Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1619 (starts 5/4/16)

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    My Back Pages
Source:    Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the items of contention between David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the latter's insistence on continuing to record covers of Bob Dylan songs when the band members themselves had a wealth of their own material available. Indeed, it was reportedly an argument over whether or not to include Crosby's Triad on the next album that resulted in Crosby being fired from the band in October of 1967. Nonetheless, the last Dylan cover with Crosby still in the band was perhaps their best as well. Although not as big a hit as Mr. Tambourine Man, My Back Pages from the Younger Than Yesterday album did respectably well on the charts, becoming one of the Byrds' last top 40 hits.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Flying High
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Any guesses to what a song called Flying High from an album called Electric Music For The Mind And Body by Country Joe And The Fish released in 1967 might be about? I thought not.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    The Birdman Of Alkatrash
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Mark Weitz
Label:    Uni
Year:    1967
    The Birdman of Alkatrash was originally intended to be an A side. For some reason radio stations instead began playing the other side of the record and it became one of the biggest hits of 1967. That song? Incense and Peppermints.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Daily Nightly
Source:    CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s):    Michael Nesmith
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1967
    One of the first rock songs to feature a Moog synthesizer was the Monkees' Daily Nightly from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD. Micky Dolenz, who had a reputation for nailing it on the first take but being unable to duplicate his success in subsequent attempts, was at the controls of the new technology for this recording of Michael Nesmith's most psychedelic song (Dolenz also sang lead on the tune).

Artist:    Rolling Stones (Bill Wyman)
Title:    In Another Land
Source:    LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Bill Wyman
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    During recording sessions for the late 1967 Rolling Stones album Their Satanic Majesties Request bassist Bill Wyman made a forty-five minute drive to the studio one evening only to find out that the session had been cancelled. The band's manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, managed to salvage the moment by asking Wyman if he had any song ideas he'd like to work on while he was there. As it turned out, Wyman had just come up with a song called In Another Land, about waking up from a dream only to discover you are actually still dreaming. Utilizing the talents of various people on hand, including Steve Marriott, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts and Nicky Hopkins, Wyman recorded a rough demo of his new tune. When Mick Jagger and Keith Richards heard the song they liked it so much that they added background vocals and insisted the track be used on the album and released as a single by Bill Wyman (with another track from the LP on the B side credited to the entire band). They even went so far as to give Wyman solo artist credit on the label of the LP itself (the label reads: Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones*, with the next line reading *by Bill Wyman), with an asterisk preceeding the song title in the track listing. Wyman reportedly hated the sound of his own voice on the song, and insisted that a tremelo effect be added to it in the final mix.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    We're Going Wrong
Source:    CD: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Jack Bruce
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    On Fresh Cream the slowest-paced tracks were bluesy numbers like Sleepy Time Time. For the group's second LP, bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce came up with We're Going Wrong, a song with a haunting melody supplemented by some of Eric Clapton's best guitar fills. Even Ginger Baker set aside his drumsticks in favor of mallets, giving the song an otherworldly feel.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     D.C.B.A.-25
Source:     Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer:     Paul Kantner
Label:     Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:     1967
     D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25"...it was 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.

Artist:    Balloon Farm
Title:    A Question Of Temperature
Source:    Mono British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Appel/Schnug/Henny
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Laurie)
Year:    1967
    Few, if any, bands managed to successfully cross bubble gum and punk like the New York based Balloon Farm with A Question Of Temperature, originally released on the Laurie label in 1967. Band member Mike Appel went on to greater notoriety as Bruce Springsteen's first manager.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Flying
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    1967 was an odd year for the Beatles. They started it with one of their most successful double-sided singles, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, and followed it up with the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. From there, they embarked on a new film project. Unlike their previous movies, the Magical Mystery Tour was not made to be shown in theaters. Rather, the film was aired as a television special shown exclusively in the UK. The airing of the film coincided with the release (again only in the UK) of a two-disc extended play 45 RPM set featuring the six songs from the special. It was not until later in the year that the songs were released in the US, on an album that combined the songs from the film on one side and all the non-LP single sides they had released that year on the other. Among the songs from the film is Flying, a rare instrumental track that was credited to the entire band.

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

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Hello, Goodbye
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    1967 was unquestionably a good year for the Beatles. Their first release was a double A sided single, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, both sides of which were major hits. They followed that up with the #1 album of the year, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and another hit single, All You Need Is Love. To finish out the year they released yet another major hit single, Hello Goodbye. The only downside to the year was the cool reception that was afforded their December telefilm, Magical Mystery Tour, although the songs themselves were well-received when released in the UK as a double-EP set (complete with full color booklet containing stills from the film, as well as lyric sheets). As EPs were not considered a viable format in the US, Capitol Records put together an LP that included all six tracks from the telefilm on one side of the album and the five single sides (Hello Goodbye had used I Am The Walrus from Magical Mystery Tour as a B side) on the other. That album has since become the official version of Magical Mystery Tour, although the EP continued to be available in the UK for several years following its initial release.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    You're Lost Little Girl
Source:    CD: Strange Days
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The Doors second LP, Strange Days, was stylistically similar to the first, and served notice to the world that this band was going to be around for awhile. Songwriting credit for You're Lost Little Girl (a haunting number that's always been a personal favorite of mine) was given to the entire band, a practice that would continue until the release of The Soft Parade in 1969.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Five To One
Source:    CD: Waiting For The Sun
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    Despite the fact that it was the Doors' only album to hit the top of the charts, Waiting For The Sun was actually a disappointment for many of the band's fans, who felt that the material lacked the edginess of the first two Doors LPs. One notable exception was the album's closing track, Five To One, which features one of Jim Morrison's most famous lines: "No one here gets out alive".

Artist:    Doors
Title:    I Can't See Your Face In My Mind
Source:    CD: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    One of the most haunting Doors ever recorded is I Can't See Your Face In My Mind, from their second 1967 LP, Strange Days. It also ranks among the most sadness-evoking song titles I've ever run across. Such is the power of poetry, I guess. Frankly I'm surprised that the Alzheimer's Association hasn't purchased the rights to the song to use on one of their TV fundraising spots. 

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 from outside songwriters such as I'd Wait A Million Years and Midnight Confessions (neither of which get played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, incidentally).

