Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1942 (starts 10/14/19)

    I was really planning on doing two sets this week, but each song seemed to flow so naturally out of the one before it that I just couldn't bring myself to dam up the stream of tunes. So prepare yourself for an amazing musical journey, starting, appropriately enough, with the Who.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Amazing Journey
Source:    British Import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Tommy)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Polydor UK (original US label: Decca)
Year:    1969
    After achieving major success in their native England with a series of hit singles in 1965-67, the Who began to concentrate more on their albums from 1968 on. The first of these concept albums was The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. The Who Sell Out was a collection of songs connected by faux radio spots and actual jingles from England's last remaining pirate radio station, Radio London. After releasing a few more singles in 1968, the Who began work on their most ambitious project yet: the world's first rock opera. Tommy, released in 1969, was a double LP telling the story of a boy who, after being tramautized into becoming a blind deaf-mute, eventually emerges as a kind of messiah, only to have his followers ultimately abandon him. One of the early tracks on the album is Amazing Journey, describing Tommy's voyage into the recesses of his own mind in response to the traumatic event that results in his "deaf, dumb and blind" condition.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Gonna Run
Source:    CD: Watt
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:    1970
    The fifth Ten Years After album, Watt, was somewhat unfairly criticized by the rock press for being "more of the same" from the British blues-rock band. When "the same" refers to an album of the calibur of Cricklewood Green, however, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, some tracks, such as Gonna Run, are at least the equal of any song on the previous album, and show a growing awareness on the part of the band of how to use the recording studio itself to its fullest advantage.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Street Worm
Source:    CD: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1970
    Spirit guitarist Randy California got an opportunity to channel one of his personal heroes, saxophonist John Coltrane, on Jay Ferguson's Street Worm on the 1970 album Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus. It is particularly noticable on the arpeggios at the end of the track.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    River Deep, Mountain High
Source:    CD: The Book Of Taleisyn
Writer(s):    Barry/Specter/Greenwich
Label:    Eagle (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1968
    The big, spectacular production piece on Deep Purple's second LP, The Book Of Taleisyn, was a ten minute long cover of Tina Turner's 1966 single (credited to Ike And Tina Turner, though it was actually produced by Phil Spector) River Deep, Mountain High. The original Turner version had mysteriously stalled out in the #88 spot in the US, although it was a #3 hit single in the UK. For Deep Purple, the reverse held true, as the album, released in late 1968, was a success in the US (#54 on the Billboard LP chart) but did not chart at all in the UK, where it was not released until mid-1969. The song itself would be covered by several notable artists over the subsequent years, including Eric Burdon And The Animals and a collaboration between the Supremes and the Four Tops that would become the highest-charting US version of the song in 1970.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Return Of The Giant Hogweed
Source:    CD: Nursery Crymes
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1971
    The Return Of The Giant Hogweed, from the 1971 Genesis album Nursery Cryme, is actually based on a true story about an invasive organism brought to England from Russia in the 1800s. Genesis, thanks in large part to the sense of whimsy brought to the band by their new drummer, Phil Collins, deliberately exaggerated the story, making the Giant Hogweed a threat to civilization as we know it. Nursery Crymes itself, although officially the third Genesis album, was in fact the debut of the band's classic lineup of Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford and new guitarist Steve Hackett, who joined a few months after founding member Anthony Phillips left the group following the release of the Trespass album. This lineup would remain intact until the departure of Gabriel in 1975.

Artist:      Blood, Sweat and Tears
Title:     Sometimes In Winter
Source:      CD: Blood, Sweat and Tears
Writer:    Stee Katz
Label:     Columbia/Legacy
Year:     1969
     Steve Katz was never a superstar. As the rhythm guitarist in Blues Project he was always overshadowed by lead guitarist Danny Kalb and keyboardist Al Kooper. When Kooper formed Blood, Sweat and Tears, nobody seemed to notice that Katz was the only other member of Blues Project in the band. As Sometimes In Winter shows, though, he was a decent singer-songwriter in his own right.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    I Need A Man To Love
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Joplin/Andrew
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded their first album at the Chicago studios of Mainstream records in 1967. Mainstream, however, was a jazz label and their engineers had no idea how to make an anarchic band like Big Brother sound good. When the band signed to Columbia the following year it was decided that the best way to record the band was onstage at the Fillmore West. This didn't work out as planned, however, and only the album's final track, Ball And Chain, is actually a live recording. Other songs, such as I Need A Man To Love, were recorded in the studio, but were made to sound live in post-production.

Artist:    Derek And The Dominos
Title:    Anyday
Source:    CD: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Writer(s):    Clapton/Whitlock
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Derek And The Dominos was originally an attempt by Eric Clapton to remove himself from the solo spotlight and work in a larger group setting than he had with his previous bands, Cream and Blind Faith. Such was Clapton's stature, however, that even among talents like Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Bobby Whitlock, Clapton was still the star. However, there was one unofficial member of the group whose own star was in ascendancy. Duane Allman, who had chosen to stick with his own group the Allman Brothers Band, nonetheless played on eleven of the fourteen tracks on Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. His slide guitar work is especially noticeable on the title track and on the song Anyday, which remains one of the most popular songs on the album.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Tell Me What You Want (And I'll Give You What You Need)
Source:    CD: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits
Writer(s):    Patrick Simmons
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1974
    The fourth Doobie Brothers album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, is one those albums that benefits from the inherit limitations of vinyl, specifically the fact that a vinyl LP is divided into two (or more) sides. The first side of the album is just OK, despite the fact that it contains two of the album's three singles, including the band's first #1 hit, Black Water. The second side, however, is where the album really shines, with one strong song after another from start to finish. In the middle of this is Tell Me What You Want (And I'll Give You What You Need), one of the most underrated songs in entire Doobie Brothers catalog. Written by Patrick Simmons, the song shows just how easily the Doobies were able to ease into the 70s California groove usually associated with bands like Poco and the Eagles without losing the edge that made them one of the most popular bands of their time.

Artist:    Stevie Wonder
Title:    Contusion
Source:    LP: Songs In The Key Of Life
Writer(s):    Stevie Wonder
Label:    Tamla
Year:    1976
    Stevie Wonder's 1976 double-LP Songs In The Key Of Life is considered by many musicians to be the greatest album of all time. It was the third consecutive Stevie Wonder album to win the Grammy award for Album Of The Year and spent 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard album chart, including the week was released, making it only the third album in history to make its debut at #1. It also provided the artist with two #1 hit singles, as well as a pair of lesser hits in late 1977. Among the many outstanding tracks on Songs In The Key Of Life is the mostly-instrumental Contusion, a fusion jazz piece that features the talents of Mike Sembello on lead guitar, Nathan Watts on bass guitar, Ben Bridges on rhythm guitar, Raymond Pounds on drums and Greg Phillinganes on keyboards, with Wonder himself playing all the other instruments. Contusion also features wordless vocals from Michael Gray, Josie James, Shirley Brewer and Artece May.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Angel
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    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.
       

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1941 (starts 10/07/19)

    Each segment of this week's show has its own unique characteristics. Our first half hour starts off by going down and ends up with our only single-year set of the week: 1969. Next we have the world according to Bob Dylan, David Peel and the Beatles. Our second hour starts with an Advanced Psych segment which leads into three "other" sides of Vanilla Fudge, setting things up for our final segment that takes a long journey through the years 1966 to 1970 and back. Speaking of 1970, we start with Santana...

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

Artist:    Chicago
Title:    Questions 67 & 68
Source:    CD: The Chicago Transit Authority
Writer(s):    Robert Lamm
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    Originally calling themselves The Big Thing, The Chicago Transit Authority moved to Los Angeles in 1968, changing their name in the process. After a year of touring the band headed to New York to record their first album in early 1969. The first single released from that album was Questions 67 & 68, which was released as a nearly five-minute long single in July. The song stalled out at the #71 spot, but two years later an edited version of the song made it to #24. By then the group had shortened its name to Chicago. The rest, as they say, is history.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The Unknown Soldier
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1968
    One of the oddest recordings to get played on top 40 radio was the Door's 1968 release, The Unknown Soldier. The song is notable for having it's own promotional film made by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had been a film major at UCLA when the Doors were formed. It's not known whether the song was written with the film in mind (or vice versa), but the two have a much greater synergy than your average music video. As for the question of whether the Doors themselves were anti-war, let's just say that vocalist Jim Morrison, who wrote the lyrics to The Unknown Soldier, was pretty much anti-everything.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Help, I'm A Rock
Source:    CD: Part One
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Say what you will about the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, it takes cojones to record a cover of a Frank Zappa tune, especially within a year of the original Mothers of Invention version coming out. To top it off, the W.C.P.A.E.B. even released Help, I'm A Rock as a single, although the longer LP version is far superior.

