https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/380476-pe-2133
This week we have an artists' set in each of our four segments. The first features the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, with some early Jefferson Airplane in the second. Our Jimi Hendrix set in the third segment features a British B side that remained unreleased in the US for several years, while the fourth segment spotlights John Mayall's Blues Breakers during Eric Clapton's stint as the group's guitarist. Of course there's lots more than just the artists' sets this week, including a rare album track from the Human Beinz to finish out the show.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Source: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
After the reunion of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel following the surprise success of an electrified remix of The Sound Of Silence, the two quickly recorded an album to support the hit single. Sounds Of Silence was, for the most part, a reworking of material that Simon had recorded for 1965 UK LP the Paul Simon Songbook. The pressure for a new album thus (temporarily) relieved, the duo got to work on their first album of truly new material since their unsuccessful 1964 effort Wednesday Morning 3AM (which had in fact been re-released and was now doing well on the charts). In October the new album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, hit the stands. The title track was a new arrangement of an old English folk ballad, Scarborough Fair, combined with a reworking of a 1963 Simon tune (The Side Of A Hill) with all-new lyrics. The two melodies and sets of lyrics are set in counterpoint to each other, creating one of the most sophisticated folk song arrangements ever recorded. After being featured in the film The Graduate, Scarborough Fair/Canticle was released as a single in early 1968, going on to become one of the duo's most celebrated songs.
Artist: Doors
Title: The Crystal Ship
Source: LP: The Doors
Writer: The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Ever feel like you've discovered something really special that nobody else (among your circle of friends at any rate) knows about? At first you kind of want to keep it to yourself, but soon you find yourself compelled to share it with everyone you know. Such was the case when, in the early summer of 1967, I used my weekly allowance to buy copies of a couple of songs I had heard on the American Forces Network (AFN). As usual, it wasn't long before I was flipping the records over to hear what was on the B sides. I liked the first one well enough (a song by Buffalo Springfield called Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, the B side of For What It's Worth), but it was the second one, the B side of the Doors' Light My Fire, that really got to me. To this day I consider The Crystal Ship to be one of the finest slow rock songs ever recorded.
Artist: Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title: Spontaneous Apple Creation
Source: British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released on LP: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown)
Writer(s): Brown/Crane
Label: Uncut (original US label: Atlantic)
Year: 1968
One of the most revered examples of British psychedelia is the 1968 album The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. While side one was done as a concept album about Hell, side two was a mixture of original tunes and the most popular cover songs from the band's live repertoire. Among the originals on side two is Spontaneous Apple Creation, possibly the most avant-garde piece on the album. Once you hear it, you'll know exactly what I mean by that.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Watch Yourself
Source: CD: Volume 3-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer: Robert Yeazel
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Although the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band usually wrote their own material, they occassionally drew from outside sources. One example is Watch Yourself, written by Robert Yeazel, who would go on to join Sugarloaf for their second LP, Spaceship Earth, writing much of the material on that album.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday
Source: LP: Volume II
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Reprise
Year: 1967
Once upon a time record producer Kim Fowley hired the Yardbirds to play a private Hollywood party. The Harris brothers, a pair of local art school students who had sent their homemade tapes to Fowley, were impressed by the band's musical abilities. Bob Markley, an almost-30-year-old hipster with a law degree and an inheritance was impressed with the band's ability to attract teenage girls. Fowley introduced the Harris brothers to Markley, who expressed a willingness to finance them in return for letting him be their new lead vocalist, and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was formed. Before it was all over the group had recorded five or six albums for at least three labels, churning out an eclectic mix of psychedelic tunes such as Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday, which appeared on their second album for Reprise Records (their third LP overall), appropriately titled Volume II.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: In The Country
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
By 1968, several bands, particularly in southern California, were starting to incorporate elements of country music into what were otherwise rock recordings. Some, like the Byrds and Poco, ended up being recognized as pioneers of what came to be known as country-rock. Others, such as L.A.'s West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, merely flirted with the idea on tracks such as In The Country on their fourth LP, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil. By this point, conflicts within the band were starting to take their toll, and combined with a decided lack of commercial success, led to the band losing its contract with Reprise Records and falling deeper into obscurity before finally calling it quits in 1970.
