Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2021 (starts 5/18/20)

    This week's show certainly has its ups and downs. It opens with Melissa Manchester singing the words "You are a fluke of the Universe" and ends with Flight of the Phoenix. In between we have songs about places, metaphorical animals and even a couple of food references.

Artist:    National Lampoon
Title:    Deteriorata
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits Of The National Lampoon (originally released on LP: Radio Dinner)
Writer(s):    Hendra/Guest
Label:    Uproar (original label: Blue Thumb)
Year:    1972
    National Lampoon was a product of its time. Originally a magazine, NatLamp (as it was often referred to) grew to include a weekly radio show, a series of albums, and eventually, a series of movies. Some of the best bits from the radio show were assembled in 1972 on an album called National Lampoon's Radio Dinner. The opening track of this album was a piece written by Tony Hendra (with music by Christopher Guest) that parodied a 1971 spoken word recording by Les Crane of an early 20th century poem by Max Ehrmann called Desirata. The Lampoon piece, Deteriorata, was narrated by Norman Rose, with Melissa Manchester singing.

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

Artist:    Mighty Baby
Title:    I've Been Down So Long
Source:    British import CD: Mighty Baby
Writer(s):    Powell/Whiteman/Stone/Evans/King
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Head)
Year:    1969
    After the departure of frontman Reggie King, the Action, which had been in existence since 1965, decided to change not only its name, but its entire sound as well. Originally a Merseybeat band doing Motown covers, the band had slowly been incorporating elements of California bands such as the Byrds and the Association. With the addition of Ian Whiteman, they began to delve into improvisational rock as well, and by the time they officially became Mighty Baby in 1969 they were being hailed as England's answer to the Grateful Dead. As can be heard on tracks like I've Been Down So Long, they certainly had the talent to pull it off, but even the Dead themselves were generally received with indifference by the British, and Mighty Baby fared no better there than the band that inspired them.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience (MkII)
Title:     Freedom
Source:     CD: First Rays of the New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1970
     Jimi Hendrix was working on a new double album when he died, but nobody else seemed to be sure where he was going with it. As there were several tracks that were unfinished at the time, Reprise Records gathered what they could and put them together on an album called The Cry Of Love. Freedom, a nearly finished piece (the unfinished part being a short "placesetter" guitar solo that Hendrix never got around to replacing with a final take), is the opening track from the album. Soon after that, a new Hendrix concert film called Rainbow Bridge was released along with a soundtrack album containing most of the remaining tracks from the intended double album. Finally, under the auspices of the Hendrix family in 1997, MCA (with the help of original engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell) pieced together what was essentially an educated guess about what would have been that album and released it under the name First Rays of the New Rising Sun.
   
Artist:    Todd Rundgren's Utopia
Title:    (Intro) Mister Triscuits/Something's Coming
Source:    LP: Another Live
Writer(s):    Powell/Bernstein/Sondheim
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1975
    Although he is primarily known for his pop songs such as Hello It's Me and We Gotta Get You a Woman, Todd Rundgren did, for a time in the  1970s experiment with prog-rock, forming the band Utopia in 1973. The band released the album Todd Rundgren's Utopia in 1974, following it up with Another Live the following year. The opening track of side two begins with keyboardist Roger Powell's composition Mister Triscuits, which was originally titled The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus before his publisher mistranscribed it. The instrumental track flows directly into a cover version of Something's Coming from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story. Utopia would continue as a band for several years, but steadily moving away from their prog-rock beginnings toward a more pop-oriented sound.
   
Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (opening sequence)
Source:    CD: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1974
    The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was released in 1974, and features lyrics written exclusively by Peter Gabriel, who would leave Genesis, the band he co-founded, following the band's 1975 tour to promote the double LP. The album was originally met with mixed reviews, but has come to be considered by many the apex of the band's existence. More than on any other Genesis album, the songs tend to flow together without a break between them. For example, the album's opening sequence of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Fly On A Windshield, Broadway Melody Of 1974, Cuckoo Cocoon and In The Cage come across as one continuous piece that takes up nearly the entire first side of the original LP.
   
Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    The Caves Of Altamira
Source:    CD: The Royal Scam
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1976
    Steely Dan had a reputation for bringing in some of the finest guest musicians available to help them on their albums. The Caves Of Altamire, from their fifth LP, The Royal Scam, is a good example. The piece, based on a book by Hans Baumann, features a tenor saxophone solo from John Klemmer.

Artist:    George Harrison
Title:    Dark Horse
Source:    LP: Dark Horse
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Apple
Year:    1974
    Stung by the hostility of some reviewers to the spiritual quality of his 1973 LP Living In The Material World, as well as his deteriorating relationship with Patti Boyd, George Harrison stung back with the release of Dark Horse, the lead single from his 1974 album of the same name. While most American record buyers assumed the title referred to his status as the unexpected winner of the "which Beatle will have the most success as a solo artist" race (his My Sweet Lord was the first single by an ex-Beatle to top the charts), Harrison himself contradicted this interpretation, saying that he was actually unaware of that use of the term when he wrote the song. His intended meaning, he said, was actually Liverpudian slang for the kind of guy who was called a Back Door Man in an old Howlin' Wolf tune written by Willie Dixon.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Flight Of The Phoenix
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1972
    After five successful albums produced by Terry Knight, the members of Grand Funk Railroad decided to go it alone for their 1972 LP Phoenix. The album was the first to include Craig Frost, who would eventually become a full member of the band, on keyboards, as can be heard on the LP's opening track, the instrumental Flight Of The Phoenix. Famed fiddler Doug Kershaw can also be heard on the track.

   

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2020 (starts 5/11/20)

    This week's show is very much a typical edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, with a selection of album tracks, B sides and even hit singles, with a handful of obscurities and an Advanced Psych segment thrown in for good measure. This is intentional, as we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era's entry into the world of syndication. To celebrate that anniversary we'll have not one, but two special editions of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era over the next couple of weeks. The first will concentrate on the most influential artists of the psychedelic era, while the following week counts down the 30 most played songs over the past ten years. But in the meantime, here are 29 tasty tracks.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:    CD: More Nuggets (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Scala/Esposito/Thielhelm
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1966
    The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

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:    Doors
Title:    The Unknown Soldier
Source:    CD: The Best Of The Doors (originally released on LP: Waiting For The Sun and as 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 known for being pretty much anti-everything.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Two People
Source:    LP: Where's My Daddy
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Amos
Year:    1969
    After being cut from the Reprise roster following the disappointing sales of their third LP for the label, it looked like members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band would be going their separate ways. Yet, amazingly enough, the following year the band released a new album on the Amos label called Where's My Daddy?. Even more amazing is the fact that nearly all the members of the band participated in the making of the album, despite most members' publicly expressed disdain for the band's unofficial leader, Bob Markely. I have to be honest here. I just listened to the track Two People before sitting down to write this, and I really have no idea what this song is supposed to be about. The lyrics sort of remind me of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues in their delivery, but they aren't nearly as interesting as Dylan's. Musically, the song sounds like early country rock, a style that really doesn't mesh well with the melody or the lyrics. Oddly enough, though, it's actually listenable in a weird sort of way.