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    One Sure Thing
Source:    British import CD: Fairport Convention
Writer(s):    Brooks/Glover
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1968
    The original Fairport Convention in many ways resembles the early Jefferson Airplane; the group, which featured Judy Dyble and Ian MacDonald (later known as Ian Matthews) on vocals, Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol  on guitars, Ashley “Tyger” Hutchings on bass and Martin Lamble on drums, blended folk music with rock elements and included several songs in their repertoire that had originally been performed by other artists. One of these cover songs is One Sure Thing, which was written by Jim Glover and Harvey Brooks and made famous by the folk duo Jim And Jean in the early 1960s. The Fairport version of One Sure Thing, like most of the band's early material, is far more psychedelic than the Jim And Jean rendition of the song.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    That's What Makes A Man
Source:    LP: Renaissance
Writer(s):    Mark Stein
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    The first Vanilla Fudge album was made up entirely of slowed-down/rocked-out versions of songs that had been made popular by other artists. The group then created one of the first concept albums, The Beat Goes On, a highly experimental work that addresses the passage of time in various ways (such as a medley of popular tunes that runs from the Baroque era through the Beatles, including Beethoven and Scott Joplin along the way). For their third LP, the band went with mostly original material (although there were still a couple covers done in a style similar to the first album), with each of the band members contributing at least one song. Lead vocalist/keyboardist Mark Stein provided That's What Makes A Man, which closes side one of the LP.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I Need You
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    After a series of hard-rocking hits in 1964 such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks mellowed out a bit with songs like Set Me Free and Tired Of Waiting For You the following year. Lurking on the other side of Set Me Free, though, was a song that showed that the band still knew how to rock out: I Need You.

Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    If I Were A Ghost
Source:    CD: Psolipsystic Psychedelic Pslyces Of McFadden's Parachute
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    1999
    Although the psychedelic era itself officially covers only a few years in the late 1960s, for many the spirit of the era's music lives on. One such person is Darren Brennessel of Rochester, NY, who is the mastermind behind over two dozen McFadden's Parachute albums. Brennessel has been playing professionally since 1989, when he was the drummer for a band called the Purple Flashes, conceiving and recording the first McFadden's Parachute album as a side project. In the years since, in addition to playing multiple instruments on McFadden's Parachute albums then Brennessel has continued to play drums with a variety of bands, including Sky Saxon's Green Forests, which recorded an as-yet unreleased album in 2004. Brennessel has recently sent me a special sampler collection of McFadden's Parachute tracks recorded mostly in the 1990s. One of my favorites of these is a tune called If I Were A Ghost, recorded in 1999.

Artist:    King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
Title:    NGRI (Bloodstain)/Time=Fate
Source:    CD: Paper Mache Dream Balloon
Writer(s):    King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
Label:    ATO
Year:    2015
    For years I have scoffed at people who use the phrase "I listen to all kinds of music", mainly because what they mean is "all kinds of pop music" or "all kinds of hip hop" or maybe "all kinds of country". Seldom have I run across anyone who actually listens to several genres of music. Even more rare are people who make "all kinds of music". While King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard does not make "all" kinds of music, they certainly cover a wider variety of styles than just about anybody currently recording. As an added bonus, they write all their own material. The seven-piece band from Australia was formed in 2011 by members of several other bands, and has managed to release eight albums over the past four years, despite a busy touring schedule that has included two trips to North America and one to Europe. Their latest album, Paper Mache Dream Balloon, shifts the emphasis to acoustic instrumentation, as can be heard on the tracks NGRI (Bloodstain) and Time=Fate.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Love Or Confusion
Source:    Mono LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and all the instruments dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. In recent years engineer Eddie Kramer has recreated the original mono mix (and track lineup) of the UK edition of Are You Experienced, using tube-based analog equipment to get the most authentic sound. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    3rd Stone From The Sun
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    One of the great rock instrumentals, 3rd Stone From The Sun (from the Jimi Hendrix Experience album Are You Experienced?) is one of the first tracks to use a recording technique known as backwards masking (where the tape is deliberately put on the machine backwards and new material is added to the reversed recording). In this particular case  the masked material (Hendrix speaking) was added at a faster speed than the original recording, with a lot of reverb added, creating an almost otherworldly effect when played forward at normal speed.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady
Source:    Mono LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The first track on the original UK release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was moved to the middle of side 2.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Subterranean Homesick Blues
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    1965 was the year Bob Dylan went electric, and got his first top 40 hit, Subterranean Homesick Blues, in the process. Although the song, which also led off his Bringing It All Back Home album, stalled out in the lower 30s, it did pave the way for electrified cover versions of Dylan songs by the Byrds and Turtles and Dylan's own Like A Rolling Stone, which would revolutionize top 40 radio. A line from the song itself, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", became the inspiration for a radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that called itself the Weathermen (later the Weather Underground).

Artist:    Arlo Guthrie
Title:    Alice's Restaurant Massacree
Source:    LP: Alice's Restaurant
Writer:    Arlo Guthrie
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    Just because everyone expects to hear it at Thanksgiving, we are airing, in May, the original Alice's Restaurant Massacre, released on Arlo Guthrie's debut LP, Alice's Restaurant, in 1967. The record tells the true story of Guthrie's 1965 Thanksgiving adventures in a small town in Massachusetts, and of his subsequent adventures with the draft board a few months later. The story became the basis for a movie and over the years Guthrie has performed the piece hundreds of times, never the same way twice (some performances have reportedly lasted nearly an hour).

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     Hotel Hell
Source:     CD: Winds Of Change
Writer:     Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:     1967
     The first album by the New Animals (generally known as Eric Burdon and the Animals) was Winds of Change, issued in mid-1967. Although the album was not particularly well-received at the time, it has, in more recent years, come to be regarded as a classic. Hotel Hell is a moody piece that showcases Eric Burdon's darker side.

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Bright Light Lover
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Keyboardist Bob Bruno's contributions as a songwriter to Circus Maximus tended to favor jazz arrangements. On Bright Light Lover, however, from the band's fist album, he proves that he could rock out with the raunchiest of the garage bands when the mood hit.

