Year:    1972
    George Carlin was already getting a reputation for his anecdotal humor when he released his album Class Clown in 1972. The album contains his most notorious bit, Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television, as well as the lengthy title track, in which he goes into detail about how he ended up becoming a stand-up comedian.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Only A Fool Would Say That
Source:    LP: Can't Buy A Thrill
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    ABC
Year:    1972
    Steely Dan's first album, Can't Buy A Thrill, is best known for its two hit singles, Do It Again and Reeling In The Years. The album, however, has plenty more good tracks, including Only A Fool Would Say That, which also appeared as a B side.

Artist:    T. Rex
Title:    Metal Guru
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Marc Bolan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    Metal Guru was the fourth and final T.Rex song to top the British charts, hitting the #1 spot in late spring of 1972. By then, glam-rock had already run its course in the Western hemisphere, however, and the song did not chart at all in the US. Singer/songwriter Marc Bolan described Metal Guru as "a festival of life song. I relate 'Metal Guru' to all Gods around. I believe in a God, but I have no religion. With 'Metal Guru', it's like someone special, it must be a Godhead. I thought how God would be, he'd be all alone without a telephone. I don't answer the phone any more. I have codes where people ring me at certain times." I'm not sure what all that means, but there it is.

Artist:    Captain Beyond
Title:    Mesmerization Eclipse
Source:    LP: Captain Beyond
Writer(s):    Evans/Caldwell
Label:    Capricorn
Year:    1972
    In the early 1970s it was normal for three bands to be on the playbill at a rock concert. Generally the headliner was someone with a hit record currently on the charts, while the middle act was someone on the way up. The opening act was either a popular local band or, in some cases, a brand new group that had just released their first album. It was not entirely uncommon for the second act to actually get a better audience response than the headliner, especially if the headliner turned out to be a one-hit wonder with no staying power. It was extremely rare, however, for the opening act to blow both of the other two bands out of the water. In fact, I can think of only one time that happened when I was in the audience. It was 1972, and I don't even remember who the headliner was. The middle band was Jo Jo Gunne, featuring front man Jay Ferguson, formerly of Spirit. They weren't bad, although the only songs I remember them performing were Run Run Run and 99 Days. The opening act, however, totally blew me away with their outstanding musicianship and strong material. That band was Captain Beyond, formed by former members of Iron Butterfly (bassist Lee Dorman and guitarist Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt), Deep Purple (vocalist Rod Evans) and drummer Bobby Caldwell, who would eventually go on to have a moderately successful solo career. I was so impressed with their set that I went to the record store the very next day and bought their album (which has this really cool 3D cover, by the way). Mesmerization Eclipse, from that debut LP, was written by the entire band, although only Evans and Caldwell got official writing credits on the album, due to Rhino and Dorman still being under contract to Iron Butterfly at the time.
    
Artist:     Yes
Title:     America
Source:     British import LP: The New Age of Atlantic
Writer:     Paul Simon
Label:     Atlantic
Year:     1972
     Following the success of the Fragile album and the hit single Roundabout, Yes went into the studio to cut a ten and a half minute cover of Paul Simon's America for a UK-only sampler album called The New Age Of Atlantic. The track was then edited down for single release in the US as a followup to Roundabout. The original unedited track was finally released in the US on the 1974 album Yesterdays, which also included several tracks from two earlier Yes albums that featured an earlier lineup of the band that included guitarist Peter Banks and keyboardist Tony Kaye. Paul Simon's America was, in fact, the only track on Yesterdays that featured the classic Yes lineup of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squires, Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman.

Artist:    Edgar Winter Group
Title:    Frankenstein
Source:    LP: They Only Come Out At Night
Writer:    Edgar Winter
Label:    Epic
Year:    1973
    I remember hearing Edgar Winter's Frankenstein for the first time late at night on KOMA, the Oklahoma City powerhouse that was pretty much the only top 40 station you could pick up after dark in southern New Mexico in 1973. A bunch of us were riding around in a car and getting high (pretty much the usual) when the song came on. We all got into the heavy rock beat and then sat mesmerized during the synthesizer break (that sounded even funkier due to the station's periodic fading out and back in). Of course I had to go out and find a copy of the single, but didn't pick up the album until sometime in the 2010s.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Bird Of Prey (re-recorded British version)
Source:    British import CD: Salisbury
Writer(s):    David Byron
Label:    Sanctuary/BMG
Year:    1971
    Although for the most part the practice of drastically altering the track lineup of British albums for US release had been abandoned by 1970, there were still a few exceptions, albeit relatively minor ones. One of these was the first Uriah Heep album, which replaced the song Lucy Blue with Bird Of Prey on the US version. The band re-recorded Bird Of Prey for their second LP, Salisbury, which was in turn replaced in the US by Simon The Bullet Freak, a song that would not be released in the UK for another eight months, when it finally appeared as a B side in September of 1971.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2229 (starts 7/11/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/429719-pe-2229

