Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1724 (starts 6/14/17)

Somehow I managed to squeeze 13 songs in this week. Not sure how, though, since no less than four of them hit the five minute mark. Still, here they are. Enjoy!

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Fresh Garbage
Source:    CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Spirit)
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Epic (original label: Ode)
Year:    1968
    Much of the material on the first Spirit album was composed by vocalist Jay Ferguson while the band was living in a big house in California's Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there was a garbage strike, which became the inspiration for the album's opening track, Fresh Garbage. The song starts off as a fairly hard rocker and suddenly breaks into a section that is pure jazz, showcasing the group's instrumental talents, before returning to the main theme to finish out the track.The group used a similar formula on about half the tracks on the LP, giving the album and the band a distinctive sound right out of the box.

Artist:      David Bowie
Title:     Space Oddity
Source:      45 RPM single (originally released on LP: Space Oddity)
Writer:    David Bowie
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1969
     When David Jones first started his recording career he was a fairly conventional folk singer. With Space Oddity he became David Bowie (or maybe Ziggy Stardust) and the rock world was never quite the same.

Artist:    American Dream
Title:    Future's Folly
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, these guys were actually pretty good. How good? Well, take a listen to Future's Folly, which is fairly representative of the album itself, and decide for yourself.

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:    Steely Dan
Title:    Peg
Source:    CD: Aja
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1977
    Steely Dan's Peg, from the 1977 album Aja, is a study in perfectionism. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen recorded solos by seven different studio guitarists (including Robben Ford and Larry Carlton) before deciding on the version by Jay Graydon. Although Becker and Fagen have never said specifically who the song is about, it is thought to be inspired by actress Peg Entwistle, who is best known for committing suicide by jumping off the Hollywoodland sign in 1932. The Aja album itself has long been used by audiophiles to test their systems due to its high production standards, and was Steely Dan's best selling album. 

Artist:    Queen
Title:    Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)
Source:    LP: A Day At The Races (promo copy)
Writer(s):    Brian May
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1976
    Just when you thought you had heard everything Queen had to offer, they start singing in Japanese. Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together), from Queen's fifth studio LP, A Day At The Races, was written by Brian May as a tribute to the band's Japanese fans, and was performed live in Tokyo on more than one occasion. May plays piano, plastic piano and harmonium on the song.

Artist:    Patti Smith
Title:    Redondo Beach
Source:    LP: Horses
Writer(s):    Smith/Sohl/Kaye
Label:    Arista
Year:    1975
    Redondo Beach is the second track on the first Patti Smith LP, Horses. It was first published as a poem in Smith's 1972 book "kodak" under the title Radando Beach. The song, set to a reggae beat, tells the story of a young woman who commits suicide by walking into the ocean following an argument with her lover. Smith later said the lyrics were written following a fight with her sister Linda.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Road Angel
Source:    CD: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits
Writer(s):    Johnston/Hossack/Hartman/Porter
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1974
    Most of the songs on the fourth Doobie Brothers album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, were written by either Tom Johnston or Patrick Simmons, with only a couple of exceptions. One of those was Road Angel, which is credited to the entire band. It is also one of the hardest rocking tracks on the album.

Artist:    Paul Simon
Title:    Loves Me Like A Rock
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    Paul Simon was always one to try new things with his music, even before embarking on a solo career in 1970. One of his more notable experiments was to record Loves Me Like A Rock in 1973 with a genuine gospel group, the Dixie Hummingbirds. Although the lyrics are more secular in nature, the Hummingbirds were reportedly eager to record with Simon, and even released their own version of the song later the same year. Simon's version was a huge hit, barely missing the top spot on the charts, and remaining in the US top 40 for fourteen weeks.

Artist:    Marvin Gaye
Title:    Don't Mess With Mister "T"
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Marvin Gaye
Label:    Tamla
Year:    1972
    1972 was a pivotal year for Motown. It was the year that the label shifted its operations from Detroit to its new Hollwood studios, sometimes known as "Hitsville West". It was also the year that a new contract, negotiated following the success of What's Going On, made Marvin Gaye the highest-paid performer in R&B history up to that point, as well as giving him total artistic freedom. Gaye used that freedom to compose his first and only film soundtrack. Part of the reason for Motown's move to Hollywood was to cash in on the popular "blacksploitation" movie trend started by the film Shaft the previous year. The label secured the rights to the crime thriller Trouble Man, and asked Gaye if he would be interested in writing the music for it. He ended up producing the entire soundtrack for the film as well, recording all the music at Motown's studios. The album was a critical success, and further enhanced Gayes reputation as one of the leading figures on the early 1970s music scene.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    L.A. Woman
Source:    CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: L.A. Woman)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971
    Ray Manzarek became justifiably famous as the keyboard player for the Doors. Before joining up with Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger and John Densmore, however, Manzarek was already making a name for himself as an up-and-coming student filmmaker at UCLA. Although he didn't have much of a need to pursue a career in films once the Doors hit it big, he did end up producing and directing an outstanding video for the title track of the 1971 album L.A. Woman years after the band had split up. I only mention this because, really, what else can I say about a song that you've probably heard a million times or so?

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    For You Blue
Source:    LP: Let It Be
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1970
    I'll be honest here. My least favorite Beatles album has always been Let It Be. I've always felt that Phil Spector's over-the-top production style obscured what was a fairly decent set of tunes. One of the songs on the album that Spector didn't ruin, however, was For You Blue. Perhaps it was because For You Blue is basically a blues number, which is a genre that falls so far from Spector's area of expertise that he probably didn't have a clue what to do with the song and pretty much left it as is.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Into The Sun
Source:    CD: On Time
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    One of my fondest memories of the year I graduated high school was moving to the tiny town of Mangum, Oklahoma for the summer. I was up there to take a shot at rock stardom with a band called Sunn, a group that I had been a founding member of in my junior year of high school. The band had its own road manager, a local guy named Gary Dowdy who was home from college for the summer and drove a red '54 Ford panel truck missing its front grille. In addition to being our main equipment van, "The Glump", as Dowdy called it, was our source of daily transportion around town. It's best feature was an 8-track tape system that Dowdy had installed himself. One of the tapes we listened to most often was Grand Funk Railroad's debut album, On Time. In fact, I don't really recall us listening to any other tapes but that one and the band's second album, Grand Funk. As a result, I pretty much know every song on the album by heart, even though I did not have my own copy of On Time until 2013, when I found a somewhat ratty old copy of the LP at a store in Syracuse, NY, that sells used records. More recently I managed to find a new CD copy of the album, so we get to listen to Into The Sun, the opening track from side two of the original album, without all the ticks and pops.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1723 (starts 6/7/17)

This week's playlist is almost like having four separate shows. First, we have sets from 1966 and 1967. From there it's a progression from 1966 to 1970, followed by no less than three back-to-back artists' sets. We finish things out with a long 1968 set. Fun stuff!

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    After the reunion of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel following the surprise success of an electrified remix of The Sound Of Silence, the duo quickly recorded an album to support the hit single. Sounds Of Silence was, for the most part, a reworking of material that Simon had recorded for 1965 UK LP the Paul Simon Songbook. The pressure for a new album thus (temporarily) relieved, the duo got to work on their first album of truly new material since their unsuccessful 1964 effort Wednesday Morning 3AM (which had in fact been re-released and was now doing well on the charts). In October the new album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, hit the stands. The title track was a new arrangement of an old English folk ballad, Scarborough Fair, combined with a reworking of a song from the Paul Simon Songbook, The Side Of A Hill, retitled Canticle. The two melodies and sets of lyrics are set in counterpoint to each other, creating one of the most sophisticated folk song arrangements ever recorded. After being featured in the film The Graduate, Scarborough Fair/Canticle was released as a single in early 1968, going on to become one of the duo's most instantly recognizable songs.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Come Up The Years
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    One of the most overused motifs in pop music is the "You're too young for me" song. This probably reflects, to a certain degree, a lifestyle that goes back to the beginnings of rock and roll (Chuck Berry did jail time for transporting a minor across state lines, Jerry Lee Lewis saw his career get derailed by his marraige to his 13-year-old cousin, etc.). The Marty Balin/Paul Kantner tune Come Up The Years takes a more sophisticated look at the subject, although it still comes to the same conclusion (I can't do this because you're jailbait). In fact, the only rock songwriter I know of that came to any other conclusion on the matter was Bob Markley of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and that's what ultimately got him in trouble with the law.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    In The Midnight Hour
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Pickett/Cropper
Label:    Tower
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2012
    Among the many Chocolate Watchband recordings that were subjected to major changes by producer Ed Cobb was a cover of Wilson Pickett's R&B classic In The Midnight Hour, a song that was also covered by the Young Rascals. The biggest change Cobb made to the recording was to replace Dave Aguilar's original lead vocals with those of studio vocalist Don Bennett. Once Sundazed got the rights to the Watchband's recordings they included both versions on their CD version of the No Way Out album and in 2012 issued the mono mix of the Aguilar version for the first time as a single.