Artist: Rolling Stones (also released as Bill Wyman)
Title: In Another Land
Source: CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s): Bill Wyman
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1967
In Another Land was the first Rolling Stones song written and sung by bassist Bill Wyman, and was even released in the US as a Wyman single. The song originally appeared on the Stones' most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, in late 1967.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Source: LP: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone/EMI (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1967
The top album of 1967 was the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was also the first US Beatles album to have a song lineup that was identical to the original UK LP. As such, it was also the first Beatles album released in the US to not include any songs that were also released as singles. Nonetheless, several tracks from the LP found their way onto the playlists of both top 40 AM and "underground" FM stations from coast to coast. Among the most popular of these tracks was John Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, which shows up on just about everyone's list of classic psychedelic tunes.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: How Do You Feel
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer: Tom Mastlin
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
How Do You Feel was the only song on Surrealistic Pillow not written by a current or former member of Jefferson Airplane, having been given to the band by Tom Maslin, a friend of Paul Kantner's. The song was first released in late 1966 as the B side of My Best Friend.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Let's Get Together
Source: LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s): Dino Valenti
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1966
Although Dino Valenti recorded a demo version of his song Let's Get Together in 1964, it wasn't until two years later that the song made its first appearance on vinyl as a track on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The Airplane version of the song is unique in that the lead vocals alternate between Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin, with each one taking a verse and all of them singing on the chorus.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Embryonic Journey
Source: LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s): Jorma Kaukonen
Label: RCA 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: Kinks
Title: Fancy
Source: CD: The Kink Kronikles (originally released on LP: Face To Face)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1966
One of the best albums in the Kinks library is Face To Face. Released in 1966, the album features such classics and Sunny Afternoon and Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, as well as some lesser-known (yet excellent) tracks such as Fancy, a personal favorite of songwriter Ray Davies, who recalls coming with the song late one night on his old Framus guitar. My first guitar was a Framus, but I sure didn't come up with anything remotely as cool as Fancy on it.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Epistle To Dippy
Source: CD: Mellow Yellow (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Donovan Leitch
Label: EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1967
Following up on his successful Mellow Yellow album, Donovan released Epistle To Dippy in the spring of 1967. The song, utilizing the same kind of instrumentation as Mellow Yellow, was further proof that the Scottish singer was continuing to move beyond the restrictions of the "folk singer" label and was quickly becoming the model for what would come to be called "singer/songwriters" in the following decade.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: A Song For Jeffrey
Source: LP: This Was
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis (original US label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Jethro Tull's second single (and first European hit) was A Song For Jeffrey from their debut LP, This Was. The Jeffrey in the song title is Jeffrey Hammond, who, according to the liner notes, was "one of us, though he doesn't play anything". The notes go on to say he "makes bombs and stuff". In fact, Hammond would replace bassist Glen Cornick a few albums later and remain with the group for several years. The song itself proved popular enough that when the band compiled their first Anthology album, Living In The Past, A Song For Jeffrey was chosen to open the album.