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Nobody To Love
Source:    CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer:    Stacy Sutherland
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1967
    The release of The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators in 1966 is considered by some to be the beginning of the psychedelic era. The band soon left their native Texas to spend four months touring in California, playing to packed houses and influencing countless other musicians. Their label, however, wanted them back in Texas and recording new material, and went as far as to threaten to release older, substandard, recordings of the Elevators if the boys didn't return home immediately. Once the band got back to Texas, however, the label made several missteps, such as forcing the band to play inappropriate venues. Also, due to the band members' notorious drug use, the label was reluctant to promote them heavily. By mid-1967 a rift had developed within the band itself, with two of the five members leaving the group to move to San Francisco. The remaining members, with a new bass player and drummer, went into the studio to record a true piece of acid-rock: the album that would come to be known as Easter Everywhere. Although the bulk of the LP would be written by guitarist/vocalist Roky Erickson and electric jug player Tommy Hall, there was one track, Nobody To Love, written by the band's lead guitarist, Stacy Sutherland.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1618 (starts 4/27/16)

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     How Suite It Is
Source:     LP: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer(s):     Kantner/Cassidy/Dryden/Kaukonen
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1967
     The second side of After Bathing At Baxters starts off fairly conventionally (for the Airplane), with Paul Kantner's Watch Her Ride, the first third or so of something called How Suite It Is. This leads (without a break in the audio) into Spare Chaynge, one of the coolest studio jams ever recorded, featuring intricate interplay between Jack Cassidy's bass and Jorma Kaukonen's guitar, with Spencer Dryden using his drum kit as enhancement rather than as a beat-setter. In particular, Cassidy's virtuoso performance helped redefine what could be done with an electric bass.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Somebody To Love
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Darby Slick
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    Over 40 years after the fact, it's hard to imagine just how big an impact this song had on the garage band scene. Whereas before Somebody To Love came out you could just dismiss hard-to-cover songs as being lame anyway, here was a tune that was undeniably cool, and yet virtually impossible for anyone but the Airplane to play well (and even they were unable to get it to sound quite the same when they performed it live). Oddly enough, the first recorded version of the song (by Great! Society in 1966) was itself more of a garage-rock performance.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Two Heads
Source:    LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    The third Jefferson Airplane album, After Bathing At Baxter's, saw the group moving in increasingly experimental directions, as Grace Slick's two contributions to the LP attest. The more accessible of the two was Two Heads, which was the first part of Schizoforest Love Suite, the fifth and final "suite" on the album.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Salesman
Source:    LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s):    Craig Smith
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1967
    The first song on the Monkees' fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. was also the most controversial. Michael Nesmith, as a side project, had been producing songs for a group led by Craig Vincent Smith called the Penny Arkade. One song in particular, Salesman, impressed Nesmith so much that he decided to produce a Monkees version of the song as well. The track was then used in a Monkees TV episode called The Devil And Peter Tork. NBC-TV at first refused to air the episode, claiming that the line "Salesman with your secret goods that you push while you talk" was a veiled drug reference (although producer Bert Schnieder was convinced the real reason was the liberal use of the word "hell" in the show's script).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Source:    CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    According to principal songwriter John Lennon, Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite was inspired by a turn of the century circus poster that the Beatles ran across while working on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Most of the lyrics refer to items on the poster itself, such as the Hendersons and Henry the Horse.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    A Gazelle
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released in US on EP: Mad River)
Writer(s):    Lawrence Hammond
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Wee)
Year:    1967
    Mad River was formed in 1965 in Yellow Spings, Ohio, as the Mad River Blues Band. The group (after several personnel changes) relocated to the Berkeley, California in spring of 1967, and soon began appearing at local clubs, often alongside Country Joe And The Fish. Around this time the band came into contact with Lonnie Hewitt, a jazz musician who had started his own R&B-oriented label, Wee. After auditioning for Fantasy Records, the band decided instead to finance their own studio recordings, which were then issued as a three-song EP on Wee. With all their material having been written and arranged before the band left Ohio, and then perfected over a period of months, Mad River's EP was far more musically complex than what was generally being heard in the Bay Area at the time. The opening track, Amphetamine Gazell (the title having been temporarily shortened to A Gazelle for the EP) contains several starts and stops, as well as time changes. Bassist Lawrence Hammond's high pitched, almost operatic, vocal style actually enhances the lyrics, which drummer Greg Dewey described as "a teenager's idea of what it must be like to be hip and cool in California". The song was recut (with its original title restored), for Mad River's Capitol debut LP the following year.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Hey Grandma
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Miller/Stevenson
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the most talked-about albums to come from the San Francisco music scene in 1967 was Moby Grape's debut album. Unfortunately a lot of that talk was from Columbia Records itself, which resulted in the band getting a reputation for being overly hyped, much to the detriment of the band's future efforts. Still, that first album did have some outstanding tracks, including Hey Grandma, which opens side one of the LP.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source:    Mono LP: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1965
    Singles released in the UK in the 60s tended to stay on the racks much longer than their US counterparts. This is because singles were generally not duplicated on LPs like they were in the US. The Rolling Stones' 1965 hit (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was a good example. In the US the single had completely disappeared from most record racks by the end of the year, despite the fact that (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was the #1 song of the year. The song has, however, been continuously in print since its initial release due to it being added to the Out Of Our Heads album, which had a considerably different song lineup than the original UK version. On the other side of the Atlantic the song was unavailable as an LP track until Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) was released, but for several years the single could be found wherever records were sold throughout Europe.

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

Artist:    Love
Title:    A House Is Not A Motel
Source:    CD: Forever Changes
Writer:    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Arthur Lee was a bit of a recluse, despite leading the most popular band on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. When the band was not playing at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go Lee was most likely to be found at his home up in the Hollywood Hills, often in the company of fellow band member Bryan McLean. The other members of the band, however, were known to hang out in the most popular clubs, chasing women and doing all kinds of substances. Sometimes they would show up at Lee's house unbidden. Sometimes they would crash there. Sometimes Lee would get annoyed, and probably used the phrase which became the title of the second track on Love's classic Forever Changes album, A House Is Not A Motel.

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

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Lodi
Source:    Mono LP: Chronicle (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Green River )
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1969
    By 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival had gone from being a minor attraction appearing at county fairs to being one of the most popular bands in the US. One indicator of the band's popularity is the fact that a song like Lodi, originally relegated to the B side of a 45 RPM single, is still instantly recognizable to a sizable number of people nearly 50 years after its initial release. The song's lyrics, describing a down on his luck musician stuck in a small town without the means of moving on, strikes a chord with anyone who has ever played in a bar band, making Lodi a truly timeless classic.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Black Magic Woman
Source:    Mono LP: Vintage Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Peter Green
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    A common practice among San Francisco bands was to record their first album in a matter of days then spend months on the follow up. Such was the case with Carlos Santana's band, who resisted pressure from their label to crank out a new album following their successful appearance at Woodstock. The result was Abraxas, released in spring of 1970, still considered to be one of the best rock albums ever made. The album opened with a medley that included their own version of the 1968 Fleetwood Mac song Black Magic Woman. An edited version of the song was released as a single and became the group's biggest hit.