Artist:    Ugly Ducklings
Title:    Nothin'
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Canada as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Byngham/Mayne
Label:    Rhino (original label: Yorktown)
Year:    1966
    Coming from the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, the Ugly Ducklings made their first appearance in March of 1965 as the Strolling Bones, sounding a lot like their British idols, the...well, you can figure it out. By summer of that year they had changed their name and relocated to Yorkville, the epicenter of Toronto nightlife. In July of 1966 the Ducklings released their first single, Nothin', on the local Yorktown label. Thanks to an appearance at around the same time as the opening act for the Rolling Stones themselves, the Ugly Ducklings found themselves with a huge local hit record. A series of mildly successful singles and one album followed before the band underwent several personnel changes, as well as another name change (to Gnu) before finally disbanding in the early 1970s.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s):    Capaldi/Winwood/Wood
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.

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    People's Games
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Jerry Jeff Walker
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Although People's Games is far from my favorite Circus Maximus song, it is, according to at least one member of the band, the tune that was most representative of what the band was all about. It is also one of the earliest compositions of Circus Maximus member Jerry Jeff Walker, who went on to greater fame as a songwriter, particularly for the song Mr. Bojangles.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single B side; re-released as A side)
Writer:    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    Priority (original label: All-American; reissued nationally on Uni Records)
Year:    1967   
    Incense and Peppermints started off as an instrumental, mostly because the band simply couldn't come up with any lyrics. Their producer decided to bring in professional songwriters to finish the song, and ended up giving them full credit for it. This did not sit well with the band members. In fact, they hated the lyrics so much that their regular vocalist refused to sing on the record. Undaunted, the producer brought in the lead vocalist from another local L.A. band to sing the song, which was then put on the B side of The Birdman Of Alcatrash. Somewhere along the line a local 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:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Down On Philips Escalator
Source:    German import CD: The Amboy Dukes
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    Ted Nugent made his stage debut as a guitarist at the age of ten and was, in his own words, "a sensation". In the mid-1960s Nugent's family moved to Chicago, where he formed the Amboy Dukes. After moving the band to his native Detroit, Nugent signed with Bob Shad's Mainstream label, releasing the first Amboy Dukes album in 1967. Nugent and keyboardist Steve Farmer wrote most of the band's material, both as collaborators and as individual composers, with Nugent providing the harder rocking songs while Farmer came up with the more psychedelic stuff. As collaborators the music took on aspects of both, becoming something greater than the sum of the two's talents, as can be heard on Down On Philips Escalator, from that 1967 debut LP. I still haven't a clue what the song is actually about, but it's definitely worth a listen.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    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, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, 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:     Procol Harum
Title:     A Whiter Shade of Pale
Source:     unreleased alternate version
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid/Fisher
Label:    unknown
Year:     1967
     Often credited as the first progressive rock band, Procol Harum drew heavily from classical music sources, such as the Bach inspired theme used by organist Matthew Fisher as the signature rift for A Whiter Shade of Pale. The song itself hold the distinction of being the most-played song on the British airwaves of the past 70 years. This version is much longer than the original recording, with a total running time of just over six minutes. It was sent in by a listener, so I really have no information about when or where it was recorded, or even who played on the track (other than Gary Brooker, who was the heart and soul of the band from day one). It is probably not the same lineup that played on the original version, however, since most of that group was gone by the time the first Procol Harum album was released.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Magic Carpet Ride
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s):    Moreve/Kay
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 1960s.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Woman Trouble
Source:    CD: Stonedhenge
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1969
    In the late 60s and early 70s it was fashionable for a garage band to use a jazzy-sounding instrumental for its break song. Don't ask me why, it just was. Sunn, the band I was in (in various iterations) from 1969-71, was no exception. Hell, maybe we were the only ones doing it, for all I know. The first incarnation of the band used a piece inspired by Bobby Troup (the writer of Route 66), who appeared in short segments between shows of AFTV, the only English language TV station in Germany at the time. He'd always start the segment with a quick guitar lick and the words "Hi! I'm Bobby Troup". Our guitarist borrowed the rift and came up our first break song, which he called "Dedicated to Bobby Troup". We kept on using that one up through the summer of 1970, when both of our fathers' overseas tours ended. I ended up in New Mexico, while Dave found himself in Oklahoma. In early 1971 Dave hopped on a Greyhound bus, bound for California, but only had enough money ($48.60) for a ticket to Alamogordo, NM, where I was living. By then Dave had already gone through two more incarnations of Sunn, so when we decided to reform the band it was (unofficially) Sunn IV. Late that spring, Dave decided to return to Oklahoma; two weeks later (right after graduation) our other guitarist, Doug, and I followed Dave there to form the fifth and final incarnation of Sunn. It was, by far, the most professional version of the band, once we had settled on a final lineup that included a third guitarist DeWayne, on rhythm (Dave and Doug split the lead guitar duties), and his close friend Mike on drums (I played bass). Rather than revive our old instrumental break song, we decided to use Woman Trouble, a Ten Years After track from the Stonedhenge album, instead. The song was different enough from our hard rock repertoire that it served notice to the audience that something was up. After a verse and chorus I would introduce each band member at the end of their solo (except DeWayne, who, like the guy in the Sultans Of Swing, had no desire to do anything but play chords). We then went back for a repeat of the verse, then took our break. Good times, those.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Let's Work Together
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Wilbert Harrison
Label:    Capitol (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1970
    By a rather odd twist of fate Wilbert Harrison, known primarily for his 50s hit Kansas City, decided to reissue one of his lesser-known tunes, Let's Work Together, just a few weeks before a new Canned Heat version of the song was released in 1970. As it turns out, neither version became a major hit, although the Canned Heat version did get some airplay and managed to crack the Billboard Hot 100 that year.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Proper Stranger
Source:    CD: American Woman
Writer(s):    Bachman/Cummings
Label:    Buddha/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1970
    If any one song typifies the sound of the Guess Who around 1970, it's Proper Stranger, from the American Woman album. The song was also chosen as the B side of No Time, the first single released from the album.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Gloria
Source:    CD: Gloria
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Although most oldies stations now tend to favor the 1965 Them B side version of Gloria, it was Chicago's Shadows Of Knight that made it one of the most popular garage-rock songs in history.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I'm So Tired
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    Somehow I can't help but thinking of the Firesign Theatre's Further Adventures of Nick Danger every time I hear this song. I guess that's better than thinking of Charles Manson's group, which some of the other songs on the "white album" make me do.

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

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Why Don't We Do It In The Road?
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    One of the many songs inspired by events surrounding the Beatles' trip to India, Why Don't We Do It In The Road is one of the shortest, yet most memorable songs on the White Album. Paul McCartney later said he was inspired by a pair of monkeys who were "doing it" right in the middle of the road, and nobody gave it a second glance. I'd hate to see them try that on a freeway.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Sanctus
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released on LP: Mass In F Minor)
Writer(s):    David Axelrod
Label:    Real Gone/Rhino
Year:    1968
    Following the lack of commercial success of the second Electric Prunes album, Underground, producer Dave Hassinger essentially reduced the band's status to that of hired help, enlisted to record a suite of religious pieces collectively called Mass In F Minor. The entire Mass was written in Latin, which, presumably, none of the band members spoke. To add insult to injury, a Canadian group called the Collectors was brought in to record the complex instrumental tracks. One single, Sanctus, was released from the album, but only to radio stations as a promo. The song got virtually no airplay and was never released to the public.

