Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1711 (starts 3/15/17)

Santana fans should enjoy this one, as we have a set of tunes from the Abraxas album buried in this week's show. Lots of other tasty treats as well.

Artist:    Queen
Title:    Keep Yourself Alive
Source:    LP: Queen
Writer(s):    Brian May
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1973
    The first Queen record ever released was the single version of Keep Yourself Alive, a Brian May composition that hit the racks a week before Queen's self-titled 1973 debut LP. The song was also the opening track of the LP itself, and is considered by some critics to be the best track on the album. The album track was not the original recorded version of the tune, however. The song was first recorded in 1971 as part of a five-song demo tape made at De Lane Lea Studios' new facilities. The band unsuccessfully shopped the tape around to various British record labels for several months. Finally, the owners of Trident Studios let Queen come in during the studio's off hour (3-7AM) to record tracks for their first album. Among the first songs recorded for the album was Keep Yourself Alive, but the band was not satisfied with the result, preferring the demo version of the song. Eventually a new engineer was brought in and the version of the song used on the album itself was recorded. To this day, however, May says he prefers the demo version of the tune.

Artist:    Chicago
Title:    25 Or 6 To 4
Source:    CD: Chicago
Writer(s):    Robert Lamm
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    For their second LP, Chicago (which had just dropped the words "Transit Authority" from their name in response to a threatened lawsuit) tried out all three of their vocalists on each new song to hear who sounded the best for that particular song. In the case of Robert Lamm's 25 Or 6 To 4, bassist Peter Cetera did the honors. The song became a top 10 single both in the US and UK. Despite rumors to the contrary, Lamm says 25 Or 6 To 4 is not a drug song. Instead, he says, the title refers to the time of the morning that he was awake and writing the tune.

Artist:      Jethro Tull
Title:     Hymn 43
Source:      LP: Aqualung
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1971
     Just for something completely different we have Ian Anderson taking on the religious establishment on Jethro Tull's Aqualung album. He had already fired the first shot a couple years before with Christmas Song, but this time he had an entire album side to work with, and he did not pull any punches with his scathing criticism of what he perceived as rampant hypocrisy within the Anglican church.

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

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    EZY Rider
Source:    LP: The Cry Of Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1971
    Ezy Rider was one of the many songs that Jimi Hendrix had recently completed when he died suddenly in September of 1970. Although no one will ever know for sure what his plans for the song were, Ezy Rider was one of the tracks chosen for inclusion on The Cry Of Love, the first post-humous Jimi Hendrix LP. The song, inspired by the film Easy Rider, has since appeared on both Voodoo Soup and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, CD albums that attempt to piece together what would have been the next Hendrix album had the guitarist lived.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dancing With Mr. D.
Source:    LP: Goat's Head Soup
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Rolling Stones
Year:    1973
    Depending on whose point of view you choose to agree with, Goat's Head Soup marked either the end of the Rolling Stones' golden age or the beginning of their mid-70s decline into rock star decadence. With a track like Dancing With Mr. D. starting off the album, I'd have to go with the former view.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Se A Cabo
Source:    CD: Santana
Writer(s):    Chepito Areas
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Following their successful appearance at Woodstock in August of 1969, Santana returned to the studio to begin work on their second LP. Unlike their self-titled debut, Abraxas took several months to record, finally hitting the racks in September of 1970. Like the group's first album, Abraxas includes several instrumental tracks such as Se A Cabo, which opens side two of the original LP. The tune was written by percussionist José Octavio "Chepito" Areas, who played timbales for the band from 1969-1977, returning for a three-year stint in the late 1980s.

Artist:     Santana
Title:     Mother's Daughter
Source:     LP: Abraxas
Writer:     Gregg Rolie
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1970
     Carlos Santana once said that his original lineup was the best of the many bands named Santana. With talented songwriters such as keyboardist Gregg Rolie in the band, it's hard to argue with that assessment. Rolie, of course, would go on to co-found Journey.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Hope You're Feeling Better
Source:    CD: Abraxas
Writer(s):    Gregg Rolie
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Hope You're Feeling Better was the third single to be taken from Santana's Abraxas album. Although not as successful as either Black Magic Woman or Oye Como Va, the song nonetheless received considerable airplay on progressive FM rock stations and has appeared on several anthology anthems since its initial release.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    I'm Your Captain
Source:    CD: Closer To Home
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    I first switched from guitar to bass during my junior year in high school, when I joined a band that already had a much better guitarist than I was, but no bass player. Like Noel Redding, I started by using an old acoustic guitar with a pickup, turning the tone control to its lowest setting. It wasn't until spring that I finally got an actual bass to play (a Hofner Beatle that I paid the German equivalent of $90.00 for at a small local music shop). The band itself was modeled on early power trios like Cream and Blue Cheer, which basically meant that I was playing pseudo leads in the lower register, hopefully in some sort of counterpoint to what the lead guitarist was playing. It wasn't until I returned to the States and hooked up with a band that had two guitarists and played actual songs that I learned what playing the bass was really about. One of those songs was I'm Your Captain by Grand Funk Railroad. Borrowing a copy of the Closer To Home album I listened closely to Mel Schacher's bass lines, especially the riffs on the intro to I'm Your Captain and during the transition to the song's second movement. To this day I credit Schascher as being the most important influence on my own bass playing (even though I haven't actually picked up a bass guitar since 1989).

Artist:    Bob Mosley
Title:    Hand In Hand
Source:    LP: Bob Mosley
Writer(s):    Bob Mosley
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    Bob Mosley is best known as the bass player for Moby Grape, writing and singing on several of the band's best-known tracks. Originally from the San Diego area, where he graduated high school, Mosley relocated to the San Francisco Bay area in the mid-1960s, becoming a member of a local band called the Vejtables for a short time. In 1967 he became a founding member of Moby Grape, staying with the band until 1971 (with the exception of a brief stint in the US Marines in 1969). The following year he recorded his self-titled solo LP for the Reprise label. Although not a major commercial success, the album did have some strong tracks, such as Mosley's own Hand In Hand. Mosley's career has been sidetracked from time to time by bouts of schizophrenia. He was first diagnosed with the illness in Marine basic training, which led to his early discharge from the Corps nine months later. Mosley's most recent album, True Blue, was released on the Taxim label in 2005.

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Statesboro Blues
Source:    LP: At Fillmore East
Writer(s):    Willie McTell
Label:    Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year:    1971
    The Allman Brothers Band is generally accepted as the original Southern Rock band. Much of this reputation, however, is based on the group's second phase, following the death of founder Duane Allman. In the beginning, however, the Allman Brothers Band was first and foremost a blues-rock band, perhaps even the best American blues-rock band of its time. This is evidenced by the fact that their breakthrough album, At Fillmore East, starts with their electrifying arrangement of a Blind Willie McTell blues classic, Statesboro Blues. McTell originally recorded the tune in 1928. Forty years later Taj Mahal recorded a blues-rock version that inspired Duane Allman to take up the slide guitar. The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East version of Statesboro Blues is ranked #9 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of all-time greatest guitar songs.    

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1710 (starts 3/8/17)

Lot's of 1967 this week, including nearly 20 minutes of Eric Burdon and the Animals from the Winds Of Change album. Also, sets from the Byrds and Stones to bookend the first hour.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Eight Miles High
Source:    CD: Fifth Dimension
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby/Clark
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1966
    By all rights, the Byrds' Eight Miles High should have been a huge hit. Unfortunately, Bill Drake, the most influential man in the history of Top 40 radio, got it into his head that this was a drug song, despite the band's insistence that it was about a transatlantic plane trip. The band's version actually makes sense, as Gene Clark had just quit the group due to his fear of flying (he is listed as a co-writer of the song), and the subject was probably a hot topic of discussion among the remaining members. Despite all this Eight Miles High still managed to crack the top 20 in late 1966.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    All I Really Want To Do
Source:    LP: Mr. Tambourine Man
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The Byrds scored a huge international hit with their interpretation of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, which made it to the top of the charts in 1965. The group's next single was another Dylan cover, All I Really Want To Do. Although it did well in the UK, making it all the way to the # 4 spot, the song was not a major hit in the US, where it stalled out at # 40. Ironically, the Byrds' next single, Pete Seeger's Turn Turn Turn, bombed in the UK while hitting # 1 in the US.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Why
Source:    CD: Fifth Dimension (bonus track)
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1965
    One of the highlights of the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday album, released in early 1967, was a song co-written by David Crosby and Jim (Roger) McGuinn called Why. Many of the band's fans already knew that a different version of the song had already been released as the B side of Eight Miles High the previous year. The stereo mix of that version remained unreleased for many years, but is now available as a bonus track on the remastered CD version of the Fifth Dimension album.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Ballad Of A Thin Man
Source:    CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    Bob Dylan himself plays piano on Ballad Of A Thin Man, from his controversial 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. Up to that point in his career, Dylan had recorded mostly acoustic material, usually accompanying himself on guitar with little or no other instrumentation. On Highway 61 Revisited, however, he was joined by a full complement of electric musicians, including guitarist Mike Bloomfield (of the Butterfield Blues Band) and Al Kooper (who would go on to be a star in his own right as a member of the Blues Project and later as the founder of Blood, Sweat And Tears). Ballad Of A Thin Man itself was, according to Dylan, based on a real person, or an amalgam of real people who had crossed Dylan's path. The subject of the song, Mr. Jones, as referred to in the song's refrain "Something is happening here/ But you don't know what it is/ Do you, Mr Jones?" was based on the various establishment types who were virtually clueless when it came to understanding the youthful counter-culture that was developing in the mid-1960s. The following year the Grass Roots scored a regional hit in Southern California with their cover of the song, retitled Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man).