Artist: Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Source: LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Reprise
Year: 1969
After releasing a fairly well produced debut solo album utilizing the talents of several well-respected studio musicians in late 1968, Neil Young surprised everyone by recruiting an unknown L.A. bar band and rechristening them Crazy Horse for his second effort, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. The album was raw and unpolished, with Young's lead vocals recorded using a talkback microphone normally used by engineers to communicate with people in the studio from the control room. In spite of, or more likely because of, these limitations, the resulting album has come to be regarded as one of the greatest in the history of rock, with Young sounding far more comfortable, both as a vocalist and guitarist, than on the previous effort. Although the album is best known for three songs he wrote while running a fever (Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl In The Sand, and Down By The River), there are plenty of good other songs on the LP, including the title track heard here.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Fresh Air
Source: CD: Just For Love
Writer(s): Jesse Oris Farrow (Dino Valenti)
Label: BGO (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
Although Dino Valenti helped form Quicksilver Messenger Service, he found himself a guest of the California Criminal Justice System literally the day after the band was conceived. In fact, Valenti was not on the scene at all when the original lineup of the band made their official debut. It was only after the group had recorded three moderately successful LPs for Capitol that Valenti, now released from prison, rejoined the band he had never actually been a member of. His presence, however, was immediately felt. Quicksilver's fourth LP was a complete departure from the improvisational jams of the band's first two efforts. In fact, all but one of the songs on Just For Love were written by Valenti (although most were under the pseudonym Jesse Oris Farrow). Valenti also took over the lead vocals for the album on songs like Fresh Air, which was also released as a single and was the nearest thing to a top 40 hit (hitting the # 49 spot) that Quicksilver Messenger Service would ever have. Just For Love is also notable for the fact that the band included prolific session pianist Nicky Hopkins as a full member.
Artist: McCoys
Title: Hang On Sloopy
Source: CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1965 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Farrell/Russell
Label: Rhino (original label: Bang)
Year: 1965
Originally from Indiana, the McCoys had by 1965 relocated to Eastern Ohio, where they made a living playing parties, teen clubs, and high school dances as well as occassionally opening for out of town acts. In 1965 the McCoys served as backup band for the Strangeloves, who were on the road promoting their hit single I Want Candy (of course, the Strangeloves were in reality a trio of professional songwriters who had come up with a rather unusual gimmick: they passed themselves off as sons of an Australian sheepherder). The members of the Strangeloves were so impressed with the McCoys, particularly vocalist/guitarist Rick Zehringer, that they offered them the song that was slated to be the follow-up to I Want Candy: a song called Hang On Sloopy. The instrumental tracks for the song had already been recorded, so the only member of the McCoys to actually appear on the record is Zehringer, who changed his last name to Derringer. Hang On Sloopy went all the way to the top of the charts, becoming one of the top 10 singles of the year and providing a stellar debut for Derringer, who went on to hook up with the Edgar Winter Group before embarking on a successful solo career.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: 51st Anniversary
Source: Simulated stereo British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Polydor (original label: Track)
Year: 1967
The first Jimi Hendrix Experience single of 1967 (and the first for Track Records) was the classic Purple Haze, released on March 17, 1967. For the B side, the band chose one of producer Chas Chandler's favorite tracks, 51st Anniversary. The song expressed Hendrix's views on marraige by looking at it first from 51 years after the wedding, and then working his way back through the years. The first half, in Hendrix's words, was "just saying the good things about marraige, or maybe the usual things about marraige. The second part of the record tells about the parts of marraige which I've seen." Hendrix's own parents got married when his mother was just 17, just like the girl in the song. Musically, 51st Anniversary is unique in that it is the only Hendrix song ever released that did not have a guitar solo, although the recording does feature five guitar overdubs linked together over the course of the track.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title: Room Full Of Mirrors
Source: CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: Recorded 1970, released 1971
Jimi Hendrix often showed up at the studio with only the barest idea of a song to record, working out the details as he went along. Sometimes the result would be be a finished song. More often, however, he would end up returning to the song at a later date. Such was the case with Room Full Of Mirrors, a song that he first started working on in 1968. After unsuccessfully trying to come up with a working version of the song with various combinations of musicians, Hendrix decided to shelve the tune, returning to it in November of 1969 with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. The Band Of Gypsys, as the trio was known, was able to get a working master recorded on November 17, but Hendrix was far from finished with the track. Over the next few months the guitarist experimented with the recording, eventually overhauling the entire track, adding guitar overdubs and upgrading the drum sound to get a rough mix on August 20, 1970. This mix was first released in 1971 on the Rainbow Bridge LP and is currently available on the First Rays Of The New Rising Sun CD.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Fire
Source: Simulated stereo British import LP: Smash Hits (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: Polydor (original British label: Track)
Year: 1967
Sometime in late 1966 Jimi Hendrix was visiting his girlfriend's mother's house in London for the first time. It was a cold rainy night and Jimi immediately noticed that there was a dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Jimi's first action was to scoot the dog out of the way so he himself could benefit from the fire's warmth, using the phrase "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over." The phrase got stuck in his head and eventually became the basis for one of his most popular songs. Although never released as a single, Fire was a highlight of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's live performances, often serving as a set opener.