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

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    You Never Had It Better
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Snagster/Schwartz/Poncher
Label:    Collector's Choice (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Following the lack of a hit single from their second album, Underground, the Electric Prunes took one last shot at top 40 airplay with a song called Everybody Knows Your Not In Love. The band might have had better luck if they had pushed the flip side of the record, You Never Had It Better, which is a much stronger song. As it is, the record stiffed, and producer David Hassinger reacted by stripping the band of any creative freedom they might have had and made an album called Mass in F Minor using mostly studio musicians. The band, having signed away the rights to the name Electric Prunes to their manager early on, could do nothing but watch helplessly as Hassinger created an album that had little in common with the original band other than their name. Because of this, the original members soon left, and Hassinger brought in a whole new group for two more albums before retiring the Prunes name for good. In recent years several members of the original band have reformed the Electric Prunes. Whether they had to get permission to use the name is unknown.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    While not as commercially successful as the Jefferson Airplane or as long-lived as the Grateful Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about, which is itself ironic, since the band operated out of Berkeley on the other side of the bay. Of all the tracks on their first album, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine probably got the most airplay on various underground radio stations that were popping up on the FM dial at the time (some of them even legally).

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Porpoise Mouth
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    The songs on the first Country Joe And The Fish album ranged from silly satire (Super Bird) to downright spacey. One of the spaciest tracks on the album is Porpoise Mouth, both lyrically and musically.

Artist:    Country Joe and the Fish
Title:    Section 43
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer:    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    In 1966 Country Joe and the Fish released their original mono version of an instrumental called Section 43. The song was included on a 7" EP inserted in an underground newspaper called Rag Baby. In 1967 the group recorded an expanded stereo version of Section 43 and included it on their debut LP for Vanguard Records, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. It was this arrangement of the piece that the group performed live at the Monterey International Pop Festival that June.

Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Prelude/Nightmare
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown)
Writer(s):    Arthur Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1968
    One of rock's first "theatrical" performers, Arthur Brown first began to get noticed in Paris, where he spent a year developing his stage show and unique vocal style with his band the Arthur Brown Set, which was formed in 1965. On his return to England he joined up with keyboardist Vincent Crane. By 1967 the Vincent Crane Combo had changed its name to The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and was becoming a major force on London's underground music scene. In late 1967 the band went to work on their self-titled debut LP, which was released in the UK on the Track label in June of 1968. Spurred by the success of the single Fire, the album was picked up for American distribution by Atlantic Records that same year. The people at Atlantic, however, felt that the drums were a bit off and insisted on adding horns and strings to cover the deficiency. The result can be heard on tracks like Prelude/Nightmare, which opens the album.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Black Widow Spider
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Lane/Pulley
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    After Van Morrison left Them for a solo career, the band headed back to Belfast, where they recruited vocalist Kenny McDowell. Them soon relocated permanently to the US west coast, where they landed a contract with Tower Records. After a first album that featured songs from a variety of sources, they hooked up with Sharon Pulley and Tom Lane, who wrote an album's worth of material for the band. That album was Time Out! Time In! For Them, an album that has stayed under the radar for over 40 years, despite tunes like Black Widow Spider, which closes out the first side of the LP.
   
Artist:    Senators
Title:    Psychedelic Senate
Source:    LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack
Writer(s):    Les Baxter
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    If I had to pick the most unlikely person to record something psychedelic that actually did record something psychedelic, that person would have to be Les Baxter. Born in 1922, Baxter became well-known in the 1940s as a composer and arranger for various swing bands. By the 50s he was leading his own orchestra, recording his own brand of what came to be known as "exotica", easy-listening music flavored with elements taken from non-Western musical traditions. In the 1960s he scored dozens of movie soundtracks, including many for the relatively low-budget American International Pictures, working with people like Roger Corman on films like The Raven, The Pit  And The Pendulum and House Of Usher, as well as teen exploitation films like Beach Blanket Bingo. It was through this association that he got involved with a film called Wild In The Streets in 1968. Although much of the film's soundtrack was made up of songs by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and performed by the fictional Max Frost And The Troopers, there were a few Baxter pieces included as well, including Psychedelic Senate, a bit of incidental music written to underscore a scene wherein the entire US Senate gets dosed on LSD.

Artist:     Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title:     Piece Of My Heart
Source:     CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer:     Ragovoy/Burns
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1968
     By 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company, with their charismatic vocalist from Texas, Janis Joplin, had become as popular as fellow San Francisco bands Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Somehow, though, they were still without a major label record deal. That all changed with the release of Cheap Thrills, with cover art by the legendary underground comix artist R. Crumb. The album itself was a curious mixture of live performances and studio tracks, the latter being led by the band's powerful cover of the 1966 Barbara Lynn tune Piece Of My Heart. The song propelled the band, and Joplin, to stardom. That stardom would be short-lived for most of the band members, however, as well-meaning but ultimately wrong-headed advice-givers convinced Joplin that Big Brother was holding her back. The reality was that the band was uniquely suited to support her better than anyone she would ever work with again.

Artist:    B.B. King
Title:    That's Wrong Little Mama
Source:    British import CD: Blues On Top Of Blues
Writer(s):    B.B. King
Label:    BGO (original label: Bluesway)
Year:    1968
    The first B.B. King album I ever bought was Blues On Top Of Blues, one of the first album's released on ABC's Bluesway label. The album is somewhat unique in that it includes an organ, in addition to a horn section and, of course, B.B. King's unique guitar work. King stretched a bit beyond what was usually considered blues on the LP, which included songs like That's Wrong Little Mama, an R&B flavored tune that almost sounds like it could have come out of Memphis or Muscle Shoals.

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

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1723 (starts 6-7-17)

This week's show pretty much stays on the mellow side, with tunes from Mountain, Blind Faith, Cream, Wishbone Ash and the Allman Brothers Band, among others. Check it out.

Artist:    Alice Cooper
Title:    Desperado
Source:    LP: Killer
Writer(s):    Cooper/Bruce
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Alice Cooper (the singer, not the band) has made conflicting statements concerning the inspiration/subject matter of Desperado, from the Killer album. In the liner notes of Fistful Of Alice (and elsewhere) the flamboyant vocalist said the song was written about his friend Jim Morrison, who died in 1971, the same year Killer was released. However, he has also said (in a radio interview) that the song was inspired by Robert Vaughn's character in the film The Magnificent Seven. Whatever the song's origins, Desperado has proved to be one of the band's most popular numbers, appearing on various greatest hits compilations over the years.

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

Artist:     Mountain
Title:     Theme From An Imaginary Western
Source:     European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Mountain Climbing)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Windfall)
Year:     1970
     Keyboardist Felix Pappaliardi worked closely with the band Cream in the studio, starting with the album Disraeli Gears, so it was only natural that his new band Mountain would perform (and record) at least one song by Cream's primary songwriting team, Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. If Mississippi Queen was guitarist Leslie West's signature song, then Theme From An Imaginary Western was Felix's, at least until Nantucket Sleighride came along.

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

Artist:     Blind Faith
Title:     Presence of the Lord
Source:     LP: Blind Faith
Writer:     Eric Clapton
Label:     Polydor
Year:     1969
     When the album Blind Faith first came out, several critics questioned why Steve Winwood sang lead on this track instead of songwriter Eric Clapton. Many went so far as to say Clapton should have sung the tune, but after countless subsequent recordings of Clapton singing Presence of the Lord over the years, it's kind of refreshing to go back and hear Winwood's original interpretation.

Artist:    Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Title:    Time
Source:    LP: Manfred Mann Chapter Three
Writer(s):    Mike Hugg
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    After a decent run as a successful pop group, Manfred Mann (the band) disbanded in 1969. That same year, Manfred Mann (the person) formed a new group with his longtime collaborator and bandmate Mike Hugg. This group was called Manfred Mann Chapter Three, and was much more experimental in nature than the previous group. Boasting a five-piece horn section, the group was probably inspired by Al Kooper's Blood, Sweat & Tears, which had released the album Child Is Father To The Man the previous year, as well as Miles Davis' recent forays into jazz-rock fusion and bands like the Flock, which was probably the closest to Chapter Three in actual style. Hugg was the primary songwriter for the group, as well as lead vocalists on the seven and a half minute long Time, which opens side two of the original LP.