Artist:      Jimi Hendrix
Title:     Earth Blues
Source:      CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1971
    Earth Blues was first recorded in December of 1969 by Band of Gypsys (Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox and Buddy Miles), but Hendrix was not satisfied with the recording, and returned to it the following year, adding guitar and vocal overdubs and a new drum track from Mitch Mitchell. Hendrix was unable to complete a master mix of the song, however, and it remained unfinished upon his death. In early 1971 engineers Eddie Kramer and John Jansen would finally create a master mix of Earth Blues for inclusion on the Rainbow Bridge LP.

Artist:    Mamas And The Papas
Title:    California Dreamin'
Source:    LP: If You Believe Your Eyes And Ears (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John and Michelle Phillips
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1965
    California Dreamin' was written in 1963 by John and Michelle Phillips, who were living in New York City at the time. The two of them were members of a folk group called the New Journeymen that would eventually become The Mamas And The Papas. Phillips initially gave the song to his friend Barry McGuire to record, but McGuire's version failed to chart. Not long after that McGuire introduced Philips to Lou Adler, president of Dunhill Records who quickly signed The Mamas And The Papas to a recording contract. Using the same instrumental backing track (provided by various Los Angeles studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew), The Mamas And The Papas recorded new vocals for California Dreamin', releasing it as a single in late 1965. The song took a while to catch on, but eventually peaked in the top five nationally.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Do You Like Worms
Source:    Mono CD: Good Vibrations-Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys
Writer(s):    Wilson/Parks
Label:    Capitol
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1993
    With the 1966 hit Good Vibrations, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys developed a "modular" approach to producing a recorded work. Rather than record a performance in one take, he would tape each segment separately, often in different studios, and later assemble the pieces in the order he wanted them. The problem with such an approach became evident, however, with his next project, an album to be called Smile. Wilson soon found that the vast number of ways that multiple segments could be put together was overwhelming him to the point where he couldn't make a final decision. As a result, Smile was shelved indefinitely in May of 1967. In 1993 several of the unfinished tracks, long thought to have been destroyed by Wilson himself, surfaced on a box set called Good Vibrations-Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys. One of these unfinished tracks was Do You Like Worms, a piece that years later showed up, in slightly modified form, as Roll Plymouth Rock, the second track on the reconstituted Smile album.

Artist:    Kaleidoscope (UK band)
Title:    A Lesson Perhaps
Source:    British import CD: Further Reflections (originally released on LP: Tangerine Dream)
Writer(s):    Daltery/Pumer
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1967
    The differences between American and British psychedelic rock are reflected in the music of two bands with the same name: Kaleidoscope. While the US band with that name was a combination of acid and folk rock with jug band roots and socially conscious lyrics, the London-based Kaleidoscope was much more whimsical, with roots in the folk music and fairy tales that are an integral part of growing up English. Led by vocalist/lyricist Peter Daltrey (cousin of the Who's Roger Daltrey) and guitarist Eddie Pumer, Kaleidoscope recorded five singles and two LPs for the Fontana label over a period of about two years (1967-69) before changing their name to Fairfield Parlour and switching to the more progressive Vertigo label in 1970. A Lesson Perhaps, from their 1967 album Tangerine Dream (no relation to the German electronic group), is primarily a spoken word piece. Oddly enough, it works.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Mean Town Blues
Source:    LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment
Writer:    Johnny Winter
Label:    Imperial (original label: Sonobeat)
Year:    1968
    Although he had been making records for a variety of local Texas labels for most of the 1960s, Johnny Winter did not get to record a full-length album until 1968, when The Progressive Blues Experiment was released on the Sonobeat label. The album quickly gained a following among blues enthusiasts, prompting the Imperial label to reissue the album nationally. Among the many outstanding tracks recorded by the trio consisting of Winter, drummer Uncle John Turner and bassist Tommy Shannon, was Mean Town Blues, a tune the band would perform at Woodstock. The response from the crowd was strong enough to prompt Columbia Records to offer Winter a $600,000 recording deal, a huge amount for a virtually unknown artist at that time.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Doctor Please
Source:    Mono LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    Dick Peterson
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    With it's raw feedback-drenched guitar and bass and heavily distorted drums, Blue Cheer is often cited as the first heavy metal band. If any one song most demonstrates their right to the title it's Doctor Please from the Vincebus Eruptum album. Written by bassist Dick Peterson, the song is exactly what your parents meant by "that noise". Contrary to the rumor going around in 1970, guitarist Leigh Stephens did not go deaf after recording two albums with Blue Cheer. In fact, he went to England and recorded the critically-acclaimed (but seldom heard) Red Weather album with some of the UK's top studio musicians.

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Journey To The Center Of The Mind)
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    The title track of the second Amboy Dukes album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind, is by far their best known recording, going all the way to the #16 spot on the top 40 in 1968. The song features the lead guitar work of Ted Nugent, who co-wrote the song with guitarist/vocalist Steve Farmer. Journey To The Center Of The Mind would be the last album to feature lead vocalist John Drake, who left the band for creative reasons shortly after the album's release.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Paper Sun
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi
Label:    Silver Spotlight (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
    One of the first British acid-rock bands was a group called Deep Feeling, which included drummer Jim Capaldi and woodwind player Chris Wood. At the same time Deep Feeling was experimenting with psychedelia, another, more commercially oriented band, the Spencer Davis Group, was tearing up the British top 40 charts with hits like Keep On Running, Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man. The undisputed star of the Spencer Davis Group was a teenaged guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist named Steve Winwood, who was also beginning to make his mark as a songwriter. Along with guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, who had worked with Capaldi in earlier bands, they formed Traffic in the spring of 1967, releasing their first single, Paper Sun, in May of that year. Capaldi and Winwood had actually written the tune while Winwood was still in the Spencer Davis Group, and the song was an immediate hit in the UK. This was followed quickly by an album, Mr. Fantasy, that, as was the common practice at the time in the UK, did not include Paper Sun. When the album was picked up by United Artists Records for US release in early 1968, however, Paper Sun was included as the LP's opening track. The US version of the album was originally titled Heaven Is In Your Mind, but was quickly retitled Mr. Fantasy to match the original British title (although the alterations in track listing stayed).

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Chicken Little Was Right (original version)
Source:    CD: The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    The Turtles
Label:    Manifesto (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967 (stereo version released 2016)
    Like many of the bands of the time, the Turtles usually recorded songs from professional songwriters for their A sides and provided their own material for the B sides. In the Turtles' case, however, these B sides were often psychedelic masterpieces that contrasted strongly with their hits. Chicken Little Was Right, the B side of She's My Girl, at first sounds like something you'd hear at a hootenanny, but then switches keys for a chorus featuring the Turtles' trademark harmonies, with a little bit of Peter And The Wolf thrown in for good measure. This capacity for self-parody would come to serve band members Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan well a few years later, first as members of the Mothers (performing Happy Together live at the Fillmore East) and then as the Phorescent Leach and Eddie (later shortened to Flo And Eddie). For many years the original version of Chicken Little Was Right (a newly recorded version being used on the 1968 album The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands) was only available to collectors who had a copy of the single, but in 2016 Flo & Eddie included a previously unreleased stereo remix of the original recording as a bonus track on the CD re-release of The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands on the Manifesto label.