Artist:     Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys
Title:     Good Old Rock and Roll
Source:     CD: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-Vol. 1 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Writer(s):    Michaels/Smith/Equine/Chin/Packer
Label:    Polydor
Year:     1969
     By 1969, folk-rock had morphed into what would come to be called country-rock. One of the early country-rock bands that is usually overlooked is Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys. This is probably because their only hit, the '50s tribute song Good Old Rock and Roll, was not at all typical of the band's sound.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Brave New World
Source:    LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1969
    It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the film itself.

Artist:     Janis Joplin
Title:     Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)
Source:     LP: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer:     Ragavoy/Taylor
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1969
     A glance through the various playlists on this blog makes one thing abundantly clear: the psychedelic era was a time for bands, as opposed to individual stars. The music industry itself, however, tends to favor the single artist. Perhaps this is because it is easier to market (cynics would say exploit) an individual artist than a collective of musicians. In the case of Janis Joplin, people in the industry managed to convince her that her fellow members of Big Brother and the Holding Company were holding her back due to their lack of musicianship. A listen to her first album without her old bandmates puts the lie to that argument. Although the Kozmic Blues Band may indeed have had greater expertise as individual musicians than Big Brother, the energy that had electrified audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival and at various San Francisco ballrooms was just not there, and the album is generally considered somewhat limp in comparison to Cheap Thrills. The opening (and some would say best) track on the album is Try (Just A Little Bit Harder). While not a bad song, the recording just doesn't have the magic of a Piece of My Heart or Ball and Chain, despite a strong vocal performance by Joplin herself.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Watching The River Flow
Source:    LP: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume II (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    In July of 1966, Bob Dylan was involved in a serious motorcyle accident that kept him out of a recording studio for nearly 18 months, but it really took about five years for him to fully recover from it. During those five years he recorded a series of albums in Nashville with producer Bob Johnston, all of which had a strong country flavor to them. While putting the finishing touches on his 1970 album, New Morning, Dylan made it clear that he was ready to move on and no longer wanted to work with Johnston. As to where or what he wanted to move on to, it was unclear until he began working with Leon Russell, who helped him shape his 1971 single Watching The River Flow. Recorded in New York, the recording featured Carl Radle (Derek and the Dominos) on bass, Jesse Ed Davis (Taj Mahal's band) on guitar and Jim Keltner (who along with Russell had participated in Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs And Englishmen project) on drums. The song showed a strong blues influence, and featured Dylan's return to the singing style that he had become famous for (as opposed to his "Nashville crooning" style heard on songs like Lay Lady Lay). The lyrics of Watching The River Flow made it clear that Dylan was done playing the role of "spokesman for a generation" and was content to stay on the sidelines and stay focused on his personal life. The song barely missed the US top 40, peaking at #41 in the summer of 1971, but charted higher in Canada and the UK, as well as other places, and was featured as the opening track of his second Greatest Hits album, released the same year.

Artist:     David Peel and the Lower East Side
Title:     The American Revolution-Part 2
Source:    LP: The American Revolution
Writer:     Peel/DeLory/Darian/Van Winkle
Label:     Elektra
Year:     1970
     If there was any one band that could be called a Yippie band, it was David Peel and the Lower East Side. As much street theater as rock and roll, the group consisted of three core members: David Peel (guitar, vocals), Billy Joe White (guitar, vocals), and Harold C. Black (tambourine, vocals), plus just about anyone who wanted to play and/or sing along. The group's first album was Have A Marijuana, recorded live at New York's Washington Square at a cost of around $4,000. The album was a surprise cult hit, netting Elektra nearly a million dollars. The band's priorities, however, were more about social issues than musical ones, and the group did not get around to recording another album until 1970. By then the Yippie movement had run its course, and the decision was made to abandon the street theater aspect of the group and concentrate instead on making a studio album. To do this, they enlisted several new semi-official members to record The American Revolution, arguably the first true punk-rock LP ever recorded. The songs covered a variety of topical issues, including sex (Girls, Girls, Girls), religion (God), and the still-raging Vietnam War (I Want To Kill You and Hey, Mr. Draft Board, a parody of Larry Verne's Mr. Custer). The songs themselves segue into each other on the LP, resulting in two suites running about 15 minutes each (one per side). This week we are presenting the second suite/side of The American Revolution, which includes the four songs mentioned above. Clash fans, enjoy!

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Wild Honey Pie/The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill/While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney/Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    By early 1968 the Beatles were beginning to show signs that they would not be together as a band much longer. The group had just experienced their first commercial & critical failure, the Magical Mystery Tour telefilm (although the soundtrack did quite well). Additionally, each member (except maybe Ringo) was starting to move off in his own direction as a songwriter. Nonetheless they went ahead with plans to form Apple, a company designed to market not only their music, but other products as well. The first album released on the new label was titled simply The Beatles and had a plain white cover, resulting in it soon becoming known as the White Album. It was the Beatles' first double-LP set, and the only one to feature all-new material. The music covered a wide variety of styles, some of which are even now hard to describe. As an example we have Paul McCartney's Wild Honey Pie, which segues into John Lennon's The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill. I defy anyone to define exactly what genre these two tracks are representative of. George Harrison had already written several songs that had appeared on various Beatles albums (and an occasional B side) through 1968, but his first acknowledged classic was While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which immediately follows Bungalow Bill on the album. The recording features Harrison's close friend, guitarist Eric Clapton, who at that time was enjoying superstar status as a member of Cream.

Artist:    Zombies
Title:    She's Not There
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:    Rod Argent
Label:    London (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1964
    Most of the original British invasion bands were guitar-oriented, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. One notable exception was the Zombies, whose leader, Rod Argent, built the group around his electric piano. Their first single, She's Not There, was a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic and is ranked among the top British rock songs of all time.

Artist:    Ace Of Cups
Title:    Interlude: Transistor/Stones
Source:    CD: Ace Of Cups
Writer(s):    Mary Gannon
Label:    High Moon
Year:    2018
    Stones is one of the oldest songs in the Ace Of Cups repertoire, dating back to 1967. What makes the 2018 version of the track truly unique, however, is the fact that drummer Diane Vitalich puts some of the band's shared experience into her lead vocals on the tune, which was written, and originally sung, by the group's founder, Mary Gannon. It turns out that bandmate Denise Kaufman was present (and five months pregnant) at the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones concert at Altamont that erupted into violence, and was in fact seriously injured when her skull was fractured by a thrown beer bottle. To make things worse, the Stones themselves refused to let their helicopter be used to transport her to a hospital, endangering both her and the baby. Although things turned out OK in the long run, Vitalich, for the studio version of Stones, replaced a line in the song's bridge about how the Ace Of Cups loved the Rolling Stones with the following: "You can rock like a Rolling Stone, but baby I ain't buyin' it."

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    African  Bees
Source:    CD: Feedback
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    2006
    The 3006 Electric Prunes album Feedback sounds like a group of talented musicians with nothing to prove having the time of their lives. Which, of course, is exactly what it is. Their always present sense of whimsy is well-represented by African Bees, a tune that somehow manages to make me think of Frank Zappa, Mitch Mitchell and John Belushi all at the same time. Even better, Mark Tulin's bass line on the song is nothing short of phenomenal (he also plays keyboards).

Artist:    Strawberry Zots
Title:    Pretty Flowers
Source:    LP: Cars, Flowers, Telephones
Writer(s):    Mark Andrews
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    Albuquerque's Strawberry Zots were led by Mark Andrews, who either wrote or co-wrote all of the band's original material. Their only LP, Cars, Flowers, Telephones, was released locally on the StreetSound label and reissued on CD the following year by RCA records. My personal favorite track on the album is Pretty Flowers, which starts off the LP's second side. Unfortunately the song is handicapped by its low-fidelity production, which may have been a deliberate attempt to emulate the sound of 60s psychedelia, but ends up sounding, like much of the music of the 1980s,  over-compressed.
       