Artist:     Allman Brothers Band
Title:     Please Call Home
Source:     CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: Idlewilde South)
Writer:     Gregg Allman
Label:     Polydor (original label: Capricorn)
Year:     1970
     Gregg Allman, formerly of a band called Hourglass, had already cut a few demo tapes before hooking up with brother Duane to form the Allman Brothers band in 1969. For the most part, Duane insisted that the band concentrate on newer material, with only a couple of Gregg's earlier songs being recorded by the new band. Please Call Home, I believe, is one of them.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    The Caves Of Altamira
Source:    CD: The Royal Scam
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1976
    Steely Dan had a reputation for bringing in some of the finest guest musicians available to help them on their albums. The Caves Of Altamire, for their fifth LP, The Royal Scam, is a good example. The piece, based on a book by Hans Baumann, features a tenor saxophone solo from John Klemmer.

Artist:    Jean-Luc Ponty
Title:    Tarantula
Source:    LP: Imaginary Voyage
Writer(s):    Jean-Luc Ponty
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1976
    Touted by jazz critics as being "the first jazz violinist to be as exciting as a saxophonist', Jean-Luc Ponty released his first solo album in 1964 at the age of 22. He remained virtually unknown outside of his native France, however, until the early 1970s, when he emigrated to the United States to become a member of Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention. This in turn led to Ponty gaining a crossover audience just as the jazz-rock fusion movement was gaining ground in the US. His 1976 LP, Imaginary Voyage, is considered one of the defining works of the genre, thanks to tracks like Tarantula, which closes out the first side of the original LP.

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

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1722 (starts 5/31/17)

A little of this and a little of that this week, including a British set to get things started (and a British mini-set to finish things off), as well as a long San Francisco set in the second hour. As far as the rest of the show goes, read on...

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sunny Afternoon
Source:    Mono LP: Face To Face
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    My family got its first real stereo (a GE console model with a reel-to-reel recorder instead of a turntable) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off). Of course, none of the few stereo FM stations were playing rock songs in 1966, but since the Kinks were still only mixing their songs in mono at that point it didn't really matter.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Page/McCarty
Label:    Epic
Year:    1967
    By 1967 the Yardbirds had moved far away from their blues roots and were on their fourth lead guitarist, studio whiz Jimmy Page. The band had recently picked up a new producer, Mickey Most, known mostly for his work with Herman's Hermits and the original Animals. Most had a tendency to concentrate solely on the band's single A sides, leaving Page an opportunity to develop his own songwriting and production skills on songs such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, a track that also shows signs of Page's innovative guitar style (including an instrumental break played with a violin bow) that would help define 70s rock.

Artist:    Love Sculpture
Title:    In The Land Of The Few
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK on LP: Forms And Feelings)
Writer(s):    Edmunds/Findsilver/Ker
Label:    Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1969
    Dave Edmunds started off young. At age 10 the Cardiff, Wales native played in the Edmund Bros Duo (a piano duo) with his older brother Geoff. By the time Dave was 13 he and his brother had formed their own rock and roll band, with Dave on lead guitar and Geoff on rhythm. By the mid-1960s Dave Edmunds had switched to blues-rock, fronting a band called the Human Beans. It wasn't long before that group was pared down to a power trio consisting of Edmunds on guitar, John Williams on bass, and Congo Jones on drums calling itself Love Sculpture. The group released their first album, Blues Helping, in 1968, as well as a non-album single, Sabre Dance, that made the British top 10. The band's second, and final, album, Forms And Feelings, expanded beyond the electric blues of the first album to include harder to describe tracks like In The Land Of The Few. Not long after the album was released, Edmunds decided to go it as a solo artist, scoring a huge international hit with a remake of Smiley Lewis's I Hear You Knockin' in late 1970.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Death Sound Blues
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    I generally use the term "psychedelic" to describe a musical attitude that existed during a particular period of time rather than a specific style of music. On the other hand, the term "acid rock" is better suited for describing music that was composed and/or performed under the influence of certain mind-expanding substances. That said, the first album by Country Joe and the Fish is a classic example of acid rock. I mean, really, is there any other way to describe Death Sound Blues than "the blues on acid"?

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Gomper
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco
Year:    1967
    Probably the most overtly psychedelic track ever recorded by the Rolling Stones, Gomper might best be described as a hippy love song with its references to nature, innocence and, of course, pyschedelic substances. Brian Jones makes one of his last significant contributions as a member of the band he founded, playing the dulcimer, as well as tablas, organ, pan flutes and various percussion instruments on the song.

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

Artist:     Traffic
Title:     No Face, No Name, No Number
Source:     Mono CD: Mr. Fantasy
Writer(s):     Winwood/Capaldi
Label:     Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year:     1967
     When the first Best of Traffic album was issued in 1969 (after the group first disbanded) it included No Face, No Name, No Number, a non-hit album track. Later Traffic anthologies tended to focus on the group's post-reformation material and the song was out of print for many years until the first Traffic album was reissued on CD. The song itself is a good example of Winwood's softer material.

Artist:     Astronauts
Title:     Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Boyce/Venet
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1965
     The Astronauts were formed in the early 60s in Boulder, Colorado, and were one of the few surf bands to come from a landrocked state. They had a minor hit with an instrumental called Baja during the height of surf's popularity, but were never able to duplicate that success in the US, although they did have considerable success in Japan, even outselling the Beach Boys there. By 1965 they had started to move away from surf music, adding vocals and taking on more of a garage-punk sound. What caught my attention when I first ran across this promo single in a commercial radio station throwaway pile was the song's title. Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day, written by Tommy Boyce and producer Steve Venet, was featured on the Monkees TV show and was included on their 1966 debut album. This 1965 Astronauts version of the tune has a lot more attitude than the Monkees version. Surprisingly the song didn't hit the US charts, despite being released on the biggest record label in the world (at that time), RCA Victor.

Artist:    Magic Mushrooms
Title:    It's-A-Happening
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Casella/Rice
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1966
    It's not known whether or not the Magic Mushrooms heard any of the tracks from the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out when they recorded It's-A-Happening. Still, it's hard to imagine this bit of inspired weirdness being created in a vacuum. Besides this one single, nobody seems to have any knowledge whatsoever of the group known as the Magic Mushrooms, other than the fact that they hailed from Philadelphia, Pa.

Artist:    Fire
Title:    Father's Name Was Dad
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dave Lambert
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1967
    As any fan of the Austin Powers movies can tell you, London in the mid-1960s was home to the Mods, a group (or movement) of young people distinguished by the colorful fashions they wore, most of which came from shops on Carnaby Street. The Mods had their own music as well, usually referred to as "freakbeat" or sometimes just "beat", although not all of the bands playing that kind of music identified with the Mods themselves. Most of the early beat bands were also in the first wave of the British invasion of the US; in fact the Beatles themselves (prior to the release of Rubber Soul) were usually considered the top beat band of all. By 1966, however, the US audience was already getting into other things (Motown, garage rock, Memphis soul and the beginnings of bubble gum). In Europe and the UK, however, beat bands were still on top, with newer groups like the Move, the Small Faces and the Who (in their pre-Tommy days) riding high on the charts. Among these newer beat groups was a trio called Friday's Chyld. After changing their name to Fire, they got a contract with the British Decca label and a publishing deal with the Beatles' Apple organization. After hearing a demo of Father's Name Was Dad, Paul McCartney made a few production suggestions and the group added backing vocals and double-tracked guitar for the final released version of the song. Although Father's Name Was Dad was not a hit, it did serve as the recording debut of lead vocalist/guitarist Dave Lambert, who would go on to have some success in the 70s as a founding member of a band called Strawbs.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1968
    Sporting the longest title of any Beatles recording, Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey is also one of the hardest-rocking late period Beatle tracks. There are two schools of thought concerning the subject matter of the lyrics. According to Lennon, the song is about himself and Yoko Ono, who was his constant companion during recording sessions for what would come to be known as the "White album". The other, more negative view, is that the one expressed by Paul McCartney that the Monkey was heroin, which both Lennon and Ono were getting into at the time. Since Lennon wrote the song, his version of things is the generally accepted one.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Long Gone Geek
Source:    LP: The Best Of Procol Harum (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid/Fisher
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    The last Procol Harum record to feature Matthew Fisher on organ was the 1969 single version of the title track of their third album, A Salty Dog. The B side of the record (which did not appear on the album) was a song called Long Gone Geek. The tune was co-written by Fisher, along with the band's regular writers Gary Brooker and Keith Reid.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Simulated stereo British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. The song itself was copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts and a much faster version by the Leaves had hit the US charts in early 1966.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released in UK only on LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1966
    When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the band's original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1970 soundtrack album for the movie Homer that the studio version was finally released in the US. Unfortunately the compilers of that album left out the last 25 seconds or so from the original recording.