Artist: Blues Project
Title: Two Trains Running
Source: Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year: 1966
Possibly the most influential (yet least known outside of musicians' circles) band of the Psychedelic Era was the Blues Project. Formed in 1965 in Greenwich Village, the band worked its way from coast to coast playing mostly college campuses, in the process blazing a path that continues to be followed by underground/progressive/alternative artists. As if founding the whole college circuit wasn't enough, they were arguably the very first jam band, as their version of the Muddy Waters classic Two Trains Running shows. Among those drawing their inspiration from the Blues Project were the Warlocks, a group of young musicians who were traveling with Ken Kesey on the Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test tour bus. The Warlocks would soon change their name to the Grateful Dead and take the jam band concept to a whole new level. Still, they may never have moved in that direction at all if it weren't for the Blues Project.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Psychedelic Trip
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Loomis/Flores/Tolby/Aguilar/Andrijasevich
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2012
Psychedelic Trip is essentially an early instrumental version of what would eventually become the title track for the Chocolate Watchband's debut album, No Way Out. Although Psychedelic Trip was a creation of the entire band, producer/manager Ed Cobb (the Ed Wood of psychedelic music) took sole writing credit for the song No Way Out.
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: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Title: Tears In My Eyes
Source: Mono British import 45 RPM EP
Writer(s): John Mayall
Label: R&B
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2016
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers included several talented musicians over the years, many of whom went on to become stars in their own right. Not every Bluesbreakers lineup saw the inside of a recording studio, however. In fact, the only known recording of Mayall'sTears In My Eyes, which includes Eric Clapton on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass and Hughie Flint on drums, is from a live radio broadcast in 1966 (presumably for the BBC since they were the only legal radio broadcaster in the UK at the time). The recording sat on the shelf for 50 years before finally being released on a four song EP in the UK.
Artist: John Mayall with Eric Clapton
Title: Double Crossing Time
Source: Mono LP: Blues Breakers
Writer(s): Mayall/Clapton
Label: Sundazed/London
Year: 1966
Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds following the release of For Your Love, decrying the band's move toward a more commercial sound. Looking for a more blues-based group, Clapton soon hooked up with John Mayall, who already already released a well-received live LP. The two of them, with Jack Bruce on bass, recorded a live set at the Flamingo club that they hoped to release as an album, but the quality of the recordings was poor and the project was scrapped. In March of 1966, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, which by now included John McVie on bass and drummer Hughie Flint, went into the studio to record the album Blues Breakers. Mayall and Clapton wrote several new songs together for the album, including Double Crossing Time.
Artist: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
Title: Hideaway
Source: Mono British import EP
Writer(s): Freddie King
Label: R&B
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2016
Hide Away was originally released in 1961 by Freddy King. In 1966, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers adapted it as their show opener. This recording of an appearance (?) on the radio was made in 1966, when the band included guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Hughie Flint.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Subterranean Homesick Blues
Source: 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
1965 was the year Bob Dylan went electric, and got his first top 40 hit, Subterranean Homesick Blues, in the process. Although the song, which also led off his Bringing It All Back Home album, stalled out in the lower 30s, it did pave the way for electrified cover versions of Dylan songs by the Byrds and Turtles and Dylan's own Like A Rolling Stone, which would revolutionize top 40 radio. A line from the song itself, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", became the inspiration for a radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that called itself the Weathermen (later the Weather Underground).