Artist:          Vanilla Fudge
Title:        Come By Day, Come By Night
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Mark Stein
Label:     Atco
Year:        1968
       The Vanilla Fudge version of  the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On was first released as a single in 1967, but tanked before it could hit the top 60. In 1968 the song was re-released with a different B side and made the top 20. That secondB side, Come By Day, Come By Night, was written by keyboardist Mark Stein, and was never released on a Vanilla Fudge album. The song is now available on a CD called The Complete Atco Singles.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Take Me For A Little While
Source:    LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer(s):    Trade Martin
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    The original single version of Vanilla Fudge's cover of the Holland-Dozier-Holland penned Supremes hit You Keep Me Hangin' On was yet another cover of a tune written by a man but originally sung by female artists. Take Me For A Little While, written by Trade Martin, was first released in 1965, with two versions, one by Evie Sands and the other by Jackie Ross, coming out at about the same time.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Where Is My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mark Stein
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    When Vanilla Fudge first released You Keep Me Hangin' On as a single in June of 1967, the record stiffed. Undaunted, the band continued to work on their debut LP, which included both sides of the single and was a major success when it was released in August of 1967, going all the way to the #6 spot on the Billboard album chart. Still, the band wanted a hit single, so they returned to the studio to cut two new tracks. One of these was an original composition by keyboardist Mark Stein called Where Is My Mind, which was chosen to be the A side of the new single, released in January of 1968. Unfortunately for the band, that record got such a cold reception from radio stations that their label quickly issued a special copy of the single featuring only the record's B side, a cover of Dusty Springfield's The Look Of Love (which also stiffed). It was not until June of 1968, when You Keep Me Hangin' On was reissued as a single, that Vanilla Fudge got their first (and only) top 40 hit.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Let's Go Away For Awhile
Source:    Mono CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Brian Wilson
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    After spending six months and a record amount of money making Good Vibrations, Brian Wilson and Capitol Records decided to use an existing track for the B side of the single rather than take the time to record something new. The chosen track was Let's Go Away For Awhile, a tune from the Pet Sounds album that Wilson described as the most satisfying instrumental piece he had ever written.

Artist:    Spanky And Our Gang
Title:    Sunday Will Never Be The Same
Source:    LP: Spanky And Our Gang
Writer(s):    Pistilli/Cashman
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    The terms "rock star" and, for that matter "rock music", did not come into common usage until the late 1960s. Prior to that we had "pop stars" singing "pop songs", which included virtually everything that made it into the top 40, from Dean Martin ballads like Everybody Loves Somebody Sometimes to funky James Brown tunes like Papa's Got A Brand New Bag. One of the last of the true pop groups was Spanky And Our Gang. Actually more artistically oriented than they are generally given credit for, Spanky And Our Gang were saddled with a producer who was more concerned with getting an album out quickly to cash in on a hit single than making a quality record. The hit single in question was Sunday Will Never Be The Same, which, despite the band achieving success with other tunes as well, came to define the band in the minds of record buyers, and actually hobbled their efforts to be seen as more than just a Mamas and Papas clone. Not long after the death of multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Hale (from either bronchial pneumonia or carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heating system, depending on whose account you read), who had been the group's primary arranger and de facto leader, Spanky And Our Gang disbanded, with lead vocalist Spanky McFarlane going on to a solo career and eventual membership in the Mamas And The Papas as Cass Elliot's replacement.

Artist:    Nocturnes
Title:    Carpet Man
Source:    Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jimmy Webb
Label:    EMI (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    Not every artist who recorded at London's famed Abbey Road Studios became famous. Like all studios, Abbey Road had its share of artists who cut maybe one single and then faded off into obscurity. Among the most obscure bands to record at Abbey Road was the Nocturnes, whose sole shot at fame was a cover of the Fifth Dimension's Carpet Man, recorded and released in 1968.

Artist:    Bubble Puppy
Title:    Beginning (remix)
Source:    Mono British import CD: A Gathering Of Promises
Writer(s):    Prince/Cox
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1969
    The Bubble Puppy came into existence in 1967, when two former members of the legendary Corpus Christie,Texas garage band the Bad Seeds, guitarist Rod Prince and keyboardist/bassist Roy Cox, relocated to San Antonio, recruiting guitarist Todd Potter and drummer Craig Root to form the new band. Success came quickly in the form of the band's very first gig, opening for the Who at the San Antonio Colosseum. After David Fore replaced Root in the band, the group relocated to Austin, where they got a steady gig at the Vulcan Gas Company. By 1968 the Bubble Puppy was traveling all over Texas for gigs, and late in the year got a contract with Houston-based International Artists, a label that had already gained notoriety by signing the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. After releasing a surprise top 40 hit, Hot Smoke And Sassafras in December of 1968, the band got to work on a full album, A Gathering Of Promises. International Artists failed to get the album, which was full of fine tunes like Beginning (which became the band's second single), out quickly enough to capitilize of the popularity of Hot Smoke And Sassafras, and further hurt the band's chance of success by refusing to grant licensing rights for Hot Smoke And Sassafras to Apple Records for European release. By 1970 the band and the label had parted company, with the Bubble Puppy relocating to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Empty Pages
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Silver Spotlight (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1970
    Traffic was formed in 1967 by Steve Winwood, after ending his association with the Spencer Davis Group. The original group, also featuring Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood, put out two and a half albums before disbanding in early 1969. Shortly thereafter, following a successful live reunion album, Welcome to the Canteen, Winwood got to work on what was intended to be his first solo LP. For support Winwood called in Capaldi and Wood to back him up on the project. It soon became apparent, however, that what they were working on was actually a new Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. Although Empty Pages was released as a single (with a mono mix heard here), it got most of its airplay on progressive FM stations, and as those stations were replaced by (or became) AOR (album oriented rock) stations, the song continued to get extensive airplay for many years.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Nature's Way
Source:    CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer:    Randy California
Label:    Epic
Year:    1970
    Nature's Way is one of the best-known and best-loved songs in the Spirit catalog. Originally released on the 1970 LP Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, the song was finally issued as a single in 1973, long after lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes had left the band. The single mix is a bit different from the album version, particularly at the end of the song, which originally ended with a tympani roll by drummer Ed Cassidy that led into the next track on the album. The single version omits that drum roll entirely.

Artist:    Tyrannosaurus Rex
Title:    The Sea Beasts
Source:    CD: Unicorn
Writer(s):    Marc Bolan
Label:    A&M (original label: Blue Thumb)
Year:    1969
    Nearly everyone is familiar with a song called Get It On (aka Bang A Gong), a huge hit in the early 70s by a group known as T-Rex. Not all that many people, however, are aware that the band was originally called Tyrannosaurus Rex, and consisted of only two members, Marc Bolan and Steve Peregrin Took. Tyrannosaurus Rex, in its original incarnation, was best described as a psychedelic folk duo with a stong emphasis on fantasy themes on songs like The Sea Beasts, which appeared on the group's third LP, Unicorn. Took split with Bolan following the release of Unicorn after Bolan refused to use any of Took's compositions on the next Tyrannosaurus Rex album, A Beard Of Stars. Bolan replaced Took with Mickey Finn, who would remain a member after T-Rex expanded to become an electric rock band.

Artist:    Beacon Street Union
Title:    Blue Avenue
Source:    LP: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s):    Wayne Ulaky
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    One of Boston's most popular bands, the Beacon Street Union, had already migrated to New York City by the time their first album, The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union (produced by the legendary Tom Wilson), made its debut in February of 1968. The band itself was made up of Boston University dropouts John Lincoln Wright (lead vocals), Paul Tartachny (guitar, vocals), Robert Rhodes (keyboards, brass), Richard Weisberg (drums), and Wayne Ulaky (bass). Ulaky wrote what was probably the band's best-known song, Blue Avenue. The tune was particular popular in the UK, where it was often heard on John Peel's Top Gear program. The Beacon Street Union, however, fell victim to hype; in this case the ill-advised attempt on the part of M-G-M records to market several disparate bands as being part of the "boss-town sound". After a second LP, The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens (produced by future Partridge Family impressario Wes Farrell) failed to equal the somewhat limited success of their debut LP, the Beacon Street Union decided to call it quits.