Artist:    Tangerine Dream
Title:    Sunrise In The Third System
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in Germany on LP: Alpha Centauri)
Writer(s):    Tangerine Dream
Label:    Polydor (original label: Ohr)
Year:    1971
    Formed in 1967 as a psychedelic band in Berlin, Tangerine Dream soon came under the influence of Electronic music composer Thomas Keppler, who inspired the band's leader, Edgar Froese, to move in a more avant garde direction. By 1971 the band had added Chris Franke and Steve Schroeder, becoming almost entirely keyboard based in the process. The first album from this new lineup, Alpha Centauri, with tracks like Sunrise In The Third System, got the attention of British disc jockey John Peel, who promoted the band extensively on his radio show. Tangerine Dream has since gone on to become the most successful Electronic Rock band in history.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Tobacco Road
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    John D. Loudermilk
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    For years I've been trying to find a DVD copy of a video I saw on YouTube. It was the Blues Magoos, complete with electric suits and smoke generators, performing Tobacco Road on a Bob Hope TV special. The performance itself was a vintage piece of psychedelia, but the true appeal of the video is in Hope's reaction to the band immediately following the song. You can practically hear him thinking "Well, that's one act I'm not taking with me on my next USO tour."

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:    Our House
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Sometimes even the most mundane events can inspire art. Graham Nash's Our House, from the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album, déjà vu, is a perfect example. The song was written by Nash at the Laurel Canyon home of Joni Mitchell following a trip into Los Angeles for breakfast. They had stopped at an antique shop on the way back, where Mitchell had bought a vase, and while Mitchell was gathering up some flowers to put in it Nash sat down at Mitchell's piano. About an hour later, Nash had put the finishing touches on Our House. Nash later said he was already bored with the song the day after he had recorded it, but that he still plays the song from time to time "because it does mean so much to so many people". The song was released as a single in 1970, peaking at #30.

Artist:     Country Weather
Title:     Fly To New York
Source:     Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released only to radio stations, later included on Swiss CD: Country Weather)
Writer:     Baron/Carter/Derr/Douglas
Label:     Rhino (original label: RD)
Year:     Recorded 1969, released 2005
     Country Weather started off as a popular dance band in Contra Costa County, California. In 1968 they took the name Country Weather and began gigging on the San Francisco side of the bay. In 1969, still without a record contract, they recorded an album side's worth of material, made a few one-sided test copies and circulated them to local radio stations. Those tracks, including Fly To New York, were eventually released on CD in 2005 by the Swedish label RD Records.

Artist:    Nazz
Title:    Open My Eyes
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Nazz)
Writer(s):    Todd Rundgren
Label:    Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year:    1968
    The Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. The Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, as well as many others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a new version would become a solo hit for Rundgren five years later).

Artist:    Mystery Trend
Title:    Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nagle/Cuff
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster, surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.

Artist:    Adam
Title:    Eve
Source:    Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Taylor/London/Dawson/Schnug
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Malo)
Year:    1966
    Obviously a one-note gimmick, Adam consisted of Adam Taylor, Adam London, Adam Dawson and Adam Schnug, releasing one single called Eve in 1966. The following year a band called the Balloon Farm released A Question Of Temperature. It has long been suspected that they were both the same band. My own theory is that both tracks are the work of New York studio musicians having a little after-hours fun, similar to what was going on in Los Angeles with projects such as Sagittarius and the Ballroom.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Heart Full Of Soul
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     Graham Gouldman
Label:     Epic
Year:     1965
     The Yardbirds' follow-up single to For Your Love was a huge hit, making the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965. The song, the first to feature guitarist Jeff Beck prominently, was written by Graham Gouldman, whose own band, the Mockingbirds, was strangely unable to buy a hit on the charts. Gouldman later went on to be a founding member of 10cc, who were quite successful in the 1970s.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Corinna, Corinna
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf Live)
Writer(s):    Parish/Williams/Chatmon
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1970
    The 1970 album Steppenwolf Live was basically a recording of a concert held early in the year at the Santa Monica Civic Center in support of the 1969 studio LP Monster. As such, most of the songs from that album were performed, as well as a handful of the band's most popular songs from earlier LPs. The producers wanted to make Steppenwolf Live a double LP, but soon realized that there wasn't enough material to fill two discs. Rather than culling the material down to enough for a single LP, they instead decided to include three studio recordings which were then electronically modified to sound like live tracks. Two of these tracks, Hey Lawdy Mama and Corinna Corinna, were selected for release as a single. Oddly enough, both sides of the single include the alterations made for inclusion on Steppenwolf Live, including faked audience response at the end of the tracks. The song Corinna Corinna itself dates back to 1928, when it was first recorded by Armenter Chatmon (aka Bo Carter), and published in 1932.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    The first track on the original release of Are You Experienced was Foxy Lady. The British custom of the time was to not include any songs on albums that had been previously released as singles. When Reprise Records got the rights to release the album in the US, it was decided to include three songs that had all been top 40 hits in the UK. One of those songs, Purple Haze, took over the opening spot on the album, and Foxy Lady was moved to the middle of side 2. For some reason Reprise Records misspelled the title as Foxey Lady, and continued to do so on posthumous compilations such as The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Still Raining, Still Dreaming
Source:    CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Still Raining, Still Dreaming, from the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland, is the second half of a live studio recording featuring guest drummer Buddy Miles, who would later join Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox to form Band Of Gypsys. The recording also features Mike Finnegan on organ, Freddie Smith on tenor sax and Larry Faucett on congas, as well as Experience member Noel Redding on bass.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    I Don't Live Today
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    I remember a black light poster that choked me up the first time I saw it. It was a shot of Jimi Hendrix playing his guitar with the caption I Don't Live Today. I don't believe Hendrix was being deliberately prophetic when he wrote and recorded this classic track for the Are You Experienced album, but it occasionally gives me chills to hear it, even now.