Artist:    Uncalled For
Title:    Do Like Me
Source:    Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Welding/Lee
Label:    BFD (original labels Dollie, Laurie)
Year:    1967
    Virtually nothing is known about the Uncalled For other than that they came from Youngstown, Ohio (which was still a vital steel-making center with a thriving local music scene in the 1960s) and recorded one 1967 single, Do Like Me, for the local Dollie label. The song was apparently successful enough to be picked up by a national label, Laurie, and re-released later in the year. If anyone knows more about the Uncalled For, feel free to drop me a line.

Artist:    H.P. Lovecraft
Title:    The Drifter
Source:    Two Classic Albums from H. P. Lovecraft: H. P. Lovecraft/H. P. Lovecraft II (originally released on LP: H.P. Lovecraft)
Writer(s):    Travis Edmonson
Label:    Collector's Choice/Universal Music Special Markets (original label: Philips)
Year:    1967
    Everyone acknowledges Chicago as the home of electric blues, but few realize that they also had an underground psychedelic scene in the late 1960s as well. Perhaps the most successful band to emerge from this scene was H.P. Lovecraft, named for the early 20th century author. The band itself was one of the most eclectic bands of the psychedelic era, a trait that probably prevented them from attaining any major commercial success. Still, their two albums, released in 1967 and 1968, are now considered classics. The first LP was made up mostly of cover versions of folk-rock songs like The Drifter, written by Travis Edmonson (half of the duo of Bud & Travis). The Lovecraft version of The Drifter features harmony vocals from guitarist George Edwards (himself a veteran solo artist, having recorded a cover of Norwegian Wood for the Dunwich label) and classically-trained keyboardist Dave Michaels. Another notable member of H.P. Lovecraft was rhythm guitarist Jerry McGeorge, who had been a member of the Shadows Of Knight.

Artist:     Temptations
Title:     Psychedelic Shack
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Whitfield/Strong
Label:     Gordy
Year:     1970
     Starting in 1969 the songwriting/production team of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong began to carve out their own company within a company at Motown, producing a series of recordings with a far more psychedelic feel than anything else coming out of the Motor City's biggest label. The most blatantly obvious example of this is the Temptations tune Psychedelic Shack, which graced the charts in 1970. Whitfield would eventually form his own company, taking another Motown act, the Undisputed Truth, with him, but would not be able to equal the success of the songs he and Strong produced for the Temptations.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Hideaway (Live Las Vegas)
Source:    CD: California 66
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    Recorded 2008, released 2009
    Hideaway was originally released in June of 1967 as the B side of the far inferior Dr. Do-Good two months ahead of the second Electric Prunes album, Underground. Dr. Do-Good of course went nowhere, but Hideaway became a favorite of collectors, and was included on Rhino's  2009 box set Where The Action Is! (Los Angeles Nuggets: 1965-1968). By then, the Electric Prunes had reformed, and were planning a tour to include Sky Saxon (of the Seeds) and Arthur Lee's then-current edition of Love. To promote the tour, a special "tour edition" CD called California 66 featuring tracks from all three acts (and a fourth called Baby Lemonade) was prepared, but the unexpected death of Saxon caused the tour itself to be cancelled. James Lowe, the Prunes' vocalist, kindly sent me a copy of California 66, which includes this totally mind-blowing 2008 live performance of Hideaway. Enjoy!

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

Artist:    Psychedelic Furs
Title:    Sister Europe
Source:    LP: The Psychedelic Furs
Writer(s):    Psychedelic Furs
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1980
            Initially consisting of Richard Butler (vocals), Tim Butler (bass guitar), Duncan Kilburn (saxophone), Paul Wilson (drums) and Roger Morris (guitars), the Psychedelic Furs were formed in 1977 under the name RKO. They soon began calling themselves Radio, then did gigs under two different names, the Europeans and the Psychedelic Furs. By 1979 they had settled on the latter name and expanded to a sextet, adding guitarist John Ashton and replacing Wilson with Vince Ely on drums. The Furs' self-titled debut album, released in 1980, was an immediate hit in Europe and the UK, but airplay in the US was limited mostly to college radio and "alternative" rock stations. The second single released from the album was Sister Europe, a tune that was also  the band's concert opener in the early days of their existence. The Psychedelic Furs' greatest claim to fame, however, is probably the song Pretty In Pink. Originally released on their second album, Talk Talk Talk, in 1981, the song was re-recorded for the John Hughes film of the same name in 1986.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Flowers
Source:    CD: One Step Beyond
Writer(s):    Phay/Andrijasevich
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:    1969
    The Chocolate Watchband is one of those groups whose reputation was more important than their actual recorded output. Part of the reason is that they really didn't have much interest in making records, preferring to do live gigs opening for big name acts that they would then proceed to blow off the stage. Another problem is that their lineup was subject to change at a moment's notice, with some members leaving to join other bands only to return to the fold a year or two later. It didn't help that the band kept breaking up at inopportune times, only to reform with a completely different lineup and sound a few months later. All this is evident on their third LP for Tower, One Step Beyond. Released in 1969, the album features the return of the band's original lead vocalist and guitarist, Danny Phay and Ned Tormey, both of whom had left in early 1966 to join the Otherside, precipitating the first Watchband's disbandment. The lineup on One Step Beyond also included guitarist Mark Loomis and drummer Gary Adnrijasevich, who had been founding members of the band's second, and most popular, incarnation, but had left in 1967 to join a folk-rock band called the Tingle Guild that eventually included Phay as well. Completing the lineup were the two guys with the most total time as Watch Band members, guitarist Sean Tolby and bassist Bill Flores. One Step Beyond was the only album by the band to be credited to the Chocolate Watchband (two instead of three words), and was also the only one where band members had artistic control over the final product. This included several original compositions such as Flowers, which reflects the folk-rock leanings of Phay and sounds nothing like the Watchband of old.

Artist:    Taste
Title:    Same Old Story
Source:    British import CD: Taste
Writer(s):    Rory Gallagher
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Sometimes a band's frontman so dominates the band's sound that the band itself becomes little more than a footnote in the history of the frontman himself. Such was the case with Taste, a band formed in Cork, Ireland in 1966 by Rory Gallagher. By the time Taste cut its 1969 debut LP, Gallagher was the only original member of the trio, and the band's sole songwriter as well as vocalist and lead guitarist. The song Same Old Story is fairly typical of the group's sound. Taste disbanded in 1970, with Gallagher going on to have a successful solo career.
   
Artist:    Huns
Title:    I've Got You On My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: The Huns Conquer Ithaca, NY 1966
Writer(s):    Steven Dworetz
Label:    Jargon
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2017
    Ithaca, NY, is famous for being the home of Cornell University, one of the nation's top Ivy League schools. What a lot of people are unaware of, however, is that there is a second large institute of higher learning in the area. Ithaca College, like Cornell, has its own radio station, as well as television facilities that date back to the 1960s. It was at these facilities, in their original downtown location, that the Huns, a short-lived but phenomenally popular local band, made their only studio recordings in May of 1966. Those recordings, made on monoraul equipment, sat unreleased for over 50 years before finally being made public on a 2017 CD called The Huns Conquer Ithaca, NY 1966. The band was founded by bassist Frank Van Nostrand and organist John Sweeney in the fall of 1965. By the end of the year their lineup included vocalist Rich La Bonte, guitarists Carl "Buz" Warmkessel and Keith Ginsberg and drummer Steven Dworetz, who wrote I've Got You On My Mind. Despite being new on the scene, the Huns found plenty of places to play, racking up a total of 51 gigs over a nine month period, while the members themselves attended classes at Ithaca College during the daytime (when they weren't being harrassed by department heads over the length of their hair). Although popular with the student crowd the members of the Huns were not well-liked by officials at the college itself. In fact, the Huns' existence came to an end when the founding members were "encouraged to pursue their academic careers elsewhere". Shades of Animal House!