Artist:    Fantastic Zoo
Title:    Light Show
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Cameron/Karl
Label:    Double Shot
Year:    1967
    The Fantastic Zoo had its origins in Denver, Colorado, with a band called the Fogcutters. When the group disbanded in 1966, main members Don Cameron and Erik Karl relocated to Los Angeles and reformed the group with new members. After signing a deal with local label Double Shot (which had a major hit on the charts at the time with Count Five's Psychotic Reaction), the group rechristened itself Fantastic Zoo, releasing their first single that fall. Early in 1967 the band released their second and final single, Light Show. The song did not get much airplay at the time, but has since become somewhat of a cult favorite.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Dirty Water
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
    Dirty Water has long since been adopted by the city of Boston (and especially its sports teams), yet the band that originally recorded this Ed Cobb tune was purely an L.A. band, having started off playing cover tunes for frat parties in the early 60s. Lead vocalist/drummer Dickie Dodd, incidently, was a former Mouseketeer who had played on the surf-rock hit Mr. Moto as a member of the Bel-Airs.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1941 (starts 10/07/19)

    This week's show is pure free-form, careening from art-rock to folk-rock to blues-rock and beyond. It starts with a Randy Newman classic and ends with an instrumental piece that can only be described as jazz-rock-soul from a group you've probably never heard of called Earth Disciples. Read on...

Artist:    Randy Newman
Title:    Mama Told Me (Not To Come)
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: 12 Songs)
Writer(s):    Randy Newman
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    Although it is best known as a Three Dog Night song, Randy Newman's Mama Told Me (Not To Come) was actually written for Eric Burdon, whose version appeared on the album Eric Is Here in early 1967. Newman's own version of the tune, written from the perspective of a strait-laced young man experiencing his first Los Angeles style party, was included on his 1970 LP 12 Songs, which came out at around the same time as Three Dog Night's cover of the tune. Newman's version features slide guitar work from Ry Cooder, supplementing Newman's own piano playing.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Back In NYC/Hairless Heart/Counting Out Time
Source:    CD: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Atco)
Year:    1974
    The 1974 album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway marked the beginning of the many changes Genesis would undergo as the band evolved from an art-rock band with a loyal cult following to one of the most popular mainstream bands of the 1980s. It was the band's first double-LP studio album and the first to appear on the Atco label in the US, becoming the band's highest charting album up to that point in time, both in the US and Britain. There were two singles released from the album, the second of which was actually the final part of a three song sequence that begins with one of the group's hardest rocking pieces to date, Back In NYC, proceeds to a quiet instrumental featuring acoustic guitar from Steve Hackett intertwined with Tony Banks's keyboards and concludes with Counting Out Time, the aforementioned single. Not long after the release of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, lead vocalist Peter Gabriel announced his departure from the group, a move that eventually resulted in drummer Phil Collins becoming the band's front man. The rest is history.

Artist:    Stealer's Wheel
Title:    Next To Me
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Egan/Rafferty
Label:    A&M
Year:    1972
    Stealer's Wheel was a Scottish folk-rock band co-led by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan. They had one huge hit with Stuck In The Middle With You, from their 1972 debut LP. Also from that LP was a song called Next To Me, which was also released as a B side in 1973. Although Egan was the more prolific songwriter of the group, it was Rafferty that went on the greater fame as a solo artist with his late-70s hit Baker Street.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Money Can't Save Your Soul
Source:    CD: Looking In
Writer(s):    Simmonds/ Peverett
Label:    Deram (original label: Parrott)
Year:    1970
    Looking In was the sixth album by British blues-rockers Savoy Brown, and the first without original lead vocalist Chris Youlden. It was also the final outing for guitarist Dave Peverett, bassist Tone Stevens and drummer Roger Earl, who would go on to form Foghat after being dismissed by bandleader Kim Simmonds. The album was made up entirely of original compositions such as the low-key Money Can't Save Your Soul, which was written by Simmonds and Peverett, who had taken over lead vocals upon Youlden's departure. Both Foghat and a new Savoy Brown lineup would continue to have success, especially in the US, where both bands toured extensively throughout the 1970s.

Artist:    Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Title:    Still...You Turn Me On
Source:    CD: Brain Salad Surgery
Writer(s):    Greg Lake
Label:    Rhino (original label: Manticore)
Year:    1973
    By 1973, Emerson, Lake & Palmer had established somewhat of a pattern with the albums. Most of each LP was dominated by the bombastic stylings of Keith Emerson's keyboards, supplemented by Greg Lake's bass and vocals (and occasional guitar) and Carl Palmer's percussion work. There was almost always one ballad on the LP, however, that was penned by Lake, and often became the only single released from the album. On the album Brain Salad Surgery that ballad was Still...You Turn Me On. By this time, however, ELP was not even bothering to release singles from their albums, although Still...You Turn Me On did show up as a promo B side in 1974 that was never released commercially.

Artist:    Roy Buchanan
Title:    Wayfaring Pilgrim
Source:    CD: The Best Of Roy Buchanan (originally released on LP: In The Beginning)
Writer(s):    Buchanan/Freeman
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1974
    When it comes to pure technique, very few guitarists can claim to be in the same class as Roy Buchanan. Born in Ozark, Arkansas, in 1939, Buchanan made his recording debut as a sideman for Dale Hawkins in 1958, releasing his first single as a solo artist in 1961. Throughout his career he was known for being a master of the Fender Telecaster guitar, and was considered a major influence by many younger guitarists over the years, including Robbie Robertson (whom he tutored when they were both members of Ronnie Hawkins's Hawks) Jeff Beck and Jerry Garcia. Buchanan's greatest commercial success, however, came in the 1970s after signing the the Polydor label, which was looking for talent to fill out the roster of its newly-formed US division. Buchanan recorded five albums for Polydor, including In The Beginning, which was released in the UK as Rescue Me. Buchanan's arrangement of Wayfaring Pilgrim from that album also features the talented Neil Larsen on piano.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    God's Children
Source:    British import 7" 33 1/3 RPM EP: From the soundtrack of the film "Percy"
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Pye)
Year:    1971
    The final Kinks album released on the Pye label in the UK was the soundtrack album for a film called Percy. In addition to the LP, Pye issued a four-song EP from the album as well, promoted as a "maxi-single", perhaps the first ever use of the term. The opening track from both the album and the EP was God's Children; the song was also released as a single in the UK but did not chart. None of these records, by the way, were ever given a North American release, resulting in the Percy soundtrack being the best selling Kinks import album in the US for several years.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:    Helpless
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Many of the songs on the second Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album, Deja Vu, sound as if they could have been on solo albums by the various band members, particularly Neil Young, whose style really didn't mesh well with the others. A prime example of this is Helpless. Despite this (or maybe because of it) Helpless got more radio airplay than most of the other songs on the album.

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Cowgirl In The Sand
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer:    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    It has been said that adverse conditions are conducive to good art. Certainly that truism applies to Neil Young's Cowgirl In The Sand, written while Young was running a 102 degree fever. Almost makes you wish you could be that sick sometime.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Sugar The Road
Source:    CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:    1970
    Ten Years After's fourth LP, Cricklewood Green, was the band's first release following their appearance at Woodstock, and by all accounts they made the best of the situation with what is generally considered to be their best studio album. In addition to progressive FM radio favorites Love Like A Man and 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain, the album contains several tunes that show the group's diversity, such as Sugar The Road, which opens side one of the LP.
       
Artist:    Earth Disciples
Title:    Life Cycle
Source:    LP: Getaway Train
Writer(s):    Holloway/Harris
Label:    Solid State
Year:    1970
    There is no question that 1970 was a year of experimentation in music. The surface implication of such a statement might lead you to think of bands like Tangerine Dream, who were trying out all kinds of new electronic effects, or Renaissance, who were taking a classical approach to rock. But there were other types of experiments going on as well. New radio formats were developing. Artists were looking at new hybrid genres to explore, such as jazz-rock and soul-funk. One band that went that route was Earth Disciples from the Chicago area. Co-led by guitarist Jimmy Holloway (who also did some keyboard work), Earth Disciples were fond of jazz experimentation, yet included elements of rock and soul that sometimes actually overpowered the band's jazz elements on instrumental tracks like Life Cycle. As to what happened to the band, your guess is as good as mine.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1940 (starts 9/30/19)

    This week we have an early Byrds set, an "odd" progression through the years and an Advanced Psych set that spans over 30 years; and that's not even the half of it! Read on...