Artist:     Simon and Garfunkel
Title:     Somewhere They Can't Find Me
Source:     CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Sounds of Silence)
Writer:     Paul Simon
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
    Simon and Garfunkel's success as a folk-rock duo was actually due to the unauthorized actions of producer John Simon, who, after working on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album, got Dylan's band to add new tracks to the song Sound of Silence. The song had been recorded as an acoustic number for the album Wednesday Morning 3AM, which had, by 1966, been deleted from the Columbia catalog. The new version of the song was sent out to select radio stations, and got such positive response that it was released as a single, eventually making the top 10. Meanwhile, Paul Simon, who had since moved to London and recorded an album called the Paul Simon Songbook, found himself returning to the US and reuniting with Art Garfunkel. Armed with an array of quality studio musicians they set about making their first electric album, Sounds of Silence. The song Somewhere They Can't Find Me was one of the new songs recorded for that album. From a lyrical standpoint, the song is actually a reworking of the title track of Wednesday Morning 3AM. Musically, the song shows a strong influence from British folk guitarist Bert Jansch, whom Simon greatly admired.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills And Nash
Title:    Marrakesh Express
Source:    CD: Crosby, Stills And Nash
Writer(s):    Graham Nash
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    The first time I ever heard of Crosby, Stills And Nash was on Europe's powerhouse AM station Radio Luxembourg, which broadcast in an American-style top 40 format during the evening and into the early morning hours. As was common on top 40 stations, Radio Luxembourg had a "pick hit of the week", a newly-released song that the station's DJs felt was bound to be a big hit. One night in July of 1969 I tuned in and heard the premier of the station's latest pick hit: Marrakesh Express, by Crosby, Stills And Nash. Sure enough, the song climbed the British charts rather quickly, peaking at #17 (20 positions higher than in the US). The song itself was based on real events that Graham Nash experienced on a train ride in Morocco while still a member of the Hollies. Nash had been riding first class when he got bored and decided to check out what was happening in the other cars. He was so impressed by the sheer variety of what he saw (including ducks and chickens on the train itself) that he decided to write a song about it. The other members of the Hollies were not particularly impressed with the song, however, and its rejection was one of the factors that led to Nash leaving the band and moving to the US, where he hooked up with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Crosby and Stills liked the song, and it became the trio's first single.

Artist:      Turtles
Title:     Wanderin' Kind
Source:      Mono LP: It Ain't Me Babe
Writer(s):    Howard Kaylan
Label:    White Whale
Year:     1966
     White Whale Records, being a typical L.A. label, insisted on using professional songwriters for all the Turtles' A sides. The band was allowed to write its own material for the B sides, however. Here we have one written by lead vocalist Howard Kaylan, who would end up co-writing most of Flo & Eddie's material a few years later. That's OK, though, since Kaylan is Eddie (fellow Turtle Mark Volman is Flo).

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    My Mind
Source:    Simulated stereo British import CD: Before The Dream Faded
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Cherry Red
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1982
    The story of the legendary band the Misunderstood actually started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most of the bands at the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock and roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes, including the addition of lead vocalist Rick Brown. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, and Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were joined by a local guitarist, Tony Hill.  Ravencroft's brother Alan got the band a deal with Fontana Records, resulting in a single in late 1966, I Can Take You To The Sun, that took the British pop scene by storm. In addition to that single, the band recorded a handful of outstanding tracks that remained unreleased until the 1980s. Among those unreleased tracks was a masterpiece called My Mind, written (as were most of the songs the band recorded in London) by Brown and Hill.  Problems having nothing to do with music soon derailed the Misunderstood, who soon found themselves being deported back to the US, and in one case, drafted into the US Army.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Bummer In The Summer
Source:    CD: Forever Changes
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Perhaps the least known tune on Love's third LP, Forever Changes, Bummer In The Summer sounds at first like a throwback to the band's earlier work. A closer listen, however, reveals a thematic similarity with the rest of the critically-acclaimed album, which is generally considered to be the band's finest work.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Are You Happy
Source:    LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Besides the title track itself, probably the best known song on Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album is a Doug Ingle tune called Are You Happy. Opening with a distinctive drum pattern followed by a shouted "are you happy?", the song is one of the most upbeat tunes on the entire album, and was fittingly placed at the end of the LP's first side.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I Hate Everybody
Source:    LP: Second Winter
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    The shortest track on Johnny Winter's Second Winter album, I Hate Everybody is a 50s-styled blues boogie that features Johnny's younger brother Edgar prominently on both organ and saxophone, supported by the rhythm section of Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums.

Artist:    Shadows of Knight
Title:    Gloria
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The original Them version of Van Morrison's Gloria found itself banned on the majority of US radio stations due to controversial lyrics. By changing one line (essentially substituting "around here" for "up to my room") the suburban Chicago punk-blues band Shadows of Knight turned it into a huge hit and a garage band standard.

Artist:     Doors
Title:     People Are Strange
Source:     LP: Strange Days (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     The Doors
Label:     Elektra
Year:     1967
     The first single from the second Doors album was People Are Strange. The song quickly dispelled any notion that the Doors might be one-hit wonders and helped establish the band as an international act as opposed to just another band from L.A. The album itself, Strange Days, was a turning point for Elektra Records as well, as it shifted the label's promotional efforts away from their original rock band, Love, to the Doors, who ironically had been recommended to the label by Love's leader, Arthur Lee.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Hoochie Coochie Man
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    A major driving force behind the renewed interest in the blues in the 1960s was the updating and re-recording of classic blues tunes by contempory rock musicians. This trend started in England, with bands like the Yardbirds and the Animals in the early part of the decade. By the end of the 60s a growing number of US bands were playing songs such as Hoochie Coochie Man, a tune originally recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. Like Cream's Spoonful and Led Zeppelin's You Shook Me, Hoochie Coochie Man was written by Willie Dixon. The 1968 Steppenwolf version of the song slows the tempo down a touch from the original version and features exquisite sustained guitar work from Michael Monarch.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    St. Stephen
Source:    CD: Aoxomoxoa
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    One of the Grateful Dead's most recognizable tunes is St. Stephen. The song first appeared on the 1969 album Aoxomoxoa, and remained in the Grateful Dead stage repertoire for pretty much their entire existence.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    The Fool (live version)
Source:    CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service (bonus track originally released on CD: Unreleased Quicksilver: Lost Gold And Silver)
Writer(s):    Duncan/Freiberg
Label:    Rock Beat (original label: Collector's Choice)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2000
    There are differing opinions on just how serious legendary San Francisco singer/songwriter and general iconoclast Dino Valenti was being when, at a jam session with guitarist John Cippolina one night, he suggested that the two of them form a band. Since Valenti was busted for drugs the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in jail), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love. In one way this actually worked to the band's advantage, since by 1968 record companies were more willing to include lengthy improvisational tracks like The Fool, which took up the entire second side of the group's debut LP. 

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Changes
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Miller/Stevenson
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    All of the members of Moby Grape were songwriters as well as performers. Most contributed songs individually, but one songwriting team did emerge early on. Guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson formed a durable partnership that was responsible for many of the group's best tracks, including Changes from the band's 1967 debut LP.