Artist:     Moby Grape
Title:     Sitting By The Window
Source:     Mono LP: Moby Grape
Writer:     Peter Lewis
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1967
     Moby Grape's powerful 1967 debut managed to achieve what few bands have been able to: a coherent sound despite having wildly different writing styles from the individual members. One of guitarist Peter Lewis's contributions to the album was Sitting By The Window, one of those rare songs that sounds better every time you hear it.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    On The Road Again
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jones/Wilson
Label:    Liberty
Year:    1968
    Canned Heat was formed by a group of blues record collectors in San Francisco. Although their first album consisted entirely of cover songs, by their 1968 album Boogie With Canned Heat they were starting to compose their own material, albeit in a style that remained consistent with their blues roots. On The Road Again, the band's second and most successful single (peaking at # 16) from that album, is actually an updated version of a 1953 recording by Chicago bluesman Floyd Jones (which was in turn adapted from delta bluesman Tommy Johnson's 1928 recording of a song called Big Road Blues) that guitarist/vocalist Al "Blind Owl" Wilson reworked, adding a tambura drone to give the track a more psychedelic feel. Wilson actually had to retune the sixth hole of his harmonica for his solo on the track.

Artist:     Iron Butterfly
Title:     In The Time Of Our Lives
Source:     LP: Ball
Writer:     Ingle/Bushy
Label:     Atco
Year:     1969
     One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Iron Butterfly's followup to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Although Ball was a strong seller, it overall left the listener feeling vaguely disappointed, and was the last album to feature Eric Brann on lead guitar. Subsequent albums did even worse, and Iron Butterfly is now mostly remembered as classic rock's first one-hit wonder.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Live With Me (live version)
Source:    LP: "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!" The Rolling Stones In Concert
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1970
    Quick quiz time: What was the first song Mick Taylor recorded as a member of the Rolling Stones? If you answered Honky Tonk Women you would be close, but not quite right. The actual answer is Live With Me, a track that appeared on the LP Let It Bleed seven months after it was recorded. The song's lyrics were cited as the reason that the London Bach Choir asked not to be credited for their vocals on You Can't Always Get What You Want from the same album.  A live version of Live With Me featuring dueling guitar leads between Taylor and Keith Richards was included on 1970's  "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!" The Rolling Stones In Concert, the last Stones LP issued by the British Decca label.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon
Source:    LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    The first Jefferson Airplane album (the 1966 release Jefferson Airplane Takes Off) was dominated by songs from the pen of founder Marty Balin, a few of which were collaborations with other band members such as Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen. The songwriting on the group's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, was fairly evenly balanced between the three above and new arrival Grace Slick. By the band's third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, released in the fall of 1967, Kantner had emerged as the group's main songwriter, having a hand in over half the tracks on the LP. One of the most durable of these was the album's closing track, a medley of two songs, Won't You Try and Saturday Afternoon, the latter being about a free concert that band had participated in in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park earlier that year.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Volunteers (live version)
Source:     CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer:     Balin/Kantner
Label:     Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year:     1969
     With five solid studio albums coming out from the years 1966-69, I don't often get the chance to play a live track from the Airplane. With just a few minutes left in the show it seemed like a good time to do so.
   
Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    The Last Wall Of The Castle
Source:    LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer:    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    Following the massive success of the Surrealistic Pillow album with its two top 10 singles (Somebody To Love and White Rabbit) the members of Jefferson Airplane made a conscious choice to put artistic goals above commercial ones for their next LP, After Bathing At Baxter's. The result was an album that defines the term "acid rock" in more ways than one. One of the few songs on the album that does not cross-fade into or out of another track is The Last Wall Of The Castle from Jorma Kaukonen, his first non-acoustic song to be recorded by the band.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2020 (starts 5/11/20)

    This week's show starts with a rather unusual countdown to a musical journey from 1968 to 1972. From there it's a wild mix of album tracks and B sides, but what else would you expect from a show called Rockin' in the Days of Confusion?

Artist:    Gun
Title:    Take Off
Source:    British import CD: Gun
Writer(s):    Adrian Gurvitz
Label:    Repertoire (original label: CBS)
Year:    1968
    As was becoming more and more common in 1968, the final track of Gun's debut LP was an extended jam piece designed to showcase each of the band members' individual talents as well as their improvisational ability as a group. What makes Take Off a bit unusual is the addition of horns to the mix, something that Al Kooper was experimenting with in the US at around the same time, as can be heard on the Super Session album.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Lucky Man/Gangster Of Love/ You're So Fine
Source:    CD: Sailor
Writer(s):    Peterman/Watson/Reed
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    The Steve Miller Band's second album, Sailor, was the last to feature original members Jim Peterman and Boz Scaggs. The album is less overtly psychedelic than its predecessor, Children Of The Future, instead shifting the focus to more of a blues-rock sound. This can be heard on the medley of tunes heard on side two of the album. Lucky Man is a Peterman original, while Gangster Of Love came from Johnny "Guitar" Watson. The final part of the trilogy was Jimmy Reed's You're So Fine. Miller made an in-song reference to Gangster Of Love a few years later in his hit tune The Joker.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Come Together
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    After the Beatles released their 1968 double LP (the so-called White Album), they went to work on their final film project, a documentary about the band making an album. Unfortunately, what the cameras captured was a group on the verge of disintegration, and both the album and the film itself were shelved indefinitely. Instead, the band decided to record an entirely new group of compositions. Somehow, despite the internal difficulties the band was going through, they managed to turn out a masterpiece: Abbey Road. Before the album itself came out, a single was released. The official A side was George Harrison's Something, the first Harrison song ever to be released as a Beatle A side. The other side was the song that opened the album itself, John Lennon's Come Together. In later years Come Together came to be one of Lennon's signature songs and was a staple of his live performances.

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

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Free Four
Source:    CD: Works (originally released on LP: Obscured By Clouds and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1972
    In addition to touring and making albums, the members of Pink Floyd got heavily into writing and performing film soundtracks, including Barbet Schroeder's directorial debut on More in 1970. In 1972, in the midst of recording Dark Side Of The Moon, the band took a couple of breaks to travel to France to write and record music for Schroeder's new film, La Vallée. A falling out between the band and the film production company led to the band releasing the music themselves as an album called Obscured By Clouds. Interestingly, the film itself was susequently retitled La Vallée (Obscured By Clouds) for its own release. The band released one single from the album, a Roger Waters composition called Free Four (so titled because the band playfully did its studio countdown as "one, two, free, four"). The song itself is one of those that has happy sounding music combined with rather negative lyrics, a sort of 70s trend.
   