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Source:    CD: Turn! Turn! Turn! (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1965
    In late June of 1965 the Byrds began work on their second album's worth of material. Having already had success with covers of Bob Dylan songs, they naturally decided to record a couple more in the hopes of getting a third single out that summer. Those two songs were The Times They Are A-Changin' (which would get re-recorded a couple months later) and It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, which remained unreleased for many years. Baby Blue, which features Roger McGuinn on lead vocals, is now available as a bonus track on the Turn! Turn! Turn! remastered CD.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Eight Miles High
Source:    CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s):    Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    By all rights, the Byrds' Eight Miles High should have been a huge hit. Unfortunately, the highly influential Gavin Report labelled the tune as a drug song and recommended that stations avoid playing it, despite band's insistence that it was about a transatlantic plane trip. The band's version actually makes sense, as Gene Clark had just quit the group due to his fear of flying (he is listed as a co-writer of the song), and the subject was probably a hot topic of discussion among the remaining members.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Wait And See
Source:    CD: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1965
    Considering how prolific a songwriter David Crosby has been over the past five decades, it might be had to believe that he did not have a single writing credit on the Byrds' debut LP, Mr. Tambourine Man. In fact, Crosby's first official writing credit was on a song he co-wrote with Roger McGuinn called Wait And See, which was buried toward the end of side two of the second Byrds album, Turn! Turn! Turn! It was not as if Crosby wasn't writing songs at that point; he had brought two of his own tunes (Stranger In A Strange Land and the Flower Bomb Song) to the recording sessions, only to have them rejected by McGuinn and the band's manager, Jim Dickson, as well as by producer Terry Melcher. This was the beginning of tensions between Crosby and McGuinn that eventually led to Crosby's being fired from the band in 1967.
       
Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The Shadows Of Knight are generally acknowledged as one of the best proto-punk bands to emerge in the mid-1960s. Being from the Chicago area, the Shadows also had a stronger connection to the blues than other bands of their type, resulting in them recording songs like Willie Dixon's Spoonful at almost exactly the same time as Cream was. More importantly, Cream's version was left off the US edition of the album Fresh Cream, making the Shadows' recording the first rock version of Spoonful released in the States.

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

Artist:    Fraternity Of Man
Title:    Field Day
Source:    LP: Fraternity Of Man
Writer(s):    Fraternity Of Man
Label:    ABC
Year:    1968
    There have always been artists that used music as a way to express socio-political views. With some bands, it seemed that expressing such views was the entire reason for the group's existence. On the East Coast, for instance, there were the Fugs, and later, David Peel And The Lower East Side. In California, the role was filled by Fraternity Of Man, a group best known for the song Don't Bogart Me, which was featured in the film Easy Rider. Unlike their New York counterparts, the Fraternity Of Man members were accomplished musicians in their own right. Elliot Ingber, for instance, had been a member of Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention and would later join Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, while Warren Klein and Richard Hayward had both worked with Lowell George as members of the Factory (and Hayward would go on to be a founding member of Little Feat). Still, their radical side was more than evident on their 1968 debut album, especially on tracks like Field Day, which takes a snarky view of the tactics used by LAPD against protest demonstrators in the late 1960s.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    Rock Salt And Nails
Source:    45 RPM promo single B side (originally released on LP: David's Album)
Writer(s):    Bruce Phillips
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1969
    One of the defining characteristics of the late 1960s was the resistance, especially among young people to US involvement in the Vietnamese Civil War. Much of this resistance was because the so-called Baby Boomers were at an age where they were eligible to be drafted into military service and many of them did not relish the idea of dying in a jungle halfway around the world for someone else's political beliefs. Of course much of this resistance was to the draft itself, and it was not limited just to young men of draftable age. Among the most prominent figures in the draft resistance movement was folk singer Joan Baez, who made the issue a focal point of her performance at the Woodstock Performing Arts Festival in the summer of 1969. Earlier that year she had released an LP called David's Album as a gift to her husband, who was about to go to prison for resisting the draft. Among the songs on that album was Rock Salt And Nails, written by Bruce "Utah" Phillips, himself a labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and self-described anarchist who was sometimes known as the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest". A promo single pairing Rock Salt And Nails with the album's opening track, If I Knew, was pressed by Baez's label, Vanguard, but it is not known whether the record was ever released commercially.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Going To Mexico
Source:    CD: Number 5
Writer(s):    Miller/Scaggs
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Although Boz Scaggs had left the Steve Miller Band following their second album, Sailor, the song Going To Mexico, co-written by Miller and Scaggs, did not appear on an album until Number 5 was released in 1970. Miller himself referred to the song as a 1969 track on his Anthology album, however, leading me to believe the song may have been among the last tracks recorded while Scaggs was still with the band. The recording also features future star Lee Michaels on organ.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Hitch Hike
Source:     Mono made in England for US distribution LP: Out of Our Heads
Writer(s):    Gaye/Paul/Stevenson
Label:     London
Year:     1965
     The Rolling Stones' early albums consisted of about a 50/50 mix of cover tunes and original tunes from the band members, primarily Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike was one of the cover songs on the album Out of Our Heads, the same album that featured the #1 hit of 1965, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Lime Street Blues
Source:    45 RPM single B side (reissue)
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M (original label: Deram)
Year:    1967
    Anyone expecting more of the same when flipping over their new copy of A Whiter Shade Of Pale in 1967 got a big surprise when they heard Lime Street Blues. The song, reminiscent of an early Ray Charles track, was strong enough to be included on their first greatest hits collection, no mean feat for a B side.

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Cowgirl In The Sand
Source:    CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer:    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    It has been said that adverse conditions are conducive to good art. Certainly that truism applies to Neil Young's Cowgirl In The Sand, written while Young was running a 102 degree fever. Almost makes you want to get sick yourself, doesn't it?

Artist:    Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show
Title:    Hey, Lady Godiva
Source:    LP: Doctor Hook
Writer(s):    Shel Silversteen
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    One of the most unusual bands in rock history was a group originally known as Doctor Hook And The Medicine Show. With a sound that owed as much to the vaudeville tradition as it did to rock and roll, the group was seen as the perfect vehicle for songs written by Shel Silversteen for the film Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About Me. Following work on the film's soundtrack, the group signed with Columbia Records, where they continued to record Silversteen's tunes. Among those tunes was the band's first hit, Sylvia's Mother, as well as Hey, Lady Godiva, a humorous take on history's most famous equestrian nudist. Both songs appear on the band's first album, entitled Doctor Hook. As time went on, the group turned to more serious pop songs like When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman, shortening their name to Doctor Hook in the process.

Artist:      Black Sabbath
Title:     Electric Funeral
Source:      CD: Paranoid
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1970
     When Black Sabbath first appeared on vinyl they were perceived as the next step in the evolution of rock, building on the acid rock of the late sixties and laying the groundwork for what would become heavy metal. Electric Funeral, from the band's second album, Paranoid, shows that evolution in progress.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    The Boxer
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bridge Over Troubled Water)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    The only Simon And Garfunkel record released in 1969, The Boxer was one of the duo's most successful singles, making the top 10 in nine countries, including the US, where it made it to the #7 spot. The track, which runs more than five minutes, was later included on the 1970 LP Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
Source:    Australian import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Neil Diamond
Label:    RCA
Year:    1967
    The members of the Monkees were already royally pissed off at Don Kirschner in early 1967 for releasing the album More Of The Monkees without the knowledge or input of the band itself (other than vocal tracks that had been recorded the previous year for use on The Monkees TV show). Things only got worse two months later when, after flying Davy Jones out to New York to record vocal tracks for a pair of new tunes with producer Jeff Barry, Kirschner released promo copies of the recordings to select radio stations as the third Monkees single, along with a promo package referring to Jones as "my favorite Monkee". This time, however, it was not only the band that was kept in the dark; apparently nobody associated with the Monkees knew anything about the release, which was intended to strengthen Kirschner's position as the Monkees' musical director. As a result Kirschner found himself fired for taking the unauthorized action, the single was cancelled, and the band members were given control over their own musical destiny. The Monkees immediately went to work on what would become their third consecutive #1 LP, Headquarters, but agreed to release one of the new songs, a Neil Diamond number called A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, with a different B side as their next single.