Artist:    Flock
Title:    Introduction
Source:    British import CD: The Flock
Writer(s):    The Flock
Label:    BGO (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    Rock bands from the city of Chicago, starting with the Buckinghams, are known for their horn sections; in fact the most successful of these "horn bands" actually ended up renaming itself after the city itself. One of these bands, however, managed to find a member whose presence actually made the horns almost unnoticable. That member was violinist Jerry Goodman, who is heard prominently on the opening track of the first Flock album, appropriately titled Introduction. Goodman would go on to be a charter member of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s.

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

Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    The Black Plague
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    BGO (original US label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    One of the most interesting recordings of 1967 was Eric Burdon And The Animals' The Black Plague, which appeared on the Winds Of Change album. The Black Plague is a spoken word piece dealing with life and death in a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague (natch), set to a somewhat gothic piece of music that includes Gregorian style chanting and an occasional voice calling out the words "bring out your dead" in the background. The album itself had a rather distinctive cover, consisting of a stylized album title accompanied by a rather lengthy text piece on a black background, something that has never been done before or since on an album cover.

   

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1617 (starts 4/20/16)

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Off The Hook
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: Decca)
Year:    1964
    The last Rolling Stones blues cover released as a single was Little Red Rooster, which topped the British charts toward the end of 1964. The ultra-rare B side of that record was Off The Hook, one of the earliest Mick Jagger/Keith Richards collaborations. Neither song was released in the US until many years later.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    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 band turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.

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

Artist:    Haunted
Title:    125
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Canada on LP: The Haunted)
Writer(s):    Burgess/Peter
Label:    Rhino (original label: Trans World)
Year:    1967
    Formed in Montreal in 1964, the Haunted was one of the most popular bands in the Canadian province of Quebec, as well as Southern Ontario. In January of 1966 the band won an eight-hour long battle of the bands, resulting in a contract with Quality Records. The Haunted's first single was a song called 125, which the label refused to release due to the song's subject matter (a liason with a prostitute). Undaunted, the band changed a few lyrics, substituting lines like "a roomful of clowns" and "a line of executives" for the original references to working girls and re-recorded the song. The label, being somewhat clueless, released the song in its new form, but messed up the band's name on the label, calling them the Hunted. Finally, the band changed labels, issuing the song as an album track in 1967.

Artist:     Rose Garden
Title:     Here's Today
Source:     Mono CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as a 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Noreen/Vickery
Label:     Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:     1968
     One of many new groups signed to Atco in the late 60s, the Rose Garden was generally disposed to recording light pop tunes with radio airplay in mind. Here's Today was an attempt to move the group in a slightly different direction.

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Round And Round (It Won't Be Long)
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Round And Round, from Neil Young's 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, was actually written while Young was still a member of Buffalo Springfield. The song features guest vocalist Robin Lane, as well as the members of Crazy Horse.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Means To An End
Source:    CD: Traffic
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    The final track on the self-titled second Traffic album is not truly a Traffic song at all. Means To An End only features two members of the band: Chris Wood (on drums and percussion) and Steve Winwood (everything else). Somehow I can't picture the band performing this one in concert.


Artist:    Who
Title:    Girl's Eyes
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out (originally unreleased, later included in 30 Years Of Maximum R&B box set)
Writer(s):    Keith Moon
Label:    MCA
Year:    1967
    Most of the songs that Keith Moon wrote for the Who were, for lack of a better word, bizarre. The examples that come to mind include Heinz Baked Beans, Tommy's Holiday Camp and Cobwebs And Strange, all of which sound like something you might hear at the circus. Girl's Eyes, on the other hand, is a relatively straightforward, if not particularly spectacular, rock song that remained unreleased for many years, finally appearing on the 30 Years Of Maximum R&B box set.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Big Black Smoke
Source:    Mono CD: Face To Face (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Kinks had some of the best non-album sides of the 60s. Case in point: Big Black Smoke, which appeared as the B side of Dead End Street in November of 1966. The song deals with a familiar phenomenon of the 20th century: the small town girl that gets a rude awakening after moving to the big city. In this case the city was London, known colloquially as "the Smoke".

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     Dead End Street
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Year:     1967
     The last major Kinks hit in the US was Sunny Afternoon in the summer of 1966. The November follow-up, Dead End Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success in the US (although it was a top five hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola in 1970.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sunny Afternoon
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    My family got its first real stereo (a GE AM/FM console with a reel-to-reel recorder instead a turntable that is still sitting in the living room at my mother's house nearly 50 years later) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off).

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)
Source:    Mono LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    Weill/Brecht
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    1967 was a breakthrough year for Elektra Records, which had only signed its first full-fledged rock band (Love) the previous year. Between Love's second and third albums and the first two Doors LPs, Elektra had by the end of the year established itself as a player. Although never released as a single, Alabama Song managed to make it onto the Best of the Doors album and has been a classic rock staple for years.

Artist:    Albert King
Title:    Born Under A Bad Sign
Source:    LP: Born Under A Bad Sign
Writer(s):    Jones/Bell
Label:    Stax
Year:    1967
    Born Under A Bad Sign is one of the most well-known blues songs in the world. The song was conceived by Booker T. Jones (of the MGs) and R&B singer William Bell, who later said "We needed a blues song for Albert King ... I had this idea in the back of my mind that I was gonna do myself. Astrology and all that stuff was pretty big then. I got this idea that [it] might work." The song's famous signature riff came from Bell, who claimed he came up with it "while fooling around on the guitar". King's version was released as the title track for his first album for Stax, and remains his most popular song. Backing up King on the track are Booker T. and the MGs along with the Memphis Horns.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Lovely Rita
Source:    CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    By 1967 John Lennon and Paul McCartney were a songwriting team in name only, with nearly all their compositions being the work of one or the other, but not both. Lovely Rita, from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, was pure McCartney. The song features McCartney on both piano and overdubbed bass, with Lennon and George Harrison on guitars and Ringo Starr on drums. Pink Floyd, who were recording their debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn at the same Abbey Road studios the Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper's at, ended up borrowing some of the effects heard toward the end of Lovely Rita for their own Pow R Toc H.

Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     Catfish Blues
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Canned Heat)
Writer:     Robert Petway
Label:     United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year     1967
     Like many other US cities in the 1960s, San Francisco had a small but enthusiastic community of collectors of blues records. A group of them got together in 1966 to form Canned Heat, and made quite an impression when they played the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. This led to a contract with Liberty Records and an album consisting entirely of cover versions of blues standards. One standout track from that album is Robert Petway's Catfish Blues, expanded to over six minutes by the Heat.