Artist:    Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders
Title:    Game Of Love
Source:    CD: Reelin' And Rockin' (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Clint Ballard, Jr.
Label:    Happy Days (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1965
    The Mindbenders were formed in 1963 to backup British pop singer Wayne Fontana. The group scored their biggest hit in 1965 with Game Of Love, a song that went to the top of the US charts. Later that year Fontana parted company with the band, which continued on without him for several years, scoring another major hit, Groovy Kind Of Love, in 1966.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    You're On My Mind
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals-Vol. II (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s):    Burdon/Rowberry
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    I can't tell you with any certainty how the song You're On My Mind ended up being included on the second greatest hits collection from the Animals, but I do have a theory. The song first appeared on the UK album Animalisms, and then two months later on that album's nearest thing to a US counterpart, Animalization. It was one of only two songs on Animalisms credited to vocalist Eric Burdon and organist Dave Rowberry (most of the album being covers of various rhythm and blues songs). I suspect that when it came to compile a greatest hits album, it was decided that even a relatively weak original song would be a better choice than a cover song, so both of the Burdon/Rowberry tunes from Animalisms/Animalization were included. Besides, including You're On My Mind on the album meant more royalties for Burdon and Rowberry, always a consideration in the 1960s.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1722 (starts 5/31/17)

Going deep this time, although from the first track you wouldn't think so. Then again, Smoke On The Water had never been played on either Rockin' in the Days of Confusion or Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before this week, so I guess it kinda qualifies.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Smoke On The Water
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    Based on what is quite possibly the most recognizable riff in the history of rock, Smoke On The Water was released in December of 1972 on Deep Purple's Machine Head album. The song became a huge hit the following year when a live version of the tune appeared on the album Made In Japan. For the single release, Warner Brothers chose to pair up edited versions of both the live and studio renditions of the tune on either side of a 45 RPM record. 

Artist:    Taste
Title:    Sinner Boy   
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Live At The Isle Of Wight)
Writer(s):    Rory Gallagher
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1971
    Taste was basically Rory Gallagher's band. First formed in Cork, Ireland, in1966, the group's most popular lineup came together in 1968, when Gallagher was joined by bassist Charlie McCraken and drummer John Wilson. The band soon signed to Polydor, releasing their debut album that same year. A sign of their popularity was when they played the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 and earned no less than five(!) encores. Creative differences took their toll, however, and Taste disbanded on New Year's Eve, 1970. Their appearance at Isle of Wight had been recorded, though, and the album Live At The Isle Of Wight appeared on the racks in 1971. A listen to Sinner Boy from that album demonstrates just why they managed to get five encores. Gallagher would go on to a successful solo career.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    The Width Of A Circle
Source:    CD: The Man Who Sold The World
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1970
    David Bowie had a gift for reinventing himself pretty much right from the start. His earliest albums were largely acoustic in nature, with Space Oddity being about as close to rock as he got. Then came The Man Who Sold The World, which included songs like The Width Of A Circle, a progressive rock piece that borders on heavy metal. The piece had actually been part of Bowie's stage repertoire for several months before recording sessions for the album began, but in a shorter form. For the LP, the piece was expanded to eight minutes in length, with Mick Ronson's lead guitar taking a prominent place in the music. The second half of the piece had somewhat controversial lyrics, describing a sexual encounter with a supernatural being in the depths of Hell. For reasons that are not entirely clear, The Man Who Sold The World was released five months earlier in the US than in the UK.

Artist:    Peter Gabriel
Title:    Moribund The Burgermeister
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side (taken from LP: Peter Gabriel)
Writer(s):    Peter Gabriel
Label:    Atco
Year:    1977
    After leaving Genesis, vocalist Peter Gabriel enlisted producer Bob Ezrin, who had previously worked with Alice Cooper, to co-produce his self-titled debut. Ezrin assembled a talented group of musicians for the LP, including guitarist Robert Fripp of King Crimson, bass player Tony Levin (who would eventually be a member of the 1980s version of King Crimson), drummer Allan Schwartzberg, percussionist Jimmy Maelen, guitarist Steve Hunter, keyboardist Jozef Chirowski and Larry Fast on synthesizers and programming. Gabriel relied heavily on Ezrin to handle the harder rocking aspects of the music (in Gabriel's words "the American" parts), while Gabriel handled the softer passages, much as he had done as a member of Genesis. Both aspects can be heard on Moribund The Burgermeister, the song that was chosen to be the B side of the album's lead single, Solisbury Hill.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Mechanical World
Source:    CD: Spirit
Writer(s):    Andes/Ferguson
Label:    Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    In 1967 the members of Spirit all lived in a large house in Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. During their stay there, bassist Mark Andes came down with a bad case of the flu and was confined to his room for several weeks. During this time Andes was, according to guitarist Randy California, feeling "very depressed and mechanical". Toward the end of Andes's forced isolation, vocalist Jay Ferguson visited him often, and the two of them collaborated on what would become Mechanical World, one of the most sophisticated and complex tracks on Spirit's 1968 debut LP. The song was also included on the band's first "best of" collection a few years later.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Can You Do It
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM promo single
Writer(s):    Street/Gordy
Label:    MCA
Year:    1976
    By 1976 Grand Funk Railroad had pretty much been derailed. In the early 1970s they made a deliberate move away from their almost garage-rock sound in favor of tightly produced singles, but by the middle of the decade the singles market had moved toward a sound that was too light for a band like Grand Funk. In fact, the band had already broken up when they got a call from Frank Zappa expressing his desire to produce the band. The band reassembled for their 11th LP, Good Singin', Good Playin', which was released in 1976. The lead single from the album was an obscure Motown cover called Can You Do It that failed to chart. The album itself was, compared to the band's earlier albums, a commercial failure that peaked outside of the top 50 on the Billboard 200. Discouraged, the group once again disbanded, this time permanently.

Artist:    Roy Buchanon
Title:    Roy's Bluz
Source:    CD: The Best Of Roy Buchanon (originally released on LP: That's What I Am Here For)
Writer(s):    Roy Buchanon
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1973
    Some musicians are highly respected among their peers, but are relatively unknown by the public at large. A perfect example of this is "the guitarist's guitarist" Roy Buchanon. Born in 1939 in Ozark, Alabama and raised in California's San Joaquin Valley, Buchanon was discovered by Dale Hawkins (Suzie Q), while he was still in his teens. Three years later, in 1961, Buchanon joined up with Hawkins' cousin Ronnie "The Hawk" Hawkins, working with a young Robbie Robertson, who later cited Buchanon as one of his biggest influences. Buchanon soon left the Hawks to get married and live in the Washington, DC area for the remainder of the 1960s, playing various local clubs. By the early 70s his fame had spread among the musicians' crowd, with Eric Clapton calling him the best he'd ever heard. In 1972 Buchanon signed with Polydor Records, releasing five albums on the label from 1972-75. Among the best tracks he recorded during this time was Roy's Bluz, using his trademark 1953 Fender Telecaster on a song he composed himself.

Artist:    Little Feat
Title:    Roll Um Easy
Source:    CD: Dixie Chicken
Writer(s):    Lowell George
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    One of the most critically-acclaimed albums in rock history was Little Feat's breakthrough LP, Dixie Chicken. Released in 1973, the album established the band's sound, combining Southern California rock with New Orleans style Rhythm and Blues. The driving force behind the band was singer/songwriter/guitarist Lowell George, who had already established himself with the legendary L.A. underground band the Factory in the mid-60s, and as a member of the Mothers Of Invention, as well as serving as producer for the GTO's Permanent Damage album on Frank Zappa's Straight Records label. George continued to do session work for John Cale, Jackson Browne, Harry Nilsson, and John Sebastian, among others, while maintaining his career with Little Feat until his death in 1979.

Artist:    Bonnie Raitt
Title:    I Thought I Was A Child
Source:    LP: Takin' My Time
Writer(s):    Jackson Browne
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    Generally considered to be one of her strongest efforts, Bonnie Raitt's 1973 LP, Takin' My Time, is one of Raitt's personal favorites as well. Raitt, who plays acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vocals, background vocals, handclapping, and bottleneck guitar, is joined by a wide array of talented musicians, including Lowell George, Taj Mahal and Jim Keltner on the album. Among the strongest tracks on the album is Raitt's version of  I Thought I Was A Child, a tune written by Jackson Browne, whose own career was just starting to take off at around that time.