Artist:    Dukes Of Stratosphear
Title:    25 O'Clock
Source:    CD: Chips From The Chocolate Factory (originally released on EP: 25 O'Clock)
Writer(s):    Andy Partridge
Label:    Caroline (original label: Virgin)
Year:    1985
    In 1985, XTC decided to take a break and record an EP, 25 O'Clock, anonymously as the Dukes of Stratosphear. They circulated rumours that this was some previously undiscovered psych band from the late 1960s. Of course, everyone should have suspected that something was not quite as it seemed with the Dukes, as the EP (or "mini-album") was released on April Fool's Day of 1985. Still, the authentic recreation of mid to late 60s production techniques, as well as its Disraeli Gears-inspired album cover, were enough to keep people guessing, at least for a while. Ironically, 25 O'Clock actually outsold the then-current XTC album.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I'll Give You Feedback
Source:    CD: Feedback
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    2006
    The 2006 album Feedback is probably the most adventurous of the new Electric Prunes albums released in the 21st century. Three of the original members, James Lowe (vocals, harmonica), Mark Tulin (bass, keyboards, guitar, vocals) and Ken Williams (lead guitar) were joined by a variety of drummers, including Dan Gerass, who plays on the track I'll Give You Feedback. The song itself manages to infuse the band's classic 1966-68 sound with a modern sensibility that works incredibly well.

Artist:    Claypool/Lennon Delirium
Title:    Breath Of A Salesman
Source:    LP: Monolith Of Phobos
Writer(s):    Claypool/Lennon
Label:    Ato
Year:    2016
    Fans of alternative rock are no doubt familiar with a band called Primus, led by bassist Les Claypool. One of the more colorful characters on the modern music scene, Claypool was once rejected by Metallica as being "too good" for them. Claypool himself has said that he thought James Hetfield was just being nice when he told him that, but the fact is that Claypool is indeed one of the most talented bass players (if not the best) in rock history. Sean Lennon is, of course, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Unlike his half-borther Julian, Sean has never had to prove anything to anyone, and, thanks in large part to his mother's influence (and let's be honest here, money), has always felt free to pursue his own artistic path without having to bow to commercial pressures. The two of them met when their respective bands were on tour and they immediately recognized that they had a musical connection. That connection manifested itself in the album Monolith Of Phobos (a title inspired by Arthur Clarke's works), released in 2016. This week we check out Breath Of A Salesman, a song about people you really have no desire to hang out with showing up at your door anyway.

Artist:    Aerovons
Title:    The Years/Everything's Alright/The Children
Source:    British import CD: Resurrection
Writer(s):    Tom Hartman
Label:    RPM
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2003
    It's probably safe to say that at least some of the members of the St. Louis band, the Aerovons, loved the Beatles. After all, when pianist/guitarist Tom Hartman, guitarist  Bob "Ferd" Frank, drummer Mike Lombardo and bassist  Bill Lombardo received an offer from Capitol Records to record for the label in 1967, their response was to inform the label they wanted to do it at London's EMI Studios on Abbey Road. After a pair of trips to the UK in 1968, they got their wish (although Frank left the group prior to recording) and, utilizing the same production facilities and personnel as their idols, the Aerovons set about recording over an album's worth of material. As was the common practice at the time in the UK, the Aerovons released a non-album single ahead of the album in July of 1969. But before the album itself could be released, personal problems involving the family of one of the band members resulted in the dissolution of the Aerovons and only two of the songs on the projected LP ended up being released, as a single in September of 1969. The rest of the album, including the three-song sequence of The Years, Everything's Alright and  The Children that was to finish out the LP's second side, remained unreleased until 2003, when the British RPM label released all of the band's material (including the non-album single) on CD under the title Resurrection.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Revolution 1
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    The Beatles' Revolution has a somewhat convoluted history. The song, as originally recorded, was over eight minutes long and included what eventually became Revolution 1 and part of Revolution 9. The song's writer, John Lennon, at some point decided to separate the sections into two distinct tracks, both of which ended up on the Beatles self-titled double LP (aka the White Album). Lennon wanted to release Revolution 1 as a single, but was voted down by both George Harrison and Paul McCartney on the grounds that the song's tempo was too slow. Lennon then came up with a faster version of the song, which ended up being released a few weeks before the album came out as the B side to the band's 1968 single Hey Jude. As a result, many of the band's fans erroneously assumed that Revolution 1 was the newer version of the song.

Artist:    Fifty Foot Hose
Title:    Fantasy
Source:    LP: Cauldron
Writer(s):    David Blossom
Label:    Limelight
Year:    1968
    Although Fifty Foot Hose was not a commercial success in 1968, they are now highly regarded as pioneers of electronic music. The group's core members were the husband and wife team of David and Nancy Blossom (on guitar and vocals respectively) and Cork Marcheschi, who provided various electronic effects. Marcheschi actually created the devices he used with the group, being as much an inventor/engineer as a musician (perhaps even more). David Blossom, on the other hand, was the band's primary songwriter, creating pieces such as Fantasy, which at over ten minutes was the longest track on the group's only album, Cauldron.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Fresh Garbage
Source:    CD: Spirit
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Ode/Epic/Legacy
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:    Cream
Title:    I'm So Glad (live version)
Source:    CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s):    Skip James
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Just before the third Cream album, Wheels Of Fire, was released, word got out that Cream would be disbanding following a 1968 tour to promote the album. Before embarking on that tour, however, the band made three studio recordings, each written by a different member of the band. The following year it was decided to put those three songs on a final Cream LP, but there was the obvious problem that three songs are hardly an album's worth of material. The solution was to follow the pattern set by Wheels Of Fire by making the album half studio and half live. The thing is, three songs not only do not make an entire album (unless they are Grateful Dead length songs), they don't even make one full side of an album. Thus, the album ended up being made up primarily of live versions of songs from their earlier albums. The opening track of Goodbye Cream was their longtime opening number, a cover of Skip James' blues classic I'm So Glad, which has, over the years, become thoroughly identified as a Cream song, despite its origins.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1940 (starts 9/30/19)

    This week's show starts and ends in 1973. In between we have a 1970 set and a set of songs that alternate between the two years adjacent to 1970. That's got to count as some sort of balance, right?

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    The Wee Wee Man
Source:    LP: Parcel Of Rogues
Writer(s):    Traditional, arr. Steeleye Span
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1973
    Steeleye Span's most popular album, 1973's Parcel Of Rogues, grew out of a theatrical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, staged in Edinburgh in late 1972. While doing research for the play, the band unearthed several works of 18th century Scottish poetry that they adapted for the album. Among the more notable works is The Wee Wee Man, which tells the story of a small, yet immensely strong man who takes the narrator to a faerie castle, only to have it disappear at the end of the song.

Artist:    Yes
Title:    Dear Father
Source:    CD: Yesterdays (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Anderson/Squire
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Yes's original lineup of Jon Anderson (vocals), Peter Banks (guitar), Bill Bruford (drums), Tony Kaye (keyboards) and Chris Squire (bass) released two albums and several singles before Banks left the band in 1970, subsequently forming his own band, Flash. Most of the single tracks were taken from the two LPs, with the B side of the fourth single, Dear Father, being the lone exception. None of these records, which were released only in the UK, sold well, making Dear Father extremely rare and difficult to find outside of the Netherlands, where the song was reissued as the B side of a different single in 1972. Once Yes became a more successful band after the addition of guitarist Steve Howe, they released an LP made up of earlier material called Yesterdays that included Dear Father as the album's final track.

Artist:      Bloodrock
Title:    Lucky In the Morning
Source:      CD: Bloodrock 2
Writer(s):    John Nitzinger
Label:    One Way/Cema Special Products (original label: Capitol)
Year:     1970
     In the early 1970s the Dallas-Fort Worth area was known mostly as the home of guys with names like Landry and Staubach. For a short time in 1971, however, even their fame was rivalled by a band called Bloodrock, whose D.O.A., a first-person account of the aftermath of a plane crash as seen by one of the victims, is considered one of the goriest songs in rock history. Bloodrock rise to fame began when they signed on as the second band to be produced and managed by Terry Knight, touring as Grand Funk Railroad's opening act in 1970. Their first two LPs both came out in 1970, with D.O.A. being released in edited form as a single in early 1971. The opening track of Bloodrock 2 was a tune called Lucky In The Morning, written for the band by a local guitarist named John Nitzinger. Nitzenger wrote several songs for Bloodrock over the course of four LPs and eventually released a couple albums of his own as well. As an aside, Lucky In The Morning is actually a bit of an oxymoron, due to a phenomena known as "morning breath".

Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Tell Me All The Things You Do
Source:    LP: Kiln House
Writer(s):    Danny Kirwan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
    Kiln House, as the first Fleetwood Mac album to not include the band's founder, Peter Green, marks the beginning of the group's transition to the soft-rock sound that would make them one of the most popular bands of the 1980s. Nowhere is that more evident than on Danny Kirwan's Tell Me All The Things You Do, which got considerable airplay on FM rock stations in the US in the early 1970s.