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    For What It's Worth
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and added to LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth. And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in December. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was becoming a breakout hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth, making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.

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 made for Bob Shad's Mainstream label.

Artist:    Hour Glass
Title:    Now Is The Time
Source:    LP: The Hour Glass (originally released on LP: Power Of Love)
Writer(s):    Gregg Allman
Label:    United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    The Hour Glass is a perfect example of what can go wrong when a producer has a vision that is totally inappropriate for the artist he or she is working with. In this case the producer was one Dallas Smith, whose goal was to create a West Coast pop-soul sound. The band was the Hour Glass, consisting of two future members of the Allman Brothers Band, along with three guys who would go on to be among the highly respected studio musicians at the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals Alabama. The group was already getting a reputation in musician's circles for its live shows, which included several tunes from frontman/keyboardist Gregg Allman, as well as covers of songs by Otis Redding and the Yardbirds, among others, but Smith, instead of drawing on the band's strengths, made them record material chosen by their record label from a pool of outside songwriters. Natually the album flopped, which gave the band the leverage to pick out their own material, such as Now Is The Time, for their second LP, Power Of Love. Unfortunately, Smith still held the production reins, and the band members felt constricted in the studio. Finally, the Hour Glass went out to Fame Studios on their own and recorded a handful of tracks done their way, but the label refused to issue the recordings. The band responded by breaking up, with Gregg and Duane Allman eventually forming their own band and the other members of the Hour Glass becoming successful studio musicians.

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    After The Gold Rush
Source:    CD: After The Gold Rush
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
    Once upon a time Dean Stockwell and Herb Bermann wrote a screenplay for a movie to be called After The Gold Rush. Neil Young read the script and decided that he wanted to do the soundtrack for the film, which Stockwell described as "sort of an end-of-the-world movie. I was gonna write a movie that was personal, a Jungian self-discovery of the gnosis... it involved the Kabala (sic), it involved a lot of arcane stuff." The movie was never made, and even the script is now long lost. However, Young did manage to write a couple of songs for the film, including the title track itself, which became the title track of his third album. The song itself describes a dream vision about the past, present and future of earth's environment. Young still performs After The Gold Rush, although he has updated one of the song's most famous lines ("Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s") by replacing the words "the 1970s" with "the 21st century".

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sunshine Of Your Love
Source:    LP: Disraeli Gears (picture disc, if anyone cares)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown/Clapton
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Although by mid-1967 Cream had already released a handful of singles in the UK, Sunshine Of Your Love, featuring one of the most recognizable guitar rifts in the history of rock, was their first song to make a splash in the US. Although only moderately successful in edited form on AM Top-40 radio, the full-length LP version of the song received extensive airplay on the more progressive FM stations, and turned Disraeli Gears into a perennial best-seller. Clapton and Bruce constantly trade off lead vocal lines throughout the song. The basic compatibility of their voices is such that it is sometimes difficult to tell exactly who is singing what line. Clapton's guitar solo (which was almost entirely edited out of the AM version) set a standard for instrumental breaks in terms of length and style that became a hallmark for what is now known as "classic rock." Yeah, I write this stuff myself.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Gone And Passes By
Source:    British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released in US on LP: No Way Out)
Writer(s):    Dave Aguilar
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Producer Ed Cobb, years after the fact, expressed regret that he didn't take the time to discover for himself what made the Chocolate Watchband such a popular band among San Jose, California's teenagers. Instead, he tried to present his own vision of what a psychedelic band should sound like on the group's debut LP, No Way Out. Many of the tracks on the album used studio musicians, and two of the tracks featuring the Watchband itself used studio vocalist Don Bennett instead of Dave Aguilar, including the single Let's Talk About Girls. The remaining tracks, altough featuring the full band, were somewhat obscured by additional instruments, particular the sitar, which was not normally used by the band when performing live. This synthesis of Cobb's vision and the actual Watchband is probably best illustrated by the song Gone And Passes By, an Aguilar composition that somewhat resembles a psychedelicized version of the Rolling Stones' cover of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Strawberry Fields Forever
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    The first song recorded for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, John Lennon's Strawberry Fields Forever was instead issued as a single (along with Paul McCartney's Penny Lane) a few months before the album came out. The song went into the top 10, but was not released on an album until December of 1967, when it was included on the US version of Magical Mystery Tour.

Artist:    Who
Title:    I Can See For Miles
Source:    CD: Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy (originally released on LP: The Who Sell Out)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    I Can See For Miles continued a string of top 10 singles in the UK and was the Who's biggest US hit ever. Pete Townshend, however, was disappointed with the song's performance on the UK charts. He said that the song was the ultimate Who song and as such it should have charted even higher than it did. It certainly was one of the heaviest songs of its time and there is some evidence that it prompted Paul McCartney to come up with Helter Skelter in an effort to take the heaviest song ever title back for the Beatles. What makes the story even more bizarre is that at the time McCartney reportedly had never actually heard I Can See For Miles and was going purely by what he read in a record review.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sympathy For The Devil
Source:    CD: 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.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Play With Fire
Source:    Mono LP: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1965
    Generally when one thinks of the Rolling Stones the first thing that comes to mind is down to earth rock and roll songs such as Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women. The band has always had a more mellow side, however. In fact, the first Mick Jagger/Keith Richards compositions were of the slower variety, including Heart Of Stone and As Tears Go By. Even after the duo started cranking out faster-paced hits like 19th Nervous Breakdown and The Last Time, they continued to write softer songs such as Play With Fire, which made the charts as a B side in 1965. The lyrics of Play With Fire, with their sneering warning to not mess with the protagonist of the song, helped cement the Stones' image as the bad boys of rock and roll.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Parachute Woman
Source:    CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The last Rolling Stones album with the original lineup was Beggar's Banquet, released in 1968. The album itself was a conscious effort on the part of the band to get back to their roots after the psychedelic excesses of Their Satanic Majesties Request. Sadly, Brian Jones was fast deteriorating at the time and his contributions to the album are minimal compared to the band's earlier efforts. As a result, Keith Richards was responsible for most of the guitar work on Beggar's Banquet, including both lead and rhythm parts on Parachute Woman.

Artist:    ? And The Mysterians
Title:    96 Tears
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    The Mysterians
Label:    Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year:    1966
    Although his birth certificate gives the name Rudy Martinez, the leader of the Mysterians had his name legally changed to "?" several years ago. He asserts that he is actually from the planet Mars and has lived among dinosaurs in a past life. Sometimes I feel like I'm living among dinosaurs in this life, so I guess I can relate a little. The band's only major hit, 96 Tears, has the distinction of being the last top 10 single on the Cameo label before Cameo-Parkway went bankrupt and was bought by Allen Klein, who now operates the company as Abkco.

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

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Levitation
Source:    British import CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland
Label:    Charly (original 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.
       
Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Lazy Day
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Martin
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their debut LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Paintbox
Source:    CD: Cre/ation-The Early Years 1967-1972 (originally released in UK and Europe as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Rick Wright
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    On Pink Floyd's earliest records, the songwriter of record was usually Syd Barrett. After Barrett's mental issues forced him out of the band the other members stepped up to fill the gap. But even before Barrett left, drummer Rick Wright's name began to show up on songwriting credits, such as on Paintbox, a 1967 B side that came out between the band's first two LPs.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Fakin' It
Source:    LP: Bookends
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    Fakin' It, originally released as a single in 1967, was a bit of a departure for Simon And Garfunkel, sounding more like British psychedelic music than American folk-rock. The track starts with an intro that is similar to the false ending to the Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever; midway through the record the tempo changes drastically for a short spoken word section that makes a reference to a "Mr. Leitch" (the last name of the Scottish folksinger turned psychedelic pioneer Donovan). The stereo mix of Fakin' It was first released on the 1968 LP Bookends.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Purple Haze
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    Purple Haze has one of the most convoluted release histories of any song ever recorded. Originally issued in the UK as a single, it scored high on the British charts. When Reprise got the rights to release the first Hendrix album, Are You Experienced?, they chose to replace the first track on the album with Purple Haze, moving the original opening track, Foxy Lady, to side two of the LP. The song next appeared on the Smash Hits album, which in Europe was on the Polydor label. This was the way things stayed until the early 1990s, when MCA acquired the rights to the Hendrix catalog and re-issued Are You Experienced? with the tracks restored to the UK ordering, but preceded by the six non-album sides (including Purple Haze) that had originally been released prior to the album. Most recently, the Hendrix Family Trust has again changed labels and the US version of Are You Experienced? is once again in print, this time on Sony's Legacy label. This means that Purple Haze (heard here in its original mono mix) has now been released by all three of the world's major record companies. That's right. There are only three major record companies left in the entire world, Sony (which owns Columbia and RCA, among others), Warner Brothers (which owns Elektra, Atlantic, Reprise and others) and Universal (which started off as MCA and now, as the world's largest record company, owns far too many current and former labels to list here). Don't you just love out of control corporate consolidation?

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Wind
Source:    LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Circus Maximus was formed out of the chance meeting of multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in Greenwich Village in 1967. From the start the band was moving in different directions, with Bruno incorporating jazz elements into the band while Walker favored country-rock. Eventually the two would go their separate ways, but for the short time the band was together they made some of the best, if not best-known, psychedelic music on the East Coast. The band's most popular track was Wind, a Bruno tune from their debut album. The song got a considerable amount of airplay on the new "underground" radio stations that were popping up across the country at the time.

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     Man-Woman/Hotel Hell
Source:     British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer:     Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     BGO (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 example of psychedelic era experimentation. One of the more experimental tracks is Man-Woman, a spoken word piece about a man's unfaithfulness and his woman's reaction to it that takes a rather chauvinistic view of the situation. Instrumentally the entire track is nearly entirely made up of percussion instruments playing African-inspired rhythms. Even the electric guitar is used percussively on the track, which seques into Hotel Hell, a heartfelt song about the loneliness of being constantly on the road that predates Bob Seger's Turn The Page by several years.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Paint It Black
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins/Jagger/Richards
Label:    Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    One of the highlights of the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967 was the onstage debut of Eric Burdon's new Animals, a group much more in tune with the psychedelic happenings of the summer of love than its working class predecessor. The showstopper for the band's set was an extended version of the Rolling Stone's classic Paint It, Black. That summer saw the release of the group's first full LP, Winds Of Change, which included a studio version of Paint It, Black.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Good Times
Source:    British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    BGO (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and was a hit there as well.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
Source:    CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Brian Wilson's songwriting reached its full maturity with the Pet Sounds album, released in 1966. In addition to the hits Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B and God Only Knows, the album featured several album tracks that redefined where a pop song could go. One such tune is Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder), a slow, moody song with a chord structure that goes in unexpected directions. Like most of the songs on Pet Sounds, it was co-written by Tony Asher, who would later say the ideas were all Wilson's, with Asher just helping put them into words.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1710 (starts 3/8/17)

Of this week's 11 tracks, all but two have never been played on either Rockin' in the Days of Confusion or Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before. Check it out:

Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Green-Eyed Lady
Source:    CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1970 (originally released on LP: Sugarloaf and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Corbetta/Phillips/Riordan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1970
    The unwritten rules of radio, particularly those concerning song length, were in transition in 1970. Take Sugarloaf's Green-Eyed Lady, for example. When first released as a single the 45 was virtually identical to the album version except that it faded out just short of the six-minute mark. This was about twice the allowed length under the old rules and it was soon replaced with an edited version that left out all the instrumental solos, coming in at just under three minutes. The label soon realized, however, that part of the original song's appeal (as heard on FM rock radio) was its organ solo, and a third single edit with that solo restored became the final, and most popular, version of Green-Eyed Lady. The song went into the top 5 nationally (#1 on some charts) and ended up being the band's biggest hit.

Artist:    Van Morrison
Title:    Caravan
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: Moondance)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Following the lukewarm commercial reception of his Astral Weeks album, Van Morrison set out to deliberately make a more accessible album. The result was Moondance, the album that established him as a major force in modern music. Among the many tracks on the album to get airplay on FM rock radio was Caravan, a song that was based on Morrison's memories of living on a country road in Woodstock, NY, where the nearest house was a fair distance away. In the song, which is basically about the gypsy lifestyle, he mentions the radio prominently in the song. As he later explained: "I could hear the radio like it was in the same room. I don't know how to explain it. There was some story about an underground passage under the house I was living in, rumours from kids and stuff and I was beginning to think it was true. How can you hear someone's radio from a mile away, as if it was playing in your own house? So I had to put that into the song, It was a must."

Artist:    Kak
Title:    Trieulogy
Source:    British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released in US on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Yoder/Grelecki
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    The story of Kak is one of the strangest in rock history. Guitarists Gary Yoder and Dehner Patton had both been members of the Oxford Circle, the legendary East (San Francisco) Bay area band that broke up in early summer of 1967. Not long the breakup Yoder was approached by a guy named Gary Grelecki, who introduced himself as a fan of the band and offered to get Yoder a deal with Columbia, then the second largest record label in the country. Yoder figured that he didn't have anything to lose by saying yes; sure enough, two months later he got a call from Grelecki saying the contract was a done deal. Yoder got into contact with Dehner, who had been playing in a band called Cherry Jam since the Oxford breakup, performing original material in the Davis area. One of the other members of Cherry Jam was percussionist/harpsichordist Chris Lockheed, who had previously played in a band called the Majestics. The lineup was completed with the addition of bassist Joe-Dave Damrill, who had been playing with another Davis band called Group B. It turned out that Grelicki's father was with the CIA and had been using Columbia as a front for agency activities in East Asia, and actually had legitimate contacts at the label. The new band, Kak, was signed to Columbia's Epic subsidiary, releasing their only LP in 1969. Although neither the band (which played fewer than a dozen gigs in its entire existence) or the album was not a commercial success at the time, Kak gained a cult following that exists to this day. The most ambitious track on the album, Trieulogy, is made up of three originally unrelated pieces, Golgotha, Mirage and Rain, that Yoder later said "blended well together", adding that "it's a logical pattern, lyrically and musically."

Artist:    Todd Rundgren
Title:    When I Pray
Source:    45 RPM single B side (taken from LP: Faithful)
Writer(s):    Todd Rundgren
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1976
    For his seventh album, singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Todd Rundgren decided to do something a bit different. The first side of Faithful was made up entirely of cover songs, while side two of the LP was all Rundgren originals. Both sides of the album got praise from the rock press, with Rolling Stone rock critic John Milward calling it "his strongest collection of pop runes since...Something/Anything." The only single from the album followed the same cover/original pattern, with Rundgren's dead-on cover of the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations backed with When I Pray, a rather tasty tune utilizing exotic rhythms to create a hypnotic effect.

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

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    One Of These Days
Source:    CD: Works (originally released on LP: Meddle)
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Gilmour/Mason
Label:    Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    In their early years Pink Floyd was a band that was talked about more than heard, at least in the US. That began to change with the release of their 1971 LP Meddle and its opening track, One Of These Days, which got a significant amount of airplay on FM rock radio.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Spider In My Web
Source:    CD: Undead
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1968
    Ten Years After was always known more for their live performances than for their studio work. In fact, their biggest break was playing live at Woodstock. It should come as no surprise, then, that they chose to release a live album as their second LP in 1968. The album is basically a showcase for Alvin Lee's guitar pyrotechnics, although there are a couple tunes, such as Spider In My Web, that he wrote himself.
   
Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Source:    LP: The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Asylum
Year:    1975
    Although it was not well-received by the rock press when it was first released, Joni Mitchell's seventh studio album, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns has since come to be regarded, in the words of one critic, Mitchell's masterpiece. The title track, which opens side two of the original LP, is a critical view of a businesslike marraige where the wife has come to be thought of as part of the husband's portfolio.

Artist:    Sly And The Family Stone
Title:    Family Affair
Source:    CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1970 (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: There's A Riot Goin' On)
Writer(s):    Sylvester Stewart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1971
    Although credited to Sly And The Family Stone, Family Affair was actually almost a solo effort by the the group's leader, Sly Stone, who played keyboards, guitar and bass on the track, with his friend Billy Preston providing additional keyboards. The song is one of the first uses of a drum machine (then known as a rhythm box), which was programmed by Stone himself. Sly provided lead vocals on the track, backed up by his sister Rose. He initially did not consider the song strong enough to be released as a single, but as it turned out, Family Affair was the biggest hit of his career, becoming his final #1 hit on both the pop and soul charts.

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Sentimental Lady
Source:    CD: Bare Trees
Writer(s):    Bob Welch
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    One of the great rock love songs of the 1970s, Bob Welch's Sentimental Lady spent several weeks in the top 20 in late 1977. Welch's solo version of the song, from his French Kiss album, was not the original recorded version of the song, however. That title goes to the 1972 Fleetwood Mac version of the song from the Bare Trees album, featuring Welch on lead vocals backed by Christine McVie. Unlike the Welch version, Fleetwood Mac's Sentimental Lady has a second verse and runs about four and a half minutes in length (Welch's solo version is about three minutes long).

Artist:    Yes
Title:    And You And I
Source:    LP: Close To The Edge
Writer(s):    Anderson/Bruford/Howe/Squire
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1972
    Recording technology has been evolving since the first recordings were made on wax cylinders over a hundred years ago. That evolution has been anything but steady, however. The process was entirely acoustic until about 1930, when microphones began to replace the large horns that had been previously required to gather in sounds. From there, things stayed pretty much as they were until the late 1940s, when tape technology made it possible to edit recordings for the first time. Stereo came along in the 1950s, but was considered a luxury rather than an industry standard until the late 1960s, when the record labels began to phase out monoraul records altogether. Perhaps the biggest and most revolutionary change, however, was the invention of multi-track technology, or rather the expansion of such technology to more than three or four tracks. As first eight, and then sixteen track machines became common, the artists themselves began to use the recording studio itself as part of the creative process. There were times, however, when the process got a bit too complicated, at least for some musicians. Bill Bruford, the drummer for Yes, absolutely hated the slow development of material in the studio that went into the making of the album Close To The Edge, to the point that it would be his last studio LP as a member of Yes. Only one track on the album was credited to the entire band: And You And I, which was also the only single released (in edited form, since the original runs over ten minutes) from the album. The song originated as an acoustic piece by vocalist Jon Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe that was fleshed out by Bruford and bassist Chris Squire in the studio. The edited version of And You And I barely missed the top 40, peaking at #42.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1709 (starts 3/1/17)

This week we have: a Hendrix set, a Beatles set, a creeper set, a regression through the years that starts to progress instead, and a whole lot of tunes from 1967.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Purple Haze
Source:    LP: Smash Hits (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    Following up on the success of their first UK single Hey Joe, the Jimi Hendrix Experience released Purple Haze in early 1967. The popularity of the two singles (originally released only in Europe) led to a deal with Reprise Records to start releasing the band's material in the US. By then, however, the Experience had already released their first LP, Are You Experienced, without either of the two hit singles on it. Reprise, hedging their bets, included both singles (but not their B sides), as well as a third UK single The Wind Cries Mary, deleting several tracks from the original version of Are You Experienced to make room for them.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Castles Made Of Sand
Source:     CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Axis: Bold As Love)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     Although born in Seattle, Washington, James Marshall Hendrix was never associated with the local music scene that produced some of the loudest and raunchiest punk-rock of the mid 60s. Instead, he paid his professional dues backing R&B artists on the "chitlin circuit" of clubs playing to a mostly-black clientele, mainly in the southern US. After a short stint leading his own soul band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, Hendrix, at the behest of one Chas Chandler, moved to London, where he recuited a pair of local musicians, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, to form the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Although known for his innovative use of feedback, Hendrix was quite capable of knocking out some of the most complex "clean" riffs ever to be committed to vinyl. A prime example of this is Castles Made Of Sand. Hendrix's highly melodic guitar work combined with unusual tempo changes and haunting lyrics makes Castles Made Of Sand a classic that sounds as fresh today as it did when Axis: Bold As Love was released in 1967. The first time I ever heard this song it gave me chills.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Spanish Castle Magic
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    When the second Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Axis: Bold As Love came out it was hailed as a masterpiece of four-track engineering. Working closely with producer Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer, Hendrix used the recording studio itself as an instrument, making an art form out of the stereo mixing process. The unfortunate by-product of this is that most of the songs on the album could not be played live and still sound anything like the studio version. One notable exception is Spanish Castle Magic, which became a more or less permanent part of the band's performing repertoire.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    She Has Funny Cars
Source:    LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s):    Kaukonen/Balin
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    She Has Funny Cars, the opening track of Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, was a reference to some unusual possessions belonging to new drummer Spencer Dryden's girlfriend. As was the case with many of the early Airplane tracks, the title has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song itself. The song was also released as the B side to the band's first top 10 single, Somebody To Love.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday
Source:    LP: Volume II
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    Once upon a time record producer Kim Fowley hired the Yardbirds to play a private Hollywood party. The Harris brothers, a pair of local art school students who had sent their homemade tapes to Fowley, were impressed by the band's musical abilities. Bob Markley, an almost-30-year-old hipster with a law degree and an inheritance was impressed with the band's ability to attract teenage girls. Fowley introduced the Harris brothers to Markley, who expressed a willingness to finance them in return for letting him be their new lead vocalist, and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was formed. Before it was all over the group had recorded five or six albums for at least three labels, churning out an eclectic mix of psychedelic tunes such as Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday, which appeared on the second album for Reprise Records (their third LP overall), appropriately titled Volume II.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Antique Doll
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released on LP: Underground)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Sometimes there is no comprehending what goes on in the mind of record company people. Take the Electric Prunes, for example. Their second single, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), put them right at the front of the pack of the psychedelic rock movement in early 1967. Their follow up single, Get Me To The World On Time, was a solid hit as well, which should have guaranteed them a good run. But even with that second single, problems with management's decision making were becoming apparent. For one thing, the song chosen as the second single's B side, Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less), had the potential to be a hit in its own right, but being put on a B side killed that idea entirely. It only got worse from there. The next single chosen was a novelty number from the band's second LP, Underground, called Dr. Do-Good. The tune was written by the same team of Annette Tucker and Nanci Mantz that had come up with both Dream and Lovin' Me More, but was played for laughs by the band. The choice of such a weird track is a complete puzzle, as there were several more commercial tunes on the LP, including one written by Tucker and Mantz themselves called Antique Doll. Unfortunately, the song was not even picked to be a B side, and has remained virtually unknown ever since. Rather than own up to their own mistakes, however, the band's management blamed the musicians themselves for their lack of commercial success, and eventually replaced the entire lineup of the original group (who had signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes early on). Of course, the new lineups were even less successful than the original crew, but really, what else would you expect?

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Girl
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1965
    Some people think Girl is one of those John Lennon drug songs. I see it as one of those John Lennon observing what's really going on beneath the civilized veneer of western society songs myself. Your choice.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Lovely Rita
Source:    LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone/EMI (original US 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:        Beatles
Title:        The Word
Source:        CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:        Capitol/EMI
Year:        1965
        The original concept for the album Rubber Soul was to show the group stretching out into R&B territory. The US version of the album, however, deleted several of the more soulful numbers in favor of folk-rock oriented songs. This was done by Capitol records mainly to cash in on the sudden popularity of the genre in 1965. Not all of the more R&B flavored songs were replaced, however. John Lennon's The Word appeared on both US and UK versions of Rubber Soul.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

Artist:     Vanilla Fudge
Title:     Bang Bang
Source:     LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer:     Sonny Bono
Label:     Atco
Year:     1967
     Vanilla Fudge made their reputation by taking popular hit songs, such as the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On, and extensively re-arranging them, giving the songs an almost classical feel. In fact, some of their arrangements incorporated (uncredited) snippets of actually classical pieces. One glaring example is the Vanilla Fudge arrangement of Cher's biggest solo hit of the 60s, Bang Bang (written by her then-husband Sonny Bono). Unfortunately, although I recognize the classical piece the band uses for an intro to Bang Bang, I can't seem to remember what it's called or who wrote it. Anyone out there able to help? I think it may have been used in a 1950s movie like The King And I or Attack of the Killer Women from Planet X.

Artist:     Who
Title:     Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde
Source:     Mono CD: Magic Bus: The Who On Tour (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    John Entwhistle
Label:     MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:     1968
     The Who were blessed with not one, but two top-notch songwriters: Pete Townshend and John Entwhistle. Whereas Townsend's songs ranged from tight pop songs to more serious works such as Tommy, Entwistle's tunes had a slightly twisted outlook, dealing with such topics as crawly critters (Boris the Spider), imaginary friends (Whiskey Man) and even outright perversion (Fiddle About). Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde was originally released in the US as the B side to Call Me Lightning. Both songs were included on the Magic Bus album.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Season Of The Witch
Source:    CD: Sunshine On The Mountain (originally released on LP: Sunshine Superman)
Writer:    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sony Music Special Products (original label: Epic)
Year:    1966
     Season Of The Witch has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring tracks on Donovan's Sunshine Superman album. Due to a contract dispute with Pye Records, the album was not released in the UK until late 1967, and then only as an LP combining tracks from both the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums. Like all tracks from both Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, Season Of The Witch was only available in a mono mix until 1969, when a new stereo mix was created from the original multi-track masters for the singer/songwriter's first greatest hits compilation. Season of the Witch has since been covered by an impressive array of artists, including Al Kooper and Stephen Stills (on the Super Session album) and Vanilla Fudge.

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

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Renaissance Fair
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Crosby/McGuinn
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    Younger Than Yesterday was David Crosby's last official album with the Byrds (he was fired midway through the recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers) and the last one containing any collaborations between Crosby and Jim (now Roger) McGuinn. Renaissance Fair, a song that Crosby was inspired to write after attending the Renaissance Pleasure Faire Of Southern California, is one of those collaborations, although the actual extent of McGuinn's participation is debatable.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Porpoise Song
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Head soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    In 1968 the Monkees, trying desperately to shed a teeny-bopper image, enlisted Jack Nicholson to co-write a feature film that was a 180-degree departure from their recently-cancelled TV show. This made sense, since the original fans of the show were by then already outgrowing the group. Unfortunately, by 1968 the Monkees brand was irrevocably tainted by the fact that the Monkees had not been allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums. The movie Head itself was the type of film that was best suited to being shown in theaters that specialized in "art" films, but that audience was among the most hostile to the Monkees and the movie bombed. It is now considered a cult classic.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    You Really Got Me
Source:    CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1964
    You Really Got Me has been described as the first hard rock song and the track that invented heavy metal. You'll get no argument from me on either of those.
       
Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     No Time Like The Right Time
Source:     LP: Live At Town Hall (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Al Kooper
Label:      Verve Forecast
Year:     1967
    The Blues Project's 1967 LP, Live At Town Hall, is a bit of a fake, in more ways than one. For one thing, not every track on the album is a live recording. No Time Like The Right Time, for instance, is actually the stereo mix of a studio recording that was issued prior to the album itself. On the LP, the track has fake audience noises added to the beginning and end of the song to make it sound live (although it really doesn't sound live at all). Possibly more important, however, is the fact that Al Kooper, who wrote No Time Like The Right Time, had already left the Blues Project by the time Live At Town Hall was released. Blame for this bit of fakery can not be laid on the band, however, since the album itself was the brainchild of Howard K. Solomon, who had guided the band's career since their early days playing in his Cafe Au Go Go in New York's Greenwich Village. There was one more bit of deception about the album that should be noted. Although several of the tracks on Live At Town Hall were indeed live recordings, reportedly only one of them was actually recorded at Town Hall. So much for truth in advertising.

Artist:    Vagrants
Title:    Respect
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Otis Redding
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Sounding a lot like the Rascals, the Vagrants were a popular Long Island band led by singer Peter Sabatino and best remembered for being the group that had guitarist Leslie Weinstein in it. Weinstein would change his last name to West and record a solo album called Mountain before forming the band of the same name. This version of Respect is fairly faithful to the original Otis Redding version. Unfortunately for the Vagrants, Aretha Franklin would release her radically rearranged version of the song just a few weeks after the Vagrants, relegating their version of the tune (and the Vagrants themselves) to footnote status.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Yesterday's Papers
Source:    LP: Between The Buttons
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    Between The Buttons was the Rolling Stones first album of 1967 and included their first forays into psychedelic music, a trend that would dominate their next LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request. The opening track of Between The Buttons was Yesterday's Papers, a song written in the wake of Mick Jagger's breakup with his girlfriend Chrissie Shrimpton (who, after the album was released, tried to commit suicide). The impact of the somewhat cynical song was considerably less in the US, where it was moved to the # 2 slot on side one to make room for Let's Spend The Night Together, a song that had only been released as a single in their native UK.

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    Come On Up
Source:    LP: Collections
Writer(s):    Felix Cavaliere
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1966
    In the fall of 1966 my junior high school went to split sessions, with the kids from my neighborhood assigned the morning hours. This meant getting up early in the morning and catching the school bus at around 6:20 AM. The upside (at least for me) was the fact that I got to listen to the radio all afternoon on the new console stereo that my dad had recently bought (said console being right next to the family TV set, listening in the evening was not an option). I had gotten a small transistor radio for my birthday three years earlier, but by 1966 it was no longer working, and I had not had the chance to hear my favorite stations for quite a while. As a result, Come On Up was actually the first Young Rascals song I ever heard, even though it had been preceded by bigger hits like Good Lovin'. The following summer my dad got transferred to Weisbaden, Germany, and I ended up attending a four-year high school for US military dependents. During my freshman year in I became a fan of a local band called the Collections, who took their name from the second Young Rascals album. The Collections were the "go to" band for local high school dances, including the Sadie Hawkins Day dance in October. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the concept, Sadie Hawkins day was the creation of cartoonist Al Capp, in his Li'l Abner newspaper comic strip. The idea was that once a year gender roles would get reversed, and the girls got to ask the guys to dance instead of vice versa. A bunch of us guys had gone to the dance (mostly because we had just formed a band of our own and wanted to check out the competition), and just as the Collections broke into Come On Up I was invited out onto the dance floor by a total stranger who also happened to be a cute brunette. It was the first time I had ever danced to a rock and roll band, but somehow I managed not to make a total fool of myself and even found myself being dragged into the "kissin' booth" (yes, they actually had such a thing at a high school dance back in those days) by the aforementioned cute brunette. I later found out the whole scenario was a ploy by the cute brunette to make her boyfriend jealous (which could have been hazardous to my health), but it left me with positive feelings for the Young Rascals, the Collections and Come On Up in particular that last to this day.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Dear Mr. Fantasy/We're A Fade You Missed This
Source:    CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's the title track of Traffic's Mr. Fantasy album. In the US the album was originally issued under the title Heaven Is In Your Mind, and had a slightly different track lineup. The most notable change was the addition of Traffic's UK hit single, Paper Sun, as the album's opening track. The version of Paper Sun on the album, however, was shorter that the original recording, fading out nearly a minute earlier than the British version of the song. That final 50 seconds or so, using the title We're A Fade You Missed This was tacked onto the end of Dear Mr. Fantasy to close out side two of the US LP heard here.

 Artist:    Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title:    Good Times
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1967
    By the end of the original Animals' run they were having greater chart success with their singles in the US than in their native UK. That trend continued with the formation of the "new" Animals in 1967 and their first single, When I Was Young. Shortly after the first LP by the band now known as Eric Burdon And The Animals came out, M-G-M decided to release the song San Franciscan Nights as a single to take advantage of the massive youth migration to the city that summer. Meanwhile the band's British label decided to instead issue Good Times, (an autobiographical song which was released in the US as the B side to San Franciscan Nights) as a single, and the band ended up with one of their biggest UK hits ever. Riding the wave of success of Good Times, San Franciscan Nights eventually did get released in the UK and was a hit there as well.

Artist:    American Dream
Title:    Frankford El
Source:    CD: The American Dream
Writer(s):    Van Winkle/Jameson/Indelicato
Label:    Ampex
Year:    1970
    OK, I have to admit that I know very little about the album and band called The American Dream, which was included as an unexpected free gift that came along with a vintage vinyl copy of an album I bought online. Here's what I do know. The American Dream was from Philadelphia. The album was produced by Todd Rundgren. In fact, it was his first time producing a group that he himself was not a member of. Finally, the song Frankford El was about a real elevated train in Philadelphia. The song itself is not typical of the album, by the way, which is actually pretty good stuff. Next time I'll pick out a tune that's more representative of their sound (but you have to admit, this particular novelty track is quite entertaining in its own way).

Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     I'm Her Man
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Bob Hite
Label:     Liberty
Year:     1969
     As I may have mentioned once or twice, a flooded garage a few years back resulted in several of my old 45s getting soaked. Unfortunately I didn't discover this until a couple years after the damage was done, and by then mold had set in. I was able to clean up a few of the records themselves, but some of the ink on the labels had smeared or become stuck to adjacent labels in the box, damaging both in the process of separating them. The worst case was this 1971 Canned Heat single, due to the predominately black label smearing out all the silver print. I knew just from listening to the record that the A side was Let's Work Together but could not read the label for the B side at all. Luckily we have the internet these days and I was able to determine the identity (and original source) of the song. Singer Bob Hite did not write many songs, and I'm Her Man originally was credited to a fictional pseudonym, first appearing on the 1969 album Hallelujah.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Murder In My Heart For The Judge
Source:    LP: Wow
Writer(s):     Don Stevenson
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Moby Grape was one of those bands that probably should have been more successful than they were, but were thrown off-track by a series of bad decisions by their own support personnel. First, Columbia damaged their reputation by simultaneously releasing five singles from their debut LP in 1967, leading to accusations that the band was nothing but hype. Then their producer, David Rubinson, decided to add horns and strings to many of the tracks on their second album, Wow, alienating much of the band's core audience in the process. Still, Wow did have its share of fine tunes, including drummer Don Stevenson's Murder In My Heart For The Judge, probably the most popular song on the album. The song proved popular enough to warrant cover versions by such diverse talents as Lee Michaels, Chrissy Hynde and Three Dog Night.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Chicken Little Was Right
Source:    French import CD: Happy Together (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    The Turtles
Label:    Magic (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967
    Like many of the bands of the time, the Turtles usually recorded songs from professional songwriters for their A sides and provided their own material for the B sides. In the Turtles' case, however, these B sides were often psychedelic masterpieces that contrasted strongly with their hits. Chicken Little Was Right, the B side of She's My Girl, at first sounds like something you'd hear at a hootenanny, but then switches keys for a chorus featuring the Turtles' trademark harmonies, with a little bit of Peter And The Wolf thrown in for good measure. This capacity for self-parody would come to serve band members Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan well a few years later, first as members of the Mothers (performing Happy Together live at the Fillmore East) and then as the Phorescent Leach and Eddie (later shortened to Flo And Eddie).

Artist:    Hollies
Title:    Stop Stop Stop
Source:    CD: The Best of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Clarke/Hicks/Nash
Label:    Priority (original label: Imperial)
Year:    1966
    The last Hollies song to be released in 1966 was Stop Stop Stop, a tune that was actually a rewrite of a 1964 B side. The song was written by Allan Clarke, Terry Hicks and Graham Nash, and was one of the first songs to be published under their actual names (as opposed to the fictional L. Ransford). The song itself was a major hit, going into the top 10 in eight countries, including the US, UK and Canada.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    There But For Fortune
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Phil Ochs
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1965
    When I was a kid I used to occasionally pick up something called a grab bag. It was literally a sealed brown paper bag with anywhere from four to six 45 rpm records in it. Usually these were "cut-outs", unsold copies of records that hadn't sold as well as expected. Often they were five or six years old (albeit unplayed). Once in a while, though, there would be a real gem among them. My original copy of this record was one such gem. I later found a promo copy while working at KUNM in Albuquerque, which is the one I use now, since my original is long since worn out. Not only was this record my first introduction to Joan Baez, it was also the first record I had ever seen on the Vanguard label and the first song written by Phil Ochs I had ever heard. Not bad for twelve and a half cents.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Tripmaker
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: A Web Of Sound)
Writer(s):    Tybalt/Hooper
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1966
     Although the second Seeds album, A Web Of Sound, came out in both stereo and mono versions, there are very few copies of the mono version in existence, let alone playable condition. Apparently Rhino Records has access to one of them, allowing them to use this mono mix of Tripmaker, showing the advantages of being a record label that started off as a record store.

Artist:     Love
Title:     Revelation (part one)
Source:     CD: Da Capo
Writer:     Lee/MacLean/Echols/Forsi
Label:     Elektra
Year:     1967
     The undisputed kings of the Sunset Strip were Love. Led by Arthur Lee, the band held down the position of house band at the Strip's most famous club, the Whiskey A-Go-Go, throughout 1966 and much of 1967, even as the club scene itself was starting to die off. Love liked being the top dog in L.A., so much so that they decided to forego touring to promote their records in favor of maintaining their presence at the Whiskey. In the long run this cost them, as many of their contemporaries (including one band that Love itself had discovered and introduced to Elektra producer Paul Rothchild: the Doors) went on to greater fame while Love remained a cult band throughout their existence. One of the highlights of their stage performances was a 19-minute jam called Revelation, a piece originally called John Hooker that served to give each band member a chance to show off with a solo. Although the band had been playing Revelation throughout 1966 (inspiring the Rolling Stones to do a similar number on one of their own albums), they did not get around to recording a studio version of Revelation until 1967. By that point they had added two new members, Tjay Cantrelli (sax) and Michael Stuart (drums), whose solos take up the last six minutes or so of the recorded version of the tune. The Harpsichord solo at the beginning and end of Revelation is played by "Snoopy" Pfisterer, who had switched from drums to keyboards when Stuart joined the group.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1709 (starts 3/1/17)

From Outa-Space to The Magician's Birthday, the emphasis this week seems to be on fantasies of one type or another. And on that note I'll just shut up and let you read before I dig myself a hole I can't escape from.

Artist:    Queen
Title:    Tie Your Mother Down
Source:    LP: A Day At The Races
Writer(s):    Brian May
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1976
    Following the commercial success of their fourth studio album, A Night At The Opera, with its hit single Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen got to work on a followup LP. Following the pattern set by the Marx Brothers, they decided to call the new album A Day At The Races. The LP, released in 1976, starts with a Brian May rocker calledTie Your Mother Down that became the album's second single. The song actually dates back to May's college days, when he was working on his Astronomy PhD. Vocalist Freddie Mercury said of the song: "Well this one in fact is a track written by Brian actually, I dunno why. Maybe he was in one of his vicious moods. I think he’s trying to out do me after Death On Two Legs actually." Death On Two Legs, of course, was Mercury's scathing indictment of Queen's former manager that had appeared on A Night At The Opera. Tie Your Mother Down was part of Queen's stage repertoire for several years, and got considerable airplay on FM rock radio in the US in the late 1970s. On the album the track is preceded by a slowly fading-in guitar intro that uses something called a Shepard tone. The same solo guitar piece appears at the end of the album as well, only this time fading out.

Artist:    Pavlov's Dog
Title:    Fast Gun
Source:    LP: Pampered Menial
Writer(s):    David Surkamp
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1975
    Pavlov's Dog, from St. Louis, Mo., was somewhat unusual in that they had not one, but two keyboardists in the band. In addition to keyboardists David Hamilton and Doug Rayburn, the group included vocalist David Surkamp, guitarist Steve Scorfina, bassist Rick Stockton, drummer Mike Safron, and violinist Siegfried Carver (born Richard Nadler) at the time they recorded their first album, Pampered Menial. The 1975 album was released briefly on the ABC label, then almost immediately on Columbia. Most of the songs on the album were written by either Surkamp or Scorfina, including Fast Gun, a Surkamp original. The band, despite numerous personnel changes, managed to record two more albums before disbanding in 1977. However, Columbia, citing poor sales on the first two LPs, chose not to release the third one.

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

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

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Monkey Man
Source:    LP: Let It Bleed
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1969
    I've had the Rolling Stones' Monkey Man, from the Let It Bleed album, stuck in my head for days. Truly the mark of greatness (the song, not my head).

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Love Like A Man
Source:    CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1970
    Cricklewood Green was Ten Years After's fourth studio effort and fifth album overall. Released in 1970, the album is considered by critics to be the apex of Ten Years After's studio work. The best known track from the album is Love Like A Man, which became the group's only single to chart in the UK (in an edited version), peaking at the #10 spot. The band was still considered an "underground" act in the US, despite a successful appearance at Woodstock the year before. However, Love Like A Man was a favorite among disc jockeys on FM rock radio stations, who almost universally preferred the longer album version of the song heard here.

Artist:    America
Title:    Sandman
Source:    LP: America's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: America)
Writer(s):    Dewey Bunnell
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    I have to admit I was never a huge America fan, although I liked A Horse With No Name well enough when it came out (it got old pretty quick, though), and appreciated the L. Frank Baum references in Tin Man as much as anyone. The one America song that really did grab me, though, was Sandman, an album track that I only heard on one FM station out of El Paso (I was living in Alamogordo, NM at the time). Apparently there was a rumor going around at the time to the effect that the song was  about the United States Navy VQ-2 air squadron formerly based in Rota, Spain, but I didn't know about that until many years later. Still, I thought it was a cool song then (and still do), and was happily surprised to hear it performed live at the New York State Fair in the early 2000s.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Smooth Dancer
Source:    Japanese import CD: Who Do We Think We Are
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Deep Purple's most iconic lineup (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice) only recorded four studio albums together before internal tensions and conflict with their own management led to the departure of Gillan and Glover. The last of these was Who Do We Think We Are, released in 1973. By this point some of the band members were not on speaking terms, and their individual parts had to be recorded at separate times. Nonetheless, the album is full of strong tracks such as Smooth Dancer, which closes out side one of the original LP. Despite all the problems getting Who Do We Think We Are recorded and the band's subsequent disintegration, Deep Purple sold more albums in the US than any other recording artist in the year 1973 (including continued strong sales of the 1972 album Machine Head and their live album Made In Japan).

Artist:     Uriah Heep
Title:     The Magician's Birthday
Source:     LP: The Magician's Birthday
Writer:     Hensley/Box/Kerslake
Label:     Mercury
Year:     1972
     If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what exactly does it mean when you imitate yourself? Uriah Heep did just that in 1972 when they followed up their breakthrough Demons And Wizards album with another one in virtually the same format, even down to the 10-minute plus title track to close out side two. What was missing, however, was a single to rival Easy Livin', which had been the engine that propelled Demons and Wizards into the realm of hit albums. Still, The Magician's Birthday was a solid and commercial successfully LP, and this week we are presenting the aforementioned title track in its entirety. Enjoy!

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Tend My Garden/Garden Gate
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer:    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    Cleveland, Ohio's James Gang spent so much time on the road promoting their first LP, 'Yer Album, that they didn't have much material ready when it came time to record a follow-up LP. The group found itself actually writing songs in the studio and recording them practically as they were being written. Guitarist/lead vocalist Joe Walsh, meanwhile, had some acoustic songs he had been working on, and it was decided that the new album would have one side of electric hard rock songs while the other would be an acoustic side. The opening tracks for the second side of the album were Tend My Garden, which features Walsh on both organ and guitar, followed by Garden Gate, a Walsh solo piece.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1708 (starts 2/22/17)

When working on the notes for this week's show I realized that a lot of these songs haven't been played on the show since 2013. The I realized there were almost as many that had never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era at all (including a couple that have appeared on our sister show, Rockin' in the Days of Confusion. I guess it keeps things from getting too predictable.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Moonlight Drive
Source:    LP: 13 (originally released on LP: Strange Days)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Much of the second Doors album consisted of songs that were already in the band's repertoire when they signed with Elektra Records but for various reasons did not record for their debut LP. One of the earliest was Jim Morrison's Moonlight Ride. As was the case with all the Doors songs on their first three albums, the tune was credited to the entire band.

Artist:    Sly And The Family Stone
Title:    Underdog
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: A Whole New Thing)
Writer(s):    Sylvester Stewart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    Sly and the Family Stone were a showstopper at the Woodstock festival in 1969, but their story starts years before that historic performance. Sylvester Stewart was a popular DJ and record producer in mid-60s San Francisco, responsible for the first recordings of the Warlocks (later the Grateful Dead) and the Great! Society, among others. During that time he became acquainted with a wealth of talent, including bassist Larry Graham. In 1967, with Autumn Records having been sold to and closed down by Warner Brothers, he decided to form his own band. Anchored by Graham, Sly and the Family Stone's first LP, A Whole New Thing, was possibly the very first pure funk album ever released.

Artist:    The Light
Title:    Back Up
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Anglin/Samson
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1967
    The San Bernadino/Riverside area of southern California is probably better known to racing fans than to music afficionados, yet the area did have its share of local bands filling up various venues in the area in the late 60s. Among those bands was the Light, who released one single on the A&M label in 1967. Back Up, an energetic garage-rocker, was the B side of that single.

Artist:    Lemon Drops
Title:    I Live In The Springtime
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era
Writer(s):    Roger Weiss
Label:    Rhino (original label: Rembrandt)
Year:    1967
    Sometimes it's all about being in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately for the Lemon Drops, that place and time was not the Chicago suburbs in early 1967. Otherwise they might have had a hit record with I Live In The Springtime, a rather nice piece of psychedelia. It probably didn't help that their label, Rembrandt, was not able to put together the same kind of national distribution deal that another Chicago label, Dunwich, had been able to the previous year with the Shadows Of Knight's version of Gloria. Another, somewhat unique, problem was that there were two different pressings of the single, one with no drums and the other with the guitar almost lost in the mix. It is thought that the original mix was in stereo (with the drums on one side and the guitar on the other) and the two pressings each used only one channel from that mix. The version heard here is the one without drums.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Relax
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    The Who Sell Out stands apart from other Who albums in a number of ways. First off, the cover features individual photographs of each of the
band members in ridiculous ad parodies. The front cover is split between Pete Townshend using a gigantic can of Odorono deodorant and Roger Daltry sitting cross-legged covered in Heinz Baked Beans. In the back cover, John Entwhistle is using an oversized tube of Medac on a blemish that covers half his face, while Keith Moon strikes a muscleman pose with a beautiful model in a bikini (advertising for the Charles Atlas fitness course). Each of the photos is accompanied by tongue-in-cheek ad text. The album itself contains several excellent songs (in fact, many critics consider it the Who's best album of their career) interspersed with faux radio commercials and actual jingles from pirate station Radio London (the jingles having been produced by PAMS Productions of Dallas, Texas, the company that provided jingles for many US top 40 stations as well). Most of these songs were never performed live. One exception was Relax, which was part of the band's stage repertoire for a short time in 1968. This lack of promotion (and the growing sense of rock music being SERIOUS ART), hampered the album's commercial success, although it still managed to climb to the #13 spot in the UK and #48 in the US. The Who itself would turn SERIOUS with their next new studio work, a double-LP called Tommy.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    See See Rider
Source:    Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s):    Ma Rainey
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    One of the last singles released by the original incarnation of the Animals, 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:    Butterfield Blues Band
Title:    Get Out Of My Life Woman
Source:    CD: East-West
Writer(s):    Alan Toussaint
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The second Butterfield Blues Band album, East-West, released in 1966, is best known for the outstanding guitar work of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. One often overlooked member of the group was keyboardist Mark Naftalin, who, along with Butterfield and Bishop, was a founding member of the band. Naftalin's keyboard work is the highlight of the band's cover of Alan Toussaint's Get Out Of My Life Woman, which was a hit for Lee Dorsey the same year.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Ain't It Hard
Source:    Mono CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tillison/Tillison
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes got their big break in 1966 when a real estate saleswoman heard them playing in a garage in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley and told her friend Dave Hassinger about them. Hassinger was a successful studio engineer (having just finished the Rolling Stones' Aftermath album) who was looking to become a record producer. The Prunes were his first clients, and Hassinger's production style is evident on their debut single. Ain't It Hard had already been recorded by the Gypsy Trips, and the Electric Prunes would move into more psychedelic territory with their next release, the iconic I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Drifting
Source:    LP: The Cry Of Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:   
    Recording during July and August of 1970, Drifting was first released on the 1971 album The Cry Of Love six months after the death of Jimi Hendrix. The song features Hendrix on guitar and vocal, Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass. Buzzy Linhart makes a guest appearance on the tune, playing vibraphone.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Long Hot Summer Night
Source:    LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    With such classics as Voodoo Chile, Crosstown Traffic and Still Raining Still Dreaming on the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Electric Ladyland, it's easy to overlook a song like Long Hot Summer Night. Once you hear it, however, you realize just how strong Jimi Hendrix's songwriting had become by 1968. Keyboardist Al Kooper, himself in the process of making rock history with his Super Session album, makes a guest appearance on piano.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Angel
Source:    LP: The Cry Of Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    Shortly after the untimely death of Jimi Hendrix in September of 1970, Reprise released the first of many posthumous Hendrix albums, The Cry Of Love. Like millions of other Hendrix fans, I immediately went out and bought a copy. I have to say that there are very few songs that have ever brought tears to my eyes, and even fewer that did so on my very first time hearing them. Of these, Angel tops the list.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    The Last Wall Of The Castle
Source:    CD: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer(s):    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    BMG Heritage/RCA
Year:    1967
    Following the massive success of the Surrealistic Pillow album with its two top 10 singles (Somebody To Love and White Rabbit) the members of Jefferson Airplane made a conscious choice to put artistic goals above commercial ones for their next LP, After Bathing At Baxter's. The result was an album that defines the term "acid rock" in more ways than one. One of the few songs on the album that does not cross-fade into or out of another song is this tune from Jorma Kaukonen, his first non-acoustic song to be recorded by the band.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    Amphetamine Gazelle
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Mad River)
Writer:    Lawrence Hammond
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 acid was no longer the drug of choice on the streets of San Francisco. In its place, crystal meth was beginning to dominate the scene, with a corresponding increase in ripoffs and burns. The local musicians often reflected this change, with some, such as Canned Heat, declaring that Speed Kills and moving south to Laurel Canyon. Others, such as Mad River (originally from Yellow Springs, Ohio, but Bay Area residents since early 1967), attempted to use ridicule to combat the problem, but with no appreciable success (speed freaks not being known for their sense of humor, or any other kind of sense for that matter).

Artist:    Changin' Tymes
Title:    Hark The Child
Source:    British import CD: Feeling High-The Psychedelic Sounds Of Memphis
Writer(s):    Barham/Ferrer/Frazier/Moore/Warner
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1969, released  2012
    Memphis, Tennessee, is a town known for its music. In particular, it is known for its vibrant blues scene, its classic R&B roots (as the home of Stax Records) and of course for some guy named Elvis. What Memphis is not particularly known for, however, is a psychedelic club scene. Nonetheless, like many other US cities in the late 1960s, Memphis did indeed boast a handful of truly psychedelic bands. One of the best of these was the Changin' Tymes, who recorded a pair of tracks for producer James Parks. One of these was later released on a single under the auspices of the Memphis Underground Music Association; the other, more overtly psychedelic track, was a tune called Hark The Child, which remained unreleased until 2012, when it appeared on a British CD dedicated to the Memphis psych scene. Enjoy!

Artist:    Move
Title:    Tonight
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Roy Wood
Label:    United Artists (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1971 (reissued 1973)
    One of the first records to feature a Jeff Lynne lead vocal (on the third verse), Tonight is a non-album single by the Move from 1971 that was reissued on another label two years later, after the Move had disbanded. Written by Roy Wood, the song was the first to be issued on the Harvest label in the UK, going to the #11 spot on the charts there. The song was also released on Capitol in the US, but like every previous Move record, failed to make any chart appearances. Both Wood and Lynne, however, were already more interested in the new band concept they had come up with that would involve extensive overdubbing of classical instruments, as opposed to the Move's more traditional rock instrumentation. The Move's manager had just gotten the band a new three-album deal with Harvest, however, and the record company insisted that at least the first of these would be credited to the Move. The album, Message From The Country, was released in October of 1971 on Harvest in the UK and Capitol in the US. At the same time Message To The Country was being recorded, Wood and Lynne were simultaneously working on the first album by their new band, now known as the Electric Light Orchestra. Although the first two ELO albums were released in the UK on Harvest, fulfilling the terms of their contract, they did not appear on Capitol in the US. Instead, all ELO releases in the US appeared on the United Artists label. To make things even more confusing, when Tonight was reissued in the US in early 1973 (to capitalize on the popularity of ELO, no doubt), it appeared on United Artists as well.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Not Fade Away
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hardin/Petty
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1964
    The Rolling Stones' first top 5 hit in the UK was an updated version of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away. The Stones put a greater emphasis on the Bo Diddley beat than Holly did and ended up with their first charted single in the US as well, establishing the Rolling Stones as the Yang of the British Invasion to the Beatles' Ying. It was a role that fit the top band from the city they call "The Smoke" well.

Artist:    Motions
Title:    For Another Man
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the Netherlands as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Rob Van Leeuwen
Label:    Rhino (original label: Havoc)
Year:    1965
    By 1965 the popularity of British beat music had spread to continental Europe, with local bands springing up in every major urban center. Most of these bands made their living playing covers of British hits, but many, especially in places like the Hague, Netherlands, were able to land recording contracts of their own, either with international branches of major labels or, in the case of the Motions, with smaller local labels such as Havoc Records. The third single by the Motions, For Another Man, was very much in the British beat vein, with jangly guitar and catchy vocal harmonies. Like all the Motions' singles, For Another Man was written by guitarist Rob Van Leeuwen, who eventually left the Motions to form Shocking Blue.

Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Volt
Year:    1966
    Some may have questioned the appearance of a "soul" band like Sly and the Family Stone at what was essentially a rock festival at Woodstock, but there was precedent: Otis Redding had stolen the show at the first of the great rock festivals at Monterey two years earlier. One of the songs he electrified the crowd with was a hard-driving version of the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, heard here in its 1966 studio version, featuring the MGs and the Bar-Kays backing up the "big O".

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    Uni
Year:    1967
    Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Quite Rightly So
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1968
    In 1969, while living on Ramstein AFB in Germany, my dad managed to get use of one of the basement storage rooms in building 913, the 18-unit apartment building we resided in. For a few months (until getting in trouble for having overnight guests and making too much noise...hey I was 16, whaddaya expect?) I got to use that room as a bedroom. I had a small record player that shut itself off when it got to the end of the record, which meant I got to go to sleep every night to the album of my choice. As often as not that album was Shine On Brightly, a copy of which I had gotten in trade for another album (the Best of the Beach Boys I think) from a guy who was expecting A Whiter Shade of Pale and was disappointed to discover it was not on this album. I always thought I got the better end of that deal, despite the fact that there was a skip during the fade of Quite Rightly So, causing the words "one was me" to repeat over and over until I scooted the needle over a bit. Luckily Quite Rightly So is the first song on the album, so I was usually awake enough to do that.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    Sweet Sir Galahad
Source:    CD: Woodstock Two
Writer(s):    Joan Baez
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1969
    Joan Baez was always known as an interpreter, rather than a writer, of songs. In fact, her first solo composition was not performed until 1969. Sweet Sir Galahad made its debut on a March 1969 episode of the Smother Brothers Comedy Hour, and became well known after Baez performed it at Woodstock. A studio version was released as a single later that same year, and was included on the 1970 album One Day At A Time.

Artist:    Flock
Title:    Green Slice/Big Bird
Source:    British import CD: Dinosaur Swamps
Writer(s):    The Flock
Label:    BGO (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    The Flock's Dinosaur Swamps is one of those rare albums that can never truly be defined. Is it jazz? Rock? Novelty? Gospel? I honestly can't say. The album cover itself is one of the coolest ever printed: a gatefold sleeve that you have to open up and turn 90 degrees to look at. Every song title refers to something on the cover (or on the inside of the gatefold sleeve). Green Slice, for instance, refers to the album title itself, which is printed in curved block letters on a green background shaped like an arch above the actual album cover art. The first thing that (hopefully not literally) jumps out at you on the cover itself is a huge pterodactyl flying toward you: a Big Bird indeed.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Glad/Freedom Rider
Source:    CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: John Barleycorn Must Die)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year:    1970
    Following the breakup of Blind Faith in early 1970, Steve Winwood got to work on his first solo LP, to be called Mad Shadows. After completing a couple of tracks Winwood found that he preferred to work within the band format and invited Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi to join him on the project, which became the fourth Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. Unlike earlier Traffic studio recordings, John Barleycorn Must Die contained longer, improvisational pieces incorporating jazz elements, as can be heard on the album's opening tracks, Glad (an instrumental) and Freedom Rider. The new approach worked, as John Barleycorn Must Die became Traffic's first album to go gold.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (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' Through The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released as the B side to the Dave Mason 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:    Traffic
Title:    Coloured Rain
Source:    CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    Traffic, in its early days, was a band with an almost schizophrenic identity. On the one hand there was Steve Winwood, who was equally adept at guitar, keyboards and vocals and was generally seen as the band's leader, despite being its youngest member. His opposite number in the band was Dave Mason, an early example of the type of singer/songwriter that would be a major force in popular music in the mid-1970s. The remaining members of the band, drummer/vocalist Jim Capaldi and flautist/saxophonist Chris Wood, tended to fall somewhere between the two, although they more often sided with Winwood in his frequent creative disputes with Mason. One of these disputes involved the choice of the band's second single. Mason wanted to follow up the successful Paper Sun with his own composition, Hole In My Shoe, while the rest of the band preferred the group composition, Coloured Rain. Mason won that battle, but would end up leaving the band before the release of the group's first LP, Mr. Fantasy. This in turn led to the album being revised considerably for its US release, which was issued under a completely different title, Heaven Is In Your Mind, with most of Mason's contributions, along with his picture, being excised from the album (although, oddly enough, Hole In My Shoe, which was not on the original LP, was included on the US album). One final example of the band's schizophrenic nature was in the way the group was marketed. In the US, Traffic was, from the beginning, perceived as a serious rock band along the lines of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In their native land, however, they were, thanks in part to the top 40 success of both Paper Sun and Hole In My Shoe as well as Winwood's fame as lead vocalist for the Spencer Davis Group, dismissed as a mere pop group. Mason would rejoin and leave the group a couple more times before achieving solo success in the mid-70s with the hit We Just Disagree, while Traffic would go on to become a staple of progressive FM rock radio in the US.

Artist:     Seeds
Title:     Pushin' Too Hard
Source:     Simulated stereo CD: Best of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Seeds)
Writer:     Sky Saxon
Label:     Priority (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:     1965
     Pushin' Too Hard was originally released to the L.A. market as a single in late 1965 and included on side one of the first Seeds album the following year. After being re-released as a single the song did well enough to go national in early 1967, hitting its peak in February.

Artist:    Zipps
Title:    Kicks And Chicks
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the Netherlands as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nuyten/Katerberg
Label:    Rhino (original label: Relax)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 various people in the US music industry were obsessed with what they called "drug songs" such as the Byrds' classic Eight Miles High. In reality, the real drug song action was in the Netherlands, where the Zipps (from a place called Dordrecht) were handing out publicity stickers that read "Be Stoned: Dig Zipps: Psychedelic Sound" and performing a song called LSD-25 on national television. The group was formed in 1965 by members of the Beattown Skifflers and the Moving Strings and quickly caught on with the local Beat crowd and early hippies. Their second single, Kicks And Chicks, was a documentation of the band's own way of life, with lines like "I read only books of Jack Kerouac, he's the only priest in my life" cementing the group's beat credentials. Although the Zipps never recorded a full-length LP, they remained a popular band on the local underground scene until they disbanded in 1971.
       
Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    The Masked Marauder
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Perhaps more than any other band, Country Joe and the Fish capture the essence of the San Francisco scene in the late 60s. Their first two releases were floppy inserts included in Joe McDonald's self-published Rag Baby underground newspaper. In 1967 the band was signed to Vanguard Records, a primarily folk-oriented prestige label that also had Joan Baez on its roster. Their first LP, Electric Music For the Mind and Body had such classic cuts as Section 43, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, and the political parody Superbird on it, as well as the mostly-instrumental tune The Masked Marauder. Not for the unenlightened.

Artist:    Finch
Title:    Nothing In The Sun
Source:    CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wylde Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    D. Dougherty
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Montage)
Year:    1968
    From Milwaukee we have a band called Finch, with a tune called Nothing In The Sun, which was released as a single in 1968. And that's pretty much all I know about this one, except that it definitely rocks.