    This week Stuck in the Psychedelic Era presents excerpts from a recent chat with David Gans, the host of the Grateful Dead Hour, a syndicated show that's been around since the 1980s. Gans is also a musician himself, and we're featuring some of his recent recordings both during and after the conversation as part of our occasional Advanced Psych series, airing in the show's second hour. And of course we have the usual mix of singles, B sides and album tracks from the late 60s to round out the show, including a seldom-heard track from the original Renaissance lineup featuring former Yardbirds members Keith Relf and Jim McCarty.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (US version)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1965
    In 1965 producer Mickey Most put out a call to Don Kirschner's Brill building songwriters for material that could be recorded by the Animals. He ended up selecting three songs, all of which are among the Animals' most popular singles. Possibly the best-known of the three is a song written by the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil called We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. The song (the first Animals recording to featuring Dave Rowberry, who had replaced founder Alan Price on organ) starts off with what is probably Chas Chandler's best known bass line, slowly adding drums, vocals, guitar and finally keyboards on its way to an explosive chorus. The song was not originally intended for the Animals, however; it was written for the Righteous Brothers as a follow up to (You've Got That) Lovin' Feelin', which Mann and Weil had also provided for the duo. Mann, however, decided to record the song himself, but the Animals managed to get their version out first, taking it to the top 20 in the US and the top 5 in the UK. As the Vietnam war escalated, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place became a sort of underground anthem for US servicemen stationed in South Vietnam, and has been associated with that war ever since. Incidentally, there were actually two versions of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place recorded during the same recording session, with an alternate take accidentally being sent to M-G-M and subsequently being released as the US version of the single. This version (which some collectors and fans maintain has a stronger vocal track) appeared on the US-only LP Animal Tracks in the fall of 1965 as well as the original M-G-M pressings of the 1966 album Best Of The Animals. The original UK version, on the other hand, did not appear on any albums, as was common for British singles in the 1960s. By the 1980s record mogul Allen Klein had control of the original Animals' entire catalog, and decreed that all CD reissues of the song would use the original British version of the song, including the updated (and expanded) CD version of The Best Of The Animals. This expanded version of the album first appeared on the ABKCO label in 1973, but with the American, rather than the British, version of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. With all this in mind, I looked for, and finally found, a copy of the original US single.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source:    CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (original LP name: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Only a handful of tunes make virtually everyone's list of "psychedelic" songs. The Electric Prunes' I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) so well defines the genre that Lenny Kaye himself chose it to be the opening track on the original Nuggets compilation album.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Take It As It Comes
Source:    LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's hottest bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening in early August Jack Holzman, president of Elektra Records, and producer Paul Rothchild were among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band to record for Elektra (although the Butterfield Blues Band is considered by some to be the first, predating Love by several months). By the end of the month the Doors were in the studio recording songs like Take It As It Comes for their debut LP, which was released in January of 1967.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Those Were The Days
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Baker/Taylor
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Drummer Ginger Baker only contributed a handful of songs to the Cream repertoire, but each was, in its own way, quite memorable. Those Are The Days, with its sudden changes of time and key, presages the progressive rock that would flourish in the mid-1970s. As was often the case with Baker-penned songs, bassist Jack Bruce provides the vocals from this Wheels Of Fire track.

Artist:     Ten Years After
Title:     I Woke Up This Morning
Source:     LP: Ssssh
Writer:     Alvin Lee
Label:     Deram
Year:     1969
     Latecomers to the British blues scene, Ten Years After were in fact the original retro-rockers, taking their cues from the classic rock and roll artists of the 50s as much as from the rhythm and blues artists of the era. Alvin Lee's songwriting, especially in the band's early days, reflected both these influences, with slow, yet loud, bluesy numbers like I Woke Up This Morning co-existing with high-energy rockers like I'm Going Home.

Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Gold And The Blues
Source:    LP: Sugarloaf
Writer(s):    Corbetta/Pollock/Raymond/Webber
Label:    Liberty
Year:    1970
    There don't seem to be very many tracks highlighting instrumental work in rock radio these days, and virtually none in what passes for top 40. Perhaps that's just a natural consequence of the emergence of a "front" person as the center of attention in the 70s. There was a time, however, that every member of a band played an instrument, and many albums included at least one instrumental track. Gold And The Blues, from the debut Sugarloaf album, is basically a blues jam that shows that Jerry Corbetta was far more than just the guy who sang Green-Eyed Lady and Don't Call Us, We'll Call You; he was quite possibly the best rock organist ever. Bob Webber's guitar work on the tune ain't half bad, either.

Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    Open The Door
Source:    LP: The Dock Of The Bay
Writer(s):    Otis Redding
Label:    Volt
Year:    1968
    Otis Redding's last LP to be completed before his death in a plane crash ion December 10, 1967 could almost be called a compilation LP. In addition to the title track, which was released ahead of the album on Jan 8, 1968, the LP, released on February 23, 1968, contains several singles and B side dating back to 1965. One of the newer songs on the album was Open The Door, a Redding composition that was released on Apr. 8, 1968 as the B side to the album's second single, The Happy Song.

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     In My Life
Source:     LP: Rubber Soul
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Capitol/EMI
Year:     1965
    Rubber Soul was the first Beatles album to be made up entirely of songs written by the band members themselves, mostly John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon's contributions in particular were starting to move away from the typical "young love" songs the band had become famous for. One of the best examples is In My Life, which is a nostalgic look back at Lennon's own past (although put in such a way that it could be universally applied). Despite never being released as a single, In My Life remains one of the most popular songs in the Beatles catalog.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Such A Shame
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    The B side of a 45 RPM record was usually thought of as filler material, but in reality often served another purpose entirely. Sometimes it was used to make an instrumental version of the hit side available for use in clubs or even as a kind of early kind of Karioke. As often as not it was a chance for bands who were given material by their producer to record for the A side to get their own compositions on record, thus giving them an equal share of the royalties. Sometimes the B sides went on to become classics in their own right. Possibly the band with the highest percentage of this type of B side was the Kinks, who seemed to have a great song on the flip side of every record they released. One such B side is Such A Shame, released as the B side of A Well Respected Man in late 1965. It doesn't get much better than this.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Rari
Source:    Mono CD: Dirty Water (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:    1965
    The Standells had already recorded several singles for various labels when they met up with producer Ed Cobb, whose Green Grass Productions had a distribution deal with Capitol Records' Tower subsidiary label. Cobb had the band record a pair of tunes that he had written himself at engineer Armin Steiner's garage studio in Los Angeles. Both Dirty Water and its B side, Rari, were recorded on 3-track tape, which meant that the instrumental tracks were recorded first, with overdubs and vocals added later. According to band leader Larry Tamblyn, this makes the Dirty Water/Rari single, released in November of 1965, one of the first (if not THE first) garage-rock records.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Streetmasse
Source:    LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Kantner/Dryden/Blackman/Thompson/Balin
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
     After Bathing At Baxter's is generally considered the most pyschedelic of all the Jefferson Airplane albums. For one thing, the members were reportedly all on LSD through most of the creative process and were involved in the entire package, right down to the decision to divide the album up into five suites and press the vinyl in such a way that the spaces normally found between songs were only present between the suites themselves, making it almost impossible to set the needle down at the beginning of the second or third song of a suite (there is a slight overlap between most of the songs as well). The first suite on After Bathing At Baxter's is called Streetmasse. It consists of three compositions: Paul Kantner's The Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel; A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly (a free-form jazz piece led by drummer Spencer Dryden); and the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin composition Young Girl Sunday Blues.
    
Artist:    Dave Van Ronk
Title:    Keep Off The Grass
Source:    LP: Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
Writer(s):    Dave and Doris Woods
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1967
    Dave Van Ronk was a legendary figure on the Greenwich Village scene, earning the nickname Mayor of MacDougall Street. He recorded dozens of albums covering a variety of genres, including folk, jazz, spiritual, blues and even folk-rock, somehow managing to perform them with both a sense of irreverant reverance. In 1967 he released an album called Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters that borders on garage-rock, particularly on tracks like Keep Off The Grass, which opens the LP's second side.

Artist:    Ballroom
Title:    Baby, Please Don't Go
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Joe Williams
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    This rather unusual arrangement of Joe Williams classic Baby, Please Don't Go was the creation of producer/vocalist Curt Boettcher. Boettcher had previously worked with the Association, co-writing their first hit Along Comes Mary. While working on the Ballroom project for Our Productions in 1966 he came to the attention of Brian Wilson and Gary Usher. Usher was so impressed with Boettcher's creativity in the studio that he convinced his own bosses at Columbia Records to buy out Boettcher's contract from Our Productions. As a result, much of Boettcher's Ballroom project became part of Usher's own Sagittarius project, with only one single, an unusual arrangement of Joe Williams's Baby, Please Don't Go, released under the Ballroom name. Boettcher turned out to be so prolific that it was sometimes said that the giant "CBS" logo on the side of the building stood for Curt Boettcher's Studios.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Lemmon Princess
Source:    Mono British import CD: All The Good That's Happening
Writer(s):    Jim Pons
Label:    Grapefruit (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    The Leaves were formed in 1964 as the Rockwells by a group of fraternity brothers from San Fernando Valley College in Northridge, California. The group was financed by bassist/vocalist Jim Pons, who used money he had received from an insurance settlement to buy the band's original equipment. After a few personnel changes the band, which by 1965 had changed their name to the Leaves, successfully auditioned to replace the Byrds as the unofficial house band at Ciro's, a popular club on Sunset Strip. The Leaves released one LP and a handful of singles for the local Mira label, including a fast version of Billy Roberts's Hey Joe that became a national hit. This prompted a move to major label Capitol Records toward the end of 1966. Their first release for Capitol was Lemmon Princess, which came out in early December. The tune, written by Pons, was also included on the band's only Capitol LP, All The Good That's Happening. Stylistically the song was not typical of the Leaves at all; in fact, it would have been right at home on an album by fellow L.A.ins the Turtles. This may have been intentional, since by most accounts the Leaves were already disintegrating even as All The Good That's Happening was being made, and Pons would soon leave the band he founded to join...you guessed it: the Turtles.

Artist:    Tiffany Shade
Title:    A Quiet Revolution
Source:    Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US on LP: Tiffany Shade)
Writer(s):    Michael Barnes
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    From 1967 through 1970 Bob Shad's Mainstream label released over two dozen rock albums. Most of these albums were by bands that were known only to audiences in their own hometowns. Indeed, most of these albums were highly forgettable. This was due in large part to the fact that Shad would book the absolute minimum amount of studio time required to get an LP's worth of material recorded. This generally meant using the first take of every recording, even if the band felt they could do better if they had a little more time. As a result, most late 60s Mainstream LPs ended up on the budget rack not long after their release, and, at least in some cases, even the band members themselves considered the whole thing a waste of time and effort. Such is the case with Cleveland's Tiffany Shade, which consisted of guitarist/lead vocalist Mike Barnes, keyboardist Bob Leonard, drummer Tom Schuster and bassist Robb Murphy. The group's manager recommended the group to Shad, who booked two eight-hour sessions for the band at the Cleveland Recording Company. Fortunately, the band was better prepared than most of the Mainstream bands, and actually turned out a halfway decent album, thanks in large part to Barnes's talent as a songwriter, which can be heard on tunes like A Quiet Revolution.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Heart Full Of Soul
Source:    Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Graham Gouldman
Label:    Raven (original label: Epic)
Year:    1965
    The Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love, Heart Full Of Soul, was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, who also wrote For Your Love. For some odd reason Gouldman's own band, the Mockingbirds, was strangely unable to buy a hit on the charts, despite Gouldman's obvious talents as a songwriter. Gouldman would eventually go on to be a founding member of 10cc, who were quite successful in the 1970s.

Artist:    Chocolate Coffee Pot
Title:    Three Food Groups (with excerpts from a conversation with David Gans)
Source:    CD: Chocolate Coffee Pot
Writer(s):    Gans/Brighton/Sylvester/Hampton/Feinstein
Label:    Perfectible
Year:    2016
    Chocolate Coffee Pot is what happens when a bunch of like-minded (and talented) musicians get together and spend some studio time being creative. Three Food Groups, in its original form, runs over 22 minutes. One of these days I'll play it in its entirety, but for this week it serves as a backdrop for excerpts from a recent coversation I had with David Gans about his own syndicated show, the Grateful Dead Hour, and his various endeavors as a musician and former rock music journalist and photographer.

Artist:    David Gans
Title:    Plum Wine/Plum Jam
Source:    CD: You Are Here
Writer(s):    David Gans
Label:    Perfectible
Year:    2015
    In addition to hosting the Grateful Dead Hour for over 30 years, singer/songwriter David Gans is also an accomplished guitarist, and is known in particular for his skill with creating music loops, all of which can be heard on Plum Wine/Plum Jam, from his 2015 album You Are Here.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Here Today
Source:    Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    Apparently there is a conversation about cameras going on in the background of the instrumental break of Here Today on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. I never noticed it. I guess I'll have to listen more closely next time.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    I Know There's An Answer
Source:    CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Sachen
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    One of the first songs recorded for the Pet Sounds album was Hang On To Your Ego, allegedly written by Brian Wilson on his second acid trip. Mike Love objected to some of the lyrics, particularly those of the chorus, and Wilson eventually decided to scrap them and write new ones, this time with the help of the group's road manager, Terry Sachen. The result was I Know There's An Answer.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    God Only Knows
Source:    Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    Possibly the first time a deity appeared in the title of a pop song was the Beach Boys song God Only Knows on the Pet Sounds album. Both Brian and Carl Wilson were going through a spiritual phase and were in the habit of praying for guidance throughout the making of Pet Sounds. The song was released, along with Wouldn't It Be Nice, as a double A sided single a few weeks after the album came out, and both songs made the top 40, although Wouldn't It Be Nice was the bigger hit in the US. In the UK, where Beatle Paul McCartney was enthusiastic in his support of the tune, God Only Knows went all the way to the # 5 slot, considerably higher than in the US.

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

Artist:     Renaissance
Title:     Bullet
Source:     LP: Renaissance
Writer:     Relf/McCarty/Hawken/Cennamo
Label:     Elektra
Year:     1969
     One of the many bands of the mid-70s that incorporated classical and jazz influences, Renaissance is best known for songs such as Northern Lights and Mother Russia. What most people are not aware of, however, is that Renaissance was originally formed by former Yardbirds Keith Relf and Jim McCarty. Although Relf never played guitar onstage with the Yardbirds (understandable given the presence of the like of Clapton, Beck and Page), with Renaissance he showed that he had learned a thing or two from his talented former bandmates. Renaissance in its original incarnation also boasted the presence of an outstanding keyboardist, John Hawken (formerly of the Nashville Teens) and a virtuoso bassist (Louis Cennamo), whose skill on the instrument was on a par with Jefferson Airplane's Jack Cassidy.

Artist:    Finch
Title:    Nothing In The Sun
Source:    CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wylde Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    D. Dougherty
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Montage)
Year:    1968

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Fire
Source:    Dutch import LP: The Singles (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener. In 1969, two years after its original UK appearance on the mono LP Are You Experienced, the stereo remix of Fire from the US version of the album was issued in the UK, along with a handful of European countries and New Zealand, as a single called Let Me Light Your Fire.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Summertime
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Gershwin/Heyward
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Janis Joplin, on the 1968 Big Brother And The Holding Company album Cheap Thrills, sounds like she was born to sing Gershwin's Summertime. Maybe she was.

 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2229 (starts 7/11/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/429718-dc-2229

   
    We're once again in full free-form mode this time around, with ten tracks from the early 1970s (and one special tune from 1966). The week starts with a trio of singles (the last of which was only issued in that form in continental Europe); from there it's album cuts all the way, culminating with what's been called the most powerful vocal ever recorded by Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant: Since I've Been Loving You, making its Rockin' in the Days of Confusion debut.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Do It Again
Source:    CD: Can't Buy A Thrill
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1972
    Although they at first appeared to be a real band, Steely Dan was in reality two people: keyboardist/vocalist Donald Fagen and bassist (and later guitarist) Walter Becker. For their first album they recruited, from various places, guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, drummer Jim Hodder, guitarist Denny Dias, and finally (when they realized they would have to actually perform live, which terrified Fagen) vocalist David Palmer. The first single from the album, Do It Again, was a major hit, going to the #6 spot on the Billboard charts and, more importantly, introducing the world at large to the Steely Dan sound, combining jazz-influenced rock music with slyly cynical lyrics (often sung in the second person). Steely Dan would continue to be an influential force in popular music, and especially FM rock radio, throughout the 1970s.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Ride With Me
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo promo copy)
Writer(s):    Mars Bonfire
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1971
    By 1971 Steppenwolf's best years were already behind them. Looking to rekindle the old magic, the band turned to songwriter (and former band member) Dennis Edmonton, who, under the pseudonym Mars Bonfire, had penned their biggest hit, Born To Be Wild. Although Ride With Me was a solid song, it stalled out in the lower reaches of the top 40 charts while being virtually ignored by more progressive album rock stations.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Spider Woman
Source:    British import CD: The Magician's Birthday
Writer(s):    Box/Byron/Kerslake/Thain
Label:    Sanctuary (original US label: Mercury)
Year:    1972
    Although Uriah Heep was known as an album-oriented band in the US and their native UK, they did have some top 40 success in Scandanavia and Northern Europe, especially in Germany, where they scored three top 20 hits from 1970-72. The last of these was Spider Woman, from the Magician's Birthday album, which went to the #14 spot on the German charts.

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

Artist:    Mothers
Title:    Fifty-Fifty
Source:    CD: Over-Nite Sensation
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Zappa (original label: Discreet)
Year:    1973
    Frank Zappa was already well-established by the time he recorded Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe(') in 1973. The two albums, recorded at the same time but released months apart, were his commercial breakthrough, thanks to radio-friendly tunes like Montana and Don't Eat Yellow Snow. Both albums use the same pool of talented musicians, including keyboardist George Duke and violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, both of which would go on to establish themselves as first-tier jazz stars. Fifty-Fifty, from Over-Nite Sensation, features solos from Duke, Ponty and Zappa himself, with lead vocals from Ricky Lancelotti. Powerful stuff.

Artist:    Stevie Wonder
Title:    Maybe Your Baby
Source:    LP: Talking Book
Writer(s):    Stevie Wonder
Label:    Tamla
Year:    1972
    By the early 1970s Stevie Wonder had dropped the "Little" that had prefixed his name early in his career and was fast becoming one of Motown's most respected artists. Although Wonder's so-called "classic period" is generally acknowledged to begin with his Music Of My Mind album, it was with his 1972 release, Talking Book, that he really hit his stride. The album featured two major hits, You Are The Sunshine Of My Life (which got him a Grammy award for Best Male Pop Vocal) and Superstition, one of the first songs by a black artist to be embraced by progressive rock radio. One of the most overlooked songs on the album was Maybe Your Baby, which may be because it's almost impossible to pigeonhole as one kind or song or another. Basically, it's just pure Stevie Wonder.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Embryo/Children Of The Grave
Source:    CD: Master Of Reality
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    One of the spookiest experiences in my life was crashing at a stranger's house after having my mind blown at a Grand Funk Railroad/Black Oak Arkansas concert in the fall of 1971. A bunch of us had ridden back to Weatherford, Oklahoma, from Norman (about an hour's drive) and somehow I ended up separated from my friends Mike and DeWayne, in whose college dorm room I had been crashing for a couple of days. So here I am in some total strangers house, lying on the couch in this room with black walls, a black light, a few posters and a cheap stereo playing a brand new album I had never heard before: Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality. Suddenly I notice this weird little tapping sound going back and forth from speaker to speaker. Such was my state of mind at the time that I really couldn't tell if it was a hallucination or not. The stereo was one of those late 60s models that you could stack albums on, and whoever had put the album on had left the stereo in repeat mode before heading off to bed, with no more albums stacked after the Sabbath LP. This meant that every twenty minutes or so I would hear Children Of The Grave, with that weird little tapping sound going back and forth from speaker to speaker. Trust me, it was creepy, as was the whispering at the end of track. No wonder Ozzy Ozbourne called Children Of The Grave "the most kick-ass song we'd ever recorded."

Artist:    Joe Walsh
Title:    Midnight Moodies/Happy Ways
Source:    LP: The Smoker Your Drink, The Player You Get
Writer(s):    Grace/Passarelli/Zoloth
Label:    ABC/Dunhill
Year:    1973
    After leaving the James Gang in late 1971, guitarist/vocalist spent the next several months hibernating in Colorado, eventually forming a new band called Barnstorm. The group's second LP, The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get, was bannered as a Walsh solo album, which led to the band's demise. Despite this, four of the album's nine tracks were written by band members other than Walsh, including the instrumental Midnight Moodies from the band's new keyboardist, Rocke Grace, and Happy Ways, a whimsical tune co-written by Barnstorm bassist Kenny Passarelli and Buddy Zoloth, the former road manager of Blues Image.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Taboo
Source:    LP: Santana (III)
Writer(s):    Rolie/Areas
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    In addition to Carlos Santana himself, the original Santana band had several songwriters, including keyboardist Greg Rolie and percussionist Jose "Chepito" Arias. The two of them only wrote one song together however: Taboo, from the third Santana LP. The album itself bears the same official title as the group's first LP, Santana, and is often referred to as "Man With The Outstretched Hand" to differentiate it from the earlier work.

Artist:    Robin Trower
Title:    About To Begin
Source:    CD: Bridge Of Sighs
Writer(s):    Robin Trower
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1974
    Many of the artists featured on FM rock radio in the 1970s had already established themselves in the latter part of the previous decade, getting airplay on underground stations as well as the occasional top 40 hit. Others were newcomers that would go on to become stars in the 1980s. Then there are those few who seem to be exclusively associated with the 1970s. Among this group is Robin Trower, former guitarist of the art-rock oriented Procol Harum. Trower seldom got a chance to shine in the keyboard-dominated Harum, however, and left the group in 1972 to form his own band, Jude. Jude did not last long enough to record an album, but it did provide Trower with the core of his new trio, consisting of Trower himself on guitar, James Dewar on bass and vocals and Reg Isidore on drums. Trower's first solo album, Twice Removed From Yesterday, was fairly well-received by the rock press, but it actually was only setting the stage for what is now considered one of the greatest rock guitar albums ever recorded: 1974's Bridge Of Sighs. Even the lesser-known tracks like About To Begin got at least some airplay, and deservedly so.

Artist:     Led Zeppelin
Title:     Since I've Been Loving You
Source:     CD: Led Zeppelin III
Writer:     Page/Plant/Jones
Label:     Atlantic
Year:     1970
     The Yardbirds were Britain's premier electric blues band, featuring the guitar work of first Eric Clapton, then Jeff Beck and finally Jimmy Page (who had already established himself as an in-demand studio guitarist by the time he joined the band). As the 60s came to a close, the band began shedding members until Page found himself the only member left. With new vocalist Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John-Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham, the group continued for a short while as the New Yardbirds before settling on a new name: Led Zeppelin. The group's repertoire was a mixture of original tunes and blues covers arranged to showcase the individual members' strengths as musicians. This mixture served as the template for the band's first two albums. By the third Led Zeppelin album the group was moving away from cover songs and from the blues in general. One notable exeception was Since I've Been Loving You, a slow original that is now considered one of the best electric blues songs ever written.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2228 (starts 7/4/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/428848-pe-2228

    This week we present our first battle of the bands not to include any songs by the Rolling Stones. The Beatles, however, are deeply involved, going up against a challenger from L.A.  Stones fans needn't feel neglected, however, as we do have artists' sets from both the Stones and Simon & Garfunkel.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Lather
Source:     CD: Crown of Creation
Writer:     Grace Slick
Label:     BMG/RCA
Year:     1968
     One of Grace Slick's most memorable tunes was Lather, with its eerie instrumental bridge played on a tissue-paper covered comb (at least that's what I think it was). The song was reportedly about drummer Spencer Dryden, the band's oldest member, who had just turned 30. A popular phrase of the time was "don't trust anyone over 30", making it a particularly bad time to have that particular birthday.

Artist:    Stevie Wonder
Title:    Don't Know Why I Love You
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Hunter/Hardaway/Wonder/Reiser
Label:    Tamla
Year:    1968
    The Rolling Stones had a minor but notable hit with their cover of Stevie Wonder's I Don't Know Why I Love You in the early 1970s. I thought I'd pull out a copy of the original version, which was intended as an A side but was eclipsed in popularity by the B side of the record, a tune called My Cherie Amour.

Artist:    Them
Title:    But It's Alright
Source:    Mono British import CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jackson/Tubbs
Label:    Rev-Ola (original US label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Following the departure of original founding member and front man Van Morrison, the remaining members of Them, with new vocalist Kenny McDowell, decided to relocate to the US and make a go of it there. Unfortunately, rather than to forge a whole new identity of their own, they chose to remain Them, which, as it turned out, was actually more of a hindrance than a help when it came to establishing a consistent sound. Their first LP, Now And Them, while containing some good music, reflects this lack of direction. Before embarking on a second LP the group cut a cover of JJ Jackson's R&B hit But It's Alright, mostly to satisfy their label's demand for a new single. Them's version of the tune used a similar arrangement to Jackson's original, but with fuzz guitar and a more snarling vocal track. Although the record was not a hit, it did give an indication of where the band was headed as they began work on their next studio album, Time Out! Time In! For Them.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    White Room
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of the Cream classic White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Stone Free
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Smash Hits
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    Whether or not Stone Free was the first song ever written by Jimi Hendrix, there is no doubt it was his first original composition to be recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In fact, it is the only song written by Hendrix to be released in 1966, albeit only in Europe and the UK (as the B side to Hey Joe). The first time the song was released in the US was on the Smash Hits anthology album that was put out by Reprise Records in 1969. A newer version was recorded, but not released, that same year under the title Stone Free Again.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1966
     If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, who might be considered the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.

Artist:    Knickerbockers
Title:    One Track Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    L. Colley/K. Colley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year:    1966
    After successfully fooling many people into thinking that they were the Beatles recording under a different name with their 1965 hit Lies, the Knickerbockers (originally from Bergenfield, New Jersey) went with a more R&B flavored rocker for their follow up single. Unfortunately their label, the Los Angeles-based Challenge Records, did not have the resources and/or skills to properly promote the single.

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

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label:    Priority (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively  small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.

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

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Blessed
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Possibly the most psychedelic track on Simon And Garfunkel's Sounds Of Silence album, Blessed is a classic example of structured chaos, combining a wall of sound approach with tight harmonies and intelligent lyrics. One of the duo's most overlooked recordings.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamara'd Into Submission)
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Paul Simon's sense of humor is on full display on A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamara'd Into Submission). The song first appeared, with slightly different lyrics on Simon's 1965 LP The Paul Simon Songbook, which was released only in the UK after Simon and Garfunkel had split following the disappointing sales of their first Columbia LP, Wednesday Morning 3AM. When the duo got back together following the surprise success of an electrified version of The Sound Of Silence, the re-recorded A Simple Desultory Philippic, including it on their third Columbia LP, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The song is a deliberate parody/tribute to Bob Dylan, written in a style similar to It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), and is full of sly references to various well-known personages of the time as well as lesser-known acquaintances of Simon himself.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    I Haven't Got The Nerve
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Cameron/Martin
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    The first thought I had when seeing the title of Left Banke's 1967 debut LP, Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, was "if they had to name the album after the band's two hit singles, the rest of the songs must really suck", so I never gave it another thought. It turns out I was totally wrong, as the album is actually filled with fine tracks such as I Haven't Got The Nerve, which was originally the B side of the Walk Away Renee single in late 1966. I still think it's an annoying name for an album, though.

Artist:     Johnny Rivers
Title:     Secret Agent Man
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     Sloan/Barri
Label:     Imperial
Year:     1966
     The sixties were a decade of fads and trends in the US, many of them imported from England. One of the most popular was the spy craze. Inspired by cold war politics and the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, TV producers began cranking out shows like I-Spy and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. One of the earliest of these shows was a British production called Danger Man, aired in the US under the name Secret Agent. The show starred Darrin McGavin as a (surprise) secret agent for a fictional version of MI6, the British intelligence agency, and enjoyed a successful run on both sides of the Atlantic. After a few seasons McGavin got tired of doing the show and Danger Man/Secret Agent was cancelled. Before that happened, however, Johnny Rivers scored a huge hit with the theme song written by Steve Barri and PF Sloan especially for the US airings of the show. McGavin would make another series called the Prisoner about a former secret agent that had been "retired" to a closed village in order to protect the secret knowledge he had accumulated over the years. Although it was never explicitly stated, it was assumed that his character (who had indeed been given a number and had his name taken away) was the same one he had played in the earlier show.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Colored Balls Falling
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The first Love album is rooted solidly in both folk-rock and garage rock. A solid example of this blend is Colored Balls Falling, written by Arthur Lee. To my knowledge, Colored Balls Falling has never been included on any anthology albums, making this mono mix of the song somewhat of a rarity.

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

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

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Shanghai Noodle Factory
Source:    LP: Last Exit (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi/Wood/Miller/Fallon
Label:    Island (original US LP label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    After Traffic split up (for the first time), Island Records decided to milk one more album out of one their most popular groups. To do so they took studio outtakes, singles that had not been included on previous albums, and even an entire side of live performances, issuing the entire package in 1969 under the title Last Exit. Shanghai Noodle Factory, a song that was recorded without the participation of guitarist Dave Mason, was originally released in late 1968 as the B side of the Medicated Goo single.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Chicken Little Was Right
Source:    French import CD: Happy Together (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    The Turtles
Label:    Magic (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1968
    Like many of the bands of the time, the Turtles usually recorded songs from professional songwriters for their A sides and provided their own material for the B sides. In the Turtles' case, however, these B sides were often psychedelic masterpieces that contrasted strongly with their hits. Chicken Little Was Right, the B side of She's My Girl, at first sounds like something you'd hear at a hootenanny, but then switches keys for a chorus featuring the Turtles' trademark harmonies, with a little bit of Peter And The Wolf thrown in for good measure. The original version of the song had a slight country twang, which was more strongly emphasized for a new stereo version they recorded for the 1968 LP The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Yellow Submarine
Source:    European import LP: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone/EMI
Year:    1966
    Ringo's greatest hit. (What, you expected some sort of hidden insight into one of the best-known songs in pop culture history???)

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

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    She Said She Said
Source:    European Import LP: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone/EMI (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    The last song to be recorded for the Beatles' Revolver album was She Said She Said, a John Lennon song inspired by an acid trip taken by members of the band (with the exception of Paul McCartney) during a break from touring in August of 1965. The band's manager, Brian Epstein, had rented a large house in Beverly Hills, but word had gotten out and the Beatles found it difficult to come and go at will. Instead, they invited several people, including the members of the Byrds and actor Peter Fonda, to come over and hang out with them. At some point, Fonda brought up the fact that he had nearly died as a child from an accidental gunshot wound, and used the phrase "I know what it's like to be dead." Lennon was creeped out by the things Fonda was saying and told him to "shut up about that stuff. You're making me feel like I've never been born." The song itself took nine hours to record and mix, and is one of the few Beatle tracks that does not have Paul McCartney on it (George Harrison played bass). Ironically, Fonda himself would star in a Roger Corman film called The Trip (written by Jack Nicholson and co-starring Dennis Hopper) the following year.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (originally released on LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:    1967
    The only Beatles album to get a complete remix for CD was the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album, which was reissued under the title Yellow Submarine Songbook in 1999 with a radically modified track selection. Gone was George Martin's orchestral film score, which had taken up the entire second side of the 1969 LP. In its place were several songs that had appeared in the Yellow Submarine animated film but had been left off the soundtrack album, including John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which has a richer, fuller sound than the original 1967 mix on the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    You Know What I Mean
Source:    French import CD: Happy Together (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Magic (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967
    1967 was a good year for the Turtles, mainly due to their discovery of the songwriting team Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon. Not only did the former members of the Magicians write the Turtles' biggest hit, Happy Together, they also provided two follow-up songs, She's My Girl and You Know What I Mean, both of which hit the top 20 later in the year.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Source:    CD: Ummagumma
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label:    EMI/Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1969
    Pink Floyd's first double LP, Ummagumma, consisted of a live album with four tracks and a studio LP showcasing each individual member of the group. In later years the album would find itself disparaged by band members and critics alike, although one critic did point out that the live version of Careful With That Axe, Eugene, was actually a pretty decent rendition of one the band's most popular early tunes.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Midnight Rambler
Source:    LP: Let It Bleed
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1969
    1969 was, with one huge exception, a good year for the Rolling Stones. Their Beggar's Banquet album, released late in 1968, had reestablished them as one of the world's premier rock bands, and their first single of 1969, Honky Tonk Women, was nothing short of a masterpiece. The song had introduced Stones fans to the band's newest member, Mick Taylor, who had replaced Brian Jones, who had left the band he founded just a few weeks before he was found dead in his swimming pool on the very night that Honky Tonk Women was recorded. The timing of it all gave fuel to all kinds of conspiracy theories, of course, but the band itself was already hard at work on what would be their final album for the British Decca label (and it's US counterpart, London) before starting their own label. One of the most enduring tracks on Let It Bleed was Midnight Rambler, which would become a staple of the band's live performances for years to come.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Back Street Girl
Source:    CD:  Flowers
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    Back Street Girl is a tune that was originally released on the British version of the 1967 LP Between The Buttons, but left off the US album. Instead, the tune appeared later the same year on the US-only album Flowers. The album itself was a mixture of new and previously released material; in fact, half the songs on Flowers had already appeared on the US versions of Aftermath and Between The Buttons, while several more (including Back Street Girl) were available in the UK. This led critics to initially dismiss Flowers as a promotional ploy, but in more recent years the album has been recognized as a strong collection of songs based on the social scene surrounding the band itself.
        
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Monkey Man
Source:    LP: Let It Bleed
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1969
    Ever have a song get stuck in your head for days at a time? Monkey Man, from the Rolling Stones' 1969 LP Let It Bleed, is that kind of song. Admit it: now you've got Mick screaming "I'm A Monkey" running through your brain.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Caress Me Baby
Source:     LP: Projections
Writer:     Jimmy Reed
Label:     Verve Forecast
Year:     1966
     After deliberately truncating their extended jams for their first LP, Live At The Cafe Au-Go-Go, the Blues Project recorded a second album that was a much more accurate representation of what the band was all about. Mixed in with the group's original material was this outstanding cover of Caress Me Baby, an old Jimmy Reed tune sung by lead guitarist and Blues Project founder Danny Kalb that runs over seven minutes in length. Andy Kuhlberg's memorable walking bass line would be lifted a few year later by Blood, Sweat and Tears bassist Jim Fielder for the track Blues, Part II.

Artist:    Things To Come (Illinois band)
Title:    I'm Not Talkin'
Source:    Mono CD: If You're Ready! The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Sundazed/Here 'Tis (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Not to be confused with the California band Things To Come, this Illinois group released one single on the Dunwich label in 1966, a cover of the Yardbirds cover version of an old Mose Allison tune called I'm Not Talkin'. Other than that, absolutely nothing is known about this band, so if you have some info you'd like to pass along, you know where to send it, right?

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2228 (starts 7/4/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/428846-dc-2228

    This week we have another one of those long progressions through the years, going from 1969 to 1977 one year at a time for the better part of an hour. As a bonus we close the show with an opening track; in this instance Spirit's Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus.

Artist:     King Crimson
Title:     21st Century Schizoid Man
Source:     CD: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Writer:     Fripp/McDonald/Lake/Giles/Sinfield
Label:     Discipline Global Mobile (original US label: Atlantic)
Year:     1969
     There are several bands with a legitimate claim to starting the prog-rock movement of the mid-70s. The one most musicians cite as the one that started it all, however, is King Crimson. Led by Robert Fripp, the band went through several personnel changes over the years. Many of the members went on to greater commercial success as members of other bands, including guitarist/keyboardist Ian McDonald (Foreigner), and lead vocalist/bassist Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) from the original lineup heard on In The Court Of The Crimson King. Additionally, poet Peter Sinfield, who wrote all King Crimson's early lyrics, would go on to perform a similar function for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, including their magnum opus Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends. Other original members included Michael Giles on drums and Fripp himself on guitar. 21st Century Schizoid Man, as the first song on the first album by King Crimson, can quite literally be cited as the song that got the whole thing started.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Got This Thing On The Move
Source:    CD: Grand Funk
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    From summer of 1967 to summer of 1970 I lived in Germany as a military dependent (my dad was an NCO in the USAF). This gave me a bit of a different perspective on the state of rock music during those years. For example, the Who, a band I had only barely heard of in the US, was huge overseas. On the other hand, bands like the Grateful Dead were little more than a distant legend in Europe at that time. On my return to the States in summer of 1970, I learned of the existence of a power trio from Flint, Michigan called Grand Funk Railroad.  In the US they were universally hated by rock music critics, yet managed to set all kinds of attendance records throughout 1969 and 1970, pretty much single-handedly inventing arena rock in the process. They also managed to get no less than three albums certified gold in 1970 alone. Despite this, GFR was totally unknown in Europe, leading me to believe that the people who ordered albums for the BX were paying too much attention to the Village Voice and Rolling Stone magazine and not enough attention to actual record sales and concert attendance figures. Anyway, I soon got my hands on the album Grand Funk (aka the Red Album) and was totally blown away by the opening track, Got This Thing On The Move. There's a valuable lesson in there somewhere.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Sunday Night
Source:    CD: Looking In
Writer(s):    Kim Simmonds
Label:    Deram (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1970
    Despite being a British blues-rock band, Savoy Brown released their sixth LP, Looking In, to a US audience nearly two months before it was available anywhere else, including their native England. The album, which put more emphasis on hard rock than any other Savoy Brown LP, ended up being their most successful, hitting #50 in the UK and doing even better (#39) in the US. Songwriting duties were spread out among band members, with founder and lead guitarist Kim Simmonds supplying the instrumental Sunday Night, among other tunes. Not long after Looking In was released, Simmonds let the entire band go due to differences in opinion about the band's future musical direction. Savoy Brown, with an ever-changing lineup, would remain solidly based in the blues, while the new band formed by the other three members, Foghat, would continue in a more hard rocking vein. 

Artist:    Santana
Title:    No One To Depend On
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Carabella/Escobida/Rolie
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Santana's third LP (which like their debut LP was called simply Santana), was the last by the band's original lineup. Among the better-known tracks on the LP was No One To Depend On, featuring a guitar solo by teen phenom Neal Schon (who would go on to co-found Journey). The version here is a rare mono promo pressing issued as a single in 1972. It is obviously not a true mono mix, but what is known as a "fold-down" mix, made by combining the two stereo channels into one. It sounds to me, though, like one channel (the one with Neil Schon's guitar) got shortchanged in the mix.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Starman
Source:    CD: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1972
    Starman was the first single released from David Bowie's breakout hit LP The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. The song, about a benevolent being from outer space, was so influential that it became the inspiration for the 1984 movie of the same name.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Our Lady
Source:    Japanese import CD: Who Do We Think We Are
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Deep Purple was the top selling artist of 1973, thanks in large part to the release of their seventh studio album, Who Do We Think We Are. It was also the final year for the band's classic Mk2 lineup, with both vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover leaving the band that summer. According to Gillan, the band had just finished 18 months of touring and every member had had some sort of major illness over that same period, yet their managers insisted that they immediately get to work on the new album, even though the band members desperately needed a break. Nonetheless the album itself is one of their strongest, in spite of the fact that, for the most part the band members weren't even on speaking terms and much of the album was recorded piecemeal, with each member adding his part at a different time. The final track on the album, Our Lady, was a return to the band's psychedelic roots, with a definite Hendrix vibe to the entire piece.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It)
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Rolling Stones
Year:    1974
    You'd think that after writing such legendary classics as (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would be pretty much tapped out for the rest of their lives. But, nope. They had to come up yet another iconic song in 1974, It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It). Hell, the title alone probably should be inscribed over the entrance of the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame. The song itself was reportedly written in response to critics who seemed to think that the Stones, Mick and Keith in particular, somehow had a responsibility to be role models, and were not living up to those critics' expectations of how they should be conducting themselves.

Artist:    Heart
Title:    White Lightning And Wine
Source:    LP: Dreamboat Annie
Writer(s):    Ann & Nancy Wilson
Label:    Mushroom
Year:    1975
    First albums by artists that come seemingly out of nowhere with a minimum of hype often turn out to be the best albums those artists ever made. I believe this is because the first album is the culmination of a lifetime (or lifetimes in the case of bands), while subsequent albums only reflect that artists' development since the previous record was released. Take the case of Heart. Sure, they had several hits from the late 1970s through the mid 1980s, but were any of them as memorable as Crazy On You? Or Magic Man? Or Dreamboat Annie? Or even White Lightning And Wine, which was only released as an album track (not even as a B side). It's obvious the Wilson sisters poured everything they had into that first album, and it remains one of the best debut albums of all time.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Nobody's Fault But Mine
Source:    LP: Presence
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Swan Song
Year:    1976
    I have to say that the first time I saw the cover of Led Zeppelin's seventh studio LP, Presence, it totally creeped me out. Something about "the object" that shows up in a series of photgraphs of seemingly normal life just set me on edge. Musically, the album probably rocks out as hard as anything else released in 1976, especially on tracks like Nobody's Fault But Mine. Like most Zeppelin songs, the lyrics have a lot in common with early blues classics, in this case Blind Willie Johnson's 1927 recording It's Nobody's Fault But Mine and Robert Johnson's 1937 release Hell Hound On My Trail. As always, Jimmy Page presents some dazzling guitar work, including triple-tracked slide, on the recording, while John Bonham and John Paul Jones are a rhythm section in perfect sync with each other.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Josie
Source:    CD: Aja
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1977
    When it comes to a discussion of high productions standards in rock music, Steely Dan's 1977 effort, Aja, is often cited as a prime example. Ironically, the album itself is usually noted for its incorporation of non-rock elements, particularly from the realm of jazz. The final track on the album, Josie, is usually considered the most conventional rocker on the album, with Walter Becker's guitar solo singled out for praise (one critic called it a "real stormer"). Josie was released as the album's third single, making it into the top 30 and, surprisingly, hitting #44 on the easy listening chart.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Prelude-Nothing To Hide
Source:    LP: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Epic
Year:    1970
    Spirit's first few albums had generated good reviews but poor sales. Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus was considered at the time to be their last chance to reach a larger audience. The pseudo-polygamous lyrics of the album's opening track, Prelude-Nothing To Hide, are actually about the band members' commitment to their music, a commitment that is apparent throughout the album. Unfortunately even that level of commitment did not translate to commercial success, leading vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes to split from Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne soon thereafter.