Artist:     Procol Harum
Title:     Whisky Train
Source:     LP: The Best Of Procol Harum (originally released on LP: Home and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Trower/Reid
Label:     A&M
Year:     1970
     By 1970, Procol Harum was being pulled in two very different musical directions at once: the semi-classical progressive musings of Gary Brooker and Keith Reid that had always defined the band's style, and the more hard rock sound favored by guitarist Robin Trower, as heard on Whisky Train, from the 1970 LP Home. Ultimately this clash of musical ideas would lead to Trower's leaving the group for a successful solo career.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    April
Source:    LP: Purple Passages (originally released on LP: Deep Purple)
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Lord
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1969
    The most ambitious track on the third Deep Purple album was a piece called April. The track, which runs over twelve minutes in length, is divided into three sections. The first is an instrumental featuring keyboardist Jon Lord and guitarist Richie Blackmore, the writers of the piece. This leads into an orchestral section featuring strings and woodwinds. The final section of April features the entire band, including vocalist Rod Evans, who would be leaving Deep Purple shortly after the album was released.

Artist:    Mountain
Title:    Taunta (Sammy's Tune)/Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin)
Source:    CD: The Best Of Mountain (originally released on LP: Nantucket Sleighride)
Writer(s):    Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    Windfall/Columbia
Year:    1971
    Mountain, formed in 1970, took its name from Leslie West's 1969 solo album, recorded after the guitarist shortened his name from Weinstein following the breakup of the Vagrants. Just as important to the band's sound, however, was Felix Pappalardi, sometimes known as the "fourth member" of Cream. Pappalardi had produced all but the first Cream album, and, along with his wife Janet Collins, helped write some of their best material, including Strange Brew, which opened the second Cream album, Disraeli Gears. As a member of Mountain, Pappalardi played keyboards and bass, as well as singing lead vocals on several of the band's most popular tunes, including Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin), the title track of Mountain's second LP. The song is based on the true story of the Essex, a whaling ship that was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in 1820. Owen Coffin, a young seaman on the ship, was killed and eaten by his shipmates following the sinking. The term "Nantucket Sleighride" refers to the experience of being towed along in a boat by a harpooned whale. The song is preceded by a short instrumental piece called Taunta (Sammy's Tune), which was named after Pappalardi's pet poodle.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Introduction/Take A Look Around
Source:    CD: Yer' Album
Writer(s):    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year:    1969
    Like the Big Bands of the 30s and 40s, the James Gang went through several lineup changes over the years. The one common element of the band was drummer/founder Dale Peters, who teamed with bassist Tom Kriss and vocalist/guitarist Joe Walsh for the group's recording debut in 1969. Unlike most band leaders, Peters was content to let other members such as Walsh take center stage, both as performers and songwriters. The result was a band that was able to rock as hard as any of their contemporaries with tracks like The Bomber and Funk #49, but that could also showcase Walsh's more melodic side with songs such as Take A Look Around. For some unknown reason, ABC Records decided to issue Yer Album on it's Bluesway subsidiary; it was the only rock album ever released on that label (subsequent James Gang albums were on the parent ABC label).

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Everybody's Everything
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Santana/Moss/Brown
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Santana's third album, released in 1971, was called simply Santana. What's confusing is the fact that their first album was also called Santana. The guitar solo on Everybody's Everything, by the way, is not by Carlos Santana. Rather it was performed by the then 17-year-old Neal Schon, who, along with keyboardist Greg Rolie would leave the band the following year to form Journey.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Evil Woman
Source:    CD: The Captain And Me
Writer(s):    Patrick Simmons
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    The  Doobie Brothers, in their original incarnation, had two primary songwriters: Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons. As a general rule, Simmons's tunes tended to be a bit quieter than Johnston's, but there were exceptions. One of the most notable of these was Evil Woman, one of the hardest-rocking tunes in the entire Doobie Brothers catalog. The song was featured on the band's third LP, The Captain And Me, released in 1973.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1939 (starts 9/23/19)

    This week we bring back an old rivalry between fans of the Beatles and fans of the Rolling Stones in a six-song set that alternates between the two bands. Also on tap: a Jefferson Airplane set, Procol Harum's longest track, and lots of cool tunes from 1966-68.

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

Artist:    Harbinger Complex
Title:    I Think I'm Down
Source:    British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year:    1966
    Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. Freemont, California's Harbinger Complex is a good example. The group was one of many that were signed by Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records and its various subsidiaries such as Time and Brent. The band had already released one single on the independent Amber label and were recording at Golden State Recorders in San Francisco when they were discovered by Shad, who signed them to Brent. The band's first single for the label was the British-influenced I Think I'm Down, which came out in 1966 and was included on Mainstream's 1967 showcase album With Love-A Pot Of Flowers.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    She'll Return It
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Animalization
Writer(s):    Jenkins/Rowberry/Burdon/Chandler/Valentine
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    As a general rule the Animals, in their original incarnation, recorded two kinds of songs: hit singles from professional songwriters such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and covers of blues and R&B tunes, the more obscure the better. What they did not record a lot of was original tunes from the band members themselves. This began to change in 1966 when the band began to experience a series of personnel changes that would ultimately lead to what amounted to an entirely new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, in 1967. One of the earliest songs to be credited to the entire band was She'll Return It, released as the B side of See See Rider in August of 1966 and included on the Animalization album. In retrospect, it is one of the strongest tracks on one of their strongest LPs.
   
Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Prelude-Nightmare/Fire Poem/Fire
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown)
Writer(s):    Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1968
    The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was unusual for their time in that they were much more theatrical than most of their contemporaries, who were generally more into audio experimentation than visual. I have a video of Fire being performed (or maybe just lip-synched). In it, all the members are wearing some sort of mask, and Brown himself is wearing special headgear that was literally on fire. There is no doubt that The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown sowed the seeds of what was to become the glitter-rock movement in the early to mid 70s. This week we have the uncut stereo version of Fire along with Prelude-Nightmare and Fire Poem that precede it on the original album.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Laughing Stock
Source:    CD: Forever Changes (bonus track) (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:    Max Frost And The Troopers (aka the 13th Power)
Title:    Shine It On
Source:    CD: Shape Of Things To Come
Writer(s):    Paul Wibier
Label:    Captain High (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Say what you will about Paul Wibier, he did know how to write a decent tune. Unfortunately, nobody knew who Paul Wibier was when he was actually writing and performing those songs. That's because he worked mostly with Mike Curb, who provided soundtracks for B movies performed by mostly anonymous musicians, Wibier being among the most anonymous. The best example of this is Max Frost And The Troopers, a name attached to a fictional band from a film called Wild In The Streets. Behind the scenes, Wibier provided the vocals for the soundtrack's songs, and when one of them, Shape Of Things To Come, became a legitimate hit record in 1968, Wibier ended up writing and singing on a whole album's worth of tunes by Max Frost And The Troopers, including Shine It One. The album, like the hit single, was called Shape Of Things To Come, which is not to be confused with the Wild In The Streets soundtrack LP, which contained some of the same songs, as well as several other tunes performed by various other artists. As to who the 13th Power actually was, the answer is...complicated. Some sources cite them as a real band, while others think that 13th Power was just a name used by Wibier when the actual backing band was Davie Allan And The Arrows, an instrumental group that Curb often used on soundtracks for teensploitation flicks.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Key To The Highway
Source:    Czech Republic import LP: Children Of The Future
Writer(s):    Bronsky/Segar
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    Key To The Highway is one of those blues standards that seems to have been performed and/or recorded by just about everybody and his brother at some time or another. One version that is not as well known as, say, Eric Clapton's various versions is the extremely slowed-down take on the tune by the Steve Miller Band on their first LP, Children Of The Future. Miller's approach turns the song into a mood piece in the vein of Gershwin's Summertime while retaining a definite blues flavor throughout.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    I'm Not Sure
Source:    LP: Second Winter
Writer(s):    Johnny Winter
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Johnny Winter had been performing for several years throughout the state of Texas before releasing his first full-length LP on the regional Sonobeat label in 1968. The album, which featured the trio of Winter on guitar, Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums, was strong enough for Imperial to pick up for national distribution, and soon led to Winter signing with Columbia records in 1969. After a strong debut album for the label, the group, which by then had added Johnny's brother Edgar on keyboards, went to work on a second album for the label. The band soon found itself with an unusual dilemma, however. They had recorded too much material for one LP, but not enough for a double album. Rather than sacrifice sound quality by making the grooves narrower, the band decided to issue a special "three-sided" LP, with the fourth side being nothing but shiny black vinyl with no grooves cut into it. The album, which is considered by many to be Winter's finest studio work, includes several original tunes such as I'm Not Sure, which features Johnny Winter on electric mandolin and Edgar on harpsichord; an unusual combination for a blues recording to be sure, but it works.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    In Held Twas In I
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer:    Brooker/Fisher/Reid
Label:    A&M/Rebound
Year:    1968
    Although the idea of grouping songs together as "suites" was first tried by Jefferson Airplane on their 1967 album After Bathing At Baxter's, Procol Harum's 17-minute long In Held Twas In I, from their 1968 album Shine On Brightly, is usually cited as the first progressive rock suite. The title comes from the first word of each section of the piece that contains vocals (several sections are purely instrumental). The work contains some of the best early work from guitarist Robin Trower, who would leave the group a few years later for a solo career. Shine On Brightly was the last Procol Harum album to include organist Matthew Fisher, who came up with the famous opening riff for the group's first hit, A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