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Gotta Get Away
Source: CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Gordon/Adams
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
As was common with most 1966 LPs, the Blues Magoos debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, included a handful of cover songs, not all of which had been hits for other groups. One of the non-hits was Gotta Get Away, a fairly typical piece of garage rock that opens side two of the LP. The song was also selected as the B side for the group's second (and by far most successful) single, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet. As the usual practice was to bring in outside songwriters for a new band's early singles and let the band write their own B side, it is possible that Gotta Get Away may at one point have been the intended A side of the single.
Artist: Cyrkle
Title: We Had A Good Thing Goin'
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Sedaka/Greenfield
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
The Cyrkle released ten singles from 1966 to 1968. With one exception (the song Camaro, which was released exclusively to Chevrolet dealerships), each of those singles did worse on the charts than the one before it. Their debut single, Red Rubber Ball, made the top 5. The follow-up, Turn Down Day, peaked within the top 20. We Had A Good Thing Goin', released in early 1967, only managed to make it to the # 51 spot, despite being written by Neil Sedaka and Ellie Greenfield.
Artist: Them
Title: Market Place
Source: British import CD: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Rev-Ola (original label:Tower)
Year: 1968
I've often mentioned the lost WEOS vinyl archives that were found in a storage room on the Hobart & William Smith Colleges campus a few years ago. Of the thousands of albums we found I ended up keeping about 200. Of those nearly half were unusable, mostly due to their condition. The remainder I divided into three piles. The largest of these piles were the marginal albums that may have one or two songs that might be worked into the show once in a while. The next pile was mostly duplicates of albums I already had on CD, although there were a few cases of stereo albums I had mono copies of, or vice versa. Only a handful of albums made the third pile, but these were the real gems of the bunch: genuine relics of the psychedelic era in playable condition that I didn't already have. Of these, two of the most valuable finds (for my purposes at any rate) were the two post-Van Morrison Them albums released by Tower Records in 1968 that feature new vocalist Kenny McDowell. Market Place is from the second of these, Time Out! Time In! For Them.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: The Face
Source: Australian import CD: Evolutions
Writer(s): Lex de Azevedo
Label: Ascension (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beinz are a classic example of a cover band hitting the big time, but being unable to sustain their popularity at a time when most new bands were writing their own material. Formed in Youngstown, Ohio in 1964 as the Premiers, they changed their name to the Human Beingz in 1966, and over the next year released three singles on local labels, all of which had cover songs on both sides of the record (including a version of Gloria that predated the Shadows Of Knight's own hit single). In mid-1967 they signed with Capitol, who assigned staff producer Lex de Azevedo to work with the band. Their first single for Capitol, released in August, was yet another cover song, of an Isley Brothers song called Nobody But Me that had been released in 1962 but had not charted. Someone at Capitol misspelled the band's name on the label, however, and it was the Human Beinz version of Nobody But Me, with its 31 repetitions of the word "no" that became the band's biggest hit, going all the way to the #8 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and insuring that the name change would be permanent. Unlike on their earlier singles, Nobody But Me was backed with a band original called Sueno, which insured that the band members would get a share of the royalties from sales of the single. An album (also called Nobody But Me) soon followed, with one of the tracks, an updated version of Bobby Bland's Turn On Your Love Light, being released as a followup single. The song ended up stalling out in the #80 spot in the US; it did much better in Japan, however, where it ended up at the top of the charts. Azevedo and the band were given the go-ahead to record a second LP. Evolutions, released in 1968, featured an eclectic mix of tunes, the majority of which, including The Face, were written by producer Lex de Azevedo. The song, which opens the album, is lavishly produced, with strings and horns supplementing the band members' own performances.