Artist:    Doors
Title:    Treetrunk
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Robby Krieger
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1972
    One of the most obscure Doors tracks in existence, Treetrunk was the non-LP B side of Get Up And Dance, a single released in 1972 that did not chart. The song was recorded during sessions for the album Full Circle, but left off the LP because the song's writer, Robby Krieger, felt it was "too commercial". Treetrunk is one of only three songs that were not included on Doors albums, and the only one released after the death of the band's original vocalist, Jim Morrison. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek provided the lead vocals for the track.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Four Sticks
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin IV
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    One of the most difficult songs to record in the Led Zeppelin catalog, Four Sticks, from the fourth Zeppelin album, did not have a name until John Bonham's final drum track was recorded. He reportedly was having such a hard time with the song that he ended up using four drumsticks, rather than the usual two (don't ask me how he held the extra pair) and beat on his drums as hard as he could, recording what he considered the perfect take in the process.

Artist:     David Bowie
Title:     Andy Warhol
Source:     Stereo 45 RPM single B side (reissue originally released on LP: Hunky Dory)
Writer:     David Bowie
Label:     RCA
Year:     1971
     Although the song Changes appeared on Bowie's third LP for RCA, the label went back to Bowie's first RCA album, Hunky Dory, for the B side, Andy Warhol. The pairing makes for an interesting contrast between Bowie's pre and post Ziggy Stardust styles.
   
Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Source:    LP: Pretzel Logic
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1974
    For a while it looked like Steely Dan would, like many other early 70s bands, start strong and then slowly fade away. Their debut single, Do It Again, got a lot of airplay on AM top 40 radio, which actually worked against them when it came to the more album-oriented FM stations that were starting to pop up all over the US. Despite the fact that their second LP, Countdown To Ecstacy, was much more suited to FM, it was pretty much ignored by FM rock stations at the time. However, it all came together for the group with the release of their third LP, Pretzel Logic, in 1974. In addition to a big hit single (Rikki Don't Lose That Number), Pretzel Logic included several FM-friendly tunes, such as Any Major Dude Will Tell You, and was a favorite of the rock press.

Artist:    Blind Faith
Title:    Sea Of Joy
Source:    CD: Blind Faith
Writer(s):    Steve Winwood
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    At the time Blind Faith was formed there is no question that the biggest names in the band were guitarist Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, having just come off a successful three-year run with Cream. Yet the true architect of the Blind Faith sound was actually Steve Winwood, formerly of the Spencer Davis Group and, more recently, Traffic. Not only did Winwood handle most of the lead vocals for the group, he also wrote more songs on the band's only album than any other member. Among the Winwood tunes on that album is Sea Of Joy, which opens side two of the LP.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Black Night (1995 Roger Glover Mix)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Prior to 1970, Deep Purple had achieved a moderate amount of success, but were pretty much ignored in the native England. That all changed, however, with the addition of two new members, lead vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover. Following the experimental Concerto For Group and Orchestra, the band's new lineup released its first studio album, Deep Purple In Rock, on June 3, 1970. Two days later the released a non-album single called Black Night. The song was an instant hit, going all the way to the #2 spot on the British charts and quickly becoming part of the band's concert repertoire, usually as the first encore. A 1995 remix by Glover was released as a single on blue vinyl in 1995 for Record Store Day that runs nearly 30 seconds longer than the original 1970 US release.
   

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2019 (starts 5/4/20)

    Every week we strive for some kind of balance on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. This time around that balance is between segment lengths, with each segment running exactly 29 minutes and containing seven songs...with one exception. Our second hour starts with an "extra" by an ad-hoc "supergroup" that included Jeff Beck on guitar and Paul McCartney on drums and only recorded one song. As to what that song was, keep on reading...

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Gloria
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Gloria)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    For some reason I don't quite understand, I never paid much attention to current trends in popular entertainment other than as an outside observer. For example, when everyone else in my generation was tuned into the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, I was happily watching Car 54 Where Are You on a rival network. The same applies to the radio stations I listened to. KIMN was, by far, Denver's most popular top 40 station, yet I always managed to find myself listening to their rivals: first KDAB (until a flood took them off the air permanently), and then KBTR. For a short time in late 1966, however, KIMN had no rivals (KBTR had switched to an all-news format and KLZ-FM was still spending most of its broadcast day simulcasting the programming of its middle-of-the-road AM station). As a result, I found myself following KIMN's New Year's countdown of the year's top songs, which included a handful of tunes that I had never heard before. The highest ranked of these unfamiliar songs was one that immediately grabbed me: Gloria, as recorded by a Chicago area band called the Shadows Of Knight. It would be years before I even knew that this was actually a cover version of a song that had been released by Van Morrison's band, Them, but that had been banned in most US markets the previous year. All I knew is that it was a cool tune that would be one of the first songs I learned to play when I switched from violin to guitar the following summer.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Talk Talk
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    The Music Machine was one of the most sophisticated bands to appear on the L.A. club scene in 1966, yet their only major hit, Talk Talk, was deceptively simple and straightforward punk-rock, and still holds up as two of the most intense minutes of rock music ever to crack the top 40 charts.

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

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    A Well Respected Man
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year:    Released 1965, charted 1966
    The Kinks were one of the original British Invasion bands, scoring huge R&B-influenced hits with You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night in 1964. The hits continued in 1965 with more melodic songs like Set Me Free and Tired Of Waiting For You. 1966 saw Ray Davies's songwriting take a satiric turn, as A Well Respected Man (actually released in late 1965) amply illustrates. Over the next few years the Kinks would continue to evolve, generally getting decent critical reviews and moderate record sales for their albums. The title of one of those later albums, Muswell Hillbillies, refers to the Davies brothers hometown of Muswell Hill, North London.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Section 43 (EP version)
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on EP: Rag Baby #2)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rhino (original label: Rag Baby)
Year:    1966
    Rag Baby was an underground journal published by Country Joe McDonald in mid-60s Berkeley, California. In 1965 McDonald decided to do a "talking issue" of the paper with an extended play (EP) record containing two songs by McDonald's band, Country Joe and the Fish and two by singer Peter Krug. In 1966 McDonald published a second Rag Baby EP, this time featuring four songs by Country Joe and the Fish. Among those was the original version of Section 43, a psychedelic instrumental that would appear in a re-recorded (and slightly changed) stereo form on the band's first LP, Electric Music For The Mind And Body, in early 1967.

Artist:     West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:     Smell of Incense
Source:     LP: Volume II
Writer:     Markley/Morgan
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     One of the commercially strongest songs on the second West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album for Reprise was Smell of Incense. The length of the track, however, (over five minutes) meant it would never get airplay on AM radio, although England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley took it to the # 56 spot on the charts while still in high school in 1968 with their band Southwest F.O.B.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    One Kind Favor
Source:    Italian import 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    L T Tatman III
Label:    Liberty
Year:    1968
    Canned Heat's best known song is Going Up The Country, a single from the band's third LP, Living The Blues. The B side of that single, One Kind Favor, was also from the same album. One Kind Favor is one of two tracks on Living The Blues (the other being Boogie Music) credited to L.T. Tatman III, a name sometimes thought to be a pseudonym for one or more of the band members. Musicallyt the song bears a strong resemblance to an earlier Canned Heat single, On The Road Again, which appeared on the band's second LP, Boogie With Canned Heat. Lyrically, it borrows heavily from Blind Lemon Jefferson's 1927 classic See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.

Artist:    Strangeloves
Title:    I Want Candy
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Feldman/Goldstein/Gottehrer/Berns
Label:    Rhino (original label: Bang)
Year:    1966
    In the wake of the British Invasion, some American artists tried to sound as British as possible, often deliberately letting radio listeners think that they themselves might be a British band. A trio of New York songwriters, Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer, took such deceptions to a whole new level. Rather than try to pass themselves off as a British band, the three invented an elaborate backstory that saw them as sons of an Australian sheepherder who had invented a new shearing process and had used the profits from the venture to form a band called the Strangeloves, who were about to become the Next Big Thing. Although the story never really caught on, the group managed to record two of the all-time great party songs, I Want Candy and Night Time, as well as producing a single called Hang On Sloopy for a band they discovered on the road called the McCoys (although the instrumental tracks were actually from the Strangeloves' own first LP). According to press releases the pounding drum beat on I Want Candy was made by Masai drums that the band members had found while on safari in Africa, which just goes to show you can find just about anything in the New York City area if you know where to look.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Obviously 5 Believers
Source:    Mono LP: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    The earliest music recordings were made to be played through a single speaker (well, technically a big horn in the early days). Despite various advances in technology, this remained the case for half a century, until, in the 1950s, various engineers came up with a couple of ways to record in stereo (tape and stereo vinyl). Still, for a good ten years after stereo became commercially available, monoraul was still the industry standard for most recordings, with stereo mixes often created as an afterthought. This was literally the case with the 1966 Bob Dylan album Blonde On Blonde. Producer Bob Johnston says that they worked on the mono mix of the album for three or four days. At some point, one of the engineers reminded Johnston that they also needed to do a stereo mix. It took them about four hours. Nonetheless, for many years the only version of Blonde On Blonde available for sale was the stereo version, with the mono mix finally being reissued on vinyl in 2003. The album itself is considered one of Dylan's best, and has historical significance as the first double-LP to be released by a popular contemporary artist. One of the most overlooked songs on the album is Obviously 5 Believers, which closes out side three of the album. Dylan himself did not feel the need to spend much time on it, calling it "very easy", and the entire track was finished in four takes. Personally, I find it to be one of my favorite Dylan tracks. Oddly enough, Dylan does not play his own harmonica on the piece; it's actually the work of Charlie McCoy, with Robbie Robertson on guitar and Ken Buttrey on drums.

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    One of the quintessential songs of the psychedelic era is the Chambers Brothers' classic Time Has Come Today. The song was originally recorded and issued as a single in 1966. The more familiar version heard here, however, was recorded in 1967 for the album The Time Has Come. The LP version of the song runs about eleven minutes, way too long for a 45 RPM record, so before releasing the song as a single for the second time, engineers at Columbia cut the song down to around 3 minutes. The edits proved so jarring that the record was recalled and a re-edited version, clocking in at 4:57 became the third and final single version of the song, hitting the charts in 1968.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Parchman Farm
Source:    Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    If the release of the first Black Sabbath album in early 1970 marks the birth of heavy metal, then the release of the first Blue Cheer album in 1968 may be considered the point of conception for the form. Certainly, in terms of pure volume, Cheer was unequalled in their live performances (although the Grateful Dead's sound system had more wattage, Owsley Stanley used it judiciously to get the best sound quality as opposed to the sheer quantity of decibels favored by Blue Cheer), and managed to preserve that sense of loudness in the studio. Like Black Sabbath, the members of Blue Cheer had more than a passing familiarity with the blues as well, as evidenced by their inclusion of an old Mose Allison tune, Parchman Farm, on their debut LP, Vincebus Eruptum (the album included a cover of B.B. King's Rock Me, Baby as well). Contrary to rumors, guitarist Leigh Stephens did not go deaf and kill himself (although he did leave Blue Cheer after the band's second LP, moving to England and releasing a somewhat distortion-free solo album in 1969).

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    It's Never Too Late
Source:    CD: Born To Be Wild-A Retrospective (originally released on LP: At Your Birthday Party)
Writer(s):    Kay/St. Nicholas
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1969
    Although not generally known for their slow ballads, Steppenwolf did, on occasion, quiet things down on tracks like It's Never Too Late, from their third LP, At Your Birthday Party. The song was released as a single in 1969, but only reached the #51 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

Artist:    Albert King
Title:    Sky Is Crying
Source:    LP: Years Gone By
Writer(s):    James/Robinson
Label:    Stax
Year:    1969
    Although it was his fourth album overall, Years Gone By is actually the first Albert King LP made up entirely of studio tracks recorded specifically for the album itself. The final track on the LP is Sky Is Crying, originally recorded by Elmore James in 1959. King's arrangement is considered one of his signature songs, and was often featured in his live performances.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Born Under A Bad Sign
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:    Jones/Bell
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were pretty much considered the cream of the crop of the British blues scene in the mid 1960s, so it came as no surprise when they decided to call their new band Cream. Although the trio would go on to record several memorable non-blues tunes such as I Feel Free and White Room, they never completely abandoned the blues. Born Under A Bad Sign, originally recorded by Albert King  for the Stax label and written by labelmates William Bell and Booker T. Jones, is one of the better known tracks from Cream's double-LP Wheels Of Fire, the last album released while the band was still together.

Artist:    Paul Jones
Title:    The Dog Presides
Source:    British import CD: Insane Times (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Paul Jones
Label:    Zonophone (original UK label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    Like many frontmen in the mid-60s Manfred Mann's Paul Jones decided to leave the group for a solo career right at the height of the band's success. Also like many former frontmen, Jones's solo career, beginning in 1966, was less than stellar. Most of Jones's records were done in an almost lounge lizard style. One notable exception is The Dog Presides, the B side of a forgettable 1968 single called And The Sun Will Shine. In addition to Jones on vocals and harmonica, The Dog Presides features former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck and bassist Paul-Samwell Smith and some guy named Paul McCartney on drums. This bit of psychedelic insanity was officially credited to Jones himself, but in all likelihood was a collaborative effort by the four of them.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Fakin' It
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bookends)
Writer:    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Fakin' It, originally released as a single in 1967, was a bit of a departure for Simon And Garfunkel, sounding more like British psychedelic music than American folk-rock. The track starts with an intro that is similar to the false ending to the Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever; midway through the record the tempo changes drastically for a short spoken word section (name-dropping Mr. [Donovan] Leitch) that is slightly reminiscent of the bridge in Traffic's Hole In My Shoe. The song was later included on the 1968 LP Bookends.

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

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    The Sound Of Silence
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The Sound Of Silence was originally an acoustic piece that was included on Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. The album went nowhere and was soon deleted from the Columbia Records catalog. Simon and Garfunkel themselves went their separate ways, with Simon moving to London and recording a solo LP, the Paul Simon Songbook. While Simon was in the UK, producer John Simon, who had been working with Bob Dylan on Highway 61 Revisited, pulled out the master tape of The Sound Of Silence and got Dylan's band to add electric instruments to the existing recording. The song was released to local radio stations, where it garnered enough interest to get the modified recording released as a single. It turned out to be a huge hit, prompting Paul Simon to move back to the US and reunite with Art Garfunkel.

Artist:    Marmalade
Title:    I See The Rain
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Campbell/McAleese
Label:    Rhino (original label: CBS)
Year:    1967
    Formed in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1961 as the Gaylords, the Marmalade is best known for its international smash hit Reflections Of My Life in late 1968. One often overlooked song was I See The Rain, which Jimi Hendrix once called his favorite record of 1967. The song was not a hit in either the US or UK, although it did make the top 30 in the Netherlands.

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

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Manic Depression
Source:    Mono British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After miraculously surviving being shot point blank in the head (and then bayoneted in the back for good measure) in the Korean War (and receiving a Silver Star), my dad became somewhat of a minor celebrity in the early 50s, appearing on a handful of TV and radio game shows as a kind of poster boy for the Air Force. One result of this series of events was that he was able to indulge his fascination with a new technology that had been developed by the Germans during WWII: magnetic recording tape. He used his prize winnings to buy a Webcor tape recorder, which in turn led to me becoming interested in recording technology at an early age (I distinctly remember being punished for playing with "Daddy's tape recorder" without permission on more than one occasion). He did not receive another overseas assignment until 1967, when he was transferred to Weisbaden, Germany. As was the usual practice at the time, he went there a month or so before the rest of the family, and during his alone time he (on a whim, apparently) went in on a Lotto ticket with a co-worker and won enough to buy an Akai X-355 stereo tape recorder from a fellow serviceman who was being transferred out and did not want to (or couldn't afford to) pay the shipping costs of the rather heavy machine.The Akai was pretty much the state of the art in home audio technology at the time. The problem was that we did not have a stereo system to hook it into, so he bought a set of Koss headphones to go with it. Of course all of his old tapes were in storage (along with the old Webcor) back in Denver, so I decided that this would be a good time to start spending my allowance money on pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, the first of which was Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Akai had an auto-reverse system and I would lie on the couch with the headphones on to go to sleep every night listening to songs like Manic Depression. Is it any wonder I turned out like I did?

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Let's Spend The Night Together
Source:    CD: Flowers (originally released on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones second LP of 1967 was Flowers, one of a series of US-only albums made up of songs that had been released in various forms in the UK but not in the US. In the case of Flowers, though, there were a couple songs that had already been released in the US-but not in true stereo. One of those was Let's Spend The Night Together, a song intended to be the A side of a single, but that was soon banned on a majority of US radio stations because of its suggestive lyrics. Those stations instead flipped the record over and began playing the B side, Ruby Tuesday (apparently not realizing it was about a rock groupie). Ruby Tuesday ended up in the top 5, while Let's Spend The Night Together barely cracked the top 40. The Stones did get to perform the tune on the Ed Sullivan Show, but only after promising to change the lyrics to "let's spend some time together." Later  the same year the Doors made a similar promise to the Sullivan show to modify the lyrics of Light My Fire, but when it came time to actually perform the song Jim Morrison defiantly sang the lyrics as written. The Doors were subsequently banned from making any more appearances on the Sullivan show.

Artist:     Barry McGuire
Title:     Eve of Destruction
Source:     CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     P.F. Sloan
Label:     Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1965
     P.F. Sloan had already established a reputation for writing songs that captured the anger of youth by the time he wrote Eve Of Destruction, which Barry McGuire took into the top 10 in 1965. It would be McGuire's only major hit, and represented folk-rock at the peak of its popularity. Sloan, also a studio guitarist and a longtime member of L.A.'s Wrecking Crew (his guitar work can be heard on such well-known tunes as California Dreamin' and Secret Agent Man), would soon form a songwriting partnership with Steve Barri and begin turning out a series of pop songs, many of which would end up being recorded by the Grass Roots.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Good Vibrations
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Although I had originally discovered top 40 radio in 1963 (when I received a small Sony transistor radio for my birthday), it wasn't until 1966 that I really got into it in a big way. This way due to a combination of a couple of things: first, my dad bought a console stereo, and second, my junior high school went onto split sessions, meaning that I was home by one o'clock every day. This gave me unprecedented access to Denver's two big top 40 AM stations, as well as an FM station that was experimenting with a Top 100 format for a few hours each day. At first I was content to just listen to the music, but soon realized that the DJs were making a point of mentioning each song's chart position just about every time that song would play. Naturally I began writing all this stuff down in my notebook (when I was supposed to be doing my homework), until I realized that both KIMN and KBTR actually published weekly charts, which I began to diligently hunt down at various local stores. In addition to the songs occupying numbered positions on the charts, both stations included songs at the bottom of the list that they called "pick hits". These were new releases that had not been around long enough to achieve a chart position. The one that most stands out in my memory was the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, a song I liked so much that I went out to the nearest Woolco and bought it the afternoon I heard it. Within a few weeks Good Vibrations had gone all the way to the top of the charts, and I always felt that some of the credit should go to me for buying the record when it first came out (hey I was 13, OK?). Over the next couple of years I bought plenty more singles, but to this day Good Vibrations stands out as the most important 45 RPM record purchase I ever made.
   
Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Rock And Roll Woman
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth) while they were together. Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Neil Young, Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Stephen Stills. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock And Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 50 years after it was recorded.

Artist:    Matadors
Title:    Get Down From The Tree
Source:    CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Czechoslovakia on LP: Matadors)
Writer(s):    Hladik/Sodoma
Label:    Rhino (original label: Supraphon)
Year:    1968
    When the words "Czechoslovakia" and "1968" come up in the same sentence it is usually in reference to an invasion by the Soviet Union to crack down on dissident elements in the Eastern Bloc satellite nation. No doubt the Matadors, formed in Prague in 1965 as the Fontanas, were among those elements, thanks to self-penned tracks such as Get Down From The Tree, a song that was originally released on an EP in 1967 and re-recorded for their self-titled debut LP. What happened to the Matadors following the Soviet invasion is unknown.

Artist:    Love
Title:    I Still Wonder
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Out Here)
Writer(s):    Lee/Donnellan
Label:    Elektra/Rhino (original label: Blue Thumb)
Year:    1969
    Not long after the release of the third Love album, Forever Changes, Bryan McLean left the group. After a final single was released in 1968 Arthur Lee fired the rest of the band, replacing them with Jay Donnellan on guitar, Frank Fayad on bass, and George Suranovich on drums. Love still owed Elektra one last album, however, so the new lineup recorded three LPs worth of material in a makeshift studio in Los Angeles, giving Elektra their choice of tracks for the 1969 album Four Sail. Lee then signed a new contract with the fledgling Blue Thumb label and used the remaining tracks for a double LP called Out Here. All but one of the 17 songs on Out Here were composed entirely by Lee. The other tune was a collaboration between Lee and Donnellan called I Still Wonder, generally considered one of the stronger tracks on the album. The song combines elements of jazz and psychedelia, and features one of Lee's rare forays into the realm of vocal harmonies.

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

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    8:05
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Miller/Stevenson
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Moby Grape was formed out of the ashes of a band called the Frantics, which featured the songwriting team of guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson. The two continued to write songs together in the new band. One of those was 8:05, one of five songs on the first Moby Grape album to be released simultaneously as singles.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2019 (starts 5/4/20)

    This week's highlight is a long 1970 set that starts with Randy Newman and ends with Santana. First, though, a musical journey from 1968 to 1972.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Deserted Cities Of The Heart
Source:    British Import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1968
     The most psychedelic of Cream's songs were penned by Jack Bruce and his songwriting partner Pete Brown. One of the best of these was chosen to close out the last studio side of the last Cream album released while the band was still in existence. Deserted Cities Of The Heart is a fitting epitaph to an unforgettable band. It's also a pretty good way to end this week's show.

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:    King Crimson
Title:    The Court Of The Crimson King
Source:    CD: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Writer:    MacDonald/Sinfield
Label:    Discipline Global Mobile (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1969
    Perhaps the most influential progressive rock album of all time was King Crimson's debut LP, In The Court Of The Crimson King. The band, in its original incarnation, included Robert Fripp on guitar, Ian MacDonald on keyboards and woodwinds, Greg Lake on vocals and bass, David Giles on drums and Peter Sinfield as a dedicated lyricist. The title track, which takes up the second half of side two of the LP, features music composed by MacDonald, who would leave the group after their second album, later resurfacing as a founding member of Foreigner. The album's distinctive cover art came from a painting by computer programmer Barry Godber, who died of a heart attack less than a year after the album was released. According to Fripp, the artwork on the inside is a portrait of the Crimson King, whose manic smile is in direct contrast to his sad eyes. The album, song and artwork were the inspiration for Stephen King's own Crimson King, the insane antagonist of his Dark Tower saga who is out to destroy all of reality, including our own.

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

Artist:    Carole King
Title:    So Far Away
Source:    LP: Tapestry
Writer(s):    Carole King
Label:    Epic/Ode
Year:    1971
    By the early 1970s the Brill Building songwriters had fallen onto relatively hard times, due to a preponderance of rock bands writing their own material. One of the building's top husband-and-wife teams, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, had split up in 1968, and King had decided to reestablish herself as a singer/songwriter, releasing her first solo album, Writer, in 1970. She followed that up with 1971's Tapestry, the album that firmly established her as a star in her own right. The LP spent a record 15 consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard albums chart and spawned several hit singles, including So Far Away, a song that features James Taylor on acoustic guitar. Other musicians on the track include Curtis Amy on flute, Russ Kunkel on drums and Charlie Larkey on bass.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    White Sun
Source:    CD: Toulouse Street
Writer(s):    Tom Johnston
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    Toulouse Street was the second Doobie Brothers album, and is generally considered their commercial breakthrough. In addition to a pair of hit singles (Rockin' Down The Highway and Jesus Is Just Alright) the album contains many fine tunes, such as the seldom heard White Sun, written by lead vocalist/guitarist Tom Johnston.

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:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Rock And Roll Hoochie Coo
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Johnny Winter And)
Writer(s):    Rick Derringer
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    Athough best known as a solo Rick Derringer hit, Rock And Roll Hoochie Coo was originally recorded in 1970 by Johnny Winter for the album Johnny Winter And when Derringer was a member of Winter's band (also known as Johnny Winter And at that time). As can be heard here the arrangement on the earlier version is nearly identical to the hit version, the main differences being Winter's lead vocals and the presence of two lead guitarists in the band.

Artist:    Fat
Title:    House On The Corner
Source:    LP: Fat
Writer(s):    Benson/Kaminsky/Newland
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1970
    Many American cities are home to bands that, although never big on the national stage, have managed to become local legends over the years. In Springfield, Massachusetts, that band is Fat. Founded in 1968 by vocalist Peter Newland, guitarists Michael Benson and Jim (K) Kaminski at Holyoke (Mass.) Community College, the group soon added bassist Guy DeVito and drummer William (Benji) Benjamin and quickly became known for their original material in an area where most bands were doing cover songs. In 1969 they were signed to the RCA Victor label, releasing their self-titled debut album in 1970. This led to several live appearances opening for groups like the Allman Brothers and the Butterfield Blues Band at venues such as Madison Square Garden and the Fillmore East. The group eventually formed their own label, Dream Merchant, releasing the album Footloose in 1976. Last I heard they were still active and performing all over Western Massachusetts.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Hard Lovin' Man
Source:    LP: Deep Purple In Rock
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Inspired by hearing the first Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple members Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore decided that the band needed to start rocking out harder than they had on their previous three albums. Taking drummer Ian Paice into their confidence, the three of them, on June 6, 1969, went to see a local band called Episode Six, which was fronted by vocalist Ian Gillan. Taking advantage of his status as a recording artist, Blackmore convinced the band to let him sit in with them; after the gig he invited Gillan to join Deep Purple. As Episode Six bassist Roger Glover was an experienced songwriter (songwriting being one of Deep Purple's most glaring weaknesses), he was soon recruited as a new member as well. There was a problem, however. Deep Purple still had gigs lined up, and went about completing those gigs with their original vocalist, Rod Evans, and bass player, Nicky Simper, without telling them that they were about to be replaced. Meanwhile, Gillan and Glover continued to perform as members of Episode Six as well, with the new DP lineup practicing in secret. Deep Purple's original lineup made its final appearance on July 4, 1969; the new MkII lineup made its stage debut six days later, even though Gillan and Glover continued to perform with Episode Six through July 26th. The first record released by the new lineup was a single called Hallelujah. Studio time had been booked for the recording before the lineup change, and the B side was actually an excerpt from April, a track from the band's previous LP. This was followed by the band's September performance of Lord's Concerto For Group And Orchestra, an experimental piece that was recorded at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and released in December of 1969. The band had been touring extensively all through this time, and by October was ready to begin work on what would become their breakthrough LP, Deep Purple In Rock. The band's new hard-rock sound was on full display on the album's final track, Hard Lovin' Man.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Moonlight Drive
Source:    LP: 13 (originally released on LP: Strange Days)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Much of the second Doors album consisted of songs that were already in the band's repertoire when they signed with Elektra Records but for various reasons did not record for their debut LP. One of the earliest was Jim Morrison's Moonlight Ride. As was the case with all the Doors songs on their first three albums, the tune was credited to the entire band.
Artist:    Doors
Title:    Moonlight Drive (live version)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    Vocal tracks recorded 1970, new instrumental tracks added 1983.
    In 1983 Elektra Records compiled a "new" live Doors album made up of performances recorded from 1967 to 1970 called Alive, She Cried. The final track on the album was a 1970 version of Moonlight Drive that incorporates Jim Morrison's poem Horse Latitudes, which had preceded Moonlight Drive on the 1967 studio LP Strange Days. The only source I could find for track information states that Morrison's vocal was from a 1970 live performance, with instrumental overdubs added later.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And War
Title:    Spill The Wine
Source:    LP: Eric Burdon Declares War
Writer(s):    Burdon/Miller/Scott/Dickerson/Jordan/Brown/Allen/Oskar
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1970
    After the second version of the Animals disbanded in late 1969, vocalist Eric Burdon, who was by then living in California, decided to pursue his interest in American soul music by hooking up with an L.A. band called War. He released his first album with the group, Eric Burdon Declares War, in 1970. The album included Spill The Wine, which would be the first of several hits for War in the 1970s. The song was inspired by keyboardist Lonnie Jordan's accidentally spilling wine on a mixing board, although the lyrics are far more fanciful, with Burdon referring to himself as an "overfed long-haired gnome" in the song's opening monologue. The song turned out to be a major hit, going into the top 5 in both the US and Canada.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Samba Pa Ti
Source:    LP: Abraxas
Writer(s):    Carlos Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    One of the most enduring tracks from Santana's second LP, Abraxas, Samba Pa Ti starts off as a slow instrumental, slowly picking up the pace and adding percussion to give it a decidedly latin flavor. As far as I know, Carlos Santana still includes Samba Pa Ti in his concert repertoire.