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

Artist:     Ringo Starr
Title:     Early 1970
Source:     Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Richard Starkey
Label:    Apple
Year:     1971
     The first gold record by an ex-Beatle did not come from John Lennon or Paul McCartney, as one would expect. Rather it was drummer Ringo Starr, who topped the charts in 1971 with It Don't Come Easy (co-written by an uncredited George Harrison). The B side of that single, Early 1970, is a thinly disguised message to Ringo's former bandmates describing where things stood just after the breakup of the Beatles became public knowledge and expressing the hope that they could still play together from time to time.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    We Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    The last Rolling Stones record to be produced by their longtime manager Andrew Loog Oldham, We Love You, released in August of 1967, was also the most elaborate and expensive single the band had ever recorded. Although some critics dismissed the song as an attempt to outdo the Beatles' All You Need Is Love, this view is inconsistent with the fact that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who wrote We Love You, were part of the background crowd appearing with the Beatles on the worldwide premier of All You Need Is Love; furthermore, John Lennon and Paul McCartney sing background vocals on We Love You, which the Stones maintain was meant as more of a sequel to the Beatles tune rather than a competitor. The recording itself opens with the sound of a jail cell door slamming shut, a reference to the recent drug bust that had earned Jagger and Richards disproportionate sentences in an attempt to "make an example" of the pair. This is followed by an ominous sounding piano riff from famed session man Nicky Hopkins that is quickly enhanced by a cacaphony of sound, including some of the creepiest sounding mellotron (played by Brian Jones) ever recorded. Of course, being a Rolling Stones record, the lyrics take a somewhat more cynical tone than the Beatles song, but against the chaotic music track those lyrics work perfectly. We Love You was a top 10 single in the UK, but only made it to the #50 spot in the US as the B side of the song Dandelion.

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

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    She's A Rainbow
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    The Stones had their own brand of psychedelia, which was showcased on their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request. The album itself, after zooming to the top of the charts, lost its momentum quickly, despite the fact that She's A Rainbow, which was released as a single, was a solid top 40 hit.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Think For Yourself
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1965
    By the end of 1965 George Harrison was writing an average of two songs per Beatles 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:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Street Fighting Man
Source:    CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones, working with producer Jimmy Miller, released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's first recording with Miller producing, Street Fighting Man, which as a followup single to Jumpin' Jack Flash went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Am The Walrus
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    The Beatles' psychedelic period hit its peak with the BBC-TV premier of the surrealistic telefilm Magical Mystery Tour and its subsequent release on vinyl in December of 1967. Musically speaking, the centerpiece of Magical Mystery Tour was John Lennon's I Am The Walrus, which was the final track on both the British EP and side one of the US LP. The second half (more or less) of the piece contains audio from a live BBC radio broadcast that was added during the mono mixing process. At that time, the Beatles were still doing their original mixes in monoraul (single-channel) sound, then doing a stereo mix almost as an afterthought. The addition of live audio into the original mono mix meant that they would be unable to reproduce the process in stereo. So, at the point the BBC audio comes in, the true stereo version of I Am The Walrus suddenly becomes a "fake stereo" recording using techniques such as phasing and panning to create a stereo effect out of the mono mix. It also sounds really strange on headphones, like your sinuses all of a sudden got clogged up.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Embryonic Journey
Source:    LP: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s):    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    Victor
Year:    1967
    Jorma Kaukonen originally considered Embryonic Journey to be little more than a practice exercise. Other members of Jefferson Airplane insisted he record it, however, and it has since come to be identified as a kind of signature song for the guitarist, who played the tune live when the band was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    White Rabbit
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1967
    The first time I heard White Rabbit was on Denver's first FM rock station, KLZ-FM. The station branded itself as having a top 100 (as opposed to local ratings leader KIMN's top 60), and prided itself on being the first station in town to play new releases and album tracks. It wasn't long before White Rabbit was officially released as a single, and went on to become a top 10 hit, the last for the Airplane.

Artist:      Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Good Shepherd
Source:      LP: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Volunteers)
Writer(s):    Trad., arr. Kaukonen
Label:    Victor
Year:     1969
     Jorma Kaukonen is given credit for arranging the traditional tune Good Shepherd for the fifth Jefferson Airplane album, Volunteers. The song is a good example of how much the group's sound had changed over a three year period, moving in several different directions at once.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Love Me Two Times
Source:    CD: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    Although the second Doors album is sometimes dismissed as being full of tracks that didn't make the cut on the band's debut LP, the fact is that Strange Days contains some of the Doors' best-known tunes. One of those is Love Me Two Times, which was the second single released from the album. The song continues to get heavy airplay on classic rock stations.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    House For Everyone
Source:    CD: Heaven Is In Your Mind (aka Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s):    Dave Mason
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    Although Traffic is now known mostly as a Steve Winwood band, many of their earliest songs were the creation of guitarist Dave Mason, whose songs tended to be a bit more psychedelic than Winwood's. One example is House For Everyone from the band's 1967 debut LP, which creatively uses tape edits to simulate a music box being wound up with short snippets of song sneaking through between turns of the key at the beginning of the track.

Artist:    H.P. Lovecraft
Title:    I've Been Wrong Before
Source:    CD: H.P. Lovecraft
Writer(s):    Randy Newman
Label:    Collector's Choice/Universal Music Special Markets
Year:    1967
    Formed in Chicago in 1967 by former folk singer George Edwards and classically trained multi-instrumentalist Dave Michaels, H.P. Lovecraft specialized in a brand of psychedelia inspired by the works of the author whose name they bore. The band's greatest strength was their ability to create a mood through their music, regardless of whether it was on their original material or on the cover songs that made up the majority of their debut LP, released late in the year. One such cover song was I've Been Wrong Before, a Randy Newman tune that had been a British hit for singer Cilia Black the previous year. The song had also been covered by Dusty Springfield and the California garage band New Breed, but the Lovecraft version has a mystical quality that sets it apart from the other versions of the tune.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Arnold Layne
Source:    CD: Works (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Like most bands in the 60s, Pink Floyd made their vinyl debut with a 45 RPM single: in this case the song Arnold Layne. As was the case with all the band's 1967 singles, the song was written by original bandleader Syd Barrett. Arnold Layne went quickly into the UK top 20 but then hit a roadblock when it was banned by the BBC due to its subject matter (it's about a guy who steals women's garments off of clotheslines and then wears them himself). The song was eventually included on the album Relics and has been included on several other compilations over the years.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Cuddly Toy/Words
Source:    CD: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer(s):    Nilsson/Boyce/Hart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1967
    Although the Monkees had returned to allowing studio musicians to provide the bulk of the instrumental tracks for the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD., those tracks were now being recorded under the direct supervision of the Monkees themselves. Additionally, the Monkees were only recording songs that the Monkees themselves picked out. One of those songs was a tune written by Harry Nilsson (who had not yet achieved fame as a singer, songwriter and John Lennon's drinking partner) called Cuddly Toy. Reportedly Mike Nesmith heard a demo of the song and immediately wanted to record it. The group did, and on the LP let it overlap the next track, A Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart tune called Words that the Leaves had recorded for their Hey Joe album the previous year. It was only after the album was on the charts that the shirts at Colgems Records, Columbia Pictures and RCA Victor realized that the subject matter of Cuddly Toy was a gang bang, having been based on a real life incident at a Hell's Angels party that Nilsson had attended.

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