Artist:    Mouse And The Traps
Title:    You Don't Love Me (You Don't Care)
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Fraternity Years
Writer(s):    Willie Cobbs
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1997
    Mouse And The Traps recorded a lot of songs over a three year period from 1966-68, not all of which found their way onto vinyl. One of the best of those that didn't was their 1967 cover of Willie Cobbs's You Don't Love Me. The best-known version of the song was recorded the following year by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills for the Super Session album.

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

Artist:    Dukes Of Stratosphear (XTC)
Title:    What In The World?
Source:    CD: Chips From The Chocolate Fireball (originally released in UK on mini-LP: 25 O'Clock)
Writer(s):    Colin Moulding
Label:    Caroline (original label: Virgin)
Year:    1985
    Originally released on April Fool's Day, 1985, the mini-LP 25 O'Clock  was purportedly a lost classic from the late 1960s by the previously unknown Dukes Of Stratosphear. In reality, the record was a side project by members of XTC, who wanted a break from their more serious commercial efforts. Two years later the group released a full-length album as the Dukes Of Stratosphear, and have since contemplated further projects under the name. Many people, myself included, consider both Dukes Of Stratosphear efforts more listenable than the 1986 XTC album Oranges and Lemons, which came out between the two Dukes recordings.

Artist:    Jigsaw Seen
Title:    Let There Be Reverb
Source:    CD: Old Man Reverb
Writer(s):    Dennis Davison
Label:    Vibro-Phonic
Year:    2014
    The Jigsaw Seen is an indy band based in Los Angeles that has been around since the 1980s. Their latest album, Old Man Reverb, starts off appropriately with a track called Let There Be Reverb. The album itself was recorded at the legendary Abbey Road studios in London.
       
Artist:    Love
Title:    7&7 Is
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single. Stereo version released on LP: Da Capo)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1967
    The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband (recording as The Hogs)
Title:    Blues Theme
Source:    Mono CD: One Step Beyond (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Curb/Allen
Label:    Sundazed (original label: HBR)
Year:    1966
    The Chocolate Watchband's first experience in a recording studio came in October of 1966. The band had set up and was getting their sound levels checked when a friend of the producer burst into the studio with the news that the latest "hot thing" was a new movie called the Wild Ones. Davie Allen and the Arrows had cut something called Blues Theme for the soundtrack, and the word was that there were no plans to release the song as a single. Sensing an opportunity, the producer asked the band if they could record their own version of Blues Theme. The Watchband, even at that early point, had a knack for doing convincing covers on a moment's notice, and by the time the session was over they had cut a credible version of Blues Theme. The record was quickly released on the Hanna Barbera (yes, the cartoon people) label, but as by the Hogs rather than the Chocolate Watchband. Although I don't know why this was done, I do have a couple theories. It's entirely possible that the band signed their contract with Tower Records before Blues Theme was released, in which case Tower would naturally forbid the use of the name Chocolate Watchband by another label. Or it could simply be that the unknown producers at HBR felt that a name like the Hogs was more appropriate for a song used in a biker flick. We may never know for sure.

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

Artist:    John Mayall with Eric Clapton
Title:    Parchman Farm
Source:    Mono LP: Blues Breakers
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Sundazed/London
Year:    1966
    Parchman Farm is possibly Mose Allison's best-known tune. The song was inspired by a 1940 recording by legendary bluesman Bukka White called Parchman Farm Blues. Allison's version first appeared on his Local Color album in 1957 and was re-recorded in 1964 for an LP called The Word From Mose. Two years later John Mayall and Eric Clapton recorded the tune for the album Blues Breakers. The song has been covered by over a dozen artists since then, including Blues Image, the Blues Project, Cactus and even the Charlie Daniels Band.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Over Under Sideways Down
Source:     Simulated stereo Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Dreja/McCarty/Beck/Relf/Samwell-Smith
Label:     Raven (original US label: Epic)
Year:     1966
     The only Yardbirds album to feature primarily original material was released under different titles in different parts of the world. The original UK version was called simply The Yardbirds, while the US album bore the title Over, Under, Sideways, Down. In addition, the UK album was unofficially known as Roger the Engineer because of band member Chris Dreja's drawing of the band's recording engineer on the cover. The title cut was the last single to feature Jeff Beck as the band's sole lead guitarist (the follow-up single, Happenings Ten Years Time Ago, featured both Beck and Jimmy Page).

Artist:    Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    His Holy Modal Majesty
Source:    LP: Super Session
Writer(s):    Bloomfield/Kooper
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1968
    One of the earliest electronic keyboard instruments was a device that came to be known as the Kooperphone, thanks to its use by Al Kooper as early as 1966, when he was a member of the Blues Project. The instrument could not play chords, only single notes, and Kooper used it extensively on tracks like His Holy Modal Majesty on the 1968 album Super Session. If that were all there was to the track it might be remembered as little more than a curiosity piece. Thanks to the outstanding improvisational abilities of Kooper, guitarist Michael Bloomfield, bassist Harvey Brooks and drummer Eddie Hoh however, the piece soars, changing style and tempo with a fluidity rarely found outside of jazz circles.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Season Of The Witch (2002 remix w/o horns)
Source:    CD: Super Session
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
            In 1968 Al Kooper, formerly of the Blues Project, formed a new group he called Blood, Sweat and Tears. Then, after recording one album with the new group, he promptly quit the band. He then booked studio time and called in his friend Michael Bloomfield (who had just left own his new band the Electric Flag) for a recorded jam session. Due to his chronic insomnia and inclination to use heroin to deal with said insomnia, Bloomfield was unable to record an entire album's worth of material, and Kooper called in another friend, Stephen Stills (who had recently left the Buffalo Springfield) to complete the project. The result was the Super Session album, which surprisingly (considering that it was the first album of its kind), made the top 10 album chart. One of the most popular tracks on Super Session was an extended version of Donovan's "Season of the Witch." Kooper initially felt that the basic tracks needed some sweetening, so he brought in a horn section to record additional overdubs. In 2003, Kooper revisited the original multi-track master tapes and created a new mix that restored the original performance. This is that mix.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Man's Temptation
Source:    LP: Super Session
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1968
    The shortest track on the Mike Bloomfield side of the Super Session LP is also the nearest thing to a conventional pop song on the album. Man's Temptation is a Curtis Mayfield tune originally recorded by the Impressions that here sounds like it could have been taken directly from an Electric Flag (Bloomfield's former group) session. Al Kooper's vocals are more in line with his later solo work than on the Blues Project's albums, giving the the piece an early Blood, Sweat And Tears feel to it.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Off The Hook
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: Decca)
Year:    1964
    The last Rolling Stones blues cover released as a single was Little Red Rooster, which topped the British charts toward the end of 1964. The ultra-rare B side of that record was Off The Hook, one of the earliest Mick Jagger/Keith Richards collaborations. Neither song was released in the US until many years later.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    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 band turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.