Artist:    Matthews' Southern Comfort
Title:    Woodstock
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Decca
Year:    1971
    Some people prefer the original Joni Mitchell version of Woodstock, while others favor Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's harder rocking version. My own favorite is the one released by Matthews' Southern Comfort in March of 1970. The record almost didn't get released as a single at all. The band's British label, MCA, only agreed to do so when it became apparent that the CSN&Y version was going nowhere on the British charts. The Matthews's Southern Comfort version of Woodstock went to the top of the British charts, despite a lack of promotional support from the label. In November the song was released in the US, eventually making it to the #23 spot in early 1971. By that time, however, the band itself had split up, mainly due to bandleader Ian Matthews' inability to cope with the trappings of having a #1 hit single. Matthews had been a founding member of Fairport Convention, but had left the group in 1969 to concentrate on his songwriting and establishing himself as a solo artist. His first solo album was named Matthews' Southern Comfort, a name he used for the band he formed to record two more albums, Second Spring and Later That Same Year. Woodstock was originally slated to appear on Later That Same Year, but was instead issued separately as a single, a common practice in the UK.

Artist:    Seatrain
Title:    Despair Tire
Source:    British import CD: The Marblehead Messenger
Writer(s):    Greene/Kulberg/Roberts
Label:    BGO (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1971
    Al Kooper, then Steve Katz and Danny Kalb all left the Blues Project in 1967. By all rights that should have been the end of the story, but the remaining original members Roy Blumenfeld and Andy Kulberg decided to stay together and form a new band, Seatrain. After one album for A&M (entitled Sea Train), the group underwent personnel changes that left only Kulberg (on bass and flute) from the original Blues Project lineup, along with violinist Richard Greene, guitarist/vocalist Peter Rowan, keyboardist/vocalist Lloyd Baskin and drummer Larry Atamanuik. Additionally, dedicated lyricist Jim Roberts provided background vocals for the band's next two albums, Seatrain and The Marblehead Messenger. The band's sound was unique. Perhaps it was too unique. Take a listen to Despair Tire, the final track from The Marblehead Messenger. Now try to describe the track. See what I mean?

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era #1721 (starts 5/24/17)

Beatles! Stones! More Beatles! More Stones! Even more Beatles! Even more Stones! Yeah, there's actually a whole lot of other stuff, too, including a Doors set and, believe it or not, the 1910 Fruitgum Company!

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in November of 1966. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation (and the second track on Rhino's first Nuggets LP).

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

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Mandrake Root
Source:    LP: Purple Passages (originally released on LP: Shades Of Deep Purple)
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Evans/Lord
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1968
    Deep Purple was formed in early 1968 by former Searchers drummer Chris Curtis, who recruited organist Jon Lord and guitarist Richie Blackmore, then left to go do something else. Blackmore and Lord added bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice, as well as frontman Rod Evans, to complete the band's first lineup. The group's debut LP, Shades Of Deep Purple, was recorded in three days in May of 1968. One of the four original compositions on the album was a song called Mandrake Root, which was also the name of the band that Blackmore had been trying to put together in Germany before hooking up with Deep Purple. The song started off as an instrumental, but Evans added lyrics to the tune during rehearsals just prior to the band going into the studio to record.
       
Artist:     Eire Apparent with Jimi Hendrix
Title:     The Clown
Source:     Swedish import CD: Sunrise
Writer(s):     Chris Stewart
Label:     Flawed Gems (original US label: Buddah)
Year:     1969
     Eire Apparent was a band from Northern Ireland that got the attention of Chas Chandler, former bassist for the Animals in late 1967. Chandler had been managing Jimi Hendrix since he had discovered him playing in a club in New York a year before, bringing him back to England and introducing him to Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, who along with Hendrix would become the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Despite Eire Apparent having almost no recording experience, Chandler put them on the bill as the opening act for the touring Experience. This led to Hendrix producing the band's first and only album, Sunrise, in 1968, playing on at least three tracks, including The Clown.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Break On Through (To The Other Side)
Source:    LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The first Doors song to be released as a single was not, as usually assumed, Light My Fire. Rather, it was Break On Through (To The Other Side), the opening track from the band's debut LP, that was chosen to do introduce the band to top 40 radio. Although the single was not an immediate hit, it did eventually catch on with progressive FM radio listeners and still is heard on classic rock stations from time to time.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Soul Kitchen
Source:    CD: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Every time I hear the opening notes of the Doors' Soul Kitchen, from their first album, I think it's When The Music's Over, from their second LP. I wonder if they did that on purpose?

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Twentieth Century Fox
Source:    LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    There's no getting around it: there are no bad songs on the first two Doors albums. Pick one at random, say Twentieth Century Fox. Great song. They all are.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    I Just Wan't To Make Love To You
Source:    45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    London
Year:    1964
    Like most British bands in the early 60s, the Rolling Stones recorded a lot of blues cover songs, including most of their early UK singles. The first original tune from the band to chart was Tell Me (Your Coming Back Again), which was also their first  release to crack the US top 40. The Stones weren't quite done with blues covers however. The flip side of Tell Me was an old Willie Dixon classic, I Just Want To Make Love To You.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Don't Want To Spoil The Party
Source:    CD: Beatles For Sale (released in US on LP: Beatles VI)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    UK: 1964, US: 1965
    As early as 1964 the Beatles were starting to incorporate acoustic guitars into their music to supplement their basic electric sound. One example of this is I Don't Want To Spoil The Party from their LP Beatles For Sale. In the US the song appeared on the 1965 LP Beatles VI.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    The Last Time
Source:    Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1965
     Released in late winter of 1965, The Last Time was the first single to hit the top 10 in both the US and the UK (being their third consecutive #1 hit in England) and the first one written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Despite that, it would be overshadowed by their next release: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, which went to the top of the charts everywhere and ended up being the #1 song of 1965.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Wait
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    The oldest song on the Rubber Soul album, Wait was originally recorded for the Help album, but did not make the final cut. Six months later, when the band was putting the finishing touches on Rubber Soul, they realized they would not be able to come up with enough new material in time for a Christmas release, so they added some overdubs to Wait and included it on the new album. The song itself was a collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with the two sharing vocals throughout the tune.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Please Go Home
Source:    CD: Flowers
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    It was common practice in the 1960s for American record labels to change the track lineup on British albums before releasing them in the US. There were several reasons for this, including the fact that British albums generally had longer running times than American ones, and seldom included tracks that had been issued as singles. Since albums in the US almost always did include hit singles (to help spur album sales), this meant that several songs from the original UK versions of LPs did not appear on the US version. In many cases those tracks, combined with other unreleased songs such as those that had appeared on EPs (a format not supported by American record buyers) would eventually appear on albums that were only released in the US. One such album was the Rolling Stones' Flowers LP, which appeared in 1967 a few months after the release of Between The Buttons. One of the tracks on Flowers that had appeared on the British version of Between The Buttons was Please Go Home, a Bo Diddly styled rocker with a few psychedelic touches added. The track also features an oscillator, played by Brian Jones.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Think For Yourself
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer:    George Harrison
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    By the end of 1965 George Harrison was writing two songs per Beatle album. On Rubber Soul, however, one of his two songs was deleted from the US version of the album and appeared on 1966's Yesterday...And Today LP instead. The remaining Harrison song on Rubber Soul was Think For Yourself. Harrison later said that he was still developing his songwriting at this point and that bandmate John Lennon had helped write Think For Yourself.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Do You Believe In Magic
Source:    CD: Battle Of The Bands (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Do You Believe In Magic)
Writer(s):    John Sebastian
Label:    Era (original label: Kama Sutra)
Year:    1965
    Do You Believe In Magic, the debut single by the Lovin' Spoonful, was instrumental in establishing not only the band itself, but the Kama Sutra label as well. Over the next couple of years, the Spoonful would crank out a string of hits, pretty much single-handedly keeping Kama Sutra in business. In 1967 the band's lead vocalist and primary songwriter John Sebastian departed the group for a solo career, and Kama Sutra itself soon morphed into a company called Buddah Records. Buddah (the misspelling being discovered too late to be fixed) soon came to dominate the "bubble gum" genre of top 40 music throughout 1968 and well into 1969, but eventually proved in its own way to be as much a one-trick pony as its predecessor.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    It's No Secret
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Marty Balin
Label:    Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1966
     Released in March of 1966, It's No Secret was an instant hit on San Francisco Bay area radio stations. This version differs from the album version released six months later in that it has a fade out ending and is thus a few seconds shorter. The song was featured on a 1966 Bell Telephone Hour special on Haight Ashbury that introduced a national TV audience to what was happening out on the coast and may have just touched off the exodus to San Francisco the following year.

