Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2312 (starts 3/20/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/465911-pe-2312

    After squeezing in a record number of tunes last week, I figured it was time to stretch out a bit....but not until the second hour. To do that we pulled out three extra-long Advanced Psych tracks, including something from the first Weather Report album (recorded back before anyone had come up with the term jazz-rock fusion). And in our last segment we have back-to-back tracks from the original Vanilla Fudge and the band that was called by some critics "the British Vanilla Fudge" (both of which are, of course, cover songs).

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Most Anything You Want
Source:    CD: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Iron Butterfly will forever be known for the seventeen minute long In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, but, contrary to popular believe, they did record other songs as well, releasing four studio albums from 1968-1971. The In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida lineup of Doug Ingle (vocals, organ), Ron Bushy (drums), Lee Dorman (bass) and Erik Brann (guitar) was only around for two of those LPs, however, and can be heard on tracks like Most Anything You Want, which opens the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album.

Artist:    Bonzo Dog Band
Title:    I'm The Urban Spaceman
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Neil Innes
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (as they were originally called) was as much theatre (note the British spelling) as music, and were known for such antics as starting out their performances by doing calisthentics (after being introduced as the warm-up band) and having one of the members, "Legs" Larry Smith tapdance on stage (he was actually quite good). In 1967 they became the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's TV show that also featured sketch comedy by future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with David Jason, the future voice of Mr. Toad and Danger Mouse. Late in the year they appeared in the Beatles' telefilm Magical Mystery Tour, performing a song called Deathcab For Cutie. In 1968 the Bonzos released their only hit single, I'm The Urban Spaceman, co-produced by Paul McCartney. Frontman Neil Innes would go on to hook up with Eric Idle for the Rutles project, among other things, and is often referred to as the Seventh Python.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Dogs
Source:    CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Polydor (original label: Track)
Year:    1968
    Possibly the most obscure (to US audiences) Who song of the psychedelic era was Dogs, a single released only in the UK in 1968. The song was inspired by guitarist Pete Townshend's friend Chris Morphet, who was a fan of greyhound racing. Dogs was the first Who track to be recorded using then state-of-the-art eight-track recording equipment, and Townshend would later refer to it as one of the songs recorded during a period when the group went "slightly mad." The song remained unreleased in the US until the 1987 compilation album Two's Missing. Originally recorded in mono, the song was remixed in stereo in 1994 for the 30 Years Of Maximum R&B box set.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    That Means A Lot
Source:    Simulated stereo CD: Anthology 2
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/Apple
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 1996
    Originally written and recorded to be used in the film Help, That Means A Lot is a Paul McCartney composition that was ultimately given to PJ Proby to record. As John Lennon put it "We thought we'd give it to someone who could sing it well". Proby's version of That Means A Lot, released in September of 1965, went to the #24 spot on the British charts, while the original Beatles version, recorded in February of 1965, remained unreleased until 1996.

Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source:     CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:     1966
     One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
    
Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Waterloo Sunset
Source:    CD: Something Else
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    One of the most beautiful tunes ever recorded by the Kinks is Waterloo Sunset, a song that was a hit single in the UK, but was totally ignored by US radio stations. The reason for this neglect of such a stong song is a mystery, however it may have been due to the fear that American audiences would not be able to relate to all the references to places in and around London in the song's lyrics. The fact that the American Federation Of Musicians refused to issue permits for the Kinks to play concerts in the US between 1965 and 1969 (in all fairness due mainly to the band members' onstage behavior) probably had something to do with it as well.

Artist:    George Harrison
Title:    Dream Scene
Source:    CD: Wonderwall Music
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    Here's one for trivia buffs: What was the first LP released on the Apple label? If you answered The Beatles (White Album) you'd be close, but not quite on the money. The actual first Apple album was something called Wonderwall Music from a film called (what else?) Wonderwall. The album itself was quite avant garde, with virtually no commercial potential. One of the most notable tracks on the album is Dream Scene, an audio collage that predates John Lennon's Revolution 9 by several months.

Artist:    B.B. King
Title:    Friends
Source:    LP: Live And Well
Writer(s):    King/Szymczyk
Label:    Bluesway
Year:    1969
    Thanks to rock guitarists like Jimi Hendrix (who performed a fast version of Rock Me Baby at Monterey) and Eric Clapton, B.B. King reached a whole new audience in the late 1960s. In 1969, working with producer Bill Szymczyk, he released Live And Well, an album that featured live tracks on one side and studio tracks, with a different set of backup musicians, on the other. One of those studio tracks was the instrumental Friends, which features Paul "Harry" Harris on piano, Hugh McCracken on guitar, Gerald Jemmott on bass guitar and Herb Lovelle on drums, described by Szymczyk as "some of the best young blues musicians in the country".

Artist:    Spanky And Our Gang
Title:    Sunday Mornin'
Source:    "Cut down" from LP: Like To Get To Know You (edited to match single version)
Writer(s):    Margo Guryan
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    Despite peaking no higher than the #30 spot on the Hot 100 chart, Margo Guryan's Sunday Mornin' was listed by BMI as one of the 102 most performed songs of 1968. In addition to the most successful version of the song by Spanky And Our Gang (released in December of 1967 and appearing, in extended form, on the 1968 LP Like To Get To Know You), Sunday Mornin' appeared on albums by Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell, the Baja Marimba Band, Julie London, Richard "Groove" Holmes, and others, as well as appearing as a 1969 single by Oliver. Guryan herself included a version of the tune on her critically acclaimed LP Take A Picture.
    
Artist:    Lemon Pipers
Title:    Green Tambourine
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Green Tambourine)
Writer(s):    Leka/Pinz
Label:    Priority (original label: Buddah)
Year:    1967
    Originally known as Ivan And The Sabers, Oxford, Ohio's Lemon Pipers have the distinction of being the first band to score a number one hit for the Buddah label. Unfortunately for the band, it was their only hit. Making it even worse is the fact that, although the Lemon Pipers themselves were a real band that had been making recordings since 1964, they ended up being grouped in with several "bands" who were for the most part studio creations by the Kazenetz/Katz production team that supplied Buddah with a steady stream of bubble-gum hits throughout 1968.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    My Eyes Have Seen You
Source:    CD: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    It's strange. Some reviewers seem to think that the album Strange Days is inferior to the first Doors album. They justify this view by citing the fact that almost all the songs on both albums were already in the band's repertoire when they signed their record contract with Elektra. The implication is that the band naturally selected the best material for the first album, making Strange Days a collection of sloppy seconds. There is one small problem with this theory however. Pick a song at random from Strange Days and listen to it and in all likelihood it will sound every bit as good as a song randomly picked from the first album (and probably better than one picked from either of the Doors' next two LPs). In fact, I'll pick one for you: My Eyes Have Seen You. See what I mean?

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    The Lantern
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones hit a bit of a commercial slump in 1967. It seemed at the time that the old Beatles vs. Stones rivalry (a rivalry mostly created by US fans of the bands rather than the bands themselves) had been finally decided in favor of the Beatles with the chart dominance of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that summer. The Stones' answer to Sgt. Pepper's came late in the year, and was, by all accounts, their most psychedelic album ever. Sporting a cover that included a 5X5" hologram of the band dressed in wizard's robes, the album was percieved as a bit of a Sgt. Pepper's ripoff, possibly due to the similarity of the band members' poses in the holo. Musically Majesties was the most adventurous album the group ever made in their long history, amply demonstrated by songs like The Lantern. The Stones' next LP, Beggar's Banquet, was celebrated as a return to the band's roots.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
     The Music Machine was by far the most advanced of all the bands playing on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. Not only did they feature tight sets (ensuring that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other groups. With all the band members dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair) and wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell, disheartened, dissillusioned and/or disgusted, quit the music business altogether in 1970.

Artist:    Rovin' Kind
Title:    She
Source:    Mono CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1967
    Although primarily known for their live performances, The Rovin' Kind did manage to find time to record several cover songs for various labels before changing their name to Illinois Speed Press and signing with Columbia in 1969. Among those cover songs was She, released as a single on the Dunwich label in May of 1967, just a few short months after the song first appeared as the opening track on the album More Of The Monkees.

Artist:    Thee Midnighters
Title:    Jump, Jive And Harmonize
Source:    CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Espinoza/Garcia/Marquez
Label:    Rhino (original label: Whittier)
Year:    1967
    Although Max Uballez was the top producer of rock records by Hispanic artists in the Los Angeles area, the region's most popular band, Thee Midnighters, did not use Uballez's studios. Instead they chose to record at their own practice hall, the Jewel Theater. The result was a raw, energetic sound that suited their particular brand of raunch and roll.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Don't Want You Woman (Top Gear version)
Source:    British import CD: Ten Years After
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1967
    Originally broadcast in 1964 and revived in 1967, Top Gear was a showcase for up and coming progressive rock bands that ran on Saturday evenings on BBC Radio 1 into the early 1970s. One of the first bands to appear on the show was Ten Years After, playing songs from their debut LP such as Don't Want You Woman. Under host John Peel, Top Gear would go on to win several awards until a financial crunch forced the BBC to cancel the program in 1972.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Four Until Late
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Robert Johnson
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    By the time Cream was formed, Eric Clapton had already established himself as one of the world's premier blues-rock guitarists. He had not, however, done much singing, as the bands he had worked with all had strong vocalists: Keith Relf with the Yardbirds and John Mayall with the Bluesbreakers. With Cream, however, Clapton finally got a chance to do some vocals of his own. Most of these are duets with bassist Jack Bruce, who handled the bulk of Cream's lead vocals. Clapton did get to sing lead on a few Cream songs, however. One of the earliest ones was the band's updated version of Robert Johnson's Four Until Late, from the Fresh Cream album.

Artist:    Swinging Blue Jeans
Title:    Hippy Hippy Shake
Source:    Mono LP: History Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Chan Romero
Label:    Sire (original UK label: His Master's Voice; original US label: Imperial)
Year:    1963
    Merseybeat is the term applied to bands from Liverpool that were popular from around 1962 to 1965. Perhaps the most typical example of a Merseybeat band was the Swinging Blue Jeans. Formed as a skiffle sextet called the Bluegenes in 1957, the group switched to rock 'n' roll in 1962 after being booed off the stage at Hamburg's Star Club, taking the name Swinging Blue Jeans at the same time. They released their first single for EMI's His Master's Voice label in June of 1963, but had their greatest success with their December 1963 cover of Chan Romero's Hippy Hippy Shake. The song went to the #2 spot on the British charts and was one of the first British Invasion records to hit the Hot 100 in the US, peaking at #24.

Artist:    Claypool Lennon Delirium
Title:    Bubbles Burst/There's No Underwear In Space
Source:    LP: Monolith Of Phobos
Writer(s):    Claypool/Lennon
Label:    Ato
Year:    2016
    If any one track captures the essence of the Claypool Lennon Delirium, it's the final vocal work on Monolith Of Phobos, Bubbles Burst. The song seamlessly segues into the instrumental There's No Underwear In Space to close out the album.

Artist:    Rome Yamilov/Henry Kaiser
Title:    God's Word
Source:    CD: The Lenoir Investigation
Writer(s):    J.D. Lenoir
Label:    Little Village
Year:    2022
    The origins of the project that came to be known as The Lenoir Investigation can be traced back to Jim Pugh, who in 2014 started the Little Village Foundation to produce and distribute "culturally significant recordings made by individuals and groups that might otherwise not be heard beyond the artists' community or family". One of the first musicians he found was Mumbai-born blues harmonicist Aki Kumar. . Kumar, who now lives in San Jose, California, brought along drummer June Core and Russian-born guitarist Rome Yamilov (who has lived in San Jose since he was seven years old), to record the album Hindi Man Blues. Eventually Pugh suggested to Yamilov that he team with the legendary Bay Area "free improviser" guitarist Henry Kaiser to make a "crazy guitar" album. Pugh even had an idea for the subject matter: an exploration of the music of J.B. Lenoir, himself a blue legend who tragically died at the age of 38 from untreated injuries suffered in a car crash. With backup from Core, Kumar and bassist Kid Anderson (from Charlie Musselwhite's band), the two guitarists set out to deconstruct and then reimagine some of Lenoir's compositions. For those of you listening to God's Word in stereo (especially if you have headphones on), Yamilov's guitar, which is rooted solidly in the blues, is on the left side, while Kaiser's work, which tends to be a bit more (dare I say it?) psychedelic, is on the right.

Artist:    Weather Report
Title:    Waterfall
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Weather Report)
Writer(s):    Joe Zawinul
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Although keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter had known each other since 1959, it wasn't until the groundbreaking Miles Davis album In A Silent Way that they actually worked together. Following the completion of Davis's next album, Bitches Brew, the two of them recruited bassist Miroslav Vitouš to form Weather Report (although Vitouš's version of the band's origin has himself and Shorter recruiting Zawinul. Drummer Alphonse Mouzon and percussionist joined the group in time to record its self-titled debut LP in 1971. The album itself built on the avant-garde aspects of Bitches Brew, abandoning the traditional verse-chorus-bridge structure in favor of a more improvisational approach on tracks like Zawinul's Waterfall, with the percussion drawing a lot from the then-current progressive rock movement. In later years Weather Report would take a more R&B/funk approach.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
    After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the Byrds turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics adapted from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.

Artist:    Association
Title:    Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Renaissance)
Writer(s):    Gary Alexander
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: Valiant)
Year:    1966
    Following up on their monster hit Cherish, the Association released their most overtly psychedelic track, Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies, in late 1966, in advance of their second LP, Renaissance. The group had wanted to be more involved in the production process, and provided their own instrumental tracks for the tune, written by band member Gary Alexander. Unfortunately for the band, the single barely made the top 40, peaking at # 35, which ultimately led to the band relying more on outside songwriters and studio musicians for their later recordings such as Never My Love and Windy.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Take Me For A Little While/Eleanor Rigby
Source:    LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer(s):    Martin/Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Vanilla Fudge made their mark by doing slowed down rocked out versions of popular songs such as the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On. In fact, all of the tracks on their debut LP were songs of this nature, including two Beatles tunes. Side two of the original LP featured three tracks tied together by short psychedelic instrumental pieces knowns collectively as Illusions Of My Childhood. In addition to the aforementioned Supremes cover, the side features a Trade Martin composition called Take Me For A Little While that takes a diametrically opposed viewpoint to the first song, which leads directly into Eleanor Rigby, which sort of sums up both of the previous tracks lyrically. Although the Vanilla Fudge would stick around for a couple more years (and four more albums), they were never again able to match the commercial success of their 1967 debut LP.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    LP: Purple Passages (originally released on LP: Shades Of Deep Purple)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    My first impression of Deep Purple was that they were Britain's answer to the Vanilla Fudge. After all, both bands had a big hit in 1968 with a rearranged version of someone else's song from 1967 (Vanilla Fudge with the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On and Deep Purple with Billy Joe Royal's Hush). Additionally, both groups included a Beatles cover on their debut LP (Fudge: Ticket To Ride, Purple: Help). Finally, both albums included a depressing Cher cover song. In the Vanilla Fudge case it was one of her biggest hits, Bang Bang. Deep Purple, on the other hand, went with a song that was actually more closely associated with the Jimi Hendrix Experience (although Cher did record it as well): Hey Joe. The Deep Purple version of the Billy Roberts classic (originally credited on the label to the band itself), is probably the most elaborate of the dozens of recorded versions of the song (which is up there with Louie Louie in terms of quantity), incorporating sections of the Miller's Dance (by Italian classical composer Manuel de Falla), as well as an extended instrumental section, making the finished track over seven and a half minutes long.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    My Dream
Source:    CD: Then Play On
Writer(s):    Danny Kirwan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Danny Kirwan was only 17 and fronting his own band, Boilerhouse, when he came to the attention of Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green. Green invited the band to play a few opening gigs for Fleetwood Mac and before long the two guitarists were participating in after hours jams together. Drummer Mick Fleetwood invited Kirwan to join the band, and Kirwan became the group's fifth official member (Christine Perfect still having guest artist status at that point). After making his debut sharing lead guitar duties with Green on an instrumental single, Albatross, Kirwan settled in as a songwriting member of the band in time for their 1969 LP Then Play On, contributing as many songs to the album as Green himself (although the US version left two of those songs off the LP). Shortly after Then Play On's release, the group had a huge international hit with Oh, Well (part one), which led to the band's US label, Reprise, recalling the album and reissuing it with Oh Well (parts one and two) added to it. To make way for the nearly nine-minute track, two more of Kirwan's songs were deleted from the lineup. One of those two songs was the instrumental My Dream, which has been reinserted into the lineup on recent CD releases.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2312 (start 3/20/23)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/465907-dc-2312

    It's been over six years since we played Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick in its entirety on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, so I figured it was about time to do it again. Of course that doesn't leave a whole lot of time for anything else, but we did manage to fit in four (considerably) shorter tunes.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    ABC
Year:    1974
    For a while it looked like Steely Dan would, like many other early 70s bands, start strong and then slowly fade away. Their debut single, Do It Again, got a lot of airplay on AM top 40 radio, which actually worked against them when it came to the more album-oriented FM stations that were starting to pop up all over the US. Despite the fact that their second LP, Countdown To Ecstacy, was much more suited to FM, it was pretty much ignored by FM rock stations at the time. However, it all came together for the group with the release of their third LP, Pretzel Logic, in 1974. In addition to a big hit single (Rikki Don't Lose That Number), Pretzel Logic included several FM-friendly tunes, such as Any Major Dude Will Tell You, and was a favorite of the rock press.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Prelude-Nothing To Hide
Source:    CD: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Epic/Legacy
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 this classic 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.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    There I Go Again
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer(s):    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    The two sides of James Gang Rides Again sound like two entirely different albums. As it turns out, this was somewhat intentional. According to bassist Dale Peters, guitarist Joe Walsh had written a set of acoustic tunes while the band was recording what would become side one of the album. Rather than try to hastily come up with another side's worth of tunes, the band decided just to let Walsh record the songs he had already written with a minimum of accompaniment. Among those tunes on side two of James Gang Rides Again is There I Go Again, a catchy number that features Walsh on both acoustic and (overdubbed) steel guitar.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Thick As A Brick
Source:    CD: Thick As A Brick
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1972
    By the early 1970s, concept albums from progressive rock bands were becoming a bit of a cliche. In a few cases, such as Jethro Tull's Aqualung, the label was applied without the permission, or even the intention, of the artist making the album. In late 1971 Tull's Ian Anderson decided, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, that if the critics wanted a concept album so badly he would give them the "mother of all concept albums". In the early 1970s a type of humor known as parody was in vogue, thanks to magazines like National Lampoon and television shows like Monty Python's Flying Circus. Anderson, taking his cue from Monty Python in particular, decided that the next Jethro Tull album would combine complex music with wry humor targeting critics, audiences and even the band itself. To begin with, all the album's lyrics were credited to a fictional eight-year-old schoolboy named Gerald Bostock, whose "epic" poem was stirring up controversy in the small village of St. Cleve. Anderson created an elaborate backstory for the piece, fleshing it out with a 12 page small town newspaper parody, complete with local news, TV listings, and a sports section (among other things) that folded out when the album cover was opened. Thick As A Brick itself is one continuous musical work consisting of several sections that tie together thematically to lampoon modern life, religion and politics in particular. The piece, which lasts nearly 44 minutes, goes through several tempo and key changes, resembling classical music in terms of sheer complexity. The band also utilized a much greater variety of instruments on Thick As A Brick than they had on previous albums, including harpsichord, xylophone, timpani, violin, lute, trumpet, saxophone, and a string section. Recording took about three weeks in late December, with another month spent putting together the newspaper itself. The entire package was so well presented that many record buyers were under the impression that Gerald Bostock was indeed a real person. Although the album initially received mixed reviews from the rock press, it has since come to be regarded as a progressive rock classic. Indeed, many (including me) feel that Thick As A Brick is Jethro Tull's greatest accomplishment.

Artist:    America
Title:    A Horse With No Name
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Dewey Bunnell
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    In early 1967 my dad, a career military man in the USAF, got word that he was going to be transferred from his post as liason officer to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, to Lakenheath, England. Before the move could take place, however, his new posting got changed to Lindsay Air Station in Weisbaden, Germany. Of course we were all a bit disappointed with the change, but, as any enlisted man will tell you, you go where they tell you to go, period. If we had gone to England, however, I probably would have attended high school with three other Air Force brats who went on to form a band called America shortly after graduation. As it turned out, however, I did not hear of any of them until after I returned to the US and graduated from high school myself, when I first heard A Horse With No Name on the radio. It was the first of many hits for America in the 1970s.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2311 (starts 3/13/23)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/465007-pe-2311

    This week we manage to squeeze 35 tunes into a two hour show, half a dozen of which are making their first appearance on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, including a 1968 single that might be of interest to anyone familiar with the first Led Zeppelin album. Of course that means lots of short tracks, but we did include the eight and a half minute long title track of the first Elton John album to balance things out a bit.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Good Day Sunshine
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    When the Beatles' Revolver album came out, radio stations all over the US began playing various non-single album tracks almost immediately. Among the most popular of those was Paul McCartney's Good Day Sunshine. It was in many ways an indication of the direction McCartney's songwriting would continue to take for several years.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Good Vibrations
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Although I had originally discovered top 40 radio in 1963 (when I received a small Sony transistor radio for my birthday), it wasn't until 1966 that I really got into it in a big way. This was due to a combination of a couple of things: first, my dad bought a console stereo, and second, my junior high school went onto split sessions, meaning that I was home by one o'clock every day. This gave me unprecedented access to Denver's two big top 40 AM stations, as well as an FM station that was experimenting with a Top 100 format for a few hours each day. At first I was content to just listen to the music, but soon realized that the DJs were making a point of mentioning each song's chart position just about every time that song would play. Naturally I began writing all this stuff down in my notebook (when I was supposed to be doing my homework), until I realized that both KIMN and KBTR actually published weekly charts, which I began to diligently hunt down at various local stores. In addition to the songs occupying numbered positions on the charts, both stations included songs at the bottom of the list that they called "pick hits". These were new releases that had not been around long enough to achieve a chart position. The one that most stands out in my memory was the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, a song I liked so much that I went out to the nearest Woolco and bought it the afternoon I heard it. Within a few weeks Good Vibrations had gone all the way to the top of the charts, and I always felt that some of the credit should go to me for buying the record when it first came out (hey I was 13, OK?). Over the next couple of years I bought plenty more singles, but to this day Good Vibrations stands out as the most significant 45 RPM record purchase I ever made.
    
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Paint It, Black
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Aftermath)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1966
    The 1966 Rolling Stones album Aftermath was the first to be made up entirely of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The opening track of the LP, however, was not included on the British version of the album. That song, the iconic Paint It, Black, had already been released in the UK as a single, and would go on to become one of the Stones' defining recordings of the era.

Artist:    Boots
Title:    Gaby
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in West Germany as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Krabbe/Bresser
Label:    Rhino (original label: Telefunken)
Year:    1966
    Formed in Berlin in 1965, the Boots were one of the more adventurous bands operating on the European mainland. While most bands in Germany tended to emulate the Beatles, the Boots took a more underground approach, growing their hair out just a bit longer than their contemporaries and appealing to a more Bohemian type of crowd. Lead guitarist Jurg "Jockel" Schulte-Eckle was known for doing strange things to his guitar onstage using screwdrivers, beer bottles and the like to create previously unheard of sounds. On vinyl the band comes off as being just a bit ahead of its time, as can be heard clearly on the original group's final single, Gaby, a song written by singer Werner Krabbe and bassist Bob Bresser. Not long after Gaby's release, Krabbe left the band. Although the Boots continued on with various configurations until 1969, they were never able to recapture the magic generated by the original lineup.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    I Put A Spell On You
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Animalization
Writer(s):    Jay Hawkins
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    Sometimes you have to wonder if there was maybe just a little bit of spite and bitterness going on between Alan Price and Eric Burdon during the first six months of 1966. After all, before Burdon joined the band as lead vocalist in 1962, it was known as the Alan Price Rhythm And Blues Combo, but soon was rechristened the Animals. Over the next couple of years Burdon supplanted Price as the band's leader, both on and off stage, finally leading Price to leave the group in mid-1965 to form his own band, the Alan Price Combo. The second single released by Price was a cover of Screaming Jay Hawkins' I Put A Spell On You, released in March of 1966. At that same time, the Animals, with new keyboardist Dave Rowberry, were in the process of recording their third album, Animalisms, which would be released later that year in the US with a modified song lineup as Animalization. So is it just coincidence that the Animals included their own version of I Put A Spell On You on that album?

Artist:    Jake Holmes
Title:    Dazed And Confused
Source:    LP: Nuggets vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released on LP: The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes)
Writer(s):    Jake Holmes
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    On Auguest 5th, 1967 a little known singer/songwriter named Jake Holmes opened for the Yardbirds for a gig in New York City, performing songs from his debut LP The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes, including a rather creepy sounding tune called Dazed And Confused. Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty, who was actually in the audience for Holmes's set, went out and bought a copy of the album the next day. Soon after that the Yardbirds began performing their own modified version of Dazed And Confused. Tower Records, perhaps looking to take advantage of the Yardbirds popularization of the tune, released Dazed And Confused as a single in January of 1968. Meanwhile, the Yardbirds split up, with guitarist Jimmy Page forming a new band called Led Zeppelin. One of the songs Led Zeppelin included on their 1969 debut LP was yet another new arrangement of Dazed And Confused, with new lyrics provided by Page and singer Robert Plant. This version was credited entirely to Page. Holmes himself, not being a fan of British blues-rock, was not aware of any of this at first, and then let things slide until 2010, when he filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. The matter was ultimately settled out of court, and all copies of the first Led Zeppelin album made from 2014 on include "inspired by Jake Holmes" in the credits.
    
Artist:    Who
Title:    Faith In Something Better
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out (Super Deluxe version bonus track)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Polydor/UMC
Year:    1968
    One of the bonus discs in the Super Deluxe edition of The Who Sell Out is subtitled The Road To Tommy, and includes several tracks that were recorded in 1968, but abandoned as the rock opera Tommy took shape. Faith In Something Better is one of those songs.
    
Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Dino's Song
Source:    LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Quicksilver Messenger Service)
Writer(s):    Chet Powers, aka Dino Valenti
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    A few years back I picked up the DVD collector's edition of the telefilm that DA Pennebacker made of the Monterey International Pop Festival. In addition to the film itself there were two discs of bonus material, including a song by Quicksilver Messenger Service that was listed under the title All I Ever Wanted To Do (Was Love You). I spent some time trying to figure out which album the song had originally appeared on, but came up empty until I got a copy of the first Quicksilver album and discovered it was actually called Dino's Song. I suspect the confusion in song titles is connected to the origins of the band itself, which was the brainchild of Dino Valenti and John Cipollina (and possibly Gary Duncan). The day after their first practice session Valenti got busted and spent the next few years in jail for marijuana possession. My theory is that this was an untitled song that Valenti showed Cippolina at that first practice. Since it probably still didn't have a title when the group performed the song at Monterey, the filmmakers used the most repeated line from the song itself, All I Ever Wanted To Do (Was Love You). When the band recorded their first LP in 1968 they just called it Dino's Song.

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

Artist:    Savage Resurrection
Title:    Thing In "E"
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: The Savage Resurrection)
Writer(s):    John Palmer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1968
    Like many areas across the US during the mid-1960s, Contra Costa County, California (say that a few times fast) was home to a thriving local music scene, particularly in the city of Richmond. In 1967 members of several local bands got together to form a sort of garage supergroup, calling themselves Savage Resurrection (so called because of the Native American heritage of a couple of band members). The band, consisting of lead vocalist Bill Harper, lead guitarist Randy Hammon, rhythm guitarist John Palmer, bassist Steve Lage and drummer Jeff Myer, was quite popular locally despite the relative youth of its members (Hammon, for instance, was all of 16 years old), and soon signed a management contract with Matthew Katz, who also managed such well-known San Francisco bands as Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and It's A Beautiful Day. Katz got the band a contract with Mercury records, and their first and only LP came out in 1968. Thing In "E" was the single from that album, which is still considered one of the best examples of psychedelic garage rock ever recorded. Touring soon took its toll, however, and Harper and Lage left the band soon after the album was released. The rest of the band continued with new members for a few months, but by the end of 1968 Savage Resurrection was little more than a footnote to the San Francisco music story.

Artist:    Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs
Title:    Little Miss Muffet
Source:    Mono LP: Little Miss Riding Hood
Writer(s):    Irby/Samudio
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    If you thought the 1966 Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs hit Little Red Riding Hood was silly, wait until you hear Little Miss Muffet! The song was co-written by Maurice Irby (Apple, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie) and Domingo Samudio (Sam The Sham's given name).

Artist:     Five Americans
Title:     Western Union
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Rabon/Ezell/Durrell
Label:     Abnak
Year:     1967
     One of the biggest hits of 1967 came from a band from Southeastern State College in Durant Oklahoma, although they probably played at least as many gigs in neighboring Texas as in their home state. The Five Americans, having already scored a minor hit with I See The Light the previous year, hit the #5 spot on the national charts with Western Union, featuring a distinctive opening organ riff designed to evoke the sound of a telegraph receiver picking up Morse code.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Iron Butterfly Theme
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: Heavy)
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Although much of the material on the first Iron Butterfly album, Heavy, has a somewhat generic L.A. club sound to it, the final track, the Iron Butterfly Theme, sounds more in line with the style the band would become known for on their In-A-Gadda-Vida album a few months later. No wonder, then, that it was chosen to be the B side of the single version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida itself, albeit in an edited form.
    
Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Volunteers (live version)
Source:     CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer:     Balin/Kantner
Label:     Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year:     1969
     Although Jefferson Airplane did a solid set at Woodstock, the only song chosen for inclusion on the original soundtrack album was Volunteers, the shortest tune they played that day. I guess the people who compiled the album weren't big Airplane fans.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Albert Common Is Dead
Source:    Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    The second Blues Magoos LP, Electric Comic Book, was much in the same vein as their 1966 debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, with a mix of fast and slow originals and a couple of cover songs, one of which was done in an extended rave-up style. The second side opener, Albert Common Is Dead, is a fast rocker (with a slowed down final chorus) about an average guy's decision to take to the road, leaving his former life behind. As many young people were doing exactly that during the summer of 1967, you might expect such a song to become somewhat of a soundtrack of its times, but with so many other songs filling that role, Albert Common Is Dead was largely overlooked by the listening public.

Artist:    Balloon Farm
Title:    A Question Of Temperature
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label:    Rhino (original label: Laurie)
Year:    1967
    It's not entirely clear whether the Balloon Farm was an actual band or simply an East Coast studio concoction. Regardless, they did manage to successfully cross garage rock with bubble gum for A Question Of Temperature, originally released on the Laurie label in 1967. Band member Mike Appel went on to have greater notoriety as Bruce Springsteen's first manager.
    
Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Desiree
Source:    Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brown/Feher
Label:    Rhino (original label: Smash)
Year:    1967
    For a while it looked as if the Left Banke would emerge as one of the most important bands of the late 60s. They certainly got off to a good start, with back-to-back top 10 singles Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina. But then bandleader Michael Brown and Smash Records made a serious misstep, issuing a Brown solo effort called Ivy Ivy utilizing studio musicians and trying to pass it off as a Left Banke record. The other band members refused to go along with the charade and sent out letters to their fan club membership denouncing the single. The outraged fans, in turn, threatened to boycott any radio stations that played the single. Brown and the rest of the band, meanwhile, managed to patch things up enough to record a new single, Desiree, and released the song in late 1967. By then, however, radio stations were leery of playing anything with the words Left Banke on the label, and the single failed to chart, despite being an outstanding song. Brown left the Left Banke soon after.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Hey Friend
Source:    LP: Feelings
Writer(s):    Entner/Grill
Label:    ABC/Dunhill
Year:    1968
    The 1968 LP Feelings was an attempt by the Grass Roots to take control of their own artistic destiny with songs like Hey Friend, written by rhythm guitarist Warren Entner and bassist Rob Grill. Entner sings lead on the tune.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Feelings
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Feelings and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Coonce/Entner/Fukomoto
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    In 1968 the Grass Roots decided to assert themselves and take artistic control of their newest album, Feelings, writing most of the material for the album themselves. Unfortunately for the band, the album, as well as its title track single, fared poorly on the charts. From that point on the Grass Roots were firmly under the control of producers/songwriters Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, cranking out a series of best-selling hits such as I'd Wait A Million Years and Midnight Confessions (neither of which get played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, incidentally).

Artist:    "E" Types
Title:    Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    The E-Types were originally from Salinas, California, which at the time was known for its distinct odor of sulfer noticed by travelers along US 101. As many people from Salinas apparently went to "nearby" San Jose (about 60 miles to the north) as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene there, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. The Bonner/Gordon songwriting team were just a couple months away from getting huge royalty checks from the Turtles' Happy Together when Put The Clock Back On The Wall was released in early 1967. The song takes its title from a popular phrase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space) it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer.
    
Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Rosy Won't You Please Come Home
Source:    Mono LP: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    The Davies were a close-knit family living in Muswell Hill, North London in the mid-20th century. Close enough, in fact, for two of the family members, Ray and Dave, to form (with fellow Muswell Hill resident Peter Quaife) their own rock band in the 1960s. That band, the Kinks, became one of the most popular and influential bands of the British Invasion. In 1964 a third family member, Rosy, moved to Australia with her husband Arthur, which devastated brother Ray to the point that he, in his own words "collapsed in a heap on the sandy beach and wept like a pathetic child" on the day that they left. Two years later the Kinks recorded Rosy Won't You Please Come Home and included it on the album Face To Face. When that didn't work they tried an entire album: Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) in 1969.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    A Well Respected Man
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year:    Released 1965, charted 1966
    The Kinks were one of the original British Invasion bands, scoring huge R&B-influenced hits with You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night in 1964. The hits continued in 1965 with more melodic songs like Set Me Free and Tired Of Waiting For You. 1966 saw Ray Davies's songwriting take a satiric turn, as A Well Respected Man (actually released in late 1965) amply illustrates. Over the next few years the Kinks would continue to evolve, generally getting decent critical reviews but less than stellar record sales (in part because of a performance ban imposed on them by the American Federation of Musicians) for their albums until 1970, when the song Lola became a huge international hit, reviving the band's fortunes.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Session Man
Source:    Mono import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary UK (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Nicky Hopkins was one of only a handful of studio musicians who managed to acquire some fame beyond the musicians' community itself. The keyboardist had actually been a member of a band at age 16, but was forced to quit when health issues made it impossible for him to perform live on a regular basis. Such was his level of talent, however, that he soon found work in various London studios, playing on dozens of albums by such well-known groups as the Who, the Rolling Stones and the Kinks. The Kinks, in particular, were so impressed with his work that their leader, Ray Davies, wrote a song about him, Session Man, and recorded it on their 1966 album Face To Face. Hopkins would eventually get even more exposure, performing with Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock and becoming, for a time, a member of Quicksilver Messenger Service. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    All Along The Watchtower
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Electric Ladyland)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them have become better known than the original Dylan versions. Probably the most notable of these is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source:    LP: Best Of Traffic (originally released as 45 RPM B side and on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s):    Capaldi/Winwood
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The second Traffic album saw the band taking in a broader set of influences, including traditional English folk music. (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released in the UK as the B side to the tune No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Your Mind And We Belong Together
Source:    Australian import CD: Comes In Colours (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1968
    The last record to be released by the classic Love lineup of Arthur Lee, Ken Forssi, Johnny Echols, Bryan MacLean and Michael Stuart was a single, Your Mind And We Belong Together. Although released in 1968, the song is very much the same style as the 1967 album Forever Changes. A bonus track on the Forever Changes CD shows Lee very much in command of the recording sessions, calling for over two dozen takes before getting an acceptable version of the song. The song serves as a fitting close to the story of one of the most influential, yet overlooked, bands in rock history...or would have, if Lee had not tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the band's success with new members several times in the ensuing years.

Artist:    Cat Stevens
Title:    A Bad Night
Source:    LP: Very Young And Early Sides
Writer(s):    Cat Stevens
Label:    Deram
Year:    1967
    Cat Stevens was a bit of a phenom in his native UK in the late 1960s, but did not become well known in the US until the release of Wild World in 1971. The following year his old label put together a compilation LP of his early work and issued it in the US and other countries (but not the UK), as Very Young And Early Sides. A Bad Night, originally released in 1967, was his fourth consecutive British top 40 single, peaking at #20.
    
Artist:    Seeds
Title:    It's A Hard Life
Source:    LP: The Seeds
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    If there was any real weakness in the first Seeds album, it was a certain sameness among the songs on the LP. There were exeptions, however, such as It's A Hard Life, which manages to stay true to the Seeds' style without sounding too much like Pushin' Too Hard.

Artist:      Woolies  
Title:     Who Do You Love
Source:      CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Elias McDaniel
Label:     Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1966
     Lansing, Michigan was home to the Woolies, who scored a minor hit covering Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love, thanks in large part to the song being issued on Lou Adler's Dunhill Records, which was at that time one of the hottest new labels around.

Artist:    Syndicate Of Sound
Title:    Witch
Source:    LP: Little Girl
Writer(s):    Gerry Roslie
Label:    Bell
Year:    1966
    Prior to 1966, most LPs by an American pop group consisted of the group's one or two hit singles and a bunch of cover versions of currently popular songs, with an occasional group original thrown in. But thanks to British bands like the Beatles, Kinks and Rolling Stones, that was starting to change. The 1966 LP Little Girl by the San Jose, California band Syndicate Of Sound, for instance, consisted of 50% original compositions, and even some of the covers were of lesser known tunes such as Witch (aka The Witch), which had been the opening track of the Sonics' debut LP the year before.
    
Artist:     Electric Prunes
Title:     Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less)
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Tucker/Mantz
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     For a follow-up to the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger chose another Annette Tucker song (co-written by Jill Jones) called Get Me To The World On Time. This was probably the best choice from the album tracks available, but Hassinger may have made a mistake by choosing Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less) as the B side. That song, written by the same Tucker/Mantz team that wrote I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) could quite possibly been a hit single in its own right if it had been issued as an A side. I guess we'll never know for sure.

Artist:    Wildflower
Title:    Coffee Cup
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers)
Writer(s):    Ehret/Ellis
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    The Wildflower was somewhat typical of the San Francisco brand of folk-rock; less political in the lyrics and less jangly on the instrumental side. Although Coffee Cup was recorded in 1965, it did not get released until the summer of love two years later, on a collection of recordings by a variety of artists on Bob Shad's Mainstream label. By then it was too late to do the band itself any good.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    World Of Pain
Source:    LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Whereas the first Cream LP was made up of mostly blues-oriented material, Disraeli Gears took a much more psychedelic turn, due in large part to the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. The Bruce/Brown team was not, however, the only source of material for the band. Both Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker made contributions, as did Cream's unofficial fourth member, keyboardist/producer Felix Pappalardi, who co-wrote World Of Pain with his wife Janet Collins. Pappalardi would later become a founding member of Mountain, playing bass parts on his keyboards.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Empty Sky
Source:    British import LP: Empty Sky
Writer(s):    John/Taupin
Label:    DJM
Year:    1968 (US release: 1975)
    One of the first British blues bands was a group called Bluesology. Formed in 1961 by organist Reg Dwight and  guitarist/vocalist Stu Brown, who were both fourteen at the time, the group also included bassist Rex Bishop and Mick Inkpen. Despite being underage, Bluesology was performing locally in pubs in the London suburb of Pinner, Middlesex by 1962, playing covers of tunes by Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim and other American blues artists. In 1965 the group became a professional backup band for visiting American performers such as the Isley Brothers, Billy Stewart and Patti LaBelle. The original lineup of Bluesology cut a pair of singles in 1965, both written by Dwight, but neither of them charted. The following year Dwight and Brown formed a new, expanded version of Bluesology to serve as backup band for vocalist Long John Baldry, releasing a single as Stu Brown and Bluesology late in the year. By the end of 1967 Dwight had grown disenchanted with Baldry's move away from R&B toward a more cabaret style and left Bluesology for a solo career, using the stage name Elton John. Working with lyricist Bernie Taupin, John became a staff songwriter for DJM Records in 1968, cranking out easy listening tunes for artists such as Lulu to record while also working on more complex material for John to record himself. After a couple of singles, Elton John released his first solo LP, Empty Sky, in 1969. The longest and most complex piece on the album was the opening track, also titled Empty Sky, about which John later had this to say:  "I remember when we finished work on the title track - it just floored me. I thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard in my life." Empty Sky (the album) was not released in the US until 1975, after Elton John was well-established among rock's elite.
    
Artist:    Doors
Title:    Gloria
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Elektra
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 1983
    Following the death of Jim Morrison in 1971, the remaining members of the Doors stayed together long enough to release two more albums, but neither was a major seller and the group quietly disbanded in 1973, reuniting in 1978 to set music to an album's worth of spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry and releasing it as An American Prayer. The following year filmmaker Oliver Stone used, in its entirety, the epic piece The End, from the first doors album in the critically-acclaimed Apocalypse Now, resulting in even more interest in the music of the Doors. In 1983 Elektra Records released Alive, She Cried, an LP made up of live performances by the band recorded between September1968 and January 1970. One of these live performances, a cover version of Van Morrison's Gloria, was actually a sound check recorded on July 22, 1969 at the Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles, and was susequently released as a single. 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2311 (starts 3/13/23

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/465006-dc-2311

    This week we feature back to back Peter Gabriel tracks, one with and one without Genesis. Also on the bill what is acknowledged as one of Jimi Hendrix's greatest live performances and a half dozen other tunes from the early to mid 1970s.

Artist:    George Harrison
Title:    Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
Source:    LP: Living In The Material World
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1973
    Of all the former members of the Beatles, guitarist George Harrison had the hottest start as a solo artist. His first album following the band's breakup, 1970's All Things Must Pass, was a critical and commercial blockbuster. He followed it up with the multi-artist benefit Concert For Bangla Desh in 1971, but was reportedly exhausted from his efforts to see that the money raised went where it was intended to. For the next year and a half he struggled to maintain a growing adherence to the spiritual path he had first entered when the Beatles went to India while participating in such worldly activities as producing singles for former bandmate Ringo Starr and others, sitting in on friends' studio recordings (including Nilsson's infamous You're Breaking My Heart), losing his driver's license for wreckless driving (he crashed his Mercedes into a roundabout at 90MPH) and doing a lot of cocaine. It was this constant inner conflict that fueled his next album, 1973's Living In The Material World. The album's lead single, Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth), topped the US charts, the last time a Harrison song would do so until 1981, and became a staple of his concert performances for the rest of his life.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title:    Hear My Train A Comin'
Source:    CD: Blues (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 1971
    Jimi Hendrix first came up with the song known as Hear My Train A Comin' (although he usually introduced it as Get My Heart Back Together) in 1967, but was never able to get a studio version of the tune recorded to his satisfaction. Nonetheless, he did play the song live on several occasions, including at Woodstock. What is generally agreed to be the definitive version of the song was recorded on May 30, 1970 at the Berkeley Community Theatre, with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell, a trio billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The recording of that performance was first released on the Rainbow Bridge album in 1971, and later included on the 1994 compilation album Blues.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    The Wizard
Source:    CD: Black Sabbath
Writer:    Osborne/Iommi/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers/Rhino
Year:    1970
    Often cited as the first true heavy metal album, Black Sabbath's debut LP features one of my all-time favorite album covers (check out the Stuck in the Psychedelic Era Facebook page's Classic Album Covers section) as well as several outstanding tracks. One of the best of these is The Wizard, which was reportedly inspired by the Gandalf character from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

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

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Battle Of Epping Forest
Source:    CD: Selling England By The Pound
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1973
    Although sometimes criticized for making their music overly complicated at times (such as on The Battle Of Epping Forest), there is no doubting the thought and effort (not to mention outstanding musicianship) put forth by Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett and Phil Collins on the album Selling England By The Pound. Released in 1973, the LP focuses on the loss of traditional English culture and the increasing "Americanization" of the United Kingdom in the last half of the 20th century. The Battle Of Epping Forest was actually inspired by a newspaper article about gang violence in London's East end that Gabriel had read several years earlier. When Gabriel was unable to locate a copy of the article he created new characters to populate the song (and of course the band's legendary stage show).

Artist:    Peter Gabriel
Title:    Solsbury Hill
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Peter Gabriel
Label:    Atco
Year:    1977
    Vocalist Peter Gabriel's first single after leaving Genesis was Solsbury Hill, a song inspired by a spiritual experience Gabriel had atop Little Solsbury Hill in Somerset, England. Gabriel said of the song:  "It's about being prepared to lose what you have for what you might get ... It's about letting go." The song hit the top 20 in the UK and shows up from time to time in various TV and movie soundtracks.
    
Artist:    Doors
Title:    A Little Game/The Hill Dwellers/Spanish Caravan
Source:    CD: Live At Hollywood Bowl
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1987
    The shortest (by far) Doors album ever released was Live At Hollywood Bowl. Released in 1987 on both LP and CD, the album clocks in at 19:09 and 22:43 respectively. To put it into perspective, side one of the 1973 Genesis LP clocks in at 25:07...and that's the short side of the album. Part of the reason is technical; Jim Morrison's vocal mike was badly distorted at the beginning of the concert, making several songs unuseable. Another factor was that the album itself was the soundtrack to a filmed concert that was simultaneously released on VHS tape, although the video is actually longer than either audio version. Some of the pieces that did make the album, such as A Little Game and The Hill Dwellers, were part of the Celebration Of The Lizard, a massive work that the band was never able to get a satisfactory recording of in the studio. In this case the two bits run together and lead into a short section of Spanish Caravan.
    
Artist:    Jean-Luc Ponty
Title:    Between You And Me
Source:    LP: Aurora
Writer(s):    Jean-Luc Ponty
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1976
    Originally trained as a classical violinist, and playing in an orchestra sponsored by Concerts Lamoureux, Jean-Luc Ponty took a side job playing clarinet in a college jazz band. Becoming a fan of John Coltrane, Ponty learned to play the saxophone as well. One night, after an orchestral concert, he showed up at a local jazz club with only his violin and proceeded to play it in a be-bop style. Within four years he was considered the world's foremost "jazz fiddler". An invitation from John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet to play the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1967 led to a recording contract with Liberty's World Pacific label, which culminated in the 1970 album King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa. This in turn led to Ponty emigrating to the United States and touring as a member of the Mothers Of Invention. In 1975 he signed with Atlantic, releasing a dozen consecutive top five jazz albums over the next ten years. The second of these was Aurora, released in 1976. Between You And Me, like the rest of the LP, was composed by Ponty himself.

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     Abbey Road Medley #2
Source:     CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:     1969
     The Beatles had been experimenting with songs leading into other songs since the Sgt. Pepper's album. With Abbey Road they took it a step further, with side two of the album containing two such medleys. The second one consists of Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End, with Her Majesty (not included on this week's show) tossed in as a kind of "hidden" track at the end of the album. The End is somewhat unique in that it features solos by all three guitar-playing members of the band, as well as the only Ringo Starr drum solo to appear on a Beatles album.

    

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2310 (starts 3/6/23)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/464078-pe-2310

    This week's show starts off with a Beatles set and includes an Advanced Psych segment consisting entirely of tracks recorded at a certain independent Albuquerque, New Mexico studio that no longer exists. The rest of the show isn't quite so self-indulgent.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Birthday/Yer Blues
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    One of the great ironies of rock history was that the album entitled simply The Beatles was the one that had the fewest songs with all four of the band members playing on them. By 1968 the Beatles were experiencing internal conflicts, and nearly all of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songs were played by just the two of them, while George Harrison's songs (and Ringo Starr's single contribution as a songwriter) featured an array of some of the UK's top musicians (including guitarist Eric Clapton). The opening tracks of side three of the album are typical of this approach, as Birthday is essentially a McCartney solo piece. Yer Blues, on the other hand, has Lennon singing and playing guitar, with probably McCartney on bass and drums. The first performance of Yer Blues in front of a live audience was in December of 1968 as part of the Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus. It was not the Beatles however, that performed the tune. Instead, Yer Blues was played by the Dirty Mac, a jam band consisting of Lennon, Clapton, drummer Mitch Mitchell (of the Jimi Hendrix Experience), and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. That performance was never seen, other than by the studio audience, until the entire Circus was released on DVD a few years ago (Mick Jagger reportedly had the entire project shelved due to his dissatisfaction with the Stones' performance).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Baby, You're A Rich Man
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    Baby, You're A Rich Man was one of the last actual collaborations between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and addresses the Beatles' longtime manager Brian Epstein, although not by name. Lennon came up with the basic question "how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" (a popular term for the young and hip in late 60s London), which became the basis for the song's verses, which were combined with an existing, but unfinished, Paul McCartney chorus (Baby, You're A Rich Man, too). The finished piece was issued as the B side of the Beatles' second single of 1967, All You Need Is Love, and later remixed in stereo and included on the US-only LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.
          
Artist:    Mamas and the Papas
Title:    Somebody Groovy
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM B side)
Writer:    John Phillips
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1965
    The Mamas and the Papas were blessed with strong vocals and even stronger songwriting. Their debut single, California Dreamin', written by John & Michelle Phillips, is one of the defining songs of the mid-sixties. The B side of that single, released in 1965, was another John Phillips tune, Somebody Groovy.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    See See Rider
Source:    CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals 1966-1968 (originally released on LP: Animalization and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ma Rainey
Label:    Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1966
    One of the last singles released by the original incarnation of the Animals (and the first to use the name Eric Burdon And The Animals on the label), See See Rider traces its roots back to the 1920s, when it was first recorded by Ma Rainey. The Animals version is considerably faster than most other recordings of the song, and includes a signature opening rift by organist Dave Rowberry (who had replaced founder Alan Price prior to the recording of the Animalization album that the song first appeared on) that is unique to the Animals' take on the tune.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Glittering Girl
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Track/Polydor (original US label: MCA)
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1995
    The Who often recorded more material than they could fit on an album, resulting in several unreleased tracks remaining in the vaults for years. One of these was Glittering Girl, a Pete Townshend tune that was recorded around the same time as the songs on The Who Sell Out. Although originally intended for single release (they went with Pictures Of Lily instead), Glittering Girl was finally issued as a bonus track on the 1995 CD release of The Who Sell Out and is included on disc two of the remastered vinyl edition of the LP.
    
Artist:     Frumious Bandersnatch
Title:     Hearts To Cry
Source:     Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on self-titled EP)
Writer:     Jack King
Label:     Big Beat (original label: Muggles Gramophone Works)
Year:     1968
     Rock music and the real estate business have something in common: location can make all the difference. Take the San Francisco Bay Area. You have one of the world's great Cosmopolitan cities at the north end of a peninsula. South of the city, along the peninsula itself you have mostly redwood forest land interspersed with fairly affluent communities along the way to Silicon Valley and the city of San Jose at the south end of the bay. The eastern side of the bay, on the other hand, spans a socio-economic range from blue collar to ghetto and is politically conservative; not exactly the most receptive environment for a hippy band calling itself Frumious Bandersnatch, which is a shame, since they had at least as much talent as any other band in the area. Unable to develop much of a following, they are one of the great "should have beens" of the psychedelic era, as evidenced by Hearts To Cry, the lead track of their 1968 untitled EP.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Touch Me (Doors only mix w/ new lead guitar overdub)
Source:    CD: The Soft Parade (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Robby Kreiger
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968, overdub added 2019
    For those of us who found the use of horns and strings to be totally out of place on a Doors album, there is now a version of the 1969 album The Soft Parade that strips away all those extra instruments, allowing the band's actual playing to be heard clearly for the first time. In addition, guitarist Robby Krieger has added new guitar solos to a couple of tracks, including the hit song Touch Me (replacing the saxophone solo originally heard on the late 1968 single). Also more prominent is the keyboard work from Ray Manzarek, which was originally buried in the mix.
The song also features the legendary Harvey Brooks (Super Session, Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album, countless others) on bass.

Artist:    Syndicate Of Sound
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    CD: Battle Of The Bands, Vol. Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Baskin/Gonzalez
Label:    Era (original labels: Hush & Bell)
Year:    1966
    San Jose California, despite being a relatively small city in the pre-silicon valley days, was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced more than its share of hit records from 1966-68. One of the earliest and biggest of these hits was the Syndicate Of Sound's Little Girl, which has come to be recognized as one of the top garage-rock songs of all time. It's also one of the few original garage-rock hits recorded and mixed in true stereo. Little Girl was originally released regionally in mid 1966 on the Hush label, and reissued nationally by Bell Records a couple months later.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Rock And Roll Woman
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth) while they were together. Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock And Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 50 years after it was recorded.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Until The Poorest People Have Money To Spend
Source:    CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
            The final West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is generally considered the group's best album as well, despite the absence of founding member Danny Harris (who would return for their next LP on the Amos label). As always, Bob Markley provided the lyrics for all the band's original songs on the album, including Until The Poorest People Have Money To Spend, which Shaun Harris wrote the music for. Although the sentiment expressed in the song is a good one, the sincerity of Markley's lyrics is somewhat suspect, according to guitarist Ron Morgan, who said that Markley was notoriously miserly with his own money (of which he had inherited quite a lot).
     
Artist:    Soft Machine
Title:    Why Am I So Short?/So Boot If At All/A Certain Kind
Source:    LP: The Soft Machine
Writer(s):    Ratledge/Ayers/Hopper/Wyatt
Label:    ABC Probe
Year:    1968
    Fun fact: although Kevin Ayers is probably best known as a founding member of the British band Soft Machine, he only appeared on the band's first LP before leaving the group following their first US tour in 1968. While on tour with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the band, which in addition to Ayers on bass and guitar, Mike Ratledge on organ and Robert Wyatt on drums and lead vocals, found time to record their first album, working with producers Tom Wilson and Chas Chandler, in New York. The tracks on the album tend to segue into each other, with the second half of the first side consisting of Why Am I So Short, followed by what is basically a drum solo called So Boot If At All, which leads into a piece called A Certain Kind, written by Hugh Hopper, who ended up replacing Ayers on bass.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Remember A Day
Source:    CD: Relics (originally released on LP: A Saucerful Of Secrets)
Writer(s):    Rick Wright
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Trivia question: Which Pink Floyd album never made the US album charts? The answer:  A Saucerful Of Secrets, the band's second LP. Like the band's debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, A Saucerful Of Secrets was released on Capitol's Tower subsidiary and received virtually no promotion from the label. By 1968 it was becoming increasingly clear that Syd Barrett was going off the deep end due to ongoing mental health issues exacerbated by heavy use of hallucinogenics and it's reasonable to assume the label expected to band to soon dissolve. After one performance where Barrett did nothing but stand and strum a single chord for the entire set the rest of the band made a decision to bring in Barrett's childhood friend David Gilmour as their new guitarist. In all likelihood this decision saved the band itself, as A Saucerful Of Secrets ended up being the only Pink Floyd album to include both Barrett and Gilmour. Meanwhile, other band members were stepping up their contributions as well, Rick Wright's Remember A Day being a prime example.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone
Source:    Mono LP: Midnight Ride
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Before the Monkees, there was Paul Revere And The Raiders. Like the latter group, the Raiders found success on TV as well as vinyl, and scored several top 10 hits. Unlike the Monkees, however, Paul Revere And The Raiders had a long history as a performing group that predated their commercial success by several years. One more thing the two groups had in common, however, was a song by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart called (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone. The Raiders recorded the song first (without the parenthesis), including it on their album Midnight Ride, released in May of 1966, and as the B side of their hit version of Kicks. The Monkees included the song on their debut LP later the same year, and released it as the B side of I'm A Believer as well. Although the original Raiders version was not originally included on the band's greatest hits album, it has been added to the CD reissue of Paul Revere And The Raiders' Greatest Hits as a bonus track.

    All three of this week's Advanced Psych tracks were recorded at Bottom Line, an independent recording studio in the basement of a rented house on San Rafael Ave. in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that existed from around 1985 until the house was sold in 1989. The proprietor of Bottom Line was drummer John Henry Smith, although much of the actual recording equipment belonged to the various musicians that lived and recorded there.

Artist:    Crawling Walls
Title:    One Last Kiss
Source:    LP: Inner Limits
Writer(s):    Bob Fountain
Label:    Voxx
Year:    1985
    The Crawling Walls were an Albuquerque, NM neo-psychedelic band that recorded one album, Inner Limits, in 1985. Led by keyboardist/vocalist Bob Fountain, the band also included guitarist Larry Otis (the Philisteens), bassist Nancy Martinez and drummer Richard J. Perez. Fountain wrote and sang lead on all of the LP's tunes, including One Last Kiss, the opens the album's second side.
   
Artist:    Pheremones
Title:    Dream Wars
Source:    CD: Superflous Residuum
Writer(s):    Mitchell/Muncy
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1987
    The Pheremones (sic) were formed in early 1987 by vocalist Cole Mitchell and guitarist Duane Muncy, and also included lead guitarist Ed Carlson, bassist Stephen R Webb, and drummer John Henry Smith. Influenced heavily by early rockabilly and later bands such as the Rolling Stones, their sound was once described by Mitchell as "trailer trash rock and roll", and reflected a back-to-basics approach. On Dream Wars, a 1987 demo recording made at Bottom Line, they also showed a touch of Creedence Clearwater Revival in their sound.

Artist:    Mumphries
Title:    Wishing And Wondering
Source:    CD: Thank You, Bonzo
Writer(s):    Stephen R Webb
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1989
    The last track to be recorded at Bottom Line was Wishing And Wondering, a song decrying man's mistreatment of his home planet. The song was recorded by the Mumphries, an Albuquerque, NM band made up of Jeff "Quincy" Adams (bass, guitar and vocals), Suzan Hagler (guitar, keyboards), John Henry Smith (drums) and Stephen R Webb (guitar, bass, vocals) and was intended to be submitted to various environmentalist organizations. It is still available, if anyone wants to use it.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sympathy For The Devil
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released on LP: Beggars Banquet)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    Beggar's Banquet was a turning point for the Rolling Stones. They had just ended their association with Andrew Loog Oldham, who had produced all of their mid-60s records, and instead were working with Jimmy Miller, who was known for his association with Steve Winwood, both in his current band Traffic and the earlier Spencer Davis Group. Right from the opening bongo beats of Sympathy For The Devil, it was evident that this was the beginning of a new era for the bad boys of rock and roll. The song itself has gone on to be one of the defining tunes of album rock radio, and occupies the #32 spot on Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Most Anything You Want
Source:    CD: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Iron Butterfly will forever be known for the seventeen minute long In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, but, contrary to popular believe, they did record other songs as well, releasing four studio albums from 1968-1971. The In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida lineup of Doug Ingle (vocals, organ), Ron Bushy (drums), Lee Dorman (bass) and Erik Brann (guitar) was only around for two of those LPs, however, and can be heard on tracks like Most Anything You Want, which opens the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album.

Artist:    Human Beinz
Title:    April 15th
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US on LP: Evolutions)
Writer(s):    Belley/De Azevedo
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    The Human Beinz started out in Youngstown, Ohio as the Premiers in 1964, but changed their name to the Human Beingz in 1966. After a few moderately successful singles on various regional labels (including a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that predates the hit Shadows Of Knight version), the group signed to Capitol Records in 1967. In September of that year they released a cover of the Isley Brothers' Nobody But Me that became their only top 40 hit. Unfortunately, their name was misspelled on the label, and since the record was a hit, the band was stuck with the new spelling. By the time the group disbanded they had released several more singles (including two that hit the #1 spot in Japan), as well as two LPs, for Capitol. The second of these, Evolutions, was the more psychedelic of the two. Although the group was known mainly for its tight arrangements of cover songs, they did experiment a bit on Evolutions, particularly on April 15th, a seven minute jam co-written by guitarist/vocalist Dick Belley.
        
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 mixed in stereo.

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 qualify as the very first death metal rock song ever recorded.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    She's Coming Home
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer:    Atkins/Miller
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    Generally speaking, cheatin' songs in 1966 were considered the province of country music. The few exceptions, such as Paul Revere and the Raiders' Steppin' Out, were all told from the victim's point of view. The Blues Magoos, however, turned the entire thing upside down (or at least on its side) with She's Coming Home, a song about having to break up with one's new girlfriend in the face of the old one returning from...(prison, military duty? The lyrics never make that clear). The unusual nature of the song is in keeping with the cutting edge image of a band that was among the first to use the word psychedelic in an album title and almost certainly was the first to wear electric suits onstage.

Artist:    Manfred Mann
Title:    By Request-Edwin Garvey
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Mike D'Abo
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1968
    After Manfred Mann's original vocalist, Paul Jones, left the group for a marginally successful solo career in 1966 the band quickly found a replacement in singer/songwriter Mike D'Abo, who looked a bit like Jones, although he didn't sound like him at all. D'Abo's biggest hit with Manfred Mann was their 1968 cover of a yet-to-be-released Bob Dylan song called Quinn The Eskimo, which came out under the title Mighty Quinn. D'Abo also wrote several songs for the band, including Handbags And Gladrags (which later became the theme music for the original British version of The Office) and a strange little tune called By Request-Edwin Garvey. The latter was a preview of a series of parody songs that would dominate the group's final album, Mighty Garvey (released in the US as The Mighty Quinn).

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Punky's Dilemma
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Originally written specifically for the 1967 soundtrack of the movie The Graduate but rejected by the producers, Punky's Dilemma sat on the shelf until the following year, when it became the only track on side two of Simon And Garfunkel's Bookends LP that had not been previously released. The lyrics are about as psychedelic as Simon And Garfunkel ever got.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Medication
Source:    British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released on LP: The Inner Mystique)
Writer(s):    Alton/Ditosti
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Tower)
Year:    Backing tracks recorded 1968, lead vocals recorded 2005
    By early 1968 the Chocolate Watchband had fallen on hard times. In fact, the original group had disbanded, only to reform at the behest of Tower Records and producer Ed Cobb, who wanted to put out a second Watchband LP. In short order a new group featuring mostly former members of the Watchband was formed. Cobb, however, did not have the time to wait for the new lineup to gel and got to work on the album without them. In fact, the entire first side of The Inner Mystique was performed by studio musicians. Additionally, Cobb pulled out unreleased tapes from the archive to help fill out the album, including the original band's cover of a Standells tune called Medication. Like their earlier track Let's Talk About Girls, Medication featured studio vocalist Don Bennett rather than the band's actual lead vocalist, Dave Aguilar. It's not known for sure why the substitution was made, unless perhaps Cobb was feeling pressure from the rock press, which had dismissed Aguilar as a Mick Jagger wannabe. Finally, in 2005, Aguilar recorded brand new vocals to go with the original 1968 track.

Artist:    Rascals
Title:    People Want To Be Free
Source:    Mono CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Cavaliere/Bragati
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1968
    After achieving major success with a series of pop love songs starting with Good Lovin' in 1966, the Young Rascals decided to get more topical in 1968. Following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati penned a song called People Got To Be Free, which added a bit of gospel flavor to their well-known "blue-eyed soul" sound. Their record label was reluctant to release the song, but Cavaliere insisted, and it became the band's last major hit, going all the way to the top of the charts.

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Itchycoo Park
Source:    CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1967
    Led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, the Small Faces got their name from the fact that all the members of the band were somewhat vertically challenged. The group was quite popular with the London mod crowd, and was sometimes referred to as the East End's answer to the Who. Although quite successful in the UK, the group only managed to score one hit in the US, the iconic Itchycoo Park, which was released in late 1967. Following the departure of Marriott the group shortened their name to Faces, and recruited a new lead vocalist named Rod Stewart. Needless to say, the new version of the band did much better in the US than their previous incarnation.
    
Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Levitation
Source:    British import CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland
Label:    Charly (original US label: International Artists)
Year:    1967
    The first album by the 13th Floor Elevators has long been considered a milestone, in that it was one of the first truly psychedelic albums ever released (and the first to actually use the word "psychedelic" in the title). For their followup LP, the group decided to take their time, going through some personnel changes in the process. Still, the core membership of Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall and Stacy Sutherland held it together long enough to complete Easter Everywhere, releasing the album in 1967. The idea behind the album was to present a spiritual vision that combined both Eastern and Western religious concepts in a rock context. For the most part, such as on tracks like Levitation, it succeeds remarkably well, considering the strife the band was going through at the time.
     

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2310 (starts 3/6/23)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/464077-dc-2310

    This week we manage to fit 14 tracks into a 59 minute show, with only two of them exceeding the five minute mark. It wasn't really planned that way; in fact, the longest track was the first one chosen (although it doesn't show up until half way through the hour). The other "long" track actually starts the show...

Artist:    Mothers
Title:    Montana
Source:    CD: Over-Nite Sensation
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Zappa (original label: Discreet)
Year:    1973
    Montana is quite possibly the most recognizable song Frank Zappa ever wrote. The track first appeared on the Mothers album Over-Nite Sensation and quickly became a concert staple. On the original album version Zappa's guitar solo is followed by a series of vocal gymnastics performed by none other than Tina Turner and the Ikettes, who were recording with Turner's husband Ike in an adjacent studio. According to Zappa it took the singers two days to master the complex melody and timing of the section. Reportedly Tina was so pleased with the result that she invited her husband into the control room to hear the finished section, only to have Ike say "What is this shit?" and walk back out.

Artist:     Spirit
Title:     Mr. Skin
Source:     LP: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Epic
Year:     1970
     Mr. Skin, a song originally released on the 1970 album The Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, is a playful little number that shows just how far Spirit had moved away from the jazz influences heard on their first LP in the space of only a couple of years

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 strong Hendrix vibe throughout the piece.

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Blind Eye
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Wishbone Ash
Label:    Decca
Year:    1970
    One of the first bands to feature two lead guitarists working in tandem, Wishbone Ash rose to fame as the opening act for Deep Purple in early 1970. After guitarist Andy Powell sat in with Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore during a sound check, Blackmore referred Wishbone Ash to MCA, the parent company of the US Decca label. The band's first LP came out in December of 1970, with Blind Eye becoming the band's first single. Although Wishbone Ash went on to become one of Britain's top rock bands of the 1970s, they were never as successful in the US, despite relocating to the states in 1973.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Upsetter
Source:    45 RPM single (also released on LP: E Pluribus Funk)
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1972
    Grand Funk Railroad was something of an enigma. Due to universally negative reviews in the rock press, progressive FM stations avoided them like the plague. At the same time, top 40 radio was in the process of being supplanted as the voice of the mainstream by the Adult Contemporary (A/C) format, which tended to ignore hard rock. Nonetheless Grand Funk Railroad had a following. In fact, GFR was the first band to book (and sellout) entire sports arenas, setting attendance records wherever they played. This translated into major record sales, as they became the first band to have three LPs hit the million-seller mark in the same year (1970). That year they also had their first mainstream hit with I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home). From that point on the band would continue to release singles, although most, such as Upsetter, were still ignored by A/C radio (although they did get a fair amount of airplay from the remaining "true" top 40 stations). As the group's album sales were beginning to drop off, the singles became increasingly important to the band's continued success, and from 1973 on (starting with We're An American Band ) Grand Funk became pretty much a singles-oriented group, cranking out tunes like Bad Time and Some Kind Of Wonderful.
 
Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    I Can't Turn You Loose
Source:    LP: Super Rock (originally released on LP: Love, Peace and Happiness)
Writer(s):    Otis Redding
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Following the template created by Cream with their Wheels Of Fire album, the Chambers Brothers released the double LP Love, Peace and Happiness in 1969, with one LP made up entirely of studio tracks and the other consisting of live recordings made at the Fillmore East. Unlike Wheels Of Fire, however, Love, Peace and Happiness did not contain any major hit singles like White Room or Crossroads, and got only lukewarm reviews from the rock press. Most reviewers favored the live tracks, with the Brothers' cover of Otis Redding's I Can't Turn You Loose getting the most positive attention.

Artist:    J. Geils Band
Title:    Whammer Jammer
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Juke Box Jimmie
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    First they were a Boston bar band called Snoopy and the Sopwith Camel. Then they became the J. Geils Blues Band. Finally they dropped the "blues" from the name and became famous. Whammer Jammer, an early B side showcasing "Magic Dick" Salwitz on lead harmonica, shows why the "blues" part was there in the first place.

Artist:    Renaissance
Title:    Ocean Gypsy
Source:    LP: Scheherazade And Other Stories
Writer(s):    Dunford/Thatcher
Label:    Sire
Year:    1975
    Although they are generally perceived as the art-rock band of the 70s with the closest ties to traditional classic music, Renaissance's two most popular albums, including the 1975 release Scheherazade And Other Stories, do not, like their previous LPs, contain any direct quotes from classical pieces. They do, however, contain some excellent tunes like Ocean Gypsy from the songwriting team of guitarist Michael Dunford and dedicated lyricist Betty Thatcher. The song features outstanding vocals from Annie Haslam.
    
Artist:    Barclay James Harvest
Title:    The Great 1974 Mining Disaster
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Everyone Is Everybody Else)
Writer(s):    John Lees
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1974
    Although they were never as big as other prog-rock bands such as Yes or Emerson, Lake And Palmer, England's Barclay James Harvest nonetheless had a long and productive career. Their 1974 album Everyone Is Everybody Else is generally considered to be their artistic and commercial peak, and was especially successful in continental Europe, as were the band's subsequent LPs. One of the more notable tracks on Everyone Is Everybody Else is The Great 1974 Mining Disaster, a tribute to the Bee Gees first international hit single, New York Mining Disaster 1941, with a healthy number of David Bowie references thrown in.

Artist:    Derek And The Dominos
Title:    Bell Bottom Blues
Source:    CD: The Best Of Eric Clapton (originally released on LP: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs)
Writer(s):    Clapton/Whitlock
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Bell Bottom Blues, from the Derek And The Dominos album Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, is at once one of the many and one of the few. It is one of the many songs inspired by/written for George Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd by Eric Clapton, who was in love with her at the time. At the same time it is one of the few songs on the album that does not include guitarist Duane Allman on it. Clapton wrote the song after Boyd asked him to pick up a pair of bell-bottom jeans on his next trip to the US (apparently they were not available in London at that time). The song was released twice as a single in 1971, but did not chart higher than the #78 spot. In 2015 drummer Bobby Whitlock, who had helped write the third verse, was given official credit as the song's co-writer.

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

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Lady In Black (alternate version)
Source:    British import CD: Salisbury
Writer(s):    Ken Hensley
Label:    Sanctuary
Year:    Recorded 1971, released 2003
    Although never released as a single either in the US or UK, Uriah Heep's antiwar ballad Lady In Black made the top 5 on three separate occasions in Germany, with the song going into the top 5 in two of those runs and winning the Golden Lion award (the German equivalent of a Grammy). The song was also popular in Russia. This alternate recording of the tune is over a minute shorter than the released album track.
    
Artist:    Who
Title:    Squeeze Box
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA
Year:    1975
    According to Pete Townshend, who wrote the song, Squeeze Box started off as a dirty joke. It ended up becoming the Who's only international #1 hit single. I think that says all you need to know about the world of popular music.

Artist:    Black Oak Arkansas
Title:    Jim Dandy
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Lincoln Chase
Label:    Atco
Year:    1973
    My first exposure to Black Oak Arkansas was at a Grand Funk Railroad concert in August of 1971. I had literally arrived on the campus of Southwestern University in Weatherford Oklahoma the night before the concert, having hitchhiked there from New Mexico. On arrival I soon learned that my bandmates DeWayne and Mike, whose dorm room I was crashing in, already had tickets for the concert in Norman, Oklahoma. They invited me to come along, assuring me that I could easily score tickets at the gate. As it turns out they were right, but by the time we got there the only tickets left were bleacher seats. Of course, the rest of the group that made the drive to Norman all had floor tickets, so I ended up sitting by myself up in the nosebleed section for the opening act, a group I had never heard of called Black Oak Arkansas. I decided that, for the next 45 minutes or so, I would be a reviewer, and started analyzing this new band one song at a time. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed at first, but found each successive song to be a little bit better than the one before it. By the time the band had finished their set, I was electrified (literally, since the last song was called The Day Electricity Came To Arkansas). I eventually bought a copy of the album Black Oak Arkansas, and was pleased to discover that the songs were in the exact same order on the LP as I had first heard them in concert. Over the years I continued to follow the band's progress, and was happy to hear, in 1973, their remake of an old LaVerne Baker song, Jim Dandy, on the local AM radio station. In fact, I went out and bought a copy of the 45 RPM single (which has since been replaced with a less scratchy copy).