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

Artist:    Haunted
Title:    125
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Canada on LP: The Haunted)
Writer(s):    Burgess/Peter
Label:    Rhino (original label: Trans World)
Year:    1967
    Formed in Montreal in 1964, the Haunted was one of the most popular bands in the Canadian province of Quebec, as well as Southern Ontario. In January of 1966 the band won an eight-hour long battle of the bands, resulting in a contract with Quality Records. The Haunted's first single was a song called 125, which the label refused to release due to the song's subject matter (a liason with a prostitute). Undaunted, the band changed a few lyrics, substituting lines like "a roomful of clowns" and "a line of executives" for the original references to working girls and re-recorded the song. The label, being somewhat clueless, released the song in its new form, but messed up the band's name on the label, calling them the Hunted. Finally, the band changed labels, issuing the song as an album track in 1967.

Artist:     Rose Garden
Title:     Here's Today
Source:     Mono CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as a 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Noreen/Vickery
Label:     Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:     1968
     One of many new groups signed to Atco in the late 60s, the Rose Garden was generally disposed to recording light pop tunes with radio airplay in mind. Here's Today was an attempt to move the group in a slightly different direction.

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Round And Round (It Won't Be Long)
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Round And Round, from Neil Young's 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, was actually written while Young was still a member of Buffalo Springfield. The song features guest vocalist Robin Lane, as well as the members of Crazy Horse.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Means To An End
Source:    CD: Traffic
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    The final track on the self-titled second Traffic album is not truly a Traffic song at all. Means To An End only features two members of the band: Chris Wood (on drums and percussion) and Steve Winwood (everything else). Somehow I can't picture the band performing this one in concert.


Artist:    Who
Title:    Girl's Eyes
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out (originally unreleased, later included in 30 Years Of Maximum R&B box set)
Writer(s):    Keith Moon
Label:    MCA
Year:    1967
    Most of the songs that Keith Moon wrote for the Who were, for lack of a better word, bizarre. The examples that come to mind include Heinz Baked Beans, Tommy's Holiday Camp and Cobwebs And Strange, all of which sound like something you might hear at the circus. Girl's Eyes, on the other hand, is a relatively straightforward, if not particularly spectacular, rock song that remained unreleased for many years, finally appearing on the 30 Years Of Maximum R&B box set.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Big Black Smoke
Source:    Mono CD: Face To Face (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Kinks had some of the best non-album sides of the 60s. Case in point: Big Black Smoke, which appeared as the B side of Dead End Street in November of 1966. The song deals with a familiar phenomenon of the 20th century: the small town girl that gets a rude awakening after moving to the big city. In this case the city was London, known colloquially as "the Smoke".

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     Dead End Street
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Year:     1967
     The last major Kinks hit in the US was Sunny Afternoon in the summer of 1966. The November follow-up, Dead End Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success in the US (although it was a top five hit in the UK). The Kinks would not have another major US hit until Lola in 1970.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sunny Afternoon
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    My family got its first real stereo (a GE AM/FM console with a reel-to-reel recorder instead a turntable that is still sitting in the living room at my mother's house nearly 50 years later) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off).

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)
Source:    Mono LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    Weill/Brecht
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    1967 was a breakthrough year for Elektra Records, which had only signed its first full-fledged rock band (Love) the previous year. Between Love's second and third albums and the first two Doors LPs, Elektra had by the end of the year established itself as a player. Although never released as a single, Alabama Song managed to make it onto the Best of the Doors album and has been a classic rock staple for years.

Artist:    Albert King
Title:    Born Under A Bad Sign
Source:    LP: Born Under A Bad Sign
Writer(s):    Jones/Bell
Label:    Stax
Year:    1967
    Born Under A Bad Sign is one of the most well-known blues songs in the world. The song was conceived by Booker T. Jones (of the MGs) and R&B singer William Bell, who later said "We needed a blues song for Albert King ... I had this idea in the back of my mind that I was gonna do myself. Astrology and all that stuff was pretty big then. I got this idea that [it] might work." The song's famous signature riff came from Bell, who claimed he came up with it "while fooling around on the guitar". King's version was released as the title track for his first album for Stax, and remains his most popular song. Backing up King on the track are Booker T. and the MGs along with the Memphis Horns.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Lovely Rita
Source:    CD: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    By 1967 John Lennon and Paul McCartney were a songwriting team in name only, with nearly all their compositions being the work of one or the other, but not both. Lovely Rita, from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, was pure McCartney. The song features McCartney on both piano and overdubbed bass, with Lennon and George Harrison on guitars and Ringo Starr on drums. Pink Floyd, who were recording their debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn at the same Abbey Road studios the Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper's at, ended up borrowing some of the effects heard toward the end of Lovely Rita for their own Pow R Toc H.

Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     Catfish Blues
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Canned Heat)
Writer:     Robert Petway
Label:     United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year     1967
     Like many other US cities in the 1960s, San Francisco had a small but enthusiastic community of collectors of blues records. A group of them got together in 1966 to form Canned Heat, and made quite an impression when they played the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. This led to a contract with Liberty Records and an album consisting entirely of cover versions of blues standards. One standout track from that album is Robert Petway's Catfish Blues, expanded to over six minutes by the Heat.

Artist:    Mouse And The Traps
Title:    You Don't Love Me (You Don't Care)
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Fraternity Years
Writer(s):    Willie Cobbs
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1997
    Mouse And The Traps recorded a lot of songs over a three year period from 1966-68, not all of which found their way onto vinyl. One of the best of those that didn't was their 1967 cover of Willie Cobbs's You Don't Love Me. The best-known version of the song was recorded the following year by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills for the Super Session album.

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

Artist:    Dukes Of Stratosphear (XTC)
Title:    What In The World?
Source:    CD: Chips From The Chocolate Fireball (originally released in UK on mini-LP: 25 O'Clock)
Writer(s):    Colin Moulding
Label:    Caroline (original label: Virgin)
Year:    1985
    Originally released on April Fool's Day, 1985, the mini-LP 25 O'Clock  was purportedly a lost classic from the late 1960s by the previously unknown Dukes Of Stratosphear. In reality, the record was a side project by members of XTC, who wanted a break from their more serious commercial efforts. Two years later the group released a full-length album as the Dukes Of Stratosphear, and have since contemplated further projects under the name. Many people, myself included, consider both Dukes Of Stratosphear efforts more listenable than the 1986 XTC album Oranges and Lemons, which came out between the two Dukes recordings.

Artist:    Jigsaw Seen
Title:    Let There Be Reverb
Source:    CD: Old Man Reverb
Writer(s):    Dennis Davison
Label:    Vibro-Phonic
Year:    2014
    The Jigsaw Seen is an indy band based in Los Angeles that has been around since the 1980s. Their latest album, Old Man Reverb, starts off appropriately with a track called Let There Be Reverb. The album itself was recorded at the legendary Abbey Road studios in London.
       
Artist:    Love
Title:    7&7 Is
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single. Stereo version released on LP: Da Capo)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1967
    The word "seven" does not appear anywhere in the song 7&7 Is. In fact, I have no idea where Arthur Lee got that title from. Nonetheless, the song is among the most intense tracks to ever make the top 40. 7&7 Is starts off with power chords played over a constant drum roll (possibly played by Lee himself), with cymbals crashing over equally manic semi-spoken lyrics. The song builds up to an explosive climax: an atomic bomb blast followed by a slow post-apocalyptic instrumental that quickly fades away.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband (recording as The Hogs)
Title:    Blues Theme
Source:    Mono CD: One Step Beyond (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Curb/Allen
Label:    Sundazed (original label: HBR)
Year:    1966
    The Chocolate Watchband's first experience in a recording studio came in October of 1966. The band had set up and was getting their sound levels checked when a friend of the producer burst into the studio with the news that the latest "hot thing" was a new movie called the Wild Ones. Davie Allen and the Arrows had cut something called Blues Theme for the soundtrack, and the word was that there were no plans to release the song as a single. Sensing an opportunity, the producer asked the band if they could record their own version of Blues Theme. The Watchband, even at that early point, had a knack for doing convincing covers on a moment's notice, and by the time the session was over they had cut a credible version of Blues Theme. The record was quickly released on the Hanna Barbera (yes, the cartoon people) label, but as by the Hogs rather than the Chocolate Watchband. Although I don't know why this was done, I do have a couple theories. It's entirely possible that the band signed their contract with Tower Records before Blues Theme was released, in which case Tower would naturally forbid the use of the name Chocolate Watchband by another label. Or it could simply be that the unknown producers at HBR felt that a name like the Hogs was more appropriate for a song used in a biker flick. We may never know for sure.

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

Artist:    John Mayall with Eric Clapton
Title:    Parchman Farm
Source:    Mono LP: Blues Breakers
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Sundazed/London
Year:    1966
    Parchman Farm is possibly Mose Allison's best-known tune. The song was inspired by a 1940 recording by legendary bluesman Bukka White called Parchman Farm Blues. Allison's version first appeared on his Local Color album in 1957 and was re-recorded in 1964 for an LP called The Word From Mose. Two years later John Mayall and Eric Clapton recorded the tune for the album Blues Breakers. The song has been covered by over a dozen artists since then, including Blues Image, the Blues Project, Cactus and even the Charlie Daniels Band.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Over Under Sideways Down
Source:     Simulated stereo Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Dreja/McCarty/Beck/Relf/Samwell-Smith
Label:     Raven (original US label: Epic)
Year:     1966
     The only Yardbirds album to feature primarily original material was released under different titles in different parts of the world. The original UK version was called simply The Yardbirds, while the US album bore the title Over, Under, Sideways, Down. In addition, the UK album was unofficially known as Roger the Engineer because of band member Chris Dreja's drawing of the band's recording engineer on the cover. The title cut was the last single to feature Jeff Beck as the band's sole lead guitarist (the follow-up single, Happenings Ten Years Time Ago, featured both Beck and Jimmy Page).

Artist:    Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    His Holy Modal Majesty
Source:    LP: Super Session
Writer(s):    Bloomfield/Kooper
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1968
    One of the earliest electronic keyboard instruments was a device that came to be known as the Kooperphone, thanks to its use by Al Kooper as early as 1966, when he was a member of the Blues Project. The instrument could not play chords, only single notes, and Kooper used it extensively on tracks like His Holy Modal Majesty on the 1968 album Super Session. If that were all there was to the track it might be remembered as little more than a curiosity piece. Thanks to the outstanding improvisational abilities of Kooper, guitarist Michael Bloomfield, bassist Harvey Brooks and drummer Eddie Hoh however, the piece soars, changing style and tempo with a fluidity rarely found outside of jazz circles.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Season Of The Witch (2002 remix w/o horns)
Source:    CD: Super Session
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
            In 1968 Al Kooper, formerly of the Blues Project, formed a new group he called Blood, Sweat and Tears. Then, after recording one album with the new group, he promptly quit the band. He then booked studio time and called in his friend Michael Bloomfield (who had just left own his new band the Electric Flag) for a recorded jam session. Due to his chronic insomnia and inclination to use heroin to deal with said insomnia, Bloomfield was unable to record an entire album's worth of material, and Kooper called in another friend, Stephen Stills (who had recently left the Buffalo Springfield) to complete the project. The result was the Super Session album, which surprisingly (considering that it was the first album of its kind), made the top 10 album chart. One of the most popular tracks on Super Session was an extended version of Donovan's "Season of the Witch." Kooper initially felt that the basic tracks needed some sweetening, so he brought in a horn section to record additional overdubs. In 2003, Kooper revisited the original multi-track master tapes and created a new mix that restored the original performance. This is that mix.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title:    Man's Temptation
Source:    LP: Super Session
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1968
    The shortest track on the Mike Bloomfield side of the Super Session LP is also the nearest thing to a conventional pop song on the album. Man's Temptation is a Curtis Mayfield tune originally recorded by the Impressions that here sounds like it could have been taken directly from an Electric Flag (Bloomfield's former group) session. Al Kooper's vocals are more in line with his later solo work than on the Blues Project's albums, giving the the piece an early Blood, Sweat And Tears feel to it.