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

Artist:        Randy Newman
Title:        Last Night I Had A Dream
Source:      Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:        Randy Newman
Label:        Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:        1968
        Randy Newman has, over the course of the past fifty-plus years, established himself as a Great American Writer of Songs. His work includes dozens of hit singles (over half of which were performed by other artists), nearly two dozen movie scores and eleven albums as a solo artist. Newman has won five Grammys, as well as two Oscars and Three Emmys. Last Night I Had A Dream was Newman's second single for the Reprise label  (his third overall), coming out the same year as his first LP, which did not include the song.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    In The Time Of Our Lives
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Ingle/Bushy
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    The lead track on Ball, Iron Butterfly's highly-anticipated 1969 follow-up LP to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, was In The Time Of Our Lives. It was also chosen to be released as a single. Although some labels were starting to issue stereo 45s, Atco was not one of them, and In The Time Of Our Lives became one of only two songs from Ball with an alternate monoraul mix (the other being the B side of the single, It Must Be Love).

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy
Source:    LP: Kinda Kinks
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy is perhaps recognizable from a TV commercial from a few years back (don't ask me who the ad was for, as I tend to ignore such things). The song was originally the opening track from the 1965 album Kinda Kinks, which, like most British albums of the time, had a different song lineup on its US release than the original UK version. In this case, it also had entirely different cover art, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Laughing Stock
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1968
    The last record by the classic Love lineup was a single released in June of 1968. While Your Mind And We Belong Together is one of the band's most overlooked and underrated tracks, the B side of that single comes across as a sardonic epitaph for the group, with it's intro reminiscent of one of their best tunes, Alone Again Or and sly references to their first hit, My Little Red Book. Lee would soon fire the entire band, reemerging with an entirely new lineup the following year, but he was never able to duplicate the magic of the original Love.
       
Artist:      Them
Title:     Black Widow Spider
Source:      CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Lane/Pulley
Label:    Rev-Ola (original label: Tower)
Year:     1968
     Usually when a band used outside songwriters it's because their producer forced them into it, and almost always was a sore point with the band members. The liner notes for Them's second album for Tower, on the other hand, included a thank you note from the band to Tom Lane and Sharon Pulley, who wrote nearly every song on Time Out! Time In! For Them.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    I Got A Line On You
Source:    European import CD: Pure....Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Family That Plays Together)
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Ode)
Year:    1968
    Although not an instant hit by any measure, I Got A Line On You, from Spirit's second album, The Family That Plays Together, has proven to be the band's most popular song. Released in October of 1968, the song lingered below the top 100 for several weeks before college radio stations began playing it in late November. The tune finally peaked at #25 on March 15, 1969.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Stealin'
Source:    Mono CD: Birth Of The Dead (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gus Cannon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Scorpio)
Year:    1966
    The first Grateful Dead record was actually a limited edition single on San Francisco's Scorpio label, released in 1966. The band had already cut a few tracks in 1965 when they were still known as the Warlocks, but none of those had been released. Both sides of the Scorpio single were cover songs featuring Jerry Garcia on vocals. The A side was a Gus Cannon tune called Stealin', which is a fairly good indication of what the band was doing in 1966 (before seeing the Blues Project perform at the Fillmore inspired them to develop their own improvisational skills).

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    House Of Jansch
Source:    Mono LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic
Year:    1967
    One of the most respected names in British folk music during the 1960s was Bert Jansch. House Of Jansch, from the Mellow Yellow album, was Donovan's way of acknowledging Jansch's influence on his own music.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Politician
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Although the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown are best known for providing Cream with its more psychedelic songs such as White Room and Swlabr, they did occasionally come up with bluesier numbers such as Politician from the Wheels Of Fire album. The song quickly became a staple of Cream's live performances.

Artist:    Janis Joplin
Title:    One Good Man
Source:    LP: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s):    Janis Joplin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Janis Joplin's first solo album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama, got a lukewarm reception, both from the rock press and from fans of the singer who had been listening to her since her days with Big Brother And The Holding Company. The main problem seems to be that, while musically more proficient than the members of Big Brother, Joplin's new group (sometimes called the Kozmic Blues Band) never seemed to gel as a group. The fact that all but two of the tracks on the LP were cover songs didn't help matters, either. The two Joplin originals, however, are among the album's best tracks. I suspect that a few more tracks like One Good Man and a few fewer tracks like the cover of the Bee Gees' To Love Somebody would have helped the album immensely.

Title:    Somethin' Goin' On
Source:    LP: Child Is Father To The Man
Writer(s):    Al Kooper
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    After leaving the Blues Project just prior to the band's appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival, Al Kooper volunteered his services to the festival promoters as part of the stage crew and hastily put together a band of his own to make a one-off appearance at the festival itself. Following that, Kooper returned to New York to do studio work, becoming a staff producer at Columbia Records. While there, he conceived the idea of combining rock and jazz in a new band to be called Blood, Sweat & Tears. The group's first LP, Child Is Father To The Man, featured Kooper on both keyboards and vocals on several new tunes, most of which were written by Kooper himself. Among these new tunes was Somethin' Goin' On, a powerful blues-based piece that helped establish the new group's distinct sound. Kooper would leave BS&T following the release of Child Is Father To The Man. The band itself would go on to even greater success with the addition of vocalist David Clayton Thomas, while Kooper would soon embark on what is considered by many to be the greatest jam album of all time: Super Session.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Feelin' Alright
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s):    Dave Mason
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    Although Traffic is generally known as an early underground rock band heard mostly on progressive FM stations in the US, the band had its share of hit singles in its native England as well. Many of these early hits were written by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, who would leave the band in 1968, only to return for the live Welcome To The Canteen album before leaving again, this time for good. One of Mason's most memorable songs was Feelin' Alright, from Traffic's self-titled second LP. The song very quickly became a rock standard when Joe Cocker sped it up and made it his own signature song. Grand Funk Railroad slowed it back down and scored a hit with their version in 1971, and Mason himself got some airplay with a new solo recording of the song later in the decade. Even comedian John Belushi got into the act with his dead-on cover of Cocker's version of the song on the Saturday Night Live TV show.

Artist:    Family
Title:    Peace Of Mind/Voyage/The Breeze
Source:    British import CD: Music In A Doll's House
Writer(s):    Whitney/Chapman
Label:    See For Miles (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    One of the most original and musically accomplished bands to appear on the late 60s British music scene, Family got its name from the Zelig-like Kim Fowley, who spent much of the decade flittering back and forth between London and Los Angeles. Fowley saw the band performing in their stage attire of matching double-breasted suits and remarked how they resembled a Mafia crime family. Musically, Family was unique in several ways, including the fact that their bass player, Rick Grech, also played violin. Lead vocalist Roger Chapman had one of the most unusual voices on the scene as well. Finally, the band's material was far more sophisticated than that of most of their contemporaries (Pink Floyd being a notable exception), predating the progressive rock movement by at least a year. Some of the tracks on their first album, Music In A Doll's House, drew comparisons to Traffic. This was probably inevitable, since both groups were produced by Jimmy Miller, with Traffic's Dave Mason serving as co-producer on two tracks, Peace Of Mind and The Breeze on Music In A Doll's House. Family's fortunes took a downward turn in 1969, however, when Grech left the group to become a member of Blind Faith.

Artist:    1910 Fruitgum Company
Title:    In The Beginning/The Thing
Source:    LP: Hard Ride
Writer(s):    Soriano/Christopher/Gomez/Casazza/Roth/Cohen/Gutkowski/Gutkowski
Label:    Buddah
Year:    1969
    When it comes to the subject of bubble gum rock, the first name that comes to mind is the 1910 Fruitgum Company. With songs like Simon Says and 1,2,3 Red Light, they were as big a name as any in genre, which by 1969 had become yesterday's news. In an effort to change with the times the band released the album Hard Road that year. As can be heard on the combined tracks In The Beginning (a bunch of spacy feedback credited to the band itself) and The Thing (a faux R&B instrumental), they really never stood a chance of being